Class RuleBasedCollator
- java.lang.Object
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- java.text.Collator
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- java.text.RuleBasedCollator
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- All Implemented Interfaces:
- Cloneable, Comparator<Object>
public class RuleBasedCollator extends Collator
TheRuleBasedCollator
class is a concrete subclass ofCollator
that provides a simple, data-driven, table collator. With this class you can create a customized table-basedCollator
.RuleBasedCollator
maps characters to sort keys.RuleBasedCollator
has the following restrictions for efficiency (other subclasses may be used for more complex languages) :- If a special collation rule controlled by a <modifier> is specified it applies to the whole collator object.
- All non-mentioned characters are at the end of the collation order.
The collation table is composed of a list of collation rules, where each rule is of one of three forms:
<modifier> <relation> <text-argument> <reset> <text-argument>
The definitions of the rule elements is as follows:- Text-Argument: A text-argument is any sequence of characters, excluding special characters (that is, common whitespace characters [0009-000D, 0020] and rule syntax characters [0021-002F, 003A-0040, 005B-0060, 007B-007E]). If those characters are desired, you can put them in single quotes (e.g. ampersand => '&'). Note that unquoted white space characters are ignored; e.g.
b c
is treated asbc
. - Modifier: There are currently two modifiers that turn on special collation rules.
- '@' : Turns on backwards sorting of accents (secondary differences), as in French.
- '!' : Turns on Thai/Lao vowel-consonant swapping. If this rule is in force when a Thai vowel of the range \U0E40-\U0E44 precedes a Thai consonant of the range \U0E01-\U0E2E OR a Lao vowel of the range \U0EC0-\U0EC4 precedes a Lao consonant of the range \U0E81-\U0EAE then the vowel is placed after the consonant for collation purposes.
'@' : Indicates that accents are sorted backwards, as in French.
- Relation: The relations are the following:
- '<' : Greater, as a letter difference (primary)
- ';' : Greater, as an accent difference (secondary)
- ',' : Greater, as a case difference (tertiary)
- '=' : Equal
- Reset: There is a single reset which is used primarily for contractions and expansions, but which can also be used to add a modification at the end of a set of rules.
'&' : Indicates that the next rule follows the position to where the reset text-argument would be sorted.
This sounds more complicated than it is in practice. For example, the following are equivalent ways of expressing the same thing:
a < b < c a < b & b < c a < c & a < b
a < b & a < c a < c & a < b
Ignorable Characters
For ignorable characters, the first rule must start with a relation (the examples we have used above are really fragments; "a < b" really should be "< a < b"). If, however, the first relation is not "<", then all the all text-arguments up to the first "<" are ignorable. For example, ", - < a < b" makes "-" an ignorable character, as we saw earlier in the word "black-birds". In the samples for different languages, you see that most accents are ignorable.
Normalization and Accents
RuleBasedCollator
automatically processes its rule table to include both pre-composed and combining-character versions of accented characters. Even if the provided rule string contains only base characters and separate combining accent characters, the pre-composed accented characters matching all canonical combinations of characters from the rule string will be entered in the table.This allows you to use a RuleBasedCollator to compare accented strings even when the collator is set to NO_DECOMPOSITION. There are two caveats, however. First, if the strings to be collated contain combining sequences that may not be in canonical order, you should set the collator to CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION or FULL_DECOMPOSITION to enable sorting of combining sequences. Second, if the strings contain characters with compatibility decompositions (such as full-width and half-width forms), you must use FULL_DECOMPOSITION, since the rule tables only include canonical mappings.
Errors
The following are errors:
- A text-argument contains unquoted punctuation symbols (e.g. "a < b-c < d").
- A relation or reset character not followed by a text-argument (e.g. "a < ,b").
- A reset where the text-argument (or an initial substring of the text-argument) is not already in the sequence. (e.g. "a < b & e < f")
RuleBasedCollator
throws aParseException
.Examples
Simple: "< a < b < c < d"
Norwegian: "< a, A < b, B < c, C < d, D < e, E < f, F < g, G < h, H < i, I < j, J < k, K < l, L < m, M < n, N < o, O < p, P < q, Q < r, R < s, S < t, T < u, U < v, V < w, W < x, X < y, Y < z, Z < \u00E6, \u00C6 < \u00F8, \u00D8 < \u00E5 = a\u030A, \u00C5 = A\u030A; aa, AA"
To create a
RuleBasedCollator
object with specialized rules tailored to your needs, you construct theRuleBasedCollator
with the rules contained in aString
object. For example:String simple = "< a< b< c< d"; RuleBasedCollator mySimple = new RuleBasedCollator(simple);
String Norwegian = "< a, A < b, B < c, C < d, D < e, E < f, F < g, G < h, H < i, I" + "< j, J < k, K < l, L < m, M < n, N < o, O < p, P < q, Q < r, R" + "< s, S < t, T < u, U < v, V < w, W < x, X < y, Y < z, Z" + "< \u00E6, \u00C6" + // Latin letter ae & AE "< \u00F8, \u00D8" + // Latin letter o & O with stroke "< \u00E5 = a\u030A," + // Latin letter a with ring above " \u00C5 = A\u030A;" + // Latin letter A with ring above " aa, AA"; RuleBasedCollator myNorwegian = new RuleBasedCollator(Norwegian);
A new collation rules string can be created by concatenating rules strings. For example, the rules returned by
getRules()
could be concatenated to combine multipleRuleBasedCollator
s.The following example demonstrates how to change the order of non-spacing accents,
// old rule String oldRules = "=\u0301;\u0300;\u0302;\u0308" // main accents + ";\u0327;\u0303;\u0304;\u0305" // main accents + ";\u0306;\u0307;\u0309;\u030A" // main accents + ";\u030B;\u030C;\u030D;\u030E" // main accents + ";\u030F;\u0310;\u0311;\u0312" // main accents + "< a , A ; ae, AE ; \u00e6 , \u00c6" + "< b , B < c, C < e, E & C < d, D"; // change the order of accent characters String addOn = "& \u0300 ; \u0308 ; \u0302"; RuleBasedCollator myCollator = new RuleBasedCollator(oldRules + addOn);
- See Also:
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Collator
,CollationElementIterator
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Field Summary
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Fields inherited from class java.text.Collator
CANONICAL_DECOMPOSITION, FULL_DECOMPOSITION, IDENTICAL, NO_DECOMPOSITION, PRIMARY, SECONDARY, TERTIARY
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Constructor Summary
Constructors Constructor and Description RuleBasedCollator(String rules)
RuleBasedCollator constructor.
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Method Summary
All Methods Instance Methods Concrete Methods Modifier and Type Method and Description Object
clone()
Standard override; no change in semantics.int
compare(String source, String target)
Compares the character data stored in two different strings based on the collation rules.boolean
equals(Object obj)
Compares the equality of two collation objects.CollationElementIterator
getCollationElementIterator(CharacterIterator source)
Returns a CollationElementIterator for the given CharacterIterator.CollationElementIterator
getCollationElementIterator(String source)
Returns a CollationElementIterator for the given String.CollationKey
getCollationKey(String source)
Transforms the string into a series of characters that can be compared with CollationKey.compareTo.String
getRules()
Gets the table-based rules for the collation object.int
hashCode()
Generates the hash code for the table-based collation object-
Methods inherited from class java.text.Collator
compare, equals, getAvailableLocales, getDecomposition, getInstance, getInstance, getStrength, setDecomposition, setStrength
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Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object
finalize, getClass, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait
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Methods inherited from interface java.util.Comparator
comparing, comparing, comparingDouble, comparingInt, comparingLong, naturalOrder, nullsFirst, nullsLast, reversed, reverseOrder, thenComparing, thenComparing, thenComparing, thenComparingDouble, thenComparingInt, thenComparingLong
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Constructor Detail
RuleBasedCollator
public RuleBasedCollator(String rules) throws ParseException
RuleBasedCollator constructor. This takes the table rules and builds a collation table out of them. Please see RuleBasedCollator class description for more details on the collation rule syntax.- Parameters:
-
rules
- the collation rules to build the collation table from. - Throws:
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ParseException
- A format exception will be thrown if the build process of the rules fails. For example, build rule "a < ? < d" will cause the constructor to throw the ParseException because the '?' is not quoted. - See Also:
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Locale
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Method Detail
getRules
public String getRules()
Gets the table-based rules for the collation object.- Returns:
- returns the collation rules that the table collation object was created from.
getCollationElementIterator
public CollationElementIterator getCollationElementIterator(String source)
Returns a CollationElementIterator for the given String.- Parameters:
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source
- the string to be collated - Returns:
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a
CollationElementIterator
object - See Also:
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CollationElementIterator
getCollationElementIterator
public CollationElementIterator getCollationElementIterator(CharacterIterator source)
Returns a CollationElementIterator for the given CharacterIterator.- Parameters:
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source
- the character iterator to be collated - Returns:
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a
CollationElementIterator
object - Since:
- 1.2
- See Also:
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CollationElementIterator
compare
public int compare(String source, String target)
Compares the character data stored in two different strings based on the collation rules. Returns information about whether a string is less than, greater than or equal to another string in a language. This can be overriden in a subclass.- Specified by:
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compare
in classCollator
- 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.
- Throws:
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NullPointerException
- ifsource
ortarget
is null. - See Also:
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CollationKey
,Collator.getCollationKey(java.lang.String)
getCollationKey
public CollationKey getCollationKey(String source)
Transforms the string into a series of characters that can be compared with CollationKey.compareTo. This overrides java.text.Collator.getCollationKey. It can be overriden in a subclass.- Specified by:
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getCollationKey
in classCollator
- Parameters:
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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:
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CollationKey
,Collator.compare(java.lang.String, java.lang.String)
clone
public Object clone()
Standard override; no change in semantics.
equals
public boolean equals(Object obj)
Compares the equality of two collation objects.- Specified by:
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equals
in interfaceComparator<Object>
- Overrides:
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equals
in classCollator
- Parameters:
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obj
- the table-based collation object to be compared with this. - Returns:
- true if the current table-based collation object is the same as the table-based collation object obj; false otherwise.
- See Also:
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Object.hashCode()
,HashMap
hashCode
public int hashCode()
Generates the hash code for the table-based collation object- Specified by:
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hashCode
in classCollator
- Returns:
- a hash code value for this object.
- See Also:
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Object.equals(java.lang.Object)
,System.identityHashCode(java.lang.Object)
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