Java, how to use compareTo to sort an Arraylist

Question

Im trying to figure out how to sort an ArrayList using comparable, my code looks like this:

 public class playerComparsion{

        public static void main(String[] args){ 


    ArrayList<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();      

        Player p1 = new Players(1,92,Zlatan);
    Player p2 = new Players(2,92,Hazard);
    Player p3 = new Players(1,82,Klose);

    list.add(p1);
    list.add(p2);
    list.add(p3);
        }
    } 
        class Players implements Comparable{

        int position;
             String name;
            int rating;

            public Players(int i, int j, String string)  {

                this.position=i;
                this.rating=j;
                this.name=string;
            }

             public void getRating() {
                    System.out.println(this.rating);
                    }
             public void getPos() {
                    System.out.println(this.position);
                    }
             public void getName() {
                    System.out.println(this.name);
                    }

            @Override
            public int compareTo(Object o) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                return 0;
            }

        }

I want to sort the Arraylist based on the attribute rating. I suppose I should use the compareTo function but I have no idea how, can someone help me?

Answer 1

Instead of making Player implement Comparable, you get more flexibility by implementing Comparator<Player> classes. For example:

class PlayerComparatorByRating implements Comparator<Player> {
    @Override
    public int compare(Player o1, Player o2) {
        return o1.getRating() - o2.getRating();
    }
}

class PlayerComparatorByName implements Comparator<Player> {
    @Override
    public int compare(Player o1, Player o2) {
        return o1.getName().compareTo(o2.getName());
    }
}

After all, Player has multiple fields, it's easy to imagine that sometimes you might want to order players differently. A great advantage of this approach is the single responsibility principle: a Player class does only one thing, encapsulates player data. Instead of adding one more responsibility (sorting), it's better to move that logic in another class.

You could use these comparators with Collections.sort, for example:

Collections.sort(list, new PlayerComparatorByRating());
System.out.println(list);
Collections.sort(list, new PlayerComparatorByName());
System.out.println(list);

Extra tips

Your class seems to be named Players. It's better to rename to Player.

The getName, getRating, getPos methods should not return void and print the result, but return the field values instead.

Use better names for the constructor arguments, for example:

Player(int position, int rating, String name) {
    this.position = position;
    this.rating = rating;
    this.name = name;
}

Use the right type of list to store players:

List<Player> list = new ArrayList<Player>();

Please format your code properly. Any IDE can do that.

Suggested implementation

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.List;

class Player {
    private int position;
    private int rating;
    private final String name;

    Player(int position, int rating, String name) {
        this.position = position;
        this.rating = rating;
        this.name = name;
    }

    public int getRating() {
        return rating;
    }

    public int getPos() {
        return position;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return String.format("%s:%d:%d", name, position, rating);
    }
}

class PlayerComparatorByRating implements Comparator<Player> {
    @Override
    public int compare(Player o1, Player o2) {
        return o1.getRating() - o2.getRating();
    }
}

class PlayerComparatorByName implements Comparator<Player> {
    @Override
    public int compare(Player o1, Player o2) {
        return o1.getName().compareTo(o2.getName());
    }
}

public class PlayerComparatorDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args){
        List<Player> list = new ArrayList<Player>();

        Player p1 = new Player(1, 92, "Zlatan");
        Player p2 = new Player(2, 92, "Hazard");
        Player p3 = new Player(1, 82, "Klose");

        list.add(p1);
        list.add(p2);
        list.add(p3);

        Collections.sort(list, new PlayerComparatorByRating());
        System.out.println(list);
        Collections.sort(list, new PlayerComparatorByName());
        System.out.println(list);
    }
}