Class java.text.Collator
All Packages Class Hierarchy This Package Previous Next Index
Class java.text.Collator
Object
|
+----java.text.Collator
- public abstract class Collator
- extends Object
- implements Cloneable, Serializable
The Collator
class performs locale-sensitive
String
comparison. You use this class to build
searching and sorting routines for natural language text.
Collator
is an abstract base class. Subclasses
implement specific collation strategies. One subclass,
RuleBasedCollator
, is currently provided with
the JDK and is applicable to a wide set of languages. Other
subclasses may be created to handle more specialized needs.
Like other locale-sensitive classes, you can use the static
factory method, getInstance
, to obtain the appropriate
Collator
object for a given locale. You will only need
to look at the subclasses of Collator
if you need
to understand the details of a particular collation strategy or
if you need to modify that strategy.
The following example shows how to compare two strings using
the Collator
for the default locale.
// Compare two strings in the default locale
Collator myCollator = Collator.getInstance();
if( myCollator.compare("abc", "ABC") < 0 )
System.out.println("abc is less than ABC");
else
System.out.println("abc is greater than or equal to ABC");
You can set a Collator
's strength property
to determine the level of difference considered significant in
comparisons. Four strengths are provided: PRIMARY
,
SECONDARY
, TERTIARY
, and IDENTICAL
.
The exact assignment of strengths to language features is
locale dependant. For example, in Czech, "e" and "f" are considered
primary differences, while "e" and "ê" are secondary differences,
"e" and "E" are tertiary differences and "e" and "e" are identical.
The following shows how both case and accents could be ignored for
US English.
//Get the Collator for US English and set its strength to PRIMARY
Collator usCollator = Collator.getInstance(Locale.US);
usCollator.setStrength(Collator.PRIMARY);
if( usCollator.compare("abc", "ABC") == 0 ) {
System.out.println("Strings are equivalent");
}
For comparing String
s exactly once, the compare
method provides the best performance. When sorting a list of
String
s however, it is generally necessary to compare each
String
multiple times. In this case, CollationKey
s
provide better performance. The CollationKey
class converts
a String
to a series of bits that can be compared bitwise
against other CollationKey
s. A CollationKey
is
created by a Collator
object for a given String
.
Note: CollationKey
s from different
Collator
s can not be compared. See the class description
for CollationKey
for an example using CollationKey
s.
- Version:
- 1.14 08/19/98
- Author:
- Helena Shih
- See Also:
- RuleBasedCollator, CollationKey, CollationElementIterator, Locale
-
CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION
- Decomposition mode value.
-
FULL_DECOMPOSITION
- Decomposition mode value.
-
IDENTICAL
- Collator strength value.
-
NO_DECOMPOSITION
- Decomposition mode value.
-
PRIMARY
- Collator strength value.
-
SECONDARY
- Collator strength value.
-
TERTIARY
- Collator strength value.
-
java.text.Collator()
- Default constructor.
-
clone()
- Overrides Cloneable
-
compare(String, String)
- Compares the source string to the target string according to the
collation rules for this Collator.
-
equals(String, String)
- Convenience method for comparing the equality of two strings based on
this Collator's collation rules.
-
equals(Object)
- Compares the equality of two Collators.
-
getAvailableLocales()
- Get the set of Locales for which Collators are installed.
-
getCollationKey(String)
- Transforms the String into a series of bits that can be compared bitwise
to other CollationKeys.
-
getDecomposition()
- Get the decomposition mode of this Collator.
-
getInstance()
- Gets the Collator for the current default locale.
-
getInstance(Locale)
- Gets the Collator for the desired locale.
-
getStrength()
- Returns this Collator's strength property.
-
hashCode()
- Generates the hash code for this Collator.
-
setDecomposition(int)
- Set the decomposition mode of this Collator.
-
setStrength(int)
- Sets this Collator's strength property.
CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION
public static final int CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION
- Decomposition mode value. With CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION
set, characters that are canonical variants according to Unicode 2.0
will be decomposed for collation. This is the default setting and
should be used to get correct collation of accented characters.
- See Also:
- getDecomposition, setDecomposition
FULL_DECOMPOSITION
public static final int FULL_DECOMPOSITION
- Decomposition mode value. With FULL_DECOMPOSITION
set, both Unicode canonical variants and Unicode compatibility variants
will be decomposed for collation. This causes not only accented
characters to be collated, but also characters that have special formats
to be collated with their norminal form. For example, the half-width and
full-width ASCII and Katakana characters are then collated together.
FULL_DECOMPOSITION is the most complete and therefore the slowest
decomposition mode.
- See Also:
- getDecomposition, setDecomposition
IDENTICAL
public static final int IDENTICAL
- Collator strength value. When set, all differences are
considered significant during comparison. The assignment of strengths
to language features is locale dependant. A common example is for control
characters ("\u0001" vs "\u0002") to be considered equal at the
PRIMARY, SECONDARY, and TERTIARY levels but different at the IDENTICAL
level. Additionally, differences between pre-composed accents such as
"\u00C0" (A-grave) and combining accents such as "A\u0300"
(A, combining-grave) will be considered significant at the tertiary
level if decomposition is set to NO_DECOMPOSITION.
NO_DECOMPOSITION
public static final int NO_DECOMPOSITION
- Decomposition mode value. With NO_DECOMPOSITION
set, accented characters will not be decomposed for collation. This
provides the fastest collation but will only produce correct results
for languages that do not use accents.
- See Also:
- getDecomposition, setDecomposition
PRIMARY
public static final int PRIMARY
- Collator strength value. When set, only PRIMARY differences are
considered significant during comparison. The assignment of strengths
to language features is locale dependant. A common example is for
different base letters ("a" vs "b") to be considered a PRIMARY difference.
- See Also:
- setStrength, getStrength
SECONDARY
public static final int SECONDARY
- Collator strength value. When set, only SECONDARY and above differences are
considered significant during comparison. The assignment of strengths
to language features is locale dependant. A common example is for
different accented forms of the same base letter ("a" vs "ä") to be
considered a SECONDARY difference.
- See Also:
- setStrength, getStrength
TERTIARY
public static final int TERTIARY
- Collator strength value. When set, only TERTIARY and above differences are
considered significant during comparison. The assignment of strengths
to language features is locale dependant. A common example is for
case differences ("a" vs "A") to be considered a TERTIARY difference.
- See Also:
- setStrength, getStrength
Collator
protected Collator()
- Default constructor. This constructor is
protected so subclasses can get access to it. Users typically create
a Collator sub-class by calling the factory method getInstance.
- See Also:
- getInstance
clone
public java.lang.Object clone()
- Overrides Cloneable
- Overrides:
- clone in class Object
compare
public abstract int compare(String source,
String target)
- Compares the source string to the target string according to the
collation rules for this Collator. Returns an integer less than,
equal to or greater than zero depending on whether the source String is
less than, equal to or greater than the target string. See the Collator
class description for an example of use.
For a one time comparison, this method has the best performance. If a
given String will be involved in multiple comparisons, CollationKey.compareTo
has the best performance. See the Collator class description for an example
using CollationKeys.
- Parameters:
- source - the source string.
- target - the target string.
- Returns:
- Returns an integer value. Value is less than zero if source is less than
target, value is zero if source and target are equal, value is greater than zero
if source is greater than target.
- See Also:
- CollationKey, getCollationKey
equals
public boolean equals(String source,
String target)
- Convenience method for comparing the equality of two strings based on
this Collator's collation rules.
- Parameters:
- source - the source string to be compared with.
- target - the target string to be compared with.
- Returns:
- true if the strings are equal according to the collation
rules. false, otherwise.
- See Also:
- compare
equals
public boolean equals(Object that)
- Compares the equality of two Collators.
- Parameters:
- that - the Collator to be compared with this.
- Returns:
- true if this Collator is the same as that Collator;
false otherwise.
- Overrides:
- equals in class Object
getAvailableLocales
public static synchronized java.util.Locale[] getAvailableLocales()
- Get the set of Locales for which Collators are installed.
- Returns:
- the list of available locales which collators are installed.
getCollationKey
public abstract java.text.CollationKey getCollationKey(String source)
- Transforms the String into a series of bits that can be compared bitwise
to other CollationKeys. CollationKeys provide better performance than
Collator.compare when Strings are involved in multiple comparisons.
See the Collator class description for an example using CollationKeys.
- Parameters:
- source - the string to be transformed into a collation key.
- Returns:
- the CollationKey for the given String based on this Collator's collation
rules. If the source String is null, a null CollationKey is returned.
- See Also:
- CollationKey, compare
getDecomposition
public synchronized int getDecomposition()
- Get the decomposition mode of this Collator. Decomposition mode
determines how Unicode composed characters are handled. Adjusting
decomposition mode allows the user to select between faster and more
complete collation behavior.
The three values for decomposition mode are:
- NO_DECOMPOSITION,
- CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION
- FULL_DECOMPOSITION.
See the documentation for these three constants for a description
of their meaning.
- Returns:
- the decomposition mode
- See Also:
- setDecomposition, NO_DECOMPOSITION, CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION, FULL_DECOMPOSITION
getInstance
public static synchronized java.text.Collator getInstance()
- Gets the Collator for the current default locale.
The default locale is determined by java.util.Locale.getDefault.
- Returns:
- the Collator for the default locale.(for example, en_US)
- See Also:
- getDefault
getInstance
public static synchronized java.text.Collator getInstance(Locale desiredLocale)
- Gets the Collator for the desired locale.
- Parameters:
- desiredLocale - the desired locale.
- Returns:
- the Collator for the desired locale.
- See Also:
- Locale, ResourceBundle
getStrength
public synchronized int getStrength()
- Returns this Collator's strength property. The strength property determines
the minimum level of difference considered significant during comparison.
See the Collator class description for an example of use.
- Returns:
- this Collator's current strength property.
- See Also:
- setStrength, PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY, IDENTICAL
hashCode
public abstract int hashCode()
- Generates the hash code for this Collator.
- Overrides:
- hashCode in class Object
setDecomposition
public synchronized void setDecomposition(int decompositionMode)
- Set the decomposition mode of this Collator. See getDecomposition
for a description of decomposition mode.
- Parameters:
- the - new decomposition mode
- Throws: IllegalArgumentException
- If the given value is not a valid decomposition
mode.
- See Also:
- getDecomposition, NO_DECOMPOSITION, CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION, FULL_DECOMPOSITION
setStrength
public synchronized void setStrength(int newStrength)
- Sets this Collator's strength property. The strength property determines
the minimum level of difference considered significant during comparison.
See the Collator class description for an example of use.
- Parameters:
- the - new strength value.
- Throws: IllegalArgumentException
- If the new strength value is not one of
PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY or IDENTICAL.
- See Also:
- getStrength, PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY, IDENTICAL
All Packages Class Hierarchy This Package Previous Next Index