Question

I have an ArrayList named play_viewCount: I am sorting this ArrryList and storing it in a new ArrayList.

Now I have sorted ArrayList: but what I want is before sorting what was the position of new items in ArrayList?

ArrayList<String> sort_play_viewCount = play_ViewCount; // here play_viewCount is ArrayList
ArrayList<Integer> position_array = new ArrayList<Integer>(); 
System.out.println("......................................... Play Count :"+sort_play_viewCount);
Collections.sort(sort_play_viewCount);
System.out.println(".........................................sort Play Count :"+sort_play_viewCount);

for(int j = 0; j<sort_play_viewCount.size(); j++){
    for(int k = 0; k<sort_play_viewCount.size(); k++){
        if(play_ViewCount.contains(sort_play_viewCount.get(j))){
            position_array.add(k);
        }
    }
}

System.out.println(" .................Position Array: "+position_array);

Does anyone know how to get the positions of the new items before sorting?

Answer 1

Try doing a little differently:

ArrayList<Integer> position_array = new ArrayList<Integer>(); 

position_array.addAll(play_viewCount);
Collections.sort(position_array);

Now position_array is sorted, and to get the previous positions you can just call play_viewCount.indexOf(value);