How to sort by two fields in Java?

Question

I have array of objects person (int age; String name;).

How can I sort this array alphabetically by name and then by age?

Which algorithm would

Answer 1

You can use generic serial Comparator to sort collections by multiple fields.

import org.apache.commons.lang3.reflect.FieldUtils;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.List;

/**
* @author MaheshRPM
*/
public class SerialComparator implements Comparator {
List sortingFields;

public SerialComparator(List sortingFields) {
    this.sortingFields = sortingFields;
}

public SerialComparator(String... sortingFields) {
    this.sortingFields = Arrays.asList(sortingFields);
}

@Override
public int compare(T o1, T o2) {
    int result = 0;
    try {
        for (String sortingField : sortingFields) {
            if (result == 0) {
                Object value1 = FieldUtils.readField(o1, sortingField, true);
                Object value2 = FieldUtils.readField(o2, sortingField, true);
                if (value1 instanceof Comparable && value2 instanceof Comparable) {
                    Comparable comparable1 = (Comparable) value1;
                    Comparable comparable2 = (Comparable) value2;
                    result = comparable1.compareTo(comparable2);
                } else {
                    throw new RuntimeException("Cannot compare non Comparable fields. " + value1.getClass()
                            .getName() + " must implement Comparable<" + value1.getClass().getName() + ">");
                }
            } else {
                break;
            }
        }
    } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    return result;
}
}