SortedList

The .NET SortedList class provides a hash table with automatically sorted key/value pairs.

The available methods and properties are very similar to the ones available in ArrayList.

The following code creates a SortedList and populates it with some key/value pairs:

Set objSortedList = CreateObject( "System.Collections.Sortedlist" )

objSortedList.Add "First", "Hello"
objSortedList.Add "Second", ","
objSortedList.Add "Third", "world"
objSortedList.Add "Fourth", "!"

For i = 0 To objSortedList.Count - 1
	WScript.Echo objSortedList.GetKey(i) & vbTab & objSortedList.GetByIndex(i)
Next

This is the resulting output:

First	Hello
Fourth	!
Second	,
Third	world

Note how the list is automatically sorted by keys; it is not possible to sort the list by values.

Like ArrayLists, SortedLists have Count and Capacity properties, and a TrimToSize method, demonstrated in the following code:

WScript.Echo "Size     : " & objSortedList.Count
WScript.Echo "Capacity : " & objSortedList.Capacity
WScript.Echo

objSortedList.TrimToSize

WScript.Echo "Size     : " & objSortedList.Count
WScript.Echo "Capacity : " & objSortedList.Capacity

This will result in the following output:

Size     : 4
Capacity : 16

Size     : 4
Capacity : 4

Cloning a SortedList is a piece of cake:

Set objList2 = objSortedList.Clone
WScript.Echo "Sorted List Key(1) = " & objSortedList.GetKey(1)
WScript.Echo "Cloned List Key(1) = " & objList2.GetKey(1)

The result:

Sorted List Key(1) = Fourth
Cloned List Key(1) = Fourth

Available methods and properties are:

Methods:

Add

Adds an element with the specified key and value to a SortedList object

Clear

Removes all elements from a SortedList object

Clone

Creates a shallow copy of a SortedList object

Contains

Determines whether a SortedList object contains a specific key

ContainsKey

Determines whether a SortedList object contains a specific key

ContainsValue

Determines whether a SortedList object contains a specific value

GetByIndex

Gets the value at the specified index of a SortedList object

GetKey

Gets the key at the specified index of a SortedList object

IndexOfKey

Returns the zero-based index of the specified key in a SortedList object

IndexOfValue

Returns the zero-based index of the first occurrence of the specified value in a SortedList object

Remove

Removes the element with the specified key from a SortedList object

RemoveAt

Removes the element at the specified index of a SortedList object

SetByIndex

Replaces the value at a specific index in a SortedList object

TrimToSize

Sets the capacity to the actual number of elements in a SortedList object

Properties:

Capacity

Gets or sets the capacity of a SortedList object

Count

Gets the number of elements contained in a SortedList object