can anybody tell about comparator in java

what is the use of comparator?what is the adavantage in comparator? can anybody give sample example?

thanks in advance

You might use comparator for sorting the objects of the classes you are writing. Java API for Comparator has more details about it.

You'll find a detailed explanation here.

Then what is the use of Comparable interface?

A class that implements Comparable is sortable. It can be sorted according to the implemented compareTo method using the Comparable mechanism. This is called the Class's natural ordering.

Suppose you want to sort objects of this class based on some other criteria. Then you can create an implementation of a Comparator and use that. You can create yet another Comparator to sort it based on some other criteria.

Also when you want to define a sort order for a non Comparable object (i.e has not implemented Comparable) you can use a Comparator or many.

For example for a Job object having members jobID and priority, two Comparators can be implemented, one sorting on jobID and the other on priority.

You implement Comparable<T> on a class which has a "natural order;" Integer implements it because you can order numbers 1 2 3 and String implements it because you can order Strings alphabetically.