Creating an order within an object

Question

Need some help with this porblem:
I need to create a class that will have to represent some column name and the sequance that it should be order by. For example, a user wants to select specific columns from database in specifc order, for example column1 (2nd order by), column2 (3rd order by), column3 (1st order by). What is the best way for doing this?
I though of this approach, but it does not look like the right approach. (client would have to invoke setOrderBy in correct sequance for as many times as necessary)
public class OrderBy() {
public static final int COLUMN_ONE = 1;
public static final int COLUMN_TWO = 2;
public static final int COLUMN_THREE = 3;
private ArrayList orderBy;
public OrderBy() {
orderBy = new ArrayList();
public void setOrderBy( int columnName ) {
orderBy.add( new Integer( columnName ) );
public ArrayList getOrderBy() {
return orderBy;
Thanks for your help

Answer 1

You want a list of column names to order by. And it looks like that is what you have (except you have a list of column numbers instead of names). All I would change is to name the method addOrderBy() instead of setOrderBy().