How to sort strings containing multiple periods/dots in Java?

Question

I want to sort a few strings:

 RANDOM.XY
 AAA.BBB.CC
 AAA.BBB
 RANDOM.XY.Z
 AAA.BBB.CC.D

The sorted order should be:

 AAA.BBB
 AAA.BBB.CC
 AAA.BBB.CC.D
 RANDOM.XY
 RANDOM.XY.Z

I put them in an ArrayList list, and used a built-in sort method:

 Collections.sort(list);

However, what I get from the sorting is:

 AAA.BBB.CC.D
 AAA.BBB.CC
 AAA.BBB
 RANDOM.XY.Z
 RANDOM.XY

How should I go about this?

You should implement a custom Comparator. See docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/… — torvin
– torvin, Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 0:46
Sorting an array of String with custom ordering and then create something that looks a lot like String.compareTo (or possibly something a lot simpler which just calls that method. — Bernhard Barker
– Bernhard Barker, Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 0:52
@dasblinkenlight I suspect he mixed up what he wants and what he gets. — Bernhard Barker
– Bernhard Barker, Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 0:56

Peter Zhu · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-24 00:51:31Z

2

You can create your custom class that contains the original string and a string that doesn't contain the dots. You then can implement the Comparator interface and compare the strings that doesn't contain the dots.

answered Sep 24, 2015 at 0:51

Peter Zhu

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