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Compare by multiple methods in java compareTo? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to compare objects by multiple fields
(23 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I don't think that's the best way to word that title but I can't think of a better way to word it. Here's my problem: I have to write a method that compares in several different ways. If the last names are the same, I then need to compare by first name. If the first names are the same, then I need to sort by section. What would be the most effective way to sort a data structure in this hierarchy? Here's what I've currently got and I think I understand why it doesn't work but I can't come up with a different way to write this function:
//Student class structure, each field has a public get/set method
public class Student implements Comparable<Student>
{
private String fname;
private String lname;
private int section;
}
//My current compareTo method
#Override
public int compareTo(Student s)
{
/*
-compare by last name
-if the same, compare by first name
-if the same, compare by section
*/
String slast = s.getLastName();
if(lname.compareTo(slast) == 0)
{
String sfirst = s.getFirstName();
if(fname.compareTo(sfirst) == 0)
{
int sclass = s.getSection();
return Integer.compare(section, sclass);
}
else
{
return fname.compareTo(sfirst);
}
}
else
{
return lname.compareTo(slast);
}
}

You can create a Comparator for your Student class this way:
Comparator<Student> comparator = Comparator
.comparing(Student::getLastName)
.thenComparing(Student::getFirstName)
.thenComparing(Student::getSection);
And then use this comparator (instead of implementing Comparable interface) to sort a list with Student objects, or to create a TreeMap with these objects:
Collections.sort(listOfStudents, comparator);
TreeMap<Student> mapOfStudents = new TreeMap<>(comparator);

You don't have to use getters or setters if you're overriding compareTo. You can also forgo the else/return statements since they're terminal return statements, and just use return.
#Override
public int compareTo(Student s) {
if (lname.compareTo(s.lname) == 0) {
if (fname.compareTo(s.fname) == 0) {
return section.compareTo(s.section);
}
return fname.compareTo(s.fname);
}
return lname.compareTo(s.lname);
}

Your code looks correct to me.
What would be the most effective way to sort a data structure in this
hierarchy?
Well, it's worth mentioning that you are potentially doing the first two comparisons (first name and last name) multiple times
if(lname.compareTo(slast) == 0)
{
//...
}
else
{
return lname.compareTo(slast);
}
It should be fairly obvious that you are doing lname.compareTo(slast) twice. You can store the result in a variable instead.
int lastNameComparison = lname.compareTo(slast);
if(lastNameComparison == 0)
{
//...
}
else
{
return lastNameComparison;
}
It is a matter of style, but I would not bother to store the result of getters into variables. Just call them when you need them.
Combining both of the above points, you get:
int lastNameComparison = lname.compareTo(s.getLastName();
if (lastNameComparison == 0)
{
int firstNameComparison = fname.compareTo(s.getFirstName());
if (firstNameComparison == 0)
{
return Integer.compare(section, s.getSection());
}
else
{
return firstNameComparison;
}
}
else
{
return lastNameComparison;
}
The nesting is quite ugly and if we need to add another criteria, it would get even worse.
We can solve that by inverting the conditions and using multiple return statements.
int lastNameComparison = lname.compareTo(s.getLastName());
if (lastNameComparison != 0) return lastNameComparison;
// Last names must be equal
int firstNameComparison = fname.compareTo(s.getFirstName());
if (firstNameComparison != 0) return firstNameComparison;
// First names must be equal
return Integer.compare(section, s.getSection());
I would personally use the declarative style of writing this, but if this code is for an assignment, that is likely not what they are expecting.

Removing specific element from ArrayList

I need help with removing just added element from the arrayList.
I have a private static ArrayList<Position> positions = new ArrayList<>() to which I'm adding objects of the class Position with parameters name, quantity, and price.
Than I have a method adding objects to the list, and in case if the same product is added for the second time, it is supposed to add the quantity to the first object of that name and remove that second one.
So far I have this method:
public void addPosition(Position p) {
for (Position poz: positions) {
if (poz.getname().equals(p.getname())) {
poz.setquantity(poz.getquantity() + p.getquantity());
}
} positions.add(p);
}
Adding quantities works just fine, but I've got problem with removing the element with recurring name.
Please help.

