entity framework - Best practice to implement a sort property -

i have api get method accepts sort property string. best solution handle without using switch statement?

public actionresult index(string sortorder) {    var students = s in db.students                   select s;    switch (sortorder)    {       case "lastname":          students = students.orderbydescending(s => s.lastname);          break;       case "enrollmentdate":          students = students.orderby(s => s.enrollmentdate);          break;       case "birthday":          students = students.orderby(s => s.birthday);          break;       default:          students = students.orderby(s => s.lastname);          break;    }    return view(students.tolist()); } 

following code found on microsoft's page, believe there should more elegant way it.

use following method achieve flexible sorting. method requires property name , sorting direction parameters.

public func<iqueryable<t>, iorderedqueryable<t>> getorderbyexpression<t>(string propertyname, bool isdescending = false)     {         type typequeryable = typeof(iqueryable<t>);         parameterexpression argqueryable = system.linq.expressions.expression.parameter(typequeryable, "p");         var outerexpression = system.linq.expressions.expression.lambda(argqueryable, argqueryable);          var entitytype = typeof(t);         parameterexpression arg = system.linq.expressions.expression.parameter(entitytype, "x");          expression expression = arg;          propertyinfo propertyinfo = entitytype.getproperty(propertyname, bindingflags.ignorecase | bindingflags.public | bindingflags.instance);         expression = system.linq.expressions.expression.property(expression, propertyinfo);          lambdaexpression lambda = system.linq.expressions.expression.lambda(expression, arg);                     string methodname = isdescending ? "orderbydescending" : "orderby";          methodcallexpression resultexp = system.linq.expressions.expression.call(typeof(queryable),                                                                                  methodname,                                                                                  new type[] { typeof(t), entitytype },                                                                                  outerexpression.body,                                                                                  system.linq.expressions.expression.quote(lambda));          var finallambda = system.linq.expressions.expression.lambda(resultexp, argqueryable);          return (func<iqueryable<t>, iorderedqueryable<t>>)finallambda.compile();     } 

usage:

iqueryable<student> query = db.set<student>(); var orderby = getorderbyexpression<student>(sortorder, true);  if(orderby != null){    query = orderby(query); }