Nested Loop select the minimum defined value asp.net - asp.net-core

Question

I have a list of states, which are defined to be ordered by min to max. the sequence is the following:
Cancelled - complete - draft - reservation - reserved - ordered - confirmed
So the cancelled is the minimum state, and confirmed is the maximum state. I may have different instances with different states, so I use a for-each loop to run through all states, and select the minimum state present in the loop.
That is: if in a list I have states [complete, reserved, draft, ordered] I need to check all the values and select complete -as it appears to be the minimum state. OR
if I have [reserved, confirmed, ordered, draft, cancelled, confirmed, confirmed] I need to select the cancelled value, as it appears to be the minimum.
I am doing the following check, but it does not seem to be working:
string globstatus = " ";
foreach (var currentstatus in list)
{
if (currentstatus == "cancelled")
{
globstatus = "cancelled";
}
else
{
if (globstatus == "cancelled")
{
return globstatus;
}
else
{
if (currentstatus == "complete")
{
globstatus = "complete";
}
else
{
if (globstatus == "complete")
{
return globstatus;
}
else
{
if (currentstatus == "draft")
{
globstatus = "draft";
}
else
{
if (globstatus == "reservation")
{
return globstatus;
}
else
{
if (currentstatus == "reserved")
{
globstatus = "reserved";
}
else
{
if (globstatus == "ordered")
{
return globstatus;
}
else
{
if (currentstatus == "confirmed")
{
globstatus = "confirmed";
}
else
{
return currentstatus;
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
return globstatus;
What can be the best solution to achieve the desired behavior?

Answer 1

I find a rule of thumb helpful that if I need more than three levels of braces, I need to rethink my code. It's hard to follow, easy to make mistakes, and a nightmare to debug. I suggest that applies here - trying to follow the flow of what all those nested if..else statements is extremely difficult.
Using Enum
My preferred solution is to achieve this using an Enum, e.g.:
var list = new List<Status>
{
Status.Complete,
Status.Draft,
Status.Draft,
Status.Confirmed
};
var minStatus = (Status)list.Select(l => (int)l).Min();
// minStatus = Status.Complete
public enum Status
{
Cancelled,
Complete,
Draft,
Reservation,
Reserved,
Ordered,
Confirmed
}
How it works: by default Enums give each value a zero-based integer, i.e. Cancelled = 0, Complete = 1 and so on. You can override this with your own values if you wish (e.g. 1/2/4/8/16 if you want to combine multiple values).
I recommend using Enum types for things like this, rather than strings. It helps avoid typos, gives someone else looking at your code a clear understanding of how your program works and its flow, and represents hierarchy in a way in which simple strings don't. (For example - does 'complete' come before or after 'draft'? Without context, I imagine most people would say after, but in this case it comes before - that is much more obvious when using an Enum.)
Parse strings to Enum
However if the statuses have to be strings, you could parse them into an enum like so:
var stringList = new List<string>
{
"complete",
"draft",
"draft",
"confirmed",
"this will be ignored"
};
var statusList = new List<int>();
foreach (var str in stringList)
{
if(Enum.TryParse(typeof(Status), str, ignoreCase: true, out object? parsed) && parsed is Status status)
{
statusList.Add((int)status);
}
}
var minStatus = (Status)statusList.Min();
// minStatus = Status.Complete
However, if it's possible to refactor your code to use the Enum in the first place, that would be a better solution, and much quicker as parsing strings has an overhead that would be good to avoid.