001/*-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
002|                                                                          |
003| Copyright 2005-2011 The ConQAT Project                                   |
004|                                                                          |
005| Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");          |
006| you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.         |
007| You may obtain a copy of the License at                                  |
008|                                                                          |
009|    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0                            |
010|                                                                          |
011| Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software      |
012| distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,        |
013| WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. |
014| See the License for the specific language governing permissions and      |
015| limitations under the License.                                           |
016+-------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
017package org.conqat.lib.commons.collections;
018
019import java.text.Collator;
020import java.util.Comparator;
021
022/**
023 * This comparator compares objects by their toString() representation.
024 * 
025 * @author deissenb
026 */
027public class ToStringComparator implements Comparator<Object> {
028
029        /** Instance of this comparator. */
030        public static final ToStringComparator INSTANCE = new ToStringComparator();
031
032        /** Collator used for comparing. */
033        private final Collator collator;
034
035        /** Create new comparator based on the default locale's collator. */
036        public ToStringComparator() {
037                collator = Collator.getInstance();
038        }
039
040        /** Create new comparator with specific collator. */
041        public ToStringComparator(Collator collator) {
042                this.collator = collator;
043        }
044
045        /** Compare by toString() representation. */
046        @Override
047        public int compare(Object o1, Object o2) {
048                return collator.compare(o1.toString(), o2.toString());
049        }
050
051}