This interface is implemented by
classes that can be ordered in a list.
Classes such as String and
Int32 implement this interface. You can also
implement it in your own classes to create a type-specific method
that allows your objects to be sorted in arrays. This interface does
not allow classes to be compared with the greater-than and less-than
operators; that requires operator overloading. This interface simply
provides a well-known protocol for doing comparisons of objects. (Of
course, nothing prevents a C# programmer from defining overloaded
comparison operations and calling CompareTo( ) as
the implementation.)
To implement IComparable, override the
CompareTo( ) method. This method accepts another
instance of your IComparable object and returns an
integer that indicates the result of the comparison. (Zero means
equal, less than zero indicates that the supplied object is less than
the current instance, and greater than zero indicates that the object
is greater than the current instance.) Note that the actual value of
the integer is irrelevant other than its positive, negative, or zero
status (similar to the way strcmp works in C).
Also note that because CompareTo( ) accepts an
argument of IComparable type, care must be taken
to ensure that it is a legitimate comparison—for example,
myInt.CompareTo(myString) throws an
ArgumentException.
public interface IComparable {
// Public Instance Methods
public int CompareTo(object obj);
}
