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

I had a similar problem where my strings had space-separated segments inside. I solved it in this way:

public class StringWithNumberComparator implements Comparator<MyClass> {

@Override
public int compare(MyClass o1, MyClass o2) {
    if (o1.getStringToCompare().equals(o2.getStringToCompare())) {
        return 0;
    }
    String[] first = o1.getStringToCompare().split(" ");
    String[] second = o2.getStringToCompare().split(" ");
    if (first.length == second.length) {
        for (int i = 0; i < first.length; i++) {

            int segmentCompare = StringUtils.compare(first[i], second[i]);
            if (StringUtils.isNumeric(first[i]) && StringUtils.isNumeric(second[i])) {

                segmentCompare = NumberUtils.compare(Integer.valueOf(first[i]), Integer.valueOf(second[i]));
                if (0 != segmentCompare) {
                    // return only if uneven numbers in case there are more segments to be checked
                    return segmentCompare;
                }
            }
            if (0 != segmentCompare) {
                return segmentCompare;
            }
        }
    } else {
        return StringUtils.compare(o1.getDenominazione(), o2.getDenominazione());
    }

    return 0;
}

As you can see I have used Apaches StringUtils.compare() and NumberUtils.compere() as a standard help.

Answer 2

I created a project to compare the different implementations. It is far from complete, but it is a starting point.

Answer 3

I came up with a quite simple implementation in Java using regular expressions:

public static Comparator<String> naturalOrdering() {
    final Pattern compile = Pattern.compile("(\\d+)|(\\D+)");
    return (s1, s2) -> {
        final Matcher matcher1 = compile.matcher(s1);
        final Matcher matcher2 = compile.matcher(s2);
        while (true) {
            final boolean found1 = matcher1.find();
            final boolean found2 = matcher2.find();
            if (!found1 || !found2) {
                return Boolean.compare(found1, found2);
            } else if (!matcher1.group().equals(matcher2.group())) {
                if (matcher1.group(1) == null || matcher2.group(1) == null) {
                    return matcher1.group().compareTo(matcher2.group());
                } else {
                    return Integer.valueOf(matcher1.group(1)).compareTo(Integer.valueOf(matcher2.group(1)));
                }
            }
        }
    };
}

Here is how it works:

final List<String> strings = Arrays.asList("x15", "xa", "y16", "x2a", "y11", "z", "z5", "x2b", "z");
strings.sort(naturalOrdering());
System.out.println(strings);

[x2a, x2b, x15, xa, y11, y16, z, z, z5]

Answer 4

My 2 cents.Is working well for me. I am mainly using it for filenames.

    private final boolean isDigit(char ch)
        {
            return ch >= 48 && ch <= 57;
        }


        private int compareNumericalString(String s1,String s2){

            int s1Counter=0;
            int s2Counter=0;
            while(true){
                if(s1Counter>=s1.length()){
                    break;
                }
                if(s2Counter>=s2.length()){
                    break;
                }
                char currentChar1=s1.charAt(s1Counter++);
                char currentChar2=s2.charAt(s2Counter++);
                if(isDigit(currentChar1) &&isDigit(currentChar2)){
                    String digitString1=""+currentChar1;
                    String digitString2=""+currentChar2;
                    while(true){
                        if(s1Counter>=s1.length()){
                            break;
                        }
                        if(s2Counter>=s2.length()){
                            break;
                        }

                        if(isDigit(s1.charAt(s1Counter))){
                            digitString1+=s1.charAt(s1Counter);
                            s1Counter++;
                        }

                        if(isDigit(s2.charAt(s2Counter))){
                            digitString2+=s2.charAt(s2Counter);
                            s2Counter++;
                        }

                        if((!isDigit(s1.charAt(s1Counter))) && (!isDigit(s2.charAt(s2Counter)))){
                            currentChar1=s1.charAt(s1Counter);
                            currentChar2=s2.charAt(s2Counter);
                            break;
                        }
                    }
                    if(!digitString1.equals(digitString2)){
                        return Integer.parseInt(digitString1)-Integer.parseInt(digitString2);
                    }
                }

                if(currentChar1!=currentChar2){
                    return currentChar1-currentChar2;
                }

            }
            return s1.compareTo(s2);
        }

Answer 5

Split the string into runs of letters and numbers, so "foo 12 bar" becomes the list ("foo", 12, "bar"), then use the list as the sort key. This way the numbers will be ordered in numerical order, not alphabetical.

Answer 6

I think you'll have to do the comparison on a character-by-character fashion. Grab a character, if it's a number character, keep grabbing, then reassemble to characters into a single number string and convert it into an int. Repeat on the other string, and only then do the comparison.