system.version more than 3 decimal points c#

Question

I am currently receiving the following error - "Version string portion was too short or too long"

When using this statement -

records = records.OrderBy(r => new Version(r.RefNo)).ToList();

To order a list of string's called RefNo. It fails on 25.1.2.1.2 so i assume it is because it has four decimal points? as it works ok with 3....

Is the max four deciaml points for system.version?

Thanks

Answer 1

A Version can only have 4 parts:

major, minor, build, and revision, in that order, and all separated by periods.

That's why your approach fails. You could create an extension-method which handles this case, f.e.:

public static Version TryParseVersion(this string versionString)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(versionString))
        return null;

    String[] tokens = versionString.Split('.');
    if (tokens.Length < 2 || !tokens.All(t => t.All(char.IsDigit)))
        return null;

    if (tokens.Length > 4)
    {
        int maxVersionLength = tokens.Skip(4).Max(t => t.Length);
        string normalizedRest = string.Concat(tokens.Skip(4).Select(t => t.PadLeft(maxVersionLength, '0')));
        tokens[3] = $"{tokens[3].PadLeft(maxVersionLength, '0')}{normalizedRest}";
        Array.Resize(ref tokens, 4);
    }

    versionString = string.Join(".", tokens);
    bool valid = Version.TryParse(versionString, out Version v);
    return valid ? v : null;
}

Now you can use it in this way:

records = records
   .OrderBy(r => r.RefNo.TryParseVersion())
   .ToList();

With your sample this new version string will be parsed(successfully): 25.1.2.12