Alphabetizing a JTextArea

[S. Shin]

As the title implies I'm working on an assignment where I have to create a program that displays a window, has buttons that feed text to a text area (that is editable), and must then be able to write the list to a file, clear the list, and sort the left alphabetically. I've finished every thing pretty much and it's all working perfectly save for the sorting portion. I'm trying to wrap my head around how to do this part. Would I somehow load the text from the text area into an array and then alphabetize it that way, or is there a more straight forward way to do it. If I were to create the array how would I go about getting the text from the text area? I can easily alphabetize the list once I have it in an array, but I'm unsure about how to get it from the text area and then back into it in the proper order.

Here's my code so far:

  
import java.io.*;
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class Zzz06shopList
{
  public static void main( String args[] ) throws IOException
  {
    Zzz06shopListClass myWindow = new Zzz06shopListClass();
    myWindow.setDefaultCloseOperation( JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
    myWindow.setLocation(100,100);
    myWindow.setVisible( true );
    myWindow.setSize(525,325);
  }
}
//========================================================================================
class Zzz06shopListClass extends JFrame
{
  private JLabel       frameLabel      = new JLabel(XxxStaticDateUtility.getAlphaDate());
  private JPanel       panelList       = new JPanel();
  private JPanel       panelNotes      = new JPanel();
  private JPanel       panelAll        = new JPanel();
  private JPanel       panelActButtons = new JPanel();
  private JPanel       panelTitle      = new JPanel();
  private JTextArea    grocList        = new JTextArea();
  private JScrollPane  sp              = new JScrollPane(grocList);
  private JButton      sortBtn         = new JButton("Sort");
  private JButton      writeBtn        = new JButton("Write");
  private JButton      clearBtn        = new JButton("Clear List");
  private JButton      listBtn[]       = new JButton[8];
  private ListBtnHdlr  listHdlr        = new ListBtnHdlr();
  private SortBtnHdlr  sortHdlr        = new SortBtnHdlr();
  private WriteBtnHdlr writeHdlr       = new WriteBtnHdlr();
  private ClearBtnHdlr clearHdlr       = new ClearBtnHdlr();
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  public Zzz06shopListClass() throws IOException
  {
    super("Grocery List");

    panelList.setLayout(new GridLayout(8,1));
    setUpListButtons();

    panelNotes.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,1));
    panelNotes.add(sp);

    panelActButtons.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,3));
    setUpActionButtons();

    panelTitle.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
    panelTitle.add(frameLabel);

    setLayout(new BorderLayout(0,0) );
    add(panelActButtons,BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    add(panelNotes,BorderLayout.CENTER);
    add(panelTitle,BorderLayout.NORTH);
    add(panelList,BorderLayout.WEST);
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  private void setUpListButtons()
  {
    String  buttonValues[]  = {"bread" ,"milk" ,"eggs","cereral","coke","chicken",
                               "hamburger","laundry soap"};
    for(int i=0;i<8;i++)
      {
        listBtn[i] = new JButton(buttonValues[i]);
        listBtn[i].addActionListener(listHdlr);
        panelList.add(listBtn[i]);
      }
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  private void setUpActionButtons()
  {
    panelActButtons.add(sortBtn);
    panelActButtons.add(writeBtn);
    panelActButtons.add(clearBtn);
    sortBtn.addActionListener(sortHdlr);
    writeBtn.addActionListener(writeHdlr);
    clearBtn.addActionListener(clearHdlr);
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  private class ListBtnHdlr implements ActionListener
  {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {
      String taStr;
      String btnTxt;

      taStr   = grocList.getText();
      btnTxt  = e.getActionCommand();

      if(taStr.length()==0)
        taStr   = btnTxt;
      else
        taStr   = taStr + "\n" + btnTxt;

      grocList.setText(taStr);
    }
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  private class SortBtnHdlr implements ActionListener
  {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {
    }
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  private class WriteBtnHdlr implements ActionListener
  {
    public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent e )
    {
      FileWriter  diskFile;
      PrintWriter outFile;
      String      svar;

      try
        {
          diskFile = new FileWriter("groceryList.txt");
          outFile  = new PrintWriter(diskFile);
          svar     = grocList.getText();
          diskFile.write(svar);
          outFile.close();
          JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Write successful!");
        }
      catch(IOException o)
        {
          JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,"Output file error has occurred!");
        }
    }
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  private class ClearBtnHdlr implements ActionListener
  {
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
    {
      grocList.setText("");
    }
  }
  //--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
} 

Thanks for any help you guys can throw my way.

[Campbell Ritchie]

This sort of question is usually discussed on our Swing forum. Moving.

[Paul Clapham]

S. Shin wrote:Would I somehow load the text from the text area into an array and then alphabetize it that way, or is there a more straight forward way to do it. If I were to create the array how would I go about getting the text from the text area? I can easily alphabetize the list once I have it in an array, but I'm unsure about how to get it from the text area and then back into it in the proper order.

Yeah, you would somehow do that. You can get the text from a JTextArea via its getText() method and you can put it back via its setText() method.

I don't know what it means to alphabetize text, or to put it into an array, but that's just from lack of specifications. I'm sure you have the actual specs. There isn't any Swing component to that part of the problem.

[S. Shin]

When using the getText() how exactly is it retrieved? In order to load it into an array I would assume I'd have to get each line individually, is there a way to do that? Like a get line # and do an if else to see if the line is empty?

[pete stein]

When using the getText() how exactly is it retrieved?

It is retrieved as one large String. The new lines are separated by "\n" characters, I believe.

In order to load it into an array I would assume I'd have to get each line individually, is there a way to do that?

String[] stringArray = yourString.split("\\n");

could work. Note the double backslash (escaped backslash).

You could then place this into a List<String> and sort via Collections.sort(myList)