How to compare objects by multiple fields

Question

Assume you have some objects which have several fields they can be compared by:

public class Person {

    private String firstName;
    private String lastN         


        

Answer 1

For those able to use the Java 8 streaming API, there is a neater approach that is well documented here: Lambdas and sorting

I was looking for the equivalent of the C# LINQ:

.ThenBy(...)

I found the mechanism in Java 8 on the Comparator:

.thenComparing(...)

So here is the snippet that demonstrates the algorithm.

    Comparator comparator = Comparator.comparing(person -> person.name);
    comparator = comparator.thenComparing(Comparator.comparing(person -> person.age));

Check out the link above for a neater way and an explanation about how Java's type inference makes it a bit more clunky to define compared to LINQ.

Here is the full unit test for reference:

@Test
public void testChainedSorting()
{
    // Create the collection of people:
    ArrayList people = new ArrayList<>();
    people.add(new Person("Dan", 4));
    people.add(new Person("Andi", 2));
    people.add(new Person("Bob", 42));
    people.add(new Person("Debby", 3));
    people.add(new Person("Bob", 72));
    people.add(new Person("Barry", 20));
    people.add(new Person("Cathy", 40));
    people.add(new Person("Bob", 40));
    people.add(new Person("Barry", 50));

    // Define chained comparators:
    // Great article explaining this and how to make it even neater:
    // http://blog.jooq.org/2014/01/31/java-8-friday-goodies-lambdas-and-sorting/
    Comparator comparator = Comparator.comparing(person -> person.name);
    comparator = comparator.thenComparing(Comparator.comparing(person -> person.age));

    // Sort the stream:
    Stream personStream = people.stream().sorted(comparator);

    // Make sure that the output is as expected:
    List sortedPeople = personStream.collect(Collectors.toList());
    Assert.assertEquals("Andi",  sortedPeople.get(0).name); Assert.assertEquals(2,  sortedPeople.get(0).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Barry", sortedPeople.get(1).name); Assert.assertEquals(20, sortedPeople.get(1).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Barry", sortedPeople.get(2).name); Assert.assertEquals(50, sortedPeople.get(2).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Bob",   sortedPeople.get(3).name); Assert.assertEquals(40, sortedPeople.get(3).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Bob",   sortedPeople.get(4).name); Assert.assertEquals(42, sortedPeople.get(4).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Bob",   sortedPeople.get(5).name); Assert.assertEquals(72, sortedPeople.get(5).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Cathy", sortedPeople.get(6).name); Assert.assertEquals(40, sortedPeople.get(6).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Dan",   sortedPeople.get(7).name); Assert.assertEquals(4,  sortedPeople.get(7).age);
    Assert.assertEquals("Debby", sortedPeople.get(8).name); Assert.assertEquals(3,  sortedPeople.get(8).age);
    // Andi     : 2
    // Barry    : 20
    // Barry    : 50
    // Bob      : 40
    // Bob      : 42
    // Bob      : 72
    // Cathy    : 40
    // Dan      : 4
    // Debby    : 3
}

/**
 * A person in our system.
 */
public static class Person
{
    /**
     * Creates a new person.
     * @param name The name of the person.
     * @param age The age of the person.
     */
    public Person(String name, int age)
    {
        this.age = age;
        this.name = name;
    }

    /**
     * The name of the person.
     */
    public String name;

    /**
     * The age of the person.
     */
    public int age;

    @Override
    public String toString()
    {
        if (name == null) return super.toString();
        else return String.format("%s : %d", this.name, this.age);
    }
}