Android how to sort JSONArray of JSONObjects

Question

I have made a jsonarray of jsonobjects. Now I need to sort the JSONArray on base of a value from the jsonobjects. Formerly I sorted ArrayLists of custom objects like this:

Comparators:

public class KreeftenComparatorLA implements Comparator<Kreeft> {
    public int compare(Kreeft left, Kreeft right) {
        return left.latijnseNaam.compareTo(right.latijnseNaam);
    }
}
public class KreeftenComparatorNL implements Comparator<Kreeft> {
    public int compare(Kreeft left, Kreeft right) {
        return left.naam.compareTo(right.naam);
    }
}

And then sort the arraylist:

Collections.sort(db.lijst, new KreeftenComparatorLA());

or:

Collections.sort(db.lijst, new KreeftenComparatorNL());

But when I try the same thing with the JSONArray like this (JA = my jsonarray)

Collections.sort(JA, new KreeftenComparatorNL());

the Collections.sort gives an error:

The method sort(List, Comparator) in the type Collections is not applicable for the arguments (JSONArray, ThisActicity.KreeftenComparatorNL)

Does anybody know how to sort the JSONArray?

possible dupe of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4833084/is-there-any-easy-way-to-sort-a-jsonarray-of-objects-by-an-attribute-in-android?rq=1 — petey, Oct 15 '12 at 18:31
Consider this: If you can sort before you build the JsonArray do that. You may also sort it in the JavaScript later on. I think building a list from the JsonArray, sorting the list, then rebuild the JsonArray is quite terrible :) — Christophe Roussy, Feb 18 '16 at 11:39

score 41 · Accepted Answer · edited May 07 '15 at 17:27

The issue is that JSONArray more or less holds JSONObjects (and other JSONArrays) which ultimately are strings. Deserializing the strings entirely into POJOs, sorting those, then back into JSON is fairly heavy.

The second issue is that a JSONArray can contain: Boolean, JSONArray, JSONObject, Number, String, or the JSONObject.NULL object; i.e. it is mixed types, making it hard to just dump the elements into a List of some type and sort that, then pass through the list dumping sorted items back into the JSON array. the only certain way to get a common type of each element from the JSONArray is using the Object get() method.. of course then all you have is Object objects and won't be able to do any meaningful sorting on them without revisiting the serialization issue.

Assuming your JSONArray contains homogeneously structured values, you could iterate through the JSONArray, calling one of the typed get() methods on each one, dumping them into a List type, then sorting on that. If your JSONArray just holds "simple" type like String or numbers, this is relatively easy. This isn't exact code but something like:

List<String> jsonValues = new ArrayList<String>();
for (int i = 0; i < myJsonArray.length(); i++)
   jsonValues.add(myJsonArray.getString(i));
Collections.sort(jsonValues);
JSONArray sortedJsonArray = new JSONArray(jsonValues);

Of course, if you have nested objects this can get a little trickier. If the value(s) you want to sort on live in the top level, it may not be soo bad...

List<JSONObject> jsonValues = new ArrayList<JSONObject>();
for (int i = 0; i < myJsonArray.length(); i++)
   jsonValues.add(myJsonArray.getJSONObject(i));

Then use a comparator like this to sort:

class JSONComparator implements Comparator<JSONObject>
{

    public int compare(JSONObject a, JSONObject b)
    {
        //valA and valB could be any simple type, such as number, string, whatever
        String valA = a.get("keyOfValueToSortBy");
        String valB = b.get("keyOfValueToSortBy");

        return valA.compareTo(valB);
        //if your value is numeric:
        //if(valA > valB)
        //    return 1;
        //if(valA < valB)
        //    return -1;
        //return 0;    
    }
}

Again, this makes some assumptions about the homogeneity of the data in your JSONArray. Adjust to your case if possible. Also you will need to add your exception handling, etc. Happy coding!

