Sorting a List containing Symbols?

Question

Hi,
My problem relates to ordering results from a Hibernate query.
I'm using Hibernate to return all records from a specific database table in the form of a List. The query contains an "order by" clause, and so my results look something like this (results ordered firstly alphanumerically, then alphabetically):
1
2
9
A
B
C
Z
The "problem" occurs when I retrieve records that contain symbols. I was hoping that such records would appear at the beginning of my retrieved records, and indeed that is the case for the majority of symbols, i.e.
$
1
2
9
A
B
C
Z
However, for some reason, certain symbols are appearing at the END of my results. So my list of results looks something like this...
$
1
2
9
A
B
C
Z
�
I assume that this ordering is the default one for Oracle.
I want to sort my list of results so that ALL symbols appear at the beginning of the list. I was thinking about using some sort of Comparator, i.e.
List result = Collections.sort(q.list(), new YourComparator());
However, I'm not sure what code would go inside YourComparator() to compare symbols and order them accordingly. Perhaps comparing the ASCII codes might be an idea(?)
Another solution might be to loop through each of my results and add the symbols and "non symbols" to separate lists, then order each list separately and combine them at the end. However this would probably have a major processing overhead.
Any other (simpler) suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If there are non-ASCII characters in your data, ASCII values probably won't do the job. If so, look at some of the static methods of the Character class. You should be able to build your own Comparator.