libjava/java/lang/Comparable.java

/* Comparable.java -- Interface for comparaing objects to obtain an ordering
   Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of GNU Classpath.

GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
any later version.
 
GNU Classpath 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 for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307 USA.

As a special exception, if you link this library with other files to
produce an executable, this library does not by itself cause the
resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the
executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. */


package java.lang;

/* Written using online API docs for JDK 1.2 beta from http://www.javasoft.com.
 * Status:  Believed complete and correct.
 */

/** 
 * Interface for objects that can be ordering among other
 * objects. The ordering can be <EM>total</EM>, such that two objects
 * only compare equal if they are equal by the equals method, or
 * <EM>partial</EM> such that this is not necessarily true. For
 * example, a case-sensitive dictionary order comparison of Strings
 * is total, but if it is case-insensitive it is partial, because
 * "abc" and "ABC" compare as equal even though "abc".equals("ABC")
 * returns false.
 *
 * @author Geoff Berry
 * @author Warren Levy <warrenl@cygnus.com>
 *
 * @since JDK1.2
 * @see java.util.Comparator
 */
public interface Comparable
{
  /**
   * @return a negative integer if this object is less than
   * <code>o<code>, zero if this object is equal to <code>o</code>, or
   * a positive integer if this object is greater than <code>o</code>
   */
  int compareTo( Object o );
}