Very strange bug with compareTo: returning incorrect results

Question

Hello everyone! I have used the method compareTo many times to maintain my database project's entries. However recently I have discovered a bug, in which:
a and b both being Storage type objects:
private static class Storage {
object data
int nextData //an array stores the Storage objects
int previousData //this uses an integer to locate previous in array
Problem:
((Comparable)(a.data)).compareTo((Comparable)(b.data)) returns a 3, when a.data is clearly 5, and b.data is clearly 20.
This is very strange, as the compareTo should return a -1 instead of a positive number. Is this a known bug with the compareTo method? I have been using it reliably for many programs but this is the first time it ever occurs to me.

Answer 1

Problem:
((Comparable)(a.data)).compareTo((Comparable)(b.data))
returns a 3, when a.data is clearly 5, and b.data is
clearly 20.
This is very strange, as the compareTo should return a
-1 instead of a positive number. Is this a known bug
with the compareTo method? I have been using it
reliably for many programs but this is the first time
it ever occurs to me.Not really... comparing Strings "5" to "20"
is really the same as comparing "5" to "2"
being the first character of the string, difference
being, surprise, surprise = 3.
If you want the Strings to be comparable that way you should left-fill them with spaces or zeros.
Or, better still, override compareTo and make your Storage implement Comparable instead of all that casting of the data objects.