Sorting an ArrayList of Objects by Last name and firstname in Java

Question

I have an arrayList of different types of players based on sports. I need to sort the list of players in the arrayList by last name to start. If 2 players have the same la

Answer 1

Petar's answer is correct, just two remarks:

• Use List instead of ArrayList as method argument, as the interface is more general, and the method will work even if you change to another List type (like LinkedList... ) later
• Use generics to make your code more type safe.

An improved version:

//the place where you define the List
List playerList = new ArrayList();


public static void sortPlayers(List playerList) {
   Collections.sort(playerList, new Comparator() {
       public int compare(PlayerStats p1, PlayerStats p2) {
            int res =  p1.getPlayerLastName().compareToIgnoreCase(p2.getPlayerLastName());
            if (res != 0)
                return res;
            return p1.getPlayerFirstName().compareToIgnoreCase(p2.getPlayerFirstName())
       }
   });
}