Question

I’ve figured out how to get a JTable to be sorted properly, but I can’t figure out how to get it to automatically update the sort order when a table cell is changed. Right now, I have this (admittedly long) code, mostly based on that in the Java Tutorial’s How to Use Tables. I’ve highlighted the changes I’ve made with // ADDED. In this case, newly-added values sort properly, but when I go in to edit a value, it doesn’t seem to resort, even though I call fireTableCellUpdated?

In short, how can I get a table to re-sort when a data value changes in the model?

/*
 * Copyright (c) 1995 - 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
 * See the standard BSD license.
 */ 

package components;

/*
 * TableSortDemo.java requires no other files.
 */

import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.util.ArrayList;

import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JOptionPane;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTable;
import javax.swing.table.AbstractTableModel;

public class TableSortDemo extends JPanel {
    private boolean DEBUG = false;

    public TableSortDemo() {
        super();
        setLayout(new BoxLayout(TableSortDemo.this, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
        final MyTableModel m = new MyTableModel();
        JTable table = new JTable(m);
        table.setPreferredScrollableViewportSize(new Dimension(500, 70));
        table.setFillsViewportHeight(true);
        table.setAutoCreateRowSorter(true);

        //Create the scroll pane and add the table to it.
        JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(table);

        //Add the scroll pane to this panel.
        add(scrollPane);

        // ADDED: button to add a value
        JButton addButton = new JButton("Add a new value");
        addButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                m.addValue(
                        JOptionPane.showInputDialog(
                                TableSortDemo.this, "Value?"));
            }
        });

        // ADDED button to change a value
        JButton setButton = new JButton("Change a value");
        setButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            /* (non-Javadoc)
             * @see java.awt.event.ActionListener#actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent)
             */
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                m.setValueAt(
                        JOptionPane.showInputDialog(
                                TableSortDemo.this, "Value?"),
                        Integer.parseInt(
                                JOptionPane.showInputDialog(
                                        TableSortDemo.this, "Which?")), 0);
            }
        });
        add(addButton);
        add(setButton);
    }

    class MyTableModel extends AbstractTableModel {
        private static final long serialVersionUID = -7053335255134714625L;
        private String[] columnNames = {"Column"};
        // ADDED data as mutable ArrayList
        private ArrayList<String> data = new ArrayList<String>();

        public MyTableModel() {
            data.add("Anders");
            data.add("Lars");
            data.add("Betty");
            data.add("Anna");
            data.add("Jon");
            data.add("Zach");
        }

        // ADDED
        public void addValue(Object v) {
            data.add(v.toString());
            int row = data.size() - 1;
            fireTableRowsInserted(row, row);
        }

        public int getColumnCount() {
            return columnNames.length;
        }

        public int getRowCount() {
            return data.size();
        }

        public String getColumnName(int col) {
            return columnNames[col];
        }

        public Object getValueAt(int row, int col) {
            return data.get(row) + " " + row;
        }

        /*
         * JTable uses this method to determine the default renderer/
         * editor for each cell.  If we didn't implement this method,
         * then the last column would contain text ("true"/"false"),
         * rather than a check box.
         */
        public Class<String> getColumnClass(int c) {
            return String.class;
        }

        /*
         * Don't need to implement this method unless your table's
         * editable.
         */
        public boolean isCellEditable(int row, int col) {
            //Note that the data/cell address is constant,
            //no matter where the cell appears onscreen.
            if (col < 2) {
                return false;
            } else {
                return true;
            }
        }

        /*
         * Don't need to implement this method unless your table's
         * data can change.
         */
        public void setValueAt(Object value, int row, int col) {
            if (DEBUG) {
                System.out.println("Setting value at " + row + "," + col
                                   + " to " + value
                                   + " (an instance of "
                                   + value.getClass() + ")");
            }

            data.set(row, value.toString());

            // ADDED: uncommented this line, despite warnings to the contrary
            fireTableCellUpdated(row, col);

            if (DEBUG) {
                System.out.println("New value of data:");
                printDebugData();
            }
        }

        private void printDebugData() {
            int numRows = getRowCount();
            int numCols = getColumnCount();

            for (int i=0; i < numRows; i++) {
                System.out.print("    row " + i + ":");
                for (int j=0; j < numCols; j++) {
                    System.out.print("  " + data.get(i));
                }
                System.out.println();
            }
            System.out.println("--------------------------");
        }
    }

    /**
     * Create the GUI and show it.  For thread safety,
     * this method should be invoked from the
     * event-dispatching thread.
     */
    private static void createAndShowGUI() {
        //Create and set up the window.
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("TableSortDemo");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        //Create and set up the content pane.
        TableSortDemo newContentPane = new TableSortDemo();
        newContentPane.setOpaque(true); //content panes must be opaque
        frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);

        //Display the window.
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
        //creating and showing this application's GUI.
        javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                createAndShowGUI();
            }
        });
    }
}

Answer 1

This took a two-step solution:

First I had the TableSorter sort on data change, by using this rather than autoCreateRowSorter:

sorter = new TableRowSorter<MyTableModel>(m);
table.setRowSorter(sorter);
sorter.setSortsOnUpdates(true);

Then, I had to change the update method to update the entire table. The fireTableCellUpdated and the fireTableRowsUpdated would only redraw the specific rows that were updated, not the entire table (meaning you’d get a duplicate-appearing entry that changed as soon as it was redrawn later. So, I changed

fireTableCellUpdated(row, col);

to

fireTableRowsUpdated(0, data.size() - 1);

and now it sorts properly, even upon data changes, and selection is preserved.