Comparing the values of two generic Numbers

Question

I want to compare to variables, both of type T extends Number. Now I want to know which of the two variables is greater than the other or equal. Unfortunately I don't know the exact type yet, I only know that it will be a subtype of java.lang.Number. How can I do that?

EDIT: I tried another workaround using TreeSets, which actually worked with natural ordering (of course it works, all subclasses of Number implement Comparable except for AtomicInteger and AtomicLong). Thus I'll lose duplicate values. When using Lists, Collection.sort() will not accept my list due to bound mismatchs. Very unsatisfactory.

Answer 1

if(yourNumber instanceof Double) {
    boolean greaterThanOtherNumber = yourNumber.doubleValue() > otherNumber.doubleValue();
    // [...]
}

Note: The instanceof check isn't necessarily needed - depends on how exactly you want to compare them. You could of course simply always use .doubleValue(), as every Number should provide the methods listed here.

Edit: As stated in the comments, you will (always) have to check for BigDecimal and friends. But they provide a .compareTo() method:

if(yourNumber instanceof BigDecimal && otherNumber instanceof BigDecimal) { 
    boolean greaterThanOtherNumber = ((BigDecimal)yourNumber).compareTo((BigDecimal)otherNumber) > 0;
} 

Answer 2

After having asked a similar question and studying the answers here, I came up with the following. I think it is more efficient and more robust than the solution given by gustafc:

public int compare(Number x, Number y) {
    if(isSpecial(x) || isSpecial(y))
        return Double.compare(x.doubleValue(), y.doubleValue());
    else
        return toBigDecimal(x).compareTo(toBigDecimal(y));
}

private static boolean isSpecial(Number x) {
    boolean specialDouble = x instanceof Double
            && (Double.isNaN((Double) x) || Double.isInfinite((Double) x));
    boolean specialFloat = x instanceof Float
            && (Float.isNaN((Float) x) || Float.isInfinite((Float) x));
    return specialDouble || specialFloat;
}

private static BigDecimal toBigDecimal(Number number) {
    if(number instanceof BigDecimal)
        return (BigDecimal) number;
    if(number instanceof BigInteger)
        return new BigDecimal((BigInteger) number);
    if(number instanceof Byte || number instanceof Short
            || number instanceof Integer || number instanceof Long)
        return new BigDecimal(number.longValue());
    if(number instanceof Float || number instanceof Double)
        return new BigDecimal(number.doubleValue());

    try {
        return new BigDecimal(number.toString());
    } catch(final NumberFormatException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException("The given number (\"" + number + "\" of class " + number.getClass().getName() + ") does not have a parsable string representation", e);
    }
}

Answer 3

If your Number instances are never Atomic (ie AtomicInteger) then you can do something like:

private Integer compare(Number n1, Number n2) throws SecurityException, NoSuchMethodException, IllegalArgumentException, IllegalAccessException, InvocationTargetException {

 Class<? extends Number> n1Class = n1.getClass();
 if (n1Class.isInstance(n2)) {
  Method compareTo = n1Class.getMethod("compareTo", n1Class);
  return (Integer) compareTo.invoke(n1, n2);
 }

 return -23;
}

This is since all non-Atomic Numbers implement Comparable

EDIT:

This is costly due to reflection: I know

EDIT 2:

This of course does not take of a case in which you want to compare decimals to ints or some such...

EDIT 3:

This assumes that there are no custom-defined descendants of Number that do not implement Comparable (thanks @DJClayworth)

Answer 4

This should work for all classes that extend Number, and are Comparable to themselves. By adding the & Comparable you allow to remove all the type checks and provides runtime type checks and error throwing for free when compared to Sarmun answer.

class NumberComparator<T extends Number & Comparable> implements Comparator<T> {

    public int compare( T a, T b ) throws ClassCastException {
        return a.compareTo( b );
    }
}

Answer 5

You can simply use Number's doubleValue() method to compare them; however you may find the results are not accurate enough for your needs.