Sort on a string that may contain a number

Question

I need to write a Java Comparator class that compares Strings, however with one twist. If the two strings it is comparing are the same at the beginning and end of the strin

Answer 1

My problem was that I have lists consisting of a combination of alpha numeric strings (eg C22, C3, C5 etc), alpha strings (eg A, H, R etc) and just digits (eg 99, 45 etc) that need sorting in the order A, C3, C5, C22, H, R, 45, 99. I also have duplicates that need removing so I only get a single entry.

I'm also not just working with Strings, I'm ordering an Object and using a specific field within the Object to get the correct order.

A solution that seems to work for me is :

SortedSet codeSet;
codeSet = new TreeSet(new Comparator() {

private boolean isThereAnyNumber(String a, String b) {
    return isNumber(a) || isNumber(b);
}

private boolean isNumber(String s) {
    return s.matches("[-+]?\\d*\\.?\\d+");
}

private String extractChars(String s) {
    String chars = s.replaceAll("\\d", "");
    return chars;
}

private int extractInt(String s) {
    String num = s.replaceAll("\\D", "");
    return num.isEmpty() ? 0 : Integer.parseInt(num);
}

private int compareStrings(String o1, String o2) {

    if (!extractChars(o1).equals(extractChars(o2))) {
        return o1.compareTo(o2);
    } else
        return extractInt(o1) - extractInt(o2);
}

@Override
public int compare(Code a, Code b) {

    return isThereAnyNumber(a.getPrimaryCode(), b.getPrimaryCode()) 
            ? isNumber(a.getPrimaryCode()) ? 1 : -1 
                : compareStrings(a.getPrimaryCode(), b.getPrimaryCode());
                }
            });

It 'borrows' some code that I found here on Stackoverflow plus some tweaks of my own to get it working just how I needed it too.

Due to trying to order Objects, needing a comparator as well as duplicate removal, one negative fudge I had to employ was I first have to write my Objects to a TreeMap before writing them to a Treeset. It may impact performance a little but given that the lists will be a max of about 80 Codes, it shouldn't be a problem.