You shouldn't add duplicate items and then remove them. Just declare a method which handles adding items correctly; that is, it adds the item if it does not exist, and it updates the quantity if it does exist.
It should look like this:
public void addPosition(Position addition) {
//flag to track whether the new item exists in the list
boolean itemExists = false;
//go through the list looking for an item with the passed name to update
for (Position existing : positions) {
if (existing.getName().equals(addition.getName())) {
existing.setQuantity(existing.getQuantity() + addition.getQuantity());
itemExists = true;
}
}
//if no matching item was found, add the new item
if (!itemExists) {
positions.add(addition);
}
}
The above should work. If you care about performance, it might be better to use a HashMap so you can look up the Position by name instead of looping through the whole list each time.

If you are interested to know other data Structure , i want suggest you HashSet , by default it will not insert duplicates for primitive objects .
In your case the only thing you need to do to your Position class , is to add
equals and hashCode methods . As getters and setters Eclipse for example will create by him self .
hashCode()
As you know this method provides the has code of an object. Basically the default implementation of hashCode() provided by Object is derived by mapping the memory address to an integer value. If look into the source of Object class , you will find the following code for the hashCode. public native int hashCode(); It indicates that hashCode is the native implementation which provides the memory address to a certain extent. However it is possible to override the hashCode method in your implementation class.
equals()
This particular method is used to make equal comparison between two objects. There are two types of comparisons in Java. One is using “= =” operator and another is “equals()”. I hope that you know the difference between this two. More specifically the “.equals()” refers to equivalence relations. So in broad sense you say that two objects are equivalent they satisfy the “equals()” condition. If you look into the source code of Object class you will find the following code for the equals() method.
Here a complete working example ( you can modify your class following this cose)
import java.util.HashSet;
public class Zhashset{
private int num;
public Zhashset(){
}
public int getNum() {
return num;
}
public void setNum(int num) {
this.num = num;
}
#Override
public int hashCode() {
final int prime = 31;
int result = 1;
result = prime * result + num;
return result;
}
#Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
if (this == obj)
return true;
if (obj == null)
return false;
if (getClass() != obj.getClass())
return false;
Zhashset other = (Zhashset) obj;
if (num != other.num)
return false;
return true;
}
/**
* #param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
HashSet<Zhashset> hs = new HashSet<Zhashset>();
hs.add(new Zhashset());
hs.add(new Zhashset());
for(Zhashset item : hs)
System.out.println(item.getNum());
}
}
Output will be : 0 written only once.

Java - Issue with Collections.sort()

I am currently writing a program that prints an ArrayList of books. Each ArrayList of books elements consist of a string (the title of a book) and an ArrayList (the authors of that book). I need to sort my ArrayList of books so that they appear in alphabetical order (sorted by titles). My issue is that when I print the new ArrayList (the list that I call Collections.sort() on) I get the same output as the first time I printed the non-sorted version.
I am calling myLib.sort(); from my driver program which goes to this method in my Library class:
public void sort()
{
Collections.sort(myBooks);
}
myBooks is the ArrayList of books I mentioned earlier. From what I've read, Collections.sort("ArrayList name") should sort my list alphabetically. If that is incorrect and I need to use compareTo() and equals() methods, then here are those methods as they appear in the class Book that I use to construct the books that go into my class Library:
public int compareTo(final Book theOther)
{
int result = 0;
if (myTitle.equals(theOther.myTitle))
{
if (myAuthors.get(0) != theOther.myAuthors.get(0))
{
result = 1;
}
}
else
{
result = 0;
}
return result;
}
public boolean equals(final Object theOther)
{
if (theOther instanceof String)
{
String other = (String) theOther;
return myTitle == other;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
The only remaining possible issue that I can think of is with my printing method. My driver program prints myLib which is a Library. My Library class has the following toString() method:
public String toString()
{
String result = "";
for (int i = 0; i < myBooks.size(); i++)
{
String tempTitle = myBooks.get(i).getTitle();
ArrayList<String> tempAuthors = myBooks.get(i).getAuthors();
Book tempBook = new Book(tempTitle, tempAuthors);
result += (tempBook + "\n");
}
return result;
}
This gets each book and that book's string from my Book class toString() method which is the following:
public String toString()
{
return "\"" + myTitle + ",\" by " + myAuthors;
}
If this was too little, too much, too confusing, not clear enough, etc... Please let me know in a comment and I will edit the post ASAP. I can also post the entirety of my three classes if need be. I am new to Java and fairly new at posting so I'm still getting used to how things are done in both cases so I'd appreciate it if you'd go easy on me. Thank you!

