w3hJava

I have given a little thought what should be my first post. Finally decided not to write anything complex. I am just posting about simple sorting fundas in Java. Sorting is always a tricky game in any programming language and it is responsible for 50-60 percent of the total CPU time for any application. We all have our native language like Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, French and so many. Most of the time world deals with sorting of Alphabets or English words but give a eye on other languages which is growing fast and off course today we are talking about internationalization.

I am showing you a typical sorting of French word and the blunder associated with it. These are some of the common French words:

String[] names = {”fácil”, “facil”, “fast”,”Où”, “êtes-vous”, “spécifique”, “specific”, “ou”};

and here is the typical sorting code:

String[] names = {”fácil”, “facil”, “fast”,”Où”, “êtes-vous”, “spécifique”, “specific”, “ou”};
        List list = Arrays.asList(names);
        Collections.sort(list);
        Iterator itr = list.iterator();
        while(itr.hasNext()) {
            System.out.print(itr.next()+ ”   “);
        }

And the result:
Où facil fast fácil ou specific spécifique êtes-vous

which is completely wrong according to French Rules. Because sorting is simply going via UNICODE rules not by French rules.

Now remedy: Java gives us a class called Collator class in java.text Package which takes care of locale while sorting. Here goes the code:

import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;

class CollatorTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String[] names = {”fácil”, “facil”, “fast”, “Où”, “êtes-vous”, “spécifique”, “specific”, “ou”};
        List list = Arrays.asList(names);
        Collections.sort(list);
        Iterator itr = list.iterator();
        while (itr.hasNext()) {
            System.out.print(itr.next() + ” “);
        }
        Locale[] loc = Collator.getAvailableLocales();
        Collator myCollator = Collator.getInstance(new Locale(”fr”));
        myCollator.setStrength(Collator.PRIMARY);
        Collections.sort(list, myCollator);
        itr = list.iterator();
        System.out.println(”");
        while (itr.hasNext()) {
            System.out.print(itr.next() + ” “);
        }
        myCollator.setStrength(Collator.TERTIARY);
        Collections.sort(list, myCollator);
        itr = list.iterator();
        System.out.println(”");
        while (itr.hasNext()) {
            System.out.print(itr.next() + ” “);
        }
    }
}

And here is the result:

Où     facil     fast     fácil     ou     specific     spécifique     êtes-vous

êtes-vous     facil     fácil     fast     Où     ou     specific     spécifique

êtes-vous     facil     fácil     fast     ou     Où     specific     spécifique

which is perfectly valid. There are lot of option in Collator class which we will discuss sometimes later here only.

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