Sort objects in ArrayList by date?
JavaSortingDatetimeJava Problem Overview
Every example I find is about doing this alphabetically, while I need my elements sorted by date.
My ArrayList contains objects on which one of the datamembers is a DateTime object. On DateTime I can call the functions:
lt() // less-than
lteq() // less-than-or-equal-to
So to compare I could do something like:
if(myList.get(i).lt(myList.get(j))){
// ...
}
What should I do inside the if block?
Java Solutions
Solution 1 - Java
You can make your object comparable:
public static class MyObject implements Comparable<MyObject> {
private Date dateTime;
public Date getDateTime() {
return dateTime;
}
public void setDateTime(Date datetime) {
this.dateTime = datetime;
}
@Override
public int compareTo(MyObject o) {
return getDateTime().compareTo(o.getDateTime());
}
}
And then you sort it by calling:
Collections.sort(myList);
However sometimes you don't want to change your model, like when you want to sort on several different properties. In that case, you can create comparator on the fly:
Collections.sort(myList, new Comparator<MyObject>() {
public int compare(MyObject o1, MyObject o2) {
return o1.getDateTime().compareTo(o2.getDateTime());
}
});
However, the above works only if you're certain that dateTime is not null at the time of comparison. It's wise to handle null as well to avoid NullPointerExceptions:
public static class MyObject implements Comparable<MyObject> {
private Date dateTime;
public Date getDateTime() {
return dateTime;
}
public void setDateTime(Date datetime) {
this.dateTime = datetime;
}
@Override
public int compareTo(MyObject o) {
if (getDateTime() == null || o.getDateTime() == null)
return 0;
return getDateTime().compareTo(o.getDateTime());
}
}
Or in the second example:
Collections.sort(myList, new Comparator<MyObject>() {
public int compare(MyObject o1, MyObject o2) {
if (o1.getDateTime() == null || o2.getDateTime() == null)
return 0;
return o1.getDateTime().compareTo(o2.getDateTime());
}
});
Solution 2 - Java
Since Java 8 the List interface provides the sort method. Combined with lambda expression the easiest solution would be
// sort DateTime typed list
list.sort((d1,d2) -> d1.compareTo(d2));
// or an object which has an DateTime attribute
list.sort((o1,o2) -> o1.getDateTime().compareTo(o2.getDateTime()));
// or like mentioned by Tunaki
list.sort(Comparator.comparing(o -> o.getDateTime()));
Reverse sorting
Java 8 comes also with some handy methods for reverse sorting.
//requested by lily
list.sort(Comparator.comparing(o -> o.getDateTime()).reversed());
Solution 3 - Java
You can use Collections.sort method. It's a static method. You pass it the list and a comparator. It uses a modified mergesort algorithm over the list. That's why you must pass it a comparator to do the pair comparisons.
Collections.sort(myList, new Comparator<MyObject> {
public int compare(MyObject o1, MyObject o2) {
DateTime a = o1.getDateTime();
DateTime b = o2.getDateTime();
if (a.lt(b))
return -1;
else if (a.lteq(b)) // it's equals
return 0;
else
return 1;
}
});
Note that if myList is of a comparable type (one that implements Comparable interface) (like Date, Integer or String) you can omit the comparator and the natural ordering will be used.
Solution 4 - Java
list.sort(Comparator.comparing(o -> o.getDateTime()));
The best answer IMHO from Tunaki using Java 8 lambda
Solution 5 - Java
Given MyObject that has a DateTime member with a getDateTime() method, you can sort an ArrayList that contains MyObject elements by the DateTime objects like this:
Collections.sort(myList, new Comparator<MyObject>() {
public int compare(MyObject o1, MyObject o2) {
return o1.getDateTime().lt(o2.getDateTime()) ? -1 : 1;
}
});
Solution 6 - Java
This is how I solved:
Collections.sort(MyList, (o1, o2) -> o1.getLastModified().compareTo(o2.getLastModified()));
Hope it help you.
