I have an array of string folder names, each of which include a date, time, and timezone. The array is as so:
[
"folder_name_01-18-2020-19_00_00_PM_EST",
"folder_name_05-01-2019-00_00_00_AM_EDT",
"folder_name_12-15-2019-02_00_00_AM_EST"
]
How can I sort this array so that all the folder names are sorted in ascending order by their date (earliest to latest), eg. the result of the above array should be this:
[
"folder_name_05-01-2019-00_00_00_AM_EDT",
"folder_name_12-15-2019-02_00_00_AM_EST",
"folder_name_01-18-2020-19_00_00_PM_EST"
]
The folder name strings are guarenteed to be in this exact format. folder_name never changes, so only the time stamp will change for each folder name.
I've thought of a high level solution that sounds very inefficient:
Isolate the datetime from the folder name
Map the datetime to full folder name: {"05-01-2019-00_00_00_AM_EDT":"folder_name_05-01-2019-00_00_00_AM_EDT"}
Add the isolated datetime to an array
Sort the array of datetimes // potential trouble spot b/c of the date format
result = new array()
For item in sorted array:
result.add(map.get(item))
return result
I'm wondering if improvements and/or better methods could be used to solve this problem
Figured out a much better solution using a custom Comparator: Grab the date time using the substring() function, parse it with SimpleDateTime, grab the epoch time from the resulting Date objects and then use Long.compare() to determine which time is later.