A ComparatorChain is a Comparator that wraps one or more Comparators in sequence. The ComparatorChain calls each Comparator in sequence until either 1) any single Comparator returns a non-zero result (and that result is then returned), or 2) the ComparatorChain is exhausted (and zero is returned). This type of sorting is very similar to multi-column sorting in SQL, and this class allows Java classes to emulate that kind of behaviour when sorting a List.
To further facilitate SQL-like sorting, the order of any single Comparator in the list can be reversed.
Calling a method that adds new Comparators or changes the ascend/descend sort after compare(Object, Object) has been called will result in an UnsupportedOperationException. However, take care to not alter the underlying List of Comparators or the BitSet that defines the sort order.
Instances of ComparatorChain are not synchronized. The class is not thread-safe at construction time, but it is thread-safe to perform multiple comparisons after all the setup operations are complete.
@since Commons Collections 2.0 @author Morgan Delagrange @version $Revision: 1.18 $ $Date: 2004/05/16 11:48:49 $ | |