Quote:
Originally Posted by mia023
How do we compare objects in java? for example if we have a student class and we want to compare their last names and sort them
If there is a
natural ordering you can have the class implement Comparable:
Comparable API
And in general, you can define a Comparator:
Comparator API
Despite their similar names, don't confuse them. For example, String is Comparable, because there is a natural ordering on Strings; the String class also provides the Comparator CASE_INISENSITIVE_ORDER to allow you to compare pairs of string, ignoring their case.
CASE_INSENSITIVE_ORDER API
Also, check out Sun's tutorial on this:
Collection Algorithms 
