| java.util.Comparator<T> |
 Known Indirect Subclasses
|
A Comparator is used to compare two objects to determine their ordering with
respect to each other. On a given Collection, a Comparator can be used to
obtain a sorted Collection which is totally ordered. For a Comparator
to be consistent with equals, its {code #compare(Object, Object)}
method has to return zero for each pair of elements (a,b) where a.equals(b)
holds true. It is recommended that a Comparator implements
Serializable.
| Public Methods | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Compares the two specified objects to determine their relative ordering.
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Compares this
Comparator with the specified Object and indicates whether they
are equal. | |||||||||||
Compares the two specified objects to determine their relative ordering. The ordering
implied by the return value of this method for all possible pairs of
(object1, object2) should form an equivalence relation.
This means that
compare(a,a) returns zero for all acompare(a,b) must be the opposite of the sign of compare(b,a) for all pairs of (a,b)compare(a,b) > 0 and compare(b,c) > 0 it must
follow compare(a,c) > 0 for all possible combinations of (a,b,c)| object1 | an Object. |
|---|---|
| object2 | a second Object to compare with object1. |
object1 is less than object2, 0 if they are
equal, and > 0 if object1 is greater than object2.| ClassCastException | when objects are not of the correct type. |
|---|
Compares this Comparator with the specified Object and indicates whether they
are equal. In order to be equal, object must represent the same object
as this instance using a class-specific comparison.
A Comparator never needs to override this method, but may choose so for
performance reasons.
| object | the Object to compare with this comparator. |
|---|
true if specified Object is the same as this
Object, and false otherwise.