Question

I have a class as follows.

public class MyClass{
  int x;
  String str;
  public MyClass(int x)
    {
     this.x=x;
    }
public static void main(String args[])
{
   MyClass[] myclass=new MyClass[10];
   Random rnd=new Random();
   for(int i=0;i<10;i++)
    {
      myclass[i]=new MyClass(rnd.nextInt());
     }
}
}

Now, after initializing each of the array objects, I now wish to sort it on the basis of their x values. Can Arrays.sort method be overridden to do that or I need to define my own method?

Answer 1

In your case, as your MyClass class obviously has a natural order, the simplest is to let it implement the Comparable interface.

After that, you can use the standard sort methods of the Arrays class.

public class MyClass implements Comparable<MyClass> {
     int x;
      ...
      @Override
        public int compareTo(MyClass o) {
            return o.x-x;
        }
    public static void main(String args[]) {
       MyClass[] myarray=new MyClass[10];
       ...
       Arrays.sort(myarray);
    }
}