Sort on a string that may contain a number

Question

I need to write a Java Comparator class that compares Strings, however with one twist. If the two strings it is comparing are the same at the beginning and end of the strin

Answer 1

I had a similar problem where my strings had space-separated segments inside. I solved it in this way:

public class StringWithNumberComparator implements Comparator {

@Override
public int compare(MyClass o1, MyClass o2) {
    if (o1.getStringToCompare().equals(o2.getStringToCompare())) {
        return 0;
    }
    String[] first = o1.getStringToCompare().split(" ");
    String[] second = o2.getStringToCompare().split(" ");
    if (first.length == second.length) {
        for (int i = 0; i < first.length; i++) {

            int segmentCompare = StringUtils.compare(first[i], second[i]);
            if (StringUtils.isNumeric(first[i]) && StringUtils.isNumeric(second[i])) {

                segmentCompare = NumberUtils.compare(Integer.valueOf(first[i]), Integer.valueOf(second[i]));
                if (0 != segmentCompare) {
                    // return only if uneven numbers in case there are more segments to be checked
                    return segmentCompare;
                }
            }
            if (0 != segmentCompare) {
                return segmentCompare;
            }
        }
    } else {
        return StringUtils.compare(o1.getDenominazione(), o2.getDenominazione());
    }

    return 0;
}

As you can see I have used Apaches StringUtils.compare() and NumberUtils.compere() as a standard help.