Your compareTo() method seems to be wrong, note that Collections.sort() uses that method to compare the objects in your list.
You only check if the titles are equals, if they are then you compare the first authors and if they are equal you return 1, else you return 0;
compareTo() is used for check if this object is less, equals or greater than the one you are comparing with(returning 0 is for equals, a negative number for less and positive for greater, you return either a positive number either 0). I recommend you to read the javadoc for compareTo() method.
As an example here is an implementation of Book class where I only compare according to title (I omitted the comparison for the author list).
public class Book implements Comparable<Book> {
private String title;
private List<String> authors;
public Book(String title) {
this.title = title;
}
public int compareTo(Book o) {
return this.title.compareTo(o.title);
}
#Override
public boolean equals(Object b){
if(!(b instanceof Book)){
return false;
}
//authors comparison omitted
return this.title.equals(((Book) b).title);
}
#Override
public String toString(){
return "Title: "+ title; //todo: add authors also if need
}
}
As you see in Book.compareTo() method I rely on the String.compareTo().
it will return -1, 0 or 1; if you need to compare according to author list also you have to thing how will be the logic of the method and think of some issues:
if is enough to rely only on the first authors on the list
if you need to make sure that list of authors is sorted
what happens if the author list is empty
Also NOTE: compareTo should be consistent with equals which means if compareTo returns 0 then equals should return true and vice versa.

According to the documentation, you should also return negative value:
Returns a negative integer, zero, or a positive integer as this object is less
than, equal to, or greater than the specified object.
public int compareTo(final Book theOther) {
int result = myTitle.compareTo(theOther.myTitle);
if (result == 0) {
result = myAuthors.get(0).compareTo(theOther.myAuthors.get(0));
}
return result;
}
check #flowryn for better answer, as he also mention about equals() according to the documentation:
It is strongly recommended, but not strictly required that
(x.compareTo(y)==0) == (x.equals(y)). Generally speaking, any class
that implements the Comparable interface and violates this condition
should clearly indicate this fact. The recommended language is "Note:
this class has a natural ordering that is inconsistent with equals."

Compare two Java Collections using Comparator instead of equals()

Problem Statement
I have two Collections of the same type of object that I want to compare. In this case, I want to compare them based on an attribute that does not factor into equals() for the Objects. In my example, I'm using ranked collections of Names for instance:
public class Name {
private String name;
private int weightedRank;
//getters & setters
#Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
return this.name.equals(obj.name); //Naive implementation just to show
//equals is based on the name field.
}
}
I want to compare the two Collections to assert that, for position i in each Collection, the weightedRank of each Name at that position is the same value. I did some Googling but didn't find a suitable method in Commons Collections or any other API so I came up with the following:
public <T> boolean comparatorEquals(Collection<T> col1, Collection<T> col2,
Comparator<T> c)
{
if (col1 == null)
return col2 == null;
if (col2 == null)
return false;
if (col1.size() != col2.size())
return false;
Iterator<T> i1 = col1.iterator(), i2 = col2.iterator();
while(i1.hasNext() && i2.hasNext()) {
if (c.compare(i1.next(), i2.next()) != 0) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
Question
Is there another way to do this? Did I miss an obvious method from Commons Collections?
Related
I also spotted this question on SO which is similar though in that case I'm thinking overriding equals() makes a little more sense.
Edit
Something very similar to this will be going into a release of Apache Commons Collections in the near future (at the time of this writing). See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COLLECTIONS-446.

You could use the Guava Equivalence class in order to decouple the notions of "comparing" and "equivalence". You would still have to write your comparing method (AFAIK Guava does not have it) that accepts an Equivalence subclass instead of the Comparator, but at least your code would be less confusing, and you could compare your collections based on any equivalence criteria.
Using a collection of equivance-wrapped objects (see the wrap method in Equivalence) would be similar to the Adapter-based solution proposed by sharakan, but the equivalence implementation would be decoupled from the adapter implementation, allowing you to easily use multiple Equivalence criteria.

You can use new isEqualCollection method added to CollectionUtils since version 4. This method uses external comparsion mechanism provided by Equator interface implementation. Please, check this javadocs: CollectionUtils.isEqualCollection(...) and Equator.

I'm not sure this way is actually better, but it is "another way"...
Take your original two collections, and create new ones containing an Adapter for each base object. The Adapter should have .equals() and .hashCode() implemented as being based on Name.calculateWeightedRank(). Then you can use normal Collection equality to compare the collections of Adapters.
* Edit *
Using Eclipse's standard hashCode/equals generation for the Adapter. Your code would just call adaptCollection on each of your base collections, then List.equals() the two results.
public class Adapter {
public List<Adapter> adaptCollection(List<Name> names) {
List<Adapter> adapters = new ArrayList<Adapter>(names.size());
for (Name name : names) {
adapters.add(new Adapter(name));
}
return adapters;
}
private final int name;
public Adapter(Name name) {
this.name = name.getWeightedResult();
}
#Override
public int hashCode() {
final int prime = 31;
int result = 1;
result = prime * result + name;
return result;
}
#Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
if (this == obj)
return true;
if (obj == null)
return false;
if (getClass() != obj.getClass())
return false;
Adapter other = (Adapter) obj;
if (name != other.name)
return false;
return true;
}
}

EDIT: Removed old answer.
Another option that you have is creating an interface called Weighted that could look like this:
public interface Weighted {
int getWeightedRank();
}
Then have your Name class implement this interface. Then you could change your method to look like this:
public <T extends Weighted> boolean weightedEquals(Collection<T> col1, Collection<T> col2)
{
if (col1 == null)
return col2 == null;
if (col2 == null)
return false;
if (col1.size() != col2.size())
return false;
Iterator<T> i1 = col1.iterator(), i2 = col2.iterator();
while(i1.hasNext() && i2.hasNext()) {
if (i1.next().getWeightedRank() != i2.next().getWeightedRank()) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
Then as you find additional classes that need to be weighted and compared you can put them in your collection and they could be compared with each other as well. Just an idea.

Search an attribute inside a Vector on Java

I've a Vector of objects, and have to search inside for a random attribute of those objects (For example, a Plane class, a Vector containing Plane; and I've to search sometimes for destination, and others to pilotName).
I know I can traverse the Vector using an Iterator, but I've got stuck at how do I change the comparison made between a String and the attribute on the object. I thought of using switch, but a another opinion would be cool.
Update 1:
The code I've written is something like this (Java n00b alert!):
public int search(String whatSearch, String query){
int place = -1;
boolean found = false;
for ( Iterator<Plane> iteraPlane = this.planes.iterator(); iteraPlane.hasNext() && found == false; ) {
Plane temp = (Plane) iteraPlane.next();
/* Here is where I have to search for one of many attributes (delimited by whatSearch */
}
return place;
}
Seems I've to stick to linear search (and that's a price I've able to pay). Anyway, I was thinking if Java had something like variable variable name (ouch!)

I assume that your problem is that you want to have a method that searches for a result based on some property of the collection type. Java is weak on this because it is best expressed in a language which has closures. What you need is something like:
public interface Predicate<T> {
public boolean evaluate(T t);
}
And then your search method looks like:
public static <T> T findFirst(List<T> l, Predicate<T> p) { //use List, not Vector
for (T t : l) { if (p.evaluate(t)) return t; }
return null;
}
Then anyone can use this general-purpose search method. For example, to search for an number in a vector of Integers:
List<Integer> is = ...
findFirst(is, new Predicate<Integer> {
public boolean evaluate(Integer i) { return i % 2 == 0; }
});
But you could implement the predicate in any way you want; for any arbitrary search

Use Collections.binarySearch and provide a Comparator.
EDIT: This assumes that the Vector is sorted. Otherwise, one has to do a linear search.

the equals() method is the best option. For these iterations you could do something like this:
for (Plane plane: planes) {
if ("JFK".equals(plane.getDestination())) {
// do your work in here;
}
}
or you could override the equals() method within Plane to see if the String passed in matches your destination (or pilot). this will allow you to use the indexOf(Object) and indexOf(Object, index) methods on Vector to return you the index(es) of the object(s). Once you have that, you could use Vector.get(index) to return to Object for you.
in Plane.java:
public boolean equals(Object o) {
return o.equals(getDestination()) ||
o.equals(getPilot()) ||
super.equals(o);
}
there is more work to be done with this option, as you will need to override hashCode() as well (see documentation).

See #oxbow_lakes above -- I think what you want isn't to pass a String as whatSearch, it's to pass a little snippet of code that knows how to get the property you're interested in. For a less general version:
public static interface PlaneMatcher {
boolean matches(Plane plane, String query);
}
public int search(PlaneMatcher matcher, String query){
int place = -1;
boolean found = false;
for ( Iterator<Plane> iteraPlane = this.planes.iterator(); iteraPlane.hasNext() && found == false; ) {
Plane temp = (Plane) iteraPlane.next();
if (matcher.matches(temp, query) {
found = true;
}
place++;
}
return place;
}
...
// example
int pilotNameIndex = search(new PlaneMatcher() {
boolean matches(Plane plane, String query) {
// note: assumes query non-null; you probably want to check that earlier
return query.equals(plane.getPilotName());
}
}, "Orville Wright");
(By the way, if it's the index you're interested in rather than the Plane itself, I wouldn't bother with an Iterator -- just use an old-fashioned for (int i = 0; i < planes.size(); i++) loop, and when you have a match, return i.)
Now, the tricky bit here is if what you have to search for is really identified by arbitrary strings at run-time. If that's the case, I can suggest two alternatives:
Don't store these values as object fields -- plane.pilotName, plane.destination -- at all. Just have a Map<String, String> (or better yet, a Map<Field, String> where Field is an Enum of all the valid fields) called something like plane.metadata.
Store them as object fields, but prepopulate a map from the field names to PlaneMatcher instances as described above.
For instance:
private static final Map<String, PlaneMatcher> MATCHERS = Collections.unmodifiableMap(new HashMap<String, PlaneMatcher>() {{
put("pilotName", new PlaneMatcher() {
boolean matches(Plane plane, String query) {
return query.equals(plane.getPilotName());
});
...
put("destination", new PlaneMatcher() {
boolean matches(Plane plane, String query) {
return query.equals(plane.getDestination());
});
}}
...
public int search(String whatSearch, String query){
PlaneMatcher matcher = MATCHERS.get(whatSearch);
int place = -1;
boolean found = false;
for ( Iterator<Plane> iteraPlane = this.planes.iterator(); iteraPlane.hasNext() && found == false; ) {
Plane temp = (Plane) iteraPlane.next();
if (matcher.matches(temp, query) {
found = true;
}
place++;
}
return place;
}
Oh, and you might be tempted to use reflection. Don't. :)

A simple way is to pass a comparison function to your search routine. Or, if you need more speed, use generics.