edit fixed based on comments

This example is close, but it doesn't compile. You can't compare Strings that way due to the fact that Java doesn't have operator overloading. The example should return valA.compareTo(valB). — SoWeLie, Jul 15 '13 at 14:31
but i guess a normal java developer can do it, without google or this — subash, Jun 19 '18 at 19:11
Actually, I m thinking that if what we need the sort is to be able to compare JSonArrays, there should be an efficient way to do that using their hash values... though have not tried it, and to a human, the resulting order would appear to be random. — ntg, Sep 25 '21 at 00:55

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 31 '12 at 20:47

In order to fill up an Android list ArrayAdapter I needed to do just this. This is how I did it:

Activity code building a list from a JSONArray:

JSONArray kids = node.getJSONArray("contents");
kids = JSONUtil.sort(kids, new Comparator(){
   public int compare(Object a, Object b){
      JSONObject    ja = (JSONObject)a;
      JSONObject    jb = (JSONObject)b;
      return ja.optString("name", "").toLowerCase().compareTo(jb.optString("name", "").toLowerCase();
   }
});
// in my case I wanted the original larger object contents sorted...
node.put("contents", kids);

And in JSONUtil (my helper):

public static JSONArray sort(JSONArray array, Comparator c){
    List    asList = new ArrayList(array.length());
    for (int i=0; i<array.length(); i++){
      asList.add(array.opt(i));
    }
    Collections.sort(asList, c);
    JSONArray  res = new JSONArray();
    for (Object o : asList){
      res.put(o);
    }
    return res;
}

Perhaps do this in the adapter itself: http://stackoverflow.com/a/32213875/383761 — Hugh Jeffner, Aug 25 '15 at 20:56

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 18 '16 at 11:25

Just to be clear the code above for the sort comparator is not correct. You can't compare string like you have above as you could in a language like Ruby. This could be written much more succinctly as follows. Otherwise the logic is sound.

Collections.sort( jsonValues, new Comparator<JSONObject>() {
    @Override
    public int compare(JSONObject a, JSONObject b) {
        String valA = new String();
        String valB = new String();

        try {
            valA = (String) a.get("keyOfValueToSortBy");
            valB = (String) b.get("keyOfValueToSortBy");
        } 
        catch (JSONException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "JSONException in combineJSONArrays sort section", e);
        }

        return valA.compareTo(valB);
    }
});

Couldn't you just return valA.compareTo(valB)? – SoWeLie Jul 15 '13 at 14:30 — SoWeLie, Jul 15 '13 at 14:30

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 26 '14 at 13:16

One example with Date field:

public class JsonObjectComparator implements Comparator<JSONObject> {
private final String fieldName;
private Class<? extends Comparable> fieldType;

public JsonObjectComparator(String fieldName, Class<? extends Comparable> fieldType) {
    this.fieldName = fieldName;
    this.fieldType = fieldType;
}    

@Override
public int compare(JSONObject a, JSONObject b) {
    String valA, valB;
    Comparable newInstance_valA, newInstance_valB;
    int comp = 0;
    try {
        Constructor<? extends Comparable> constructor = fieldType.getConstructor(String.class);            
        valA = a.getString(fieldName);
        valB = b.getString(fieldName);
        if (fieldType.equals(Date.class)) {
            SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");
            newInstance_valA = dateFormat.parse(valA);            
            newInstance_valB = dateFormat.parse(valB);
        } else {
            newInstance_valA = constructor.newInstance(valA);            
            newInstance_valB = constructor.newInstance(valB);
        }
        comp = newInstance_valA.compareTo(newInstance_valB);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.println(e.getMessage());
    }

    if(comp > 0)
        return 1;
    if(comp < 0)
        return -1;
    return 0;
  }

}

public static void main(String[] args) throws JSONException {        
    JSONObject o1 = new JSONObject();
    o1.put("key1", "26-06-2014");
    JSONObject o2 = new JSONObject();
    o2.put("key1", "30-11-2011");
    JSONObject o3 = new JSONObject();
    o3.put("key1", "15-07-2014");

