In TreeSet, Sorting & Uniqueness of custom objects based on different properties

Question

Below is my Student class

class Student implements Comparable {
   String name;
   int rollNo;

   @Override
   public int compareTo(Object obj) {
        return ((Student)obj).name.compareTo(this.name);
   }
} 

latest modification: but still no getting the right result

@Override
public int compareTo(Object obj) {
    Student s = (Student) obj;
    if (name.equals(s.name)) { // achieving uniqueness
        return 0;
    } else {
        if (rollNo < s.rollNo) {
            return -1;
        } else if (rollNo > s.rollNo) {
            return 1;
        } else {
            // this makes `name` the second ordering option.
            // names don't equal here
            return name.compareTo(s.name);
        }
    }
}

If I create object of TreeSet<Student>, I am getting sorted list of Student objects based on unique name & ordered by name also.

But I need unique student-name in my TreeSet<Student> with order by student-rollNo.

Is it possible with Comparator? Can anybody help me, Every suggestion is appreciated. Thanks.

UPDATE: here is the complete program:

public class Student implements Comparable {

    int rollNo;
    String name;

    Student(String n,int rno) {
        rollNo=rno;
        name=n;
    }

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        TreeSet<Student> ts = new TreeSet<Student>();
        ts.add(new Student("bbb",2));
        ts.add(new Student("aaa",4));
        ts.add(new Student("bbb",2));
        ts.add(new Student("ccc",3));
        ts.add(new Student("aaa",1));
        ts.add(new Student("bbb",2));
        ts.add(new Student("bbb",5));

        System.out.println(ts);

    }

    @Override
    public int compareTo(Object obj) {
        Student s = (Student) obj;
        if (name.equals(s.name)) { // achieving uniqueness
            return 0;
        } else {
            if (rollNo < s.rollNo) {
                return -1;
            } else if (rollNo > s.rollNo) {
                return 1;
            } else {
                // this makes `name` the second ordering option.
                // names don't equal here
                return name.compareTo(s.name);
            }
        }
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return name + rollNo;
    }
}

Update:2: Thank you all for your suggestions, I still need some more :)

/*
 * Actual scenario is having different properties,
 * So here I am just relating my actual scenario with Student class
 */
class Student implements Comparable {
    // sorting required on rollNo
    int rollNo;
    // Unique name is required
    String name;

    Student(String n, int rno) {
        rollNo = rno;
        name = n;
    }

    /**
     * 
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        TreeSet<Student> tsName = new TreeSet<Student>();
        // here by default, order & uniqueness by name only
        tsName.add(new Student("ccc", 2));
        tsName.add(new Student("aaa", 4));
        tsName.add(new Student("ddd", 1));
        tsName.add(new Student("bbb", 3));
        tsName.add(new Student("ddd", 5));
        // output: aaa:4, bbb:3, ccc:2, ddd:1
        System.out.println(tsName);

        // creating new comparator for student RollNo
        TreeSet<Student> tsRollNo = new TreeSet<Student>(new Comparator<Student>() {
                    public int compare(Student stud1, Student stud2) {
                        return new Integer(stud1.rollNo).compareTo(stud2.rollNo);
                    }
                });
        tsRollNo.addAll(tsName);
        System.out.println(tsRollNo);
        // now got the desire output: ddd:1, ccc:2, bbb:3, aaa:4
    }

    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        // internally not used to check equality while adding objects
        // in TreeSet
        System.out.println("equals() for " + this + " & " + ((Student) obj));
        return false;// return false/true doesn't make any sense here
    }

    @Override
    public int compareTo(Object obj) {
        Student s = (Student) obj;
        // internally inside TreeSet, compareTo is used to decide
        // whether two objects are equal or not,
        // i.e. compareTo will return 0 for same object(here student name)
        System.out.println("compareTo() for " + this + " & " + ((Student) obj));
        // achieving uniqueness
        return name.compareTo(s.name);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return name + ":" + rollNo;
    }
}

OUTPUT:

compareTo() for aaa:4 & ccc:2
compareTo() for ddd:1 & ccc:2
compareTo() for bbb:3 & ccc:2
compareTo() for bbb:3 & aaa:4
compareTo() for ddd:5 & ccc:2
compareTo() for ddd:5 & ddd:1
[aaa:4, bbb:3, ccc:2, ddd:1]
[ddd:1, ccc:2, bbb:3, aaa:4]

Friends, whatever I got by using two Comparators, Is it possible to achieve the same while adding the objects ?? I cannot first Add elements & then use new comparator to achieve the desired order.
I am manipulating thousands of values so need to consider performance also.

