Sort a tableview column containing a date

Question

This is my second request to find more info on handling dates javafx2, no replies to the first so am trying again.
I am a relative "newby" to java, FX2 has so many compelling features I really want to use it.
Displaying and sorting on dates seems like such a fundamental requirement that I am surprised that I can't find any examples anywhere on handing dates in a tableview.
This would be so easy to do in Cocoa with the "date formatter" so apologies if I am missing something obvious.
If I use a formatted date the column sorts on the text not on the actual date.
eg. starting with
06/01/2012
08/01/2011
07/01/2012
sorting ascending gives
06/01/2012
07/01/2012
08/01/2011
and descending
08/01/2011
07/01/2012
06/01/2012
both wrong!
Same issue if I use a calendar in the cells.
Hope the answer is not to have a separate column for day, month and year.

Answer 1

Hi wornish,
TableView sort can be customized as per our needs. A sample example of Date is given here:
Currently Let's suppose that you are displaying data of "Date" in String form using SimpleDateFormat class.
TableView<Date> view = new TableView<Date>();
TableColumn<Date,String> col = new TableColumn<Date,String>("Date");
col.setComparator(new Comparator<String>(){
     @Override
     public int compare(String t, String t1) {
        try{
          SimpleDateFormat format =new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-YYYY");
          Date d1 =format.parse(t);               
          Date d2 = format.parse(t1);
          return Long.compare(d1.getTime(),d2.getTime());
        }catch(ParseException p){
             p.printStackTrace();
        return -1;
col.setCellValueFactory(new Callback<CellDataFeatures<Date, String>, ObservableValue<String>>() {
     @Override
     public ObservableValue<String> call(CellDataFeatures<Date, String> param) {
          SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("MM-dd-YYYY");
          return new SimpleObjectProperty(format.format(param.getValue()));
        Thanks
Narayan