    JsonObjectComparator comparator = new JsonObjectComparator("key1", Date.class);
    List<JSONObject> l = new ArrayList<>();
    l.add(o1);
    l.add(o2);
    l.add(o3);

    Collections.sort(l, comparator);
 }

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 25 '15 at 20:54

If you are going to display the data contained in the JSONArray then it may make sense to sort it in the adapter itself. For example, the ArrayAdapter<T> class already has the requisite methods such as Insert, Remove, and of course Sort.

adapter.sort(new Comparator<JSONObject>(){

    @Override
    public int compare(JSONObject arg0, JSONObject arg1) {

        return arg0.optString("SortField", "").compareTo(arg1.optString("SortField","")) ;

    }

});

Aleksandr K · Answer 6 · 2016-06-02T14:05:26.977

//My script
 //HEADER add final variables
    private final int TYPE_STRING = 1;
    private final int TYPE_INT = 2;
    private final int TYPE_DUBLE = 3;


//METHOD GET SORT JSONARRAY
public JSONArray  getSortJSONArray()
{
 JSONArray  json = new JSONArray  ([{"carid":"957502","vin":"XXXXX","carbrand":"CADILLAC","carmodel":"CTS","carname":"CADILLAC CTS седан CTS PERFORMANC 2.0L AWD AK4 2 4WD  AT-6 276 (Л.С.)","carmodificationname":" седан CTS PERFORMANC 2.0L AWD AK4 2 4WD  AT-6 276 (Л.С.)","carcolorname":"Opulent Blue Metallic - ярко-синий металлик","price":"3410000","rgb":"","volumereal":"2,00","power":"276"},{"carid":"957502","vin":"XXXXX","carbrand":"CADILLAC","carmodel":"CTS","carname":"CADILLAC CTS седан CTS PERFORMANC 2.0L AWD AK4 2 4WD  AT-6 276 (Л.С.)","carmodificationname":" седан CTS PERFORMANC 2.0L AWD AK4 2 4WD  AT-6 276 (Л.С.)","carcolorname":"Opulent Blue Metallic - ярко-синий металлик","price":"3460000","rgb":"","volumereal":"1,00","power":"272"}]");

 /*halper - My halper */
   JSONArray sorJsonArray = halper.sort(json, getComparator("power",TYPE_INT));
   return sorJsonArray;
}

private Comparator getComparator(final String tagJSON,final int type)
    {
        Comparator c =  new Comparator()
        {
            public int compare(Object a, Object b)
            {


                try
                {
                    JSONObject    ja = (JSONObject)a;
                    JSONObject    jb = (JSONObject)b;

                    switch (type)
                    {
                        case TYPE_STRING:// String
                          return ja.optString(tagJSON, "")
                                                .toLowerCase()
                                                .compareTo(jb.optString(tagJSON, "").toLowerCase());
                        case TYPE_INT:// int
                            int valA =  ja.getInt(tagJSON);
                            int valB =  jb.getInt(tagJSON);
                            if(valA > valB)
                                return 1;
                            if(valA < valB)
                                return -1;

                        case TYPE_DUBLE:// double
                            String v1 = ja.getString(tagJSON).replace(",",".");
                            String v2 = jb.getString(tagJSON).replace(",",".");

                            double valAd = new Double(v1);// ja.getDouble(tagJSON);
                            double valBd = new Double(v2);//  jb.getDouble(tagJSON);
                            if(valAd > valBd)
                                return 1;
                            if(valAd < valBd)
                                return -1;

                    }
                }
                catch (Exception e)
                {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
                return 0;
            }
        };

        return c;
    }

//My Halper class

public class Halpe {
    public void Halpe(){}

    public static JSONArray sort(JSONArray array, Comparator c)
    {
        List    asList = new ArrayList(array.length());
        for (int i=0; i<array.length(); i++){
            asList.add(array.opt(i));
        }
        Collections.sort(asList, c);
        JSONArray  res = new JSONArray();
        for (Object o : asList){
            res.put(o);
        }
        return res;
    }}

Android how to sort JSONArray of JSONObjects

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