Solution 7 - Java
Future viewers, I think this is the simplest solution, if your model contains a string type date ("2020-01-01 10:00:00" for example), then just write the following line to sort the data by date descending from newest to the oldest:
Collections.sort(messages, (o1, o2) -> o2.getMessageDate().compareTo(o1.getMessageDate()));
Solution 8 - Java
All the answers here I found to be un-neccesarily complex for a simple problem (at least to an experienced java developer, which I am not). I had a similar problem and chanced upon this (and other) solutions, and though they provided a pointer, for a beginner I found as stated above. My solution, depends on where in the the Object your Date is, in this case, the date is the first element of the Object[] where dataVector is the ArrayList containing your Objects.
Collections.sort(dataVector, new Comparator<Object[]>() {
public int compare(Object[] o1, Object[] o2) {
return ((Date)o1[0]).compareTo(((Date)o2[0]));
}
});
Solution 9 - Java
With introduction of Java 1.8, streams are very useful in solving this kind of problems:
Comparator <DateTime> myComparator = (arg1, arg2)
-> {
if(arg1.lt(arg2))
return -1;
else if (arg1.lteq(arg2))
return 0;
else
return 1;
};
ArrayList<DateTime> sortedList = myList
.stream()
.sorted(myComparator)
.collect(Collectors.toCollection(ArrayList::new));
Solution 10 - Java
Here's the answer of how I achieve it:
Mylist.sort(Comparator.comparing(myClass::getStarttime));
Solution 11 - Java
This may be an old response but I used some examples from this post to create a comparator that would sort an ArrayList of HashMap<String, String> by one object in the list, that being the timestamp.
I have these objects:
ArrayList<Map<String, String>> alList = new ArrayList<Map<String, String>>();
The map objects are as follows:
Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
// of course this is the actual formatted date below in the timestamp
map.put("timestamp", "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
map.put("item1", "my text goes here");
map.put("item2", "my text goes here");
That mapping is what I use to load all my objects into the array list, using the alList.add(map) function, within a loop.
Now, I created my own comparator:
import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat;
import org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
public class DateSorter implements Comparator {
public int compare(Object firstObjToCompare, Object secondObjToCompare) {
String firstDateString = ((HashMap<String, String>) firstObjToCompare).get("timestamp");
String secondDateString = ((HashMap<String, String>) secondObjToCompare).get("timestamp");
if (secondDateString == null || firstDateString == null) {
return 0;
}
// Convert to Dates
DateTimeFormatter dtf = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss");
DateTime firstDate = dtf.parseDateTime(firstDateString);
DateTime secondDate = dtf.parseDateTime(secondDateString);
if (firstDate.isAfter(secondDate)) return -1;
else if (firstDate.isBefore(secondDate)) return 1;
else return 0;
}
}
I can now just call the Comparator at any time on the array and it will sort my array, giving me the Latest timestamp in position 0 (top of the list) and the earliest timestamp at the end of the list. New posts get put to the top basically.
Collections.sort(alList, new DateSorter());
This may help someone out, which is why I posted it. Take into consideration the return statements within the compare() function. There are 3 types of results. Returning 0 if they are equal, returning >0 if the first date is before the second date and returning <0 if the first date is after the second date. If you want your list to be reversed, then just switch those two return statements! Simple =]
Solution 12 - Java
Use the below approach to identify dates are sort or not
SimpleDateFormat simpleDateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");
boolean decendingOrder = true;
for(int index=0;index<date.size() - 1; index++) {
if(simpleDateFormat.parse(date.get(index)).getTime() < simpleDateFormat.parse(date.get(index+1)).getTime()) {
decendingOrder = false;
break;
}
}
if(decendingOrder) {
System.out.println("Date are in Decending Order");
}else {
System.out.println("Date not in Decending Order");
}
}
Solution 13 - Java
Pass the ArrayList In argument.
private static void order(ArrayList<Object> list) {
Collections.sort(list, new Comparator() {
public int compare(Object o2, Object o1) {
String x1 = o1.Date;
String x2 = o2.Date;
return x1.compareTo(x2);
}
});
}
Solution 14 - Java
The Date class already implements Comparator
public class A {
private Date dateTime;
public Date getDateTime() {
return dateTime;
}
.... other variables
}
And let's say you have a list of A objects as List<A> aList, you can easily sort it with Java 8's stream API (snippet below):
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
...
aList = aList.stream()
.sorted(Comparator.comparing(A::getDateTime))
.collect(Collectors.toList())