Question

When I sort the array using sortedArrayUsingSelector method , all works fine except it brings records with BLANK names at the top of array . I don’t want records with BLANK names on top of array instead they should be last in the array. How can I implement this? Here is my code

self.tempArray = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray:[self.tempArray sortedArrayUsingSelector:@selector(compare:)]];

I am sorting the array on first name of user. Here is code of compare method

    -(NSComparisonResult)compare:(User*)user {

    return [self.firstName compare:user.firstName];
}

Any kind of help is highly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Change your comparison method so that you treat empty names differently.

-(NSComparisonResult)compare:(User*)user 
{ 
    NSString *selfName;
    NSString *userName;
    if (self.firstName && ![self.firstName isEqualToString:@""])
        selfName = self.firstName;
    else
        selfName = @"zzzzzzzzzz";

    if (user.firstName && ![user.firstName isEqualToString:@""])
        userName = user.firstName;
    else
        userName = @"zzzzzzzzzz";

    return [selfName localizedCaseInsensitiveCompare:userName]; 
}

You can probably write this in fewer lines of code but I have left it like this for readability. nil cannot be used as a comparator for string comparisons.

Currently it is (correctly) sorting blanks to the top, since they are come before populated strings in an alphanumeric sort.