How do I sort file names by their extension?

To sort file names by their extension, we can use the ExtensionFileComparator class from the Apache Commons IO library. This class provides a couple instances of comparator such as:

Comparator Description
EXTENSION_COMPARATOR Case sensitive extension comparator
EXTENSION_REVERSE Reverse case sensitive extension comparator
EXTENSION_INSENSITIVE_COMPARATOR Case insensitive extension comparator
EXTENSION_INSENSITIVE_REVERSE Reverse case insensitive extension comparator
EXTENSION_SYSTEM_COMPARATOR System sensitive extension comparator
EXTENSION_SYSTEM_REVERSE Reverse system sensitive path comparator

The following snippet shows you how to use the first two comparators listed above.

package org.kodejava.commons.io;

import org.apache.commons.io.FilenameUtils;

import static org.apache.commons.io.comparator.ExtensionFileComparator.*;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class FileSortByExtension {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        File file = new File(".");

        // Excludes directory in the list
        File[] files = file.listFiles(File::isFile);

        if (files != null) {
            // Sort in ascending order.
            Arrays.sort(files, EXTENSION_COMPARATOR);
            FileSortByExtension.displayFileOrder(files);

            // Sort in descending order.
            Arrays.sort(files, EXTENSION_REVERSE);
            FileSortByExtension.displayFileOrder(files);
        }
    }

    private static void displayFileOrder(File[] files) {
        System.out.printf("%-20s | %s%n", "Name", "Ext");
        System.out.println("--------------------------------");
        for (File file : files) {
            System.out.printf("%-20s | %s%n", file.getName(),
                    FilenameUtils.getExtension(file.getName()));
        }
        System.out.println();
    }
}

The result of the code snippet:

Name                 | Ext
--------------------------------
README               | 
lipsum.doc           | doc
lipsum.docx          | docx
data.html            | html
contributors.txt     | txt
pom.xml              | xml

Name                 | Ext
--------------------------------
pom.xml              | xml
contributors.txt     | txt
data.html            | html
lipsum.docx          | docx
lipsum.doc           | doc
README               | 

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
    <version>2.16.1</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central

Wayan

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