Question

Alright, so I’m supposed to make a script that parses all the chat logs from irc channels, combine the ones that match names, and then sort the chat logs by date.

This is an example chat log:

    jul 29 19:20:53 <lol> lolfile3
    jul 31 19:20:53 <lol> lolfile3321
    aug 1 19:20:53 <lol> lolfile31324
    jul 30 19:20:53 <lol> lolfile32

I need to order them by the timestamp (jul 30 19:20:53) however I’ve been trying for hours on end but to no avail.

Here’s the code I already have (this is file merging, file writing and everything. The timestamp is the last thing I need to do!)

I couldn’t figure out how to add code to my question so I link you to pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/2VrSRZZr

Thank you so much if you could help me by posting code. Obviously I don’t expect to be spoonfed but some code would be nice.

Answer 1

I’m not entirely sure what the “” in your example is, so this may not be entirely correct, but it shows how to convert the timestamp strings to comparable objects. Hopefully this gets you on the right track.

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("MMM dd yyyy")
List<String> lines = readLines(); // use a function of your to read the lines
List<LogEntry> entries = new LinkedList<LogEntry>();
for ( String line : lines ) {
  int splitIndex = line.indexOf("<log>");
  String time = line.substring(0,splitIndex);
  Date date = dateFormat.parse(time);
  entries.add(new LogEntry(date,line.substring(splitIndex));
}

Collections.sort(entries);


// create a class to hold the log contents and the timestamp

class LogEntry implements Comparable<LogEntry> {
    private final Date time;
    private final String entry;

    public void compare(LogEntry other) {
       return time.compareTo(other.time);
    }
}

EDIT: I ran the code you created in pastebin and the output was

Fri Jul 29 17:09:50 EDT 2011 <phl0w> tes
Sun Jul 31 17:08:49 EDT 2011 <yyyy> alewrwae
Sun Jul 31 17:09:50 EDT 2011 <phl0w> tes
Sun Jul 31 17:10:49 EDT 2011 <Andy_> Speed
Sun Jul 31 17:10:51 EDT 2011 <Andy_> lol Speed
Sun Jul 31 17:11:51 EDT 2011 <xxxx> wrkjaer
Sun Jul 31 19:20:50 EDT 2011 <phl0w> lolfile1
Sun Jul 31 19:20:53 EDT 2011 <phl0w> lolfile3