How to implement the Java comparable interface?

Question

I am not sure how to implement a comparable interface into my abstract class. I have the following example code that I am using to try and get my head around it:

public class Animal{
    public String name;
    public int yearDiscovered;
    public String population;

    public Animal(String name, int yearDiscovered, String population){
        this.name = name;
        this.yearDiscovered = yearDiscovered;
        this.population = population; }

    public String toString(){
        String s = "Animal name: "+ name+"\nYear Discovered: "+yearDiscovered+"\nPopulation: "+population;
        return s;
    }
}

I have a test class that will create objects of type Animal however I want to have a comparable interface inside this class so that older years of discovery rank higher than low. I have no idea on how to go about this though.

Answer 1

You just have to define that Animal implements Comparable<Animal> i.e. public class Animal implements Comparable<Animal>. And then you have to implement the compareTo(Animal other) method that way you like it.

@Override
public int compareTo(Animal other) {
    return Integer.compare(this.year_discovered, other.year_discovered);
}

Using this implementation of compareTo, animals with a higher year_discovered will get ordered higher. I hope you get the idea of Comparable and compareTo with this example.