Easier Complex IComparable Implementations

I know a lot of us are using the LINQ OrderBy() method to get our data shuffled in the right order, but on occasion I still do like implementing IComparable, especially when defining the default, intrinsic sort scheme for a particular class.

What I don’t like is implementing IComparable when I want to compare on more than one thing.

I don’t like this kind of code because the engineer in me balks at essentially doing each comparison more than once, first for equality, and then for direction:

public int CompareTo(SomeObject other)
{
    if (this.Prop1 != other.Prop1)
        return this.Prop1.CompareTo(other.Prop1);
    else if (this.Prop2 != other.Prop2)
        return this.Prop2.CompareTo(other.Prop2);
    // .... etc.
    return 0;
}

However, expanding it to get rid of this double evaluation yields this nastiness:

public int CompareTo(SomeObject other)
{
    int cmp = this.Prop1.CompareTo(other.Prop1);
    if (cmp != 0)
    {
        cmp = this.Prop2.CompareTo(other.Prop2);
        if (cmp != 0)
            return cmp;
    }
    return 0;
}

Yuck. I decided I needed a way to have some of the elegance of LINQ in an IComparable shell, and here it is:

public class ComplexCompare
{
    private int value;
    private ComplexCompare()
    {
    }
    public static ComplexCompare By(T a, T b)
    {
        return By(a, b, true);
    }
    public static ComplexCompare By(T a, T b, bool ascending)
    {
        ComplexCompare cc = new ComplexCompare();
        if (ascending)
            cc.value = Comparer.Default.Compare(a, b);
        else
            cc.value = Comparer.Default.Compare(b, a);
        return cc;
    }
    public static ComplexCompare By(T a, T b, IComparer comparer)
    {
        ComplexCompare cc = new ComplexCompare();
        cc.value = comparer.Compare(a, b);
        return cc;
    }
    public ComplexCompare ThenBy(T a, T b)
    {
        return ThenBy(a, b, true);
    }
    public ComplexCompare ThenBy(T a, T b, bool ascending)
    {
        // Only compare more specific items if the preceding items have been equal
        if (value == 0)
        {
            if (ascending)
                this.value = Comparer.Default.Compare(a, b);
            else
                this.value = Comparer.Default.Compare(b, a);
        }
        return this;
    }
    public int End()
    {
        return value;
    }
}

ComplexCompare can be used like this:

public int CompareTo(SomeObject other)
{
    return ComplexCompare.By(this.Prop1, other.Prop1) // ascending by default
        .ThenBy(this.Prop2, other.Prop2, false) // but easy to change to descending
        .ThenBy(this.Prop3, other.Prop3) // each call can compare a completely different type
        .End(); // stops the fun and returns the int value
}

Now a hardcore computer science person would tell me that all this extra abstraction adds overhead, and in a really tight loop with millions of rows, using this scheme to compare items would surely be catastrophic! However, I’m not usually one to give in to Micro-Optimization Theater; I’m usually comparing 30-40 items, not millions. My primary concern is that code I write can be instantly understood when viewed by one of my peer developers, and I think ComplexCompare (although I’m not in love with the name) will help me to do that.

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