Multi criteria sorting of a list of objects with Guava Ordering

Question

I have a class WHICH CANNOT implement comparable, but needs to be sorted based on 2 fields. How can I achieve this with Guava?

Let's say the class is:

class X {
  String stringValue;
  java.util.Date dateValue;
} 

And I have a list of these:

List<X> lotsOfX;

I want to sort them based on the value field first and then based on dateValue descending within each 'group' of 'value' fields.

What I have been doing so far is:

List<X> sortedList = ImmutableList.copyOf(Ordering.natural().onResultOf(dateValueSortFunction).reverse().sortedCopy(lotsOfX));
sortedList = ImmutableList.copyOf(Ordering.natural().onResultOf(stringValueSortFunction).sortedCopy(sortedList));

The functions are defined as:

public class DateValueSortFunction<X> implements Function<X, Long> {

    @Override
      public Long apply(X input) {
        return input.getDateValue().getTime();  //returns millis time
      }
}

And:

public class StringValueSortFunction<X> implements Function<X, Integer> {

      @Override
        public Integer apply(X input) {
          if(input.getStringValue().equalsIgnoreCase("Something"))
            return 0;
          else if(input.getStringValue().equalsIgnoreCase("Something else"))
            return 1;
          else
            return 2;
        }
}

Expected output in sortedList is:

Something   03/18/2013
Something   03/17/2013
Something else  03/20/2013
Something else  03/19/2013
....

My approach works but is obviously inefficient for traversing the list twice. Is there a better way of doing this?

I am using this in a GWT app. Implementing comparable is not an option.

Answer 1

I suspect you want Ordering.compound. You could do it all in one statement, but I'd use:

Ordering<X> primary = Ordering.natural().onResultOf(stringValueSortFunction);
Ordering<X> secondary = Ordering.natural()
                              .onResultOf(dateValueSortFunction)
                              .reverse();
Ordering<X> compound = primary.compound(secondary);

List<X> sortedList = compound.immutableSortedCopy(lotsOfX);

Answer 2

Java 8 provides methods on Comparator to concisely specify chained comparators. Together with the newly-introduced List.sort, you can do:

lotsOfX.sort(
    Comparator.comparingInt(x -> stringValueSortFunction.apply(x.stringValue))
        .thenComparing(x -> x.dateValue, Comparator.reverseOrder()));

This mutates the list, of course -- make a copy first if you want to leave the original list unchanged, or wrap the comparator in an Ordering and use immutableSortedCopy if you want an immutable copy.