C# – WPF DataGrid CustomSort for each Column

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I have a WPF DataGrid bound to a CollectionViewSource that encapsulates an ObservableCollection. This CollectionViewSource has two main objectives:

1) To group each item by a specific property of T. I'm using a ValueConverter in the GroupDescription to get the grouping behaviour I want.

2) To sort the grid by a) primarily the group name (as defined above) and b) the individual group items. I'm achieving this by attaching a custom IComparer to the CollectionViewSource's 'CustomSort' property.

This works great for the most part, however as soon as a column header is clicked, the sorting logic is overridden. I don't want to disable sorting, however I was wondering if it was possible to assign a custom sorting order for a specific column?

To make things a bit clearer, suppose a user clicks 'ColumnA' – at the moment, the sorting logic encapsulated by my CustomSorter is overridden and the DataGrid is now sorted by that property. Rather than sorting by the selected property, I'd like to instead reverse the logic of the CustomSorter.

Best Answer

I created a couple of attached properties which handle this issue. I hope this comes in handy for someone!

First - a simple interface for your directionalised comparer. This extends IComparer but gives us one more property (SortDirection). Your implementation should use this to determine the correct ordering of elements (which would otherwise have been lost). 

public interface ICustomSorter : IComparer
{
    ListSortDirection SortDirection { get; set; }
}

Next is the attached behavior - this does two things: 1) tells the grid to use custom sort logic (AllowCustomSort=true) and b) gives us the ability to set this logic at a per-column level.

public class CustomSortBehaviour
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty CustomSorterProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("CustomSorter", typeof(ICustomSorter), typeof(CustomSortBehaviour));

    public static ICustomSorter GetCustomSorter(DataGridColumn gridColumn)
    {
        return (ICustomSorter)gridColumn.GetValue(CustomSorterProperty);
    }

    public static void SetCustomSorter(DataGridColumn gridColumn, ICustomSorter value)
    {
        gridColumn.SetValue(CustomSorterProperty, value);
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty AllowCustomSortProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("AllowCustomSort", typeof(bool),
        typeof(CustomSortBehaviour), new UIPropertyMetadata(false, OnAllowCustomSortChanged));

    public static bool GetAllowCustomSort(DataGrid grid)
    {
        return (bool)grid.GetValue(AllowCustomSortProperty);
    }

    public static void SetAllowCustomSort(DataGrid grid, bool value)
    {
        grid.SetValue(AllowCustomSortProperty, value);
    }

    private static void OnAllowCustomSortChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var existing = d as DataGrid;
        if (existing == null) return;

        var oldAllow = (bool)e.OldValue;
        var newAllow = (bool)e.NewValue;

        if (!oldAllow && newAllow)
        {
            existing.Sorting += HandleCustomSorting;
        }
        else
        {
            existing.Sorting -= HandleCustomSorting;
        }
    }

    private static void HandleCustomSorting(object sender, DataGridSortingEventArgs e)
    {
        var dataGrid = sender as DataGrid;
        if (dataGrid == null || !GetAllowCustomSort(dataGrid)) return;

        var listColView = dataGrid.ItemsSource as ListCollectionView;
        if (listColView == null)
            throw new Exception("The DataGrid's ItemsSource property must be of type, ListCollectionView");

        // Sanity check
        var sorter = GetCustomSorter(e.Column);
        if (sorter == null) return;

        // The guts.
        e.Handled = true;

        var direction = (e.Column.SortDirection != ListSortDirection.Ascending)
                            ? ListSortDirection.Ascending
                            : ListSortDirection.Descending;

        e.Column.SortDirection = sorter.SortDirection = direction;
        listColView.CustomSort = sorter;
    }
}

To use it, implement an ICustomComparer (with a parameterless constructor) and in your XAML:

<UserControl.Resources>
    <converters:MyComparer x:Key="MyComparer"/>
    <!-- add more if you need them -->
</UserControl.Resources>
<DataGrid behaviours:CustomSortBehaviour.AllowCustomSort="True" ItemsSource="{Binding MyListCollectionView}">
    <DataGrid.Columns>
        <DataGridTextColumn Header="Test" Binding="{Binding MyValue}" behaviours:CustomSortBehaviour.CustomSorter="{StaticResource MyComparer}" />
    </DataGrid.Columns>
</DataGrid>
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