Java Unicode strings sorting

Question

In Java, how does Unicode strings get compared?

What I mean is, if I have a few say, Japanese strings, when I do the following:

java.util.Arrays.sort(arrayOfJapaneseStrings);

how does those strings get compared and sorted?

Answer 1

By default, Strings sort lexicographically, by Unicode order. The order is by UTF-16, so might not be exactly what you want for certain characters, but Japanese characters are all in the BMP, so you shouldn't have a problem with these.

If you would like a different sort order, you can use the java.text.Collator classes to define a different sort order.