In this example, I will show how to use the java.util.Collections class in order to perform sorting.
The Collections class consists of static methods that return or operate on collections, such as Lists, Maps, Sets, etc.
All the methods throw a NullPointerException if the collection(s) passed as a parameter is/are null.
ArraySortExample
Create a class named ArraySortExample with the following source code:
package com.javacodegeeks.example;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Random;
public class ArraySortExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ArrayList<Integer> randInts = new ArrayList<>();
Random rnd = new Random();
//generate 5 random ints for randInts
for (int i=0;i<5;i++) {
randInts.add(rnd.nextInt());
}
//show the unordered randInts
printList(randInts);
//sort the randInts ArrayList
Collections.sort(randInts);
//show the ordered randInts
printList(randInts);
}
public static void printList(List<Integer> l) {
System.out.print("[ ");
for (int i=0;i<l.size();i++) {
System.out.print(l.get(i)+" ");
}
System.out.println("]");
}
}
My output is this (yours will be different):
[ -1503773474 -1286923903 1899281552 390130031 -706284752 ] [ -1503773474 -1286923903 -706284752 390130031 1899281552 ]
I created an ArrayList and I filled it with 5 random integers, using java.util.Random class. Then, I used Collections.sort() to sort the integers in the ArrayList. I printed the ArrayList in both two stages: unsorted and sorted, in order to see the result of Collections.sort() method.
BackwardSortExample
The same method, Collections.sort(), can be also used to sort in the other direction, i.e. from the greatest number to the smallest. This can be done by adding another parameter, a Comparator. See the example below:
package com.javacodegeeks.example;
import java.util.*;
public class BackwardSortExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ArrayList<Integer> randInts = new ArrayList<>();
Random rnd = new Random();
//generate 5 random ints for randInts
for (int i=0;i<5;i++) {
randInts.add(rnd.nextInt());
}
//show the unordered randInts
printList(randInts);
//sort the randInts ArrayList
Collections.sort(randInts, new Comparator<Integer>() {
@Override
public int compare(Integer o1, Integer o2) {
return (o2.intValue() > o1.intValue()) ? 1 : -1;
}
});
//show the ordered randInts
printList(randInts);
}
public static void printList(List<Integer> l) {
System.out.print("[ ");
for (int i=0;i<l.size();i++) {
System.out.print(l.get(i)+" ");
}
System.out.println("]");
}
}
My output is:
[ 1496339441 247557973 -557265969 -1655233986 674163918 ] [ 1496339441 674163918 247557973 -557265969 -1655233986 ]
What changed in this example is the order of the sorting: this time in reverse. To do this, I passed another parameter into Collections.sort() method, a Comparator and overloaded its compare(T o1,T o2) method. This method tells to the Collections.sort() method how to sort the elements of the Collection that needs to be sorted.
Download Code
You can download the full source code of this example here : ArraySortExample
