How to use the Comparator interface

Question

I\'m new to java, and I\'m not really getting how to use the comparator interface. I have an ArrayList of Items in an Inventory class

Answer 1

Use of @Override annotation is a standard practice in editors like eclipse, netbeans to notify developer that he is overriding/implementing parent class/interface method. It is optional.

Don't implement this interface in your Item class. Create a new class and implement the Comparator interface.

public class ItemCompare implements Comparator {

    @Override
    public int compare(Item a, Item b) {
        if (a.getID().compareToIgnoreCase(b.getID())>0)
            return 1;
        else if (a.getID().compareToIgnoreCase(b.getID())<0)
            return -1;
        return 0;
    }
} 

And then, in your main class, do this:

ArrayList al = new ArrayList

Collections.sort(al, new ItemCompare())