implementing comprable method in a generic way in Java for sorting

Question

I am trying to implement a generic selection sort which can take any objects and do the sorting on it. I can promise to the compiler that whatever objects I am comparing, has the compareTo method implemented for it. But I get compile error for the following code

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;


public class SelectionSortGenerics implements Comparable<E> {

    private <E> void swap(E[] a, int i, int j) {
        if (i != j) {
            E temp = a[i];
            a[i] = a[j];
            a[j] = temp;
        }
    }

    public <E> void selectionSort(E[] a) {
        for (int i = 0; i < a.length - 1; i++) {
            // find index of smallest element
            int smallest = i;
            for (int j = i + 1; j < a.length; j++) {
                if (a[j].compareTo(a[smallest])<=0) {
                    smallest = j;
                }
            }

            swap(a, i, smallest);  // swap smallest to front
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){
        SelectionSortGenerics firstsort = new SelectionSortGenerics();

        Integer[] arr = {3,4,1,5};
        System.out.println("before sorting int: "+ Arrays.toString(arr));
        firstsort.selectionSort(arr);
        System.out.println("After sorting int : "+Arrays.toString(arr));
         String[] arr1= {"acd","ded","dal","bad","cle"};
         System.out.println("before sorting String: "+ Arrays.toString(arr1));
         firstsort.selectionSort(arr1);
         System.out.println("After sorting String : "+Arrays.toString(arr1));
         Character[] arr2= {'c','e','a','d','c'};
         System.out.println("before sorting char: "+ Arrays.toString(arr2));
         firstsort.selectionSort(arr2);
         System.out.println("After sorting char : "+Arrays.toString(arr2));
    }
}

As you can see, the objects I am passing in main method are Integer, String and Character, which has compareTo methods. how would make the above code work. Anywhere, casting is needed? Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

The following works for me. All I did was remove the <E> in the class declaration and changed <E> to <E extends Comparable<E>> in selectionSort.

The generic <E> in the class declaration is unnecessary and potentially confusing since your class doesn't actually need to be generic. Only the methods in the class are generic, not the class itself.

Second, the selectionSort method requires the element type passed in to be comparable to itself. You can represent this by E extends Comparable<E>.

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;


public class SelectionSortGenerics {

    private <E> void swap(E[] a, int i, int j) {
        if (i != j) {
            E temp = a[i];
            a[i] = a[j];
            a[j] = temp;
        }
    }

    public <E extends Comparable<E>> void selectionSort(E[] a) {
        for (int i = 0; i < a.length - 1; i++) {
            // find index of smallest element
            int smallest = i;
            for (int j = i + 1; j < a.length; j++) {
                if (a[j].compareTo(a[smallest])<=0) {
                    smallest = j;
                }
            }

            swap(a, i, smallest);  // swap smallest to front
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){
        SelectionSortGenerics firstsort = new SelectionSortGenerics();

        Integer[] arr = {3,4,1,5};
        System.out.println("before sorting int: "+ Arrays.toString(arr));
        firstsort.selectionSort(arr);
        System.out.println("After sorting int : "+Arrays.toString(arr));
         String[] arr1= {"acd","ded","dal","bad","cle"};
         System.out.println("before sorting String: "+ Arrays.toString(arr1));
         firstsort.selectionSort(arr1);
         System.out.println("After sorting String : "+Arrays.toString(arr1));
         Character[] arr2= {'c','e','a','d','c'};
         System.out.println("before sorting char: "+ Arrays.toString(arr2));
         firstsort.selectionSort(arr2);
         System.out.println("After sorting char : "+Arrays.toString(arr2));
    }
}