Answer 1

in TreeSet It will use comparator while adding elements for sorting and unique check,

now the problem is if you use comparator for roll no you will have it sorted by roll no and unique roll nos too. you can't have both together in treeset.

I would suggest you to go for.

1. TreeSet here you concentrate about duplicate removal
2. then once you have unique data go for ArrayList and sort it in any order you want

Answer 2

Ordering

The answer by @ralph on using a TreeSet with a specified comparator is a good one, use that.

Design

You should wrap your concept of a "student database" inside a class that exposes and documents the correct behaviors, rather than just using a raw collection. If obtaining lists of students in particular orders is a design requirement, expose methods (perhaps returning Iterable<Student> that say that. Behind the scenes, you can do a variety of things depending on the usage pattern:

• Maintain one or more Sets and or Maps sorting/indexing students by fields of interest.
• On-demand in-place array sort using Arrays.sort() and a specified Comparator.

Example....

final class StudentTable {
   private static final Comparator<Student> studentRollNoComparator = ...;
   private final SortedSet<Student> sortedByRollNo = 
      new TreeSet<Student>(studentRollNoComparator);

   public Iterable<Student> studentsOrderedByRollNo()
   {
      return sortedByRollNo;
   } 

   //see below
   public void addStudent(final Student foo) { ... }
}

Uniqueness

You need to override equals() and hashCode() on your Student class, to compare only the student name. Then you'll get uniqueness (silently) in your TreeSet. Obviously, if you do this, you need to code defensively to check to see if studentSet.contains(newStudent) before inserting newStudent, so you'll KNOW whether you've got a duplicate or not.

final class Student implements Comparable {
   ...

   @Override
   public boolean equals(Object o)
   {
      return o!=null &&  
             o (instanceof Student) &&
             ((Student)o).name.equals(this.name);
   }

   @Override
   public int hashCode()
   {
      return name.hashCode();  // good enough for this purpose
   } 
}

With this in place, then your code to insert student can look like:

void addNewStudent(final Student toAdd)
{
   if (studentSet.contains(toAdd)) { 
      throw new IllegalStateException("Student with same name as "+toAdd+" already exists.");
   }

   studentSet.add(toAdd);
}

Your treeset is then full of students whose names are unique, and your add operation reports a failure if not. (Throwing an exception is just one potential route, and only appropriate if adding a student with a duplicate name is ACTUALLY an exceptional condition, but you didn't say.)

Answer 3

You can initialize a new TreeSet with an different comparator. - So all you have to do, is to write an new Comparator (implements java.util.Comparator interface), use this comparator to initialize the a new TreeSet and then add all students to the set.

TreeSet<Student> sortedByRollNo new TreeSet<Student>(new RollNoComparator());
sortedByRollNo.addAll(allStudents);

TreeSet<Student> sortedByY new TreeSet<Student>(new YComparator());
sortedByY.addAll(allStudents);

Each Tree Set can have its own comparator for sorting, if no comparator is specifed, then the Tree Set uses the natural ordering of the set elements.

added

If you need only the name uniqe Students, then you have two ways:

• Implement the comparator in a way, that it returns 0 if the name of the studens is equals (but i belive this is so kinde of hack).
• First filter the students by name, and then sort them by rollNo,

A bit like this:

TreeSet<Student> sortedByRollNo new TreeSet<Student>(new RollNoComparator());
sortedByRollNo.addAll(new TreeSet<Student>(allStudends)); //this uses the native comparator to filter by uniqe name