Why is my simple comparator broken?

Question

I have a class, which I have simplified to this:

final class Thing {
    private final int value;
    public Thing(int value) {
        this.value = value;
          


        

Answer 1

When comparing Java primitives, it is advisable to convert them to their Object counterparts and rely on their compareTo() methods.

In this case you can do:

return Integer.valueOf(a.getValue()).compareTo(b.getValue())

When in doubt, use a well-tested library.