c# sort a tab delimited file

Question

I have seen many subjects on sorting a tab delimited but have been unable to either grasp or comprehend the task to finish this piece of code plus I am just starting in C#. I hope someone can answer this question.

I want to open a text file which is tab delimited with a specific amount of fields. The questions is how do I sort it with the first column field then using a second column. I would like to be able to see the fields in a list array, for the debugging, if that is possible. I hope this sample comes across as tab delimited. Then of course I want to be able to write it back.

Category Name   Category Sub Name   Family  Sales Description   Equipment Tag   List Price  Price   ID
Fixture Type 2  Basket  Sales   B2  65  64  366589
Fixture Type 2  Basket  Sales   B2  65  64  366595
Fixture Type 2  Basket  Sales   B2  65  64  366601
Fixture Type 2  Basket  Sales   B2  65  64  366607
Fixture Type 2  Basket  Sales   B2  65  64  366613
Fixture Type 22 Rail    Sales   X1  10  10  382822
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 400604
Device  Type 3  Standard    Outside Null    180 171 400885
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 400965
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 401034
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 401303
Device  Type 3  Standard    Standard    Null    180 171 401471
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 401596
Device  Type 3  Standard    Standard    Null    180 171 401753
Device  Type 3  Standard    Standard    Null    180 171 401866
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 402189
Device  Type 3  Standard    Standard    Null    180 171 402537
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 402685
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 402930
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 402952
Device  Type 3  Standard    Standard    Null    180 171 403164
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 403234
Device  Type 3  Standard    Standard    Null    180 171 403303
Device  Type 1  Wall    Outside Null    360 342 403473
Fixture Type 4  Standard    Null    F1  140 137 406101
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406102
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406103
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406104
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406105
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406106
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406124
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406125
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406126
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406127
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406128
Fixture Type 4  Step    Null    F1  140 137 406129

Answer 1

As said above - you can't really expect people to do the work for you... but I was bored.

Here is a simple solution in the form of a complete console app that will likely fall apart the second you give it real world data, but hopefully will get you started.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace ConsoleApp1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        //Read file
        var fileContents = File.ReadAllText("file.txt");

        //split on carriage returns and line feeds, remove empty entries.
        var lines = fileContents.Split(new[] { '\r', '\n' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

        //Split each line on Tab
        var splitLines = lines.Select(l => l.Split(new[] { '\t' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries));

        //splitLines is now an array of arrays.  Each splitLine entry is a line, and each entry of each splitline element is
        //a single field... so we should be able to sort how we want, e.g. by first field then by second field:
        var sortedLines = splitLines.OrderBy(sl => sl[0]).ThenBy(sl => sl[1]);

        //put back together as TSV - put tabs back.
        var linesWithTabsAgain = sortedLines.Select(sl => string.Join("\t", sl));

        //put carriage returns/linefeeds back
        var linesWithCRLF = string.Join("\r\n", linesWithTabsAgain);

        File.WriteAllText("newFile.txt",linesWithCRLF);


    }
}
}