Sorting ArrayList of Arraylist<String> in java

I feel bad posting this, because List<Contact> would be the much better choice. Something like this would be possible, though:

ArrayList<ArrayList<String>> yourList = ...
Collections.sort(yourList, new Comparator<ArrayList<String>>() {
    @Override
    public int compare(ArrayList<String> one, ArrayList<String> two) {
        return one.get(1).compareTo(two.get(1));
    }
});

You should create a class for your data structure (if you can't, then specify why. I can't see any good reason not to):

public class Contact implements Comparable {
    private String id;
    private String name;
    private String address;
    private String number;

    // Getters and setters, and compareTo.
}

Then use that in your list instead:

List<Contact> contacts = new ArrayList<Contacts>();

Sorting it will then be trivial.

Use the following Comparator:

class MyComparator implements Comparator<ArrayList<String>> {
    private static int indexToCompare = 1;
    @Override
    public int compare(ArrayList<String> o1, ArrayList<String> o2) {
        return o1.get(indexToCompare).compareTo(o2.get(indexToCompare));
    }

}

Here indexToCompare is the index of the arraylist which corresponds to Contact Name. In your case "1"

Comparator / Comparable Interfaces can't help because I don't have any objects.

Incorrect. You do have objects. All of the things you are trying to sort are objects.

If you are trying to sort the ArrayList<String> objects in an ArrayList<ArrayList<String>>, you need to implement a Comparator<ArrayList<String>>. (The Comparable approach is the wrong one for this data structure. You would need to declare a custom subclass of ArrayList ... and that's yuck!)

But a better idea would be to represent your objects with custom classes. In this case, your ArrayList of String should be a custom Contact class with 4 fields, getters and (if required) setters. Then you declare that as implementing Comparable<Contact>, and implement the compareTo method.

Other Answers show how to implement a Comparator based on just one field of the list. That may be sufficient, but it will give you a sort order where the order of a pair of different "John Smith"s would be indeterminate. (I would use a second field as a tie-breaker. The Id field would be ideal if the ids are unique.)

  import java.util.Collections;
  import java.util.Comparator;
  import java.util.List;


  public class ListsUtils {

      public static void sortListOfLists(List < List < String >> listOfLists) {

          // first sort the inner arrays using collections.sort
          for (List < String > innerList: listOfLists) {
              Collections.sort(innerList);
          }

          // now sort by comparing the first string of each inner list using a comparator
          Collections.sort(listOfLists, new ListOfStringsComparator());
      }

      static final class ListOfStringsComparator implements Comparator < List < String >> {

          @
          Override
          public int compare(List < String > o1, List < String > o2) {
              // do other error checks here as well... such as null. outofbounds, etc
              return o1.get(0).compareTo(o2.get(0));
          }

      }
  }

I guess I just assumed you had to sort a list of string arrays... thats why I sorted the list of inner arrays first, then sorted the outer list by comparing the 1st item of each array. Didnt read the contacts you had in your answer.

In that case remove the for loop for sorting the inner list and you should still be able to sort using the comparator, but compare to the right index instead of the 1st element.

Collections.sort(listOfLists, new ListOfStringListComparator());

I think this is a case of not treating collections as first-class objects. Have a new class called "Contact" instead of abstracting it as an ArrayList, and use the Comparator.