Welcome to our exploration of sorted maps using custom classes and comparators in Java. In today's lesson, we'll learn how to use custom classes as keys in sorted maps. This approach enhances data organization and access. With the addition of comparators, we can dictate the order in such maps.

A sorted map is a dictionary with its keys always in order. This arrangement makes operations like searching for keys within a range more efficient. In Java, we use the TreeMap class to create sorted maps:

Custom classes enable us to create objects that fit our data — for instance, a Person class for employee information or a Book class for a library database. In Java, classes are the blueprints for creating objects.

Consider this simple class, for example:

Using custom classes as map keys helps organize complex multivariate keys in a sorted map. Consider the following example using the Person class as a key in a sorted map (i.e., TreeMap). However, this will not work yet.

We can see here that John is assigned the value "Programmer", and Alice is assigned the value "Designer." However, this code will produce a ClassCastException. The reason is that the TreeMap needs a way to compare the Person objects to maintain its order.

Java uses a comparator to determine the order of two keys. To make this comparison, we add the Comparable interface or a custom Comparator to our class. Without these methods, TreeMap can't compare its Person class keys. Here’s how to modify the Person class to implement the Comparable interface:

In the code above, we override the compareTo, equals, and hashCode methods. The compareTo method is required by the Comparable interface, and it ensures that Person objects are initially sorted by age and, if ages are the same, then by name. Overriding equals and hashCode ensures that Person objects behave consistently when used in collections like TreeMap. The hashCode method returns an integer representation of an object for quick look-ups in hash-based collections.

We've explored how to use custom classes as keys in sorted maps and how comparators work in this context using the Comparable interface. Now, prepare for some hands-on exercises to reinforce these concepts.