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A library jar that provides APIs for Applications written for the Google Android Platform.
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/*
 * Copyright (c) 1997, 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
 *
 * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
 * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Oracle designates this
 * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
 * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
 *
 * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
 * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
 * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
 * accompanied this code).
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
 * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
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 *
 * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA
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/*
 * (C) Copyright Taligent, Inc. 1996 - All Rights Reserved
 * (C) Copyright IBM Corp. 1996 - All Rights Reserved
 *
 *   The original version of this source code and documentation is copyrighted
 * and owned by Taligent, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM. These
 * materials are provided under terms of a License Agreement between Taligent
 * and Sun. This technology is protected by multiple US and International
 * patents. This notice and attribution to Taligent may not be removed.
 *   Taligent is a registered trademark of Taligent, Inc.
 *
 */

package java.text;

/**
 * A CollationKey represents a String under the
 * rules of a specific Collator object. Comparing two
 * CollationKeys returns the relative order of the
 * Strings they represent. Using CollationKeys
 * to compare Strings is generally faster than using
 * Collator.compare. Thus, when the Strings
 * must be compared multiple times, for example when sorting a list
 * of Strings. It's more efficient to use CollationKeys.
 *
 * 
 * You can not create CollationKeys directly. Rather,
 * generate them by calling Collator.getCollationKey.
 * You can only compare CollationKeys generated from
 * the same Collator object.
 *
 * 

 * Generating a CollationKey for a String
 * involves examining the entire String
 * and converting it to series of bits that can be compared bitwise. This
 * allows fast comparisons once the keys are generated. The cost of generating
 * keys is recouped in faster comparisons when Strings need
 * to be compared many times. On the other hand, the result of a comparison
 * is often determined by the first couple of characters of each String.
 * Collator.compare examines only as many characters as it needs which
 * allows it to be faster when doing single comparisons.
 * 

 * The following example shows how CollationKeys might be used
 * to sort a list of Strings.
 * 

 * {@code
 * // Create an array of CollationKeys for the Strings to be sorted.
 * Collator myCollator = Collator.getInstance();
 * CollationKey[] keys = new CollationKey[3];
 * keys[0] = myCollator.getCollationKey("Tom");
 * keys[1] = myCollator.getCollationKey("Dick");
 * keys[2] = myCollator.getCollationKey("Harry");
 * sort(keys);
 *
 * //...
 *
 * // Inside body of sort routine, compare keys this way
 * if (keys[i].compareTo(keys[j]) > 0)
 *    // swap keys[i] and keys[j]
 *
 * //...
 *
 * // Finally, when we've returned from sort.
 * System.out.println(keys[0].getSourceString());
 * System.out.println(keys[1].getSourceString());
 * System.out.println(keys[2].getSourceString());
 * }
 * 
 *
 * @see          Collator
 * @see          RuleBasedCollator
 * @author       Helena Shih
 */

public abstract class CollationKey implements Comparable {
    /**
     * Compare this CollationKey to the target CollationKey. The collation rules of the
     * Collator object which created these keys are applied. Note:
     * CollationKeys created by different Collators can not be compared.
     * @param target target CollationKey
     * @return Returns an integer value. Value is less than zero if this is less
     * than target, value is zero if this and target are equal and value is greater than
     * zero if this is greater than target.
     * @see java.text.Collator#compare
     */
    abstract public int compareTo(CollationKey target);

    /**
     * Returns the String that this CollationKey represents.
     *
     * @return the source string of this CollationKey
     */
    public String getSourceString() {
        return source;
    }


    /**
     * Converts the CollationKey to a sequence of bits. If two CollationKeys
     * could be legitimately compared, then one could compare the byte arrays
     * for each of those keys to obtain the same result.  Byte arrays are
     * organized most significant byte first.
     *
     * @return a byte array representation of the CollationKey
     */
    abstract public byte[] toByteArray();


  /**
   * CollationKey constructor.
   *
   * @param source the source string
   * @exception NullPointerException if {@code source} is null
   * @since 1.6
   */
    protected CollationKey(String source) {
        if (source==null){
            throw new NullPointerException();
        }
        this.source = source;
    }

    final private String source;
}