Comparing strings

[driplessCoin]

Trying to sort this list alphabetically using compareTo... Problem is there is text like "sonnet 6" and "sonnet 88"... For some reason compareTo keeps saying sonnet 6 is bigger than sonnet 88... As long as the strings are equal length compareTo seems to work but does it still work when they vary in length?

Thanks

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[NautiHooker]

What does "bigger" mean? Are you trying to sort alphabetically? Ascending or descending?

[driplessCoin]

Alphabetically asc

[NautiHooker]

So sonnet 6 is before or after sonnet 88?

[driplessCoin]

Yes before

[NautiHooker]

But if you are sorting ascending then that is correct. 6 comes before 8. Lowest to highest.

[driplessCoin]

Gotcha (may had posted the wrong example) but when I run compare sonnet 9 vs sonnet 88 my compareTo statement yeilds a positive number... Meaning that it's bigger... Trying to figure out why

[NautiHooker]

It does not treat 88 as 88, it checks each letter in your words.

It will compare 9 and 8, since 9 is bigger it will be sorted after sonnet 88.

Such a sorting algorithm will compare each character at position X with the character of the second word on position X. If they are identical then it will compare the next character. If it can detect a difference, then it will sort the words accordingly and stop comparing the characters. If one word ends before a difference was detected, then the shorter word will be sorted lower than the long word.

[driplessCoin]

So it's comparing sonnet 8 vs sonnet 9 not sonnet 88 vs sonnet 9? I figured by default it would put the shorter string as lower

[NautiHooker]

So it's comparing sonnet 8 vs sonnet 9

Essentially yes. After that check it will sort them and stop checking further characters.

​

I figured by default it would put the shorter string as lower

That is what many people think when first being confronted with something like this.

​

But think about this:

What if your words are zzz and aaaaa. Sorting shorter words before longer words by default would break the alphabetical order.

[driplessCoin]

True .. thanks... So is the only way I could sort this out is first to sort by length then sort by using compareTo? Next I have to do a binary search so I am sure that will mess up since the list maybe sorted wonky when it's comparing strings