Sorting a Large Array of Strings in C# - Performance Degradation with Custom Comparer
Does anyone know how to I'm working with a important performance scenario while sorting a large array of strings in C#... I am using a custom comparer to sort the strings based on their length first, and then alphabetically for strings of the same length. However, when I test this with an array containing over 10,000 strings, the sort operation takes an unexpectedly long time, sometimes exceeding 2 seconds, which is not feasible for my application. Here's the comparer I implemented: ```csharp public class CustomStringComparer : IComparer<string> { public int Compare(string x, string y) { if (x.Length != y.Length) { return x.Length.CompareTo(y.Length); } return string.Compare(x, y); } } ``` And here's how I'm using it to sort my array: ```csharp string[] strings = new string[10000]; // Assume this is populated with data Array.Sort(strings, new CustomStringComparer()); ``` I've also tried using LINQ's `OrderBy` method, but the performance remains similar: ```csharp var sortedStrings = strings.OrderBy(s => s.Length).ThenBy(s => s).ToArray(); ``` I enabled performance profiling and noticed that the sort operation is being dominated by the comparison itself, particularly when handling strings that are of similar lengths. Is there a more efficient way to handle this kind of sorting, or optimizations I can apply to my custom comparer? Any advice or best practices would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger service I'm building. Is there a better approach? My team is using C# for this application. What's the correct way to implement this?