Reodering columns in jtable

Question

I want to reorder the column sequence in my jtable. But the number of columns I need to reorder are around 10. So i am trying to use the following
myTable.moveColumn(curIndex, newIndex);
Say I have columns like id, name ,age , ...etc. I want to set age to 1st column, id to 2nd column and so on.
int ageIndex= myTable.getColumn("age").getModelIndex();
myTable.moveColumn(ageIndex, 0);
int idIndex= myTable.getColumn("id").getModelIndex();
myTable.moveColumn(idIndex, 1);
int nameIndex= myTable.getColumn("name").getModelIndex();
myTable.moveColumn(nameIndex, 2);But when I see the final GUI , age is the 3rd column. I believe age is set to 1st column and then the latter ones are moving it. Can you please suggest how this can be avoided.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Below is the code I created to try to understand the behavior of JTable.
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTable;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
public class SimpleTableDemo extends JPanel {
    private boolean DEBUG = true;
    public SimpleTableDemo() {
        super(new GridLayout(1,0));
        String[] columnNames = {"First Name",
                                "Last Name",
                                "Sport",
                                "# of Years",
                                "Vegetarian"};
        Object[][] data = {
         {"Kathy", "Smith",
          "Snowboarding", new Integer(5), new Boolean(false)},
         {"John", "Doe",
          "Rowing", new Integer(3), new Boolean(true)},
         {"Sue", "Black",
          "Knitting", new Integer(2), new Boolean(false)},
         {"Jane", "White",
          "Speed reading", new Integer(20), new Boolean(true)},
         {"Joe", "Brown",
          "Pool", new Integer(10), new Boolean(false)}
        final JTable table = new JTable(data, columnNames);
        table.setPreferredScrollableViewportSize(new Dimension(500, 70));
//        table.setFillsViewportHeight(true);
        if (DEBUG) {
            table.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
                public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
                    printDebugData(table);
        //Create the scroll pane and add the table to it.
        JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(table);
        //Add the scroll pane to this panel.
        add(scrollPane);
        rearrangeColumns(table);
    private void printDebugData(JTable table) {
        int numRows = table.getRowCount();
        int numCols = table.getColumnCount();
        javax.swing.table.TableModel model = table.getModel();
        System.out.println("Value of data: ");
        for (int i=0; i < numRows; i++) {
            System.out.print("    row " + i + ":");
            for (int j=0; j < numCols; j++) {
                System.out.print("  " + model.getValueAt(i, j));
            System.out.println();
        System.out.println("--------------------------");
     * Create the GUI and show it.  For thread safety,
     * this method should be invoked from the
     * event-dispatching thread.
    private static void createAndShowGUI() {
        //Create and set up the window.
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("SimpleTableDemo");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        //Create and set up the content pane.
        SimpleTableDemo newContentPane = new SimpleTableDemo();
        newContentPane.setOpaque(true); //content panes must be opaque
        frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
        //Display the window.
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
        //creating and showing this application's GUI.
        javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                createAndShowGUI();
    private static void rearrangeColumns(JTable table){
         int yearIndex = table.getColumnModel().getColumnIndex("# of Years");
         System.out.println("Removing the column with index :"+yearIndex);
         table.removeColumn(table.getColumn("# of Years"));
         int columnsNumber = table.getColumnCount();
         for(int num = 0 ; num < columnsNumber ; num++){
              String columnName = table.getColumnName(num);
              if(columnName.equalsIgnoreCase("First Name")){
                   table.moveColumn(num, 3);
              }else if (columnName.equalsIgnoreCase("Last Name")) {
                   table.moveColumn(num, 2);
               }else if (columnName.equalsIgnoreCase("Sport")) {
                    table.moveColumn(num, 1);
               }else if (columnName.equalsIgnoreCase("Vegetarian")) {
                    table.moveColumn(num, 0);
}I updated the example from the swing tutorial on the sun site. When I run this example the expectation is that 'Last Name' column should be the 3rd column, but it is displaying as 2nd. Can this inconsistent behavior be explained.
Edited by: snarikvs on Aug 9, 2010 2:46 PM