How do I sort an NSMutableArray with custom object

Question

What I want to do seems pretty simple, but I can't find any answers on the web. I have an NSMutableArray of objects, and let's say they are 'Person' objects. I want to sort the NSMutableArray by Person.birthDate which is an NSDate.

I think it has something to do with this method:

NSArray *sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingSelector:@selector(???)];

In Java I would make my object implement Comparable, or use Collections.sort with an inline custom comparator...how on earth do you do this in Objective-C?

Answer 1

Swift's protocols and functional programming makes that very easy you just have to make your class conform to the Comparable protocol, implement the methods required by the protocol and then use the sorted(by: ) high order function to create a sorted array without need to use mutable arrays by the way.

class Person: Comparable {
    var birthDate: NSDate?
    let name: String

    init(name: String) {
        self.name = name
    }

    static func ==(lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.birthDate === rhs.birthDate || lhs.birthDate?.compare(rhs.birthDate as! Date) == .orderedSame
    }

    static func <(lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.birthDate?.compare(rhs.birthDate as! Date) == .orderedAscending
    }

    static func >(lhs: Person, rhs: Person) -> Bool {
        return lhs.birthDate?.compare(rhs.birthDate as! Date) == .orderedDescending
    }

}

let p1 = Person(name: "Sasha")
p1.birthDate = NSDate() 

let p2 = Person(name: "James")
p2.birthDate = NSDate()//he is older by miliseconds

if p1 == p2 {
    print("they are the same") //they are not
}

let persons = [p1, p2]

//sort the array based on who is older
let sortedPersons = persons.sorted(by: {$0 > $1})

//print sasha which is p1
print(persons.first?.name)
//print James which is the "older"
print(sortedPersons.first?.name)

Answer 2

-(NSMutableArray*) sortArray:(NSMutableArray *)toBeSorted 
{
  NSArray *sortedArray;
  sortedArray = [toBeSorted sortedArrayUsingComparator:^NSComparisonResult(id a, id b) 
  {
    return [a compare:b];
 }];
 return [sortedArray mutableCopy];
}

Answer 3

There is a missing step in Georg Schölly's second answer, but it works fine then.

NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor;
sortDescriptor = [[[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"birthDate"
                                              ascending:YES] autorelease];
NSArray *sortDescriptors = [NSArray arrayWithObject:sortDescriptor];
NSArray *sortedArray;
sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingDescriptor:sortDescriptors];

Answer 4

I've used sortUsingFunction:: in some of my projects:

int SortPlays(id a, id b, void* context)
{
    Play* p1 = a;
    Play* p2 = b;
    if (p1.score<p2.score) 
        return NSOrderedDescending;
    else if (p1.score>p2.score) 
        return NSOrderedAscending;
    return NSOrderedSame;
}

...
[validPlays sortUsingFunction:SortPlays context:nil];

Answer 5

Compare method

Either you implement a compare-method for your object:

- (NSComparisonResult)compare:(Person *)otherObject {
    return [self.birthDate compare:otherObject.birthDate];
}

NSArray *sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingSelector:@selector(compare:)];

NSSortDescriptor (better)

or usually even better:

NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor;
sortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"birthDate"
                                           ascending:YES];
NSArray *sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:@[sortDescriptor]];

You can easily sort by multiple keys by adding more than one to the array. Using custom comparator-methods is possible as well. Have a look at the documentation.

Blocks (shiny!)

There's also the possibility of sorting with a block since Mac OS X 10.6 and iOS 4:

NSArray *sortedArray;
sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingComparator:^NSComparisonResult(id a, id b) {
    NSDate *first = [(Person*)a birthDate];
    NSDate *second = [(Person*)b birthDate];
    return [first compare:second];
}];

Performance

The -compare: and block-based methods will be quite a bit faster, in general, than using NSSortDescriptor as the latter relies on KVC. The primary advantage of the NSSortDescriptor method is that it provides a way to define your sort order using data, rather than code, which makes it easy to e.g. set things up so users can sort an NSTableView by clicking on the header row.

Answer 6

NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor;
sortDescriptor = [[[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"birthDate" ascending:YES] autorelease];
NSArray *sortDescriptors = [NSArray arrayWithObject:sortDescriptor];
NSArray *sortedArray;
sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:sortDescriptors];

Thanks, it's working fine...