5 years ago I wrote this article on how to sort a multidimensional array with ASP. This morning I was contacted by James Philips of  Djanogly City Academy Nottingham, who told me that he found my article, and has adapted the function for VB.NET compilation. Additionally, he has modified it to allow sorting on numeric criteria so that numbers aren’t sorted as strings.

With his permission I'm publishing the function. Enjoy!

Function fSortArray(ByVal arToSort As Array, ByVal sortBy As Integer, ByVal compareDates As Boolean, ByVal IsNumericData As Boolean) As Array

        Dim c As Integer
        Dim d As Integer
        Dim e As Integer
        Dim smallestValue As String
        Dim smallestIndex As String
        Dim tempValue As String

        For c = 0 To UBound(arToSort, 2)

            smallestValue = arToSort(sortBy, c)
            smallestIndex = c

            For d = c + 1 To UBound(arToSort, 2)
                If Not compareDates Then
                    If IsNumericData = True Then
                        If CInt(arToSort(sortBy, d)) > CInt(smallestValue) Then
                            smallestValue = arToSort(sortBy, d)
                            smallestIndex = d
                        End If
                    Else
                        If StrComp(arToSort(sortBy, d), smallestValue) < 0 Then
                            smallestValue = arToSort(sortBy, d)
                            smallestIndex = d
                        End If
                    End If
                Else
                    If Not IsDate(smallestValue) Then
                        fSortArray = fSortArray(arToSort, sortBy, False, IsNumericData)
                        Exit Function
                    Else
                        If DateDiff("d", arToSort(sortBy, d), smallestValue) > 0 Then
                            smallestValue = arToSort(sortBy, d)
                            smallestIndex = d
                        End If
                    End If
                End If
            Next
            If smallestIndex <> c Then 'swap
                For e = 0 To UBound(arToSort, 1)
                    tempValue = arToSort(e, smallestIndex)
                    arToSort(e, smallestIndex) = arToSort(e, c)
                    arToSort(e, c) = tempValue
                Next
            End If
        Next

        fSortArray = arToSort

    End Function