org.apache.velocity.tools.generic
Class SortTool

java.lang.Object
  org.apache.velocity.tools.generic.SortTool

@DefaultKey(value="sorter")
public class SortTool
extends java.lang.Object

SortTool allows a user to sort a collection (or array, iterator, etc) on any arbitary set of properties exposed by the objects contained within the collection.

The sort tool is specifically designed to use within a #foreach but you may find other uses for it.

The sort tool can handle all of the collection types supported by #foreach and the same constraints apply as well as the following. Every object in the collection must support the set of properties selected to sort on. Each property which is to be sorted on must return one of the follow:

• Primitive type: e.g. int, char, long etc
• Standard Object: e.g. String, Integer, Long etc
• Object which implements the Comparable interface.

During the sort operation all properties are compared by calling compareTo() with the exception of Strings for which compareToIgnoreCase() is called.

The sort is performed by calling Collections.sort() after marshalling the collection to sort into an appropriate collection type. The original collection will not be re-ordered; a new list containing the sorted elements will always be returned.

The tool is used as follows:

 Single Property Sort
 #foreach($obj in $sorter.sort($objects, "name"))
   $obj.name Ordinal= $obj.ordinal
 #end
 End

 Multiple Property Sort
 #foreach($obj in $sorter.sort($objects, ["name", "ordinal"]))
   $obj.name, $obj.ordinal
 #end
 End
 

The sort method takes two parameters a collection and a property name or an array of property names. The property names and corresponding methods must conform to java bean standards since commons-beanutils is used to extract the property values.

By default the sort tool sorts ascending, you can override this by adding a sort type suffix to any property name.

The supported suffixes are:

 For ascending
 :asc
 For descending
 :desc

 Example
 #foreach($obj in $sorter.sort($objects, ["name:asc", "ordinal:desc"]))
   $obj.name, $obj.ordinal
 #end
 

This will sort first by Name in ascending order and then by Ordinal in descending order, of course you could have left the :asc off of the 'Name' property as ascending is always the default.

 Example tools.xml config (if you want to use this with VelocityView):
 <tools>
   <toolbox scope="application">
     <tool class="org.apache.velocity.tools.generic.SortTool"/>
   </toolbox>
 </tools>
 

Since:

VelocityTools 1.2

Version:

$Id: SortTool.java 564672 2007-08-10 16:50:04Z nbubna $

Author:

S. Brett Sutton, Nathan Bubna

Nested Class Summary

static class

SortTool.PropertiesComparator Does all of the comparisons

Constructor Summary

SortTool()

Method Summary

protected static java.lang.Comparable	getComparable(java.lang.Object object, java.lang.String property) Safely retrieves the comparable value for the specified property from the specified object.
protected java.util.Collection	internalSort(java.util.List list, java.util.List properties)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.util.Collection collection)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.util.Collection collection, java.util.List properties)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.util.Map map)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.util.Map map, java.util.List properties)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.lang.Object[] array)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.lang.Object[] array, java.util.List properties)
java.util.Collection	sort(java.lang.Object object, java.lang.String property) Sorts the collection on a single property.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

SortTool

public SortTool()

Method Detail

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.util.Collection collection)

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.lang.Object[] array)

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.util.Map map)

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.lang.Object object,
                                 java.lang.String property)

Sorts the collection on a single property.

Parameters:

object - the collection to be sorted.

property - the property to sort on.

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.util.Collection collection,
                                 java.util.List properties)

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.util.Map map,
                                 java.util.List properties)

sort

public java.util.Collection sort(java.lang.Object[] array,
                                 java.util.List properties)

internalSort

protected java.util.Collection internalSort(java.util.List list,
                                            java.util.List properties)

getComparable

protected static java.lang.Comparable getComparable(java.lang.Object object,
                                                    java.lang.String property)

Safely retrieves the comparable value for the specified property from the specified object. Subclasses that wish to perform more advanced, efficient, or just different property retrieval methods should override this method to do so.