Sort a two dimensional array based on one column

Question

In Java, I have a data in my array like the following

2009.07.25 20:24 Message A
2009.07.25 20:17 Message G
2009.07.25 20:25 Message B
2009.07.25 20:30 Message D
2009.07.25 20:01 Message F
2009.07.25 21:08 Message E
2009.07.25 19:54 Message R

I would like to sort it based on the first column, so my final data can look like this

2009.07.25 19:54 Message R
2009.07.25 20:01 Message F
2009.07.25 20:17 Message G
2009.07.25 20:24 Message A
2009.07.25 20:25 Message B
2009.07.25 20:30 Message D
2009.07.25 21:08 Message E

The first column is a date of format "yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm" and the second column is a String.

Answer 1

Sort a two dimensional array based on one column
The first column is a date of format "yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm" and the second column is a String.

Since you say 2-D array, I assume "date of format ..." means a String. Here's code for sorting a 2-D array of String[][]:

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Comparator;

public class Asdf {

    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        final String[][] data = new String[][] {
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 20:24", "Message A" },
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 20:17", "Message G" },
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 20:25", "Message B" },
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 20:30", "Message D" },
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 20:01", "Message F" },
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 21:08", "Message E" },
                new String[] { "2009.07.25 19:54", "Message R" } };

        Arrays.sort(data, new Comparator<String[]>() {
            @Override
            public int compare(final String[] entry1, final String[] entry2) {
                final String time1 = entry1[0];
                final String time2 = entry2[0];
                return time1.compareTo(time2);
            }
        });

        for (final String[] s : data) {
            System.out.println(s[0] + " " + s[1]);
        }
    }

}

Output:

2009.07.25 19:54 Message R
2009.07.25 20:01 Message F
2009.07.25 20:17 Message G
2009.07.25 20:24 Message A
2009.07.25 20:25 Message B
2009.07.25 20:30 Message D
2009.07.25 21:08 Message E