This interface is a Set
that sorts its elements and guarantees that its iterator(
) method returns an Iterator that
enumerates