Can TStringList.Sort return sorted indexes?

Question

Using TStringList.Sort to sort a collection of strings in free pascal, I need to remember the initial order. Is there a possibility to return the sorted indexes? If not, how can this be done efficiently?

Answer 1

You can use the object property to store the original index of the item.

So you can insert your items in this way

SL.AddObject('Item 1', TObject(SL.Count));
SL.AddObject('Item 2', TObject(SL.Count));

and retrieve the original index after sort the TStringList

   Index := Integer(SL.Objects[i]);

Answer 2

A bit late, but since strings are copy on write, you can simply assign the tstringlist to a second tstringlist using

   t2.assign(t1);

This won't duplicate the strings. Due to the copy on write behaviour, tstringlist is like an index for strings.