How can I sort a List alphabetically?

Question

I have a List<String> object that contains country names. How can I sort this list alphabetically?

Answer 1

You can try using a method that I made.

String key - will be the order you want and in this case in alphabetically. Just put "abc...".

String list[] - the list you want to put in order using key.

int index - set as 0, will set the offset for the key.

    public static String[] order(String key, String list[], int index) {
    ArrayList<String> order_List = new ArrayList<String>();
    ArrayList<String> temp_Order_List = null;
    char[] key_char = key.toCharArray();
    for (int offset = 0; offset < key_char.length; offset++) {
        if (key_char.length >= offset + index) {
            String str = (index > 1 ? list[0].substring(0, index - 1) : "")
                    + new String(key_char, offset, 1);
            for (int i = 0; i < list.length; i++) {
                temp_Order_List = new ArrayList<String>();
                for (int k = 0; k < list.length; k++) {
                    if (!order_List.contains(list[k])
                            && !temp_Order_List.contains(list[k])) {
                        if (list[k].equalsIgnoreCase(str))
                            order_List.add(list[k]);
                        else if (list[k].toLowerCase().startsWith(str.toLowerCase())) {
                            temp_Order_List.add(list[k]);

                        }
                    }
                }
                if (temp_Order_List.size() > 0) {
                    if (temp_Order_List.size() > 1) {
                        String[] add = order(key,
                                temp_Order_List.toArray(new String[temp_Order_List
                                        .size()]), index + 1);
                        for (String s : add) {
                            order_List.add(s);
                        }
                    } else {
                        order_List.add(temp_Order_List.get(0));
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return order_List.toArray(new String[order_List.size()]);
}

Answer 2

Use the two argument for of Collections.sort. You will want a suitable Comparator that treats case appropriate (i.e. does lexical, not UTF16 ordering), such as that obtainable through java.text.Collator.getInstance.

Answer 3

descending alphabet:

List<String> list;
...
Collections.sort(list);
Collections.reverse(list);

Answer 4

Assuming that those are Strings, use the convenient static method sort…

 java.util.Collections.sort(listOfCountryNames)

Answer 5

//Here is sorted List alphabetically with syncronized
package com.mnas.technology.automation.utility;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
/**
* 
* @author manoj.kumar
*/
public class SynchronizedArrayList {
static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(SynchronizedArrayList.class.getName());
@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public static void main(String[] args) {

List<Employee> synchronizedList = Collections.synchronizedList(new ArrayList<Employee>());
synchronizedList.add(new Employee("Aditya"));
synchronizedList.add(new Employee("Siddharth"));
synchronizedList.add(new Employee("Manoj"));
Collections.sort(synchronizedList, new Comparator() {
public int compare(Object synchronizedListOne, Object synchronizedListTwo) {
//use instanceof to verify the references are indeed of the type in question
return ((Employee)synchronizedListOne).name
.compareTo(((Employee)synchronizedListTwo).name);
}
}); 
/*for( Employee sd : synchronizedList) {
log.info("Sorted Synchronized Array List..."+sd.name);
}*/

// when iterating over a synchronized list, we need to synchronize access to the synchronized list
synchronized (synchronizedList) {
Iterator<Employee> iterator = synchronizedList.iterator();
while (iterator.hasNext()) {
log.info("Sorted Synchronized Array List Items: " + iterator.next().name);
}
}

}
}
class Employee {
String name;
Employee (String name) {
this.name = name;

}
}

Answer 6

Unless you are sorting strings in an accent-free English only, you probably want to use a Collator. It will correctly sort diacritical marks, can ignore case and other language-specific stuff:

Collections.sort(countries, Collator.getInstance(new Locale(languageCode)));

You can set the collator strength, see the javadoc.

Here is an example for Slovak:

List<String> countries = Arrays.asList("Slovensko", "Švédsko", "Turecko");

Collections.sort(countries);
System.out.println(countries); // outputs [Slovensko, Turecko, Švédsko]

Collections.sort(countries, Collator.getInstance(new Locale("sk")));
System.out.println(countries); // outputs [Slovensko, Švédsko, Turecko]