asked on

Sorting entries in a text file

my problem goes like this:

I have a text file filled with entries that each have a category name and delimiter in front of them, kindof like the following:

Category1::blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah

Category2::blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah

Category1::blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah

and so forth....

I'd like to sort these entries by their categories and print the results to a new text file like this:

Category1

blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah

Category 2

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah

====================================

what would be the easiest way to do this?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

CEHJ

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Mick Barry

is this homework?

SOLUTION

Mayank S

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swp3h6

ASKER

okay, i'll try these things out.

And no its not homework, just work.

CEHJ

StringList sl = new StringList();
sl.read("x.txt");
Collections.sort(sl);
sl.save("sorted-x.txt");

SOLUTION

Mick Barry

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swp3h6

ASKER

Thanks for all the input everyone, but I never got any kind of Collections thing to work for me. I solved the problem by using a 2 dimentional array to sort the entries by category.

Mayank S

That is also possible, but using Collections, you prevent writing a lot of code because you wil use the in-built API :)