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Sort ArrayList of custom Objects by property

Asked 2010-05-06T21:09:36.060
1295

I read about sorting ArrayLists using a Comparator but in all of the examples people used compareTo which according to some research is a method for Strings.

I wanted to sort an ArrayList of custom objects by one of their properties: a Date object (getStartDay()). Normally I compare them by item1.getStartDate().before(item2.getStartDate()) so I was wondering whether I could write something like:

public class CustomComparator {
    public boolean compare(Object object1, Object object2) {
        return object1.getStartDate().before(object2.getStartDate());
    }
}

public class RandomName {
    ...
    Collections.sort(Database.arrayList, new CustomComparator);
    ...
}
java sorting date comparator
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3 Answers

164

For sorting an ArrayList you could use the following code snippet:

Collections.sort(studList, new Comparator<Student>(){
    public int compare(Student s1, Student s2) {
        return s1.getFirstName().compareToIgnoreCase(s2.getFirstName());
    }
});
answered 2012-05-06T13:50:54.777
5

You can use the Bean Comparator to sort on any property in your custom class.

answered 2010-05-06T21:29:16.000
1

I prefer this process:

public class SortUtil
{    
    public static <T> List<T> sort(List<T> list, String sortByProperty)
    {
            Collections.sort(list, new BeanComparator(sortByProperty));
            return list;
    }
}

List<T> sortedList = SortUtil<T>.sort(unsortedList, "startDate");

If you list of objects has a property called startDate, you call use this over and over. You can even chain them startDate.time.

This requires your object to be Comparable which means you need a compareTo, equals, and hashCode implementation.

Yes, it could be faster... But now you don't have to make a new Comparator for each type of sort. If you can save on dev time and give up on runtime, you might go with this one.

answered 2010-05-06T23:43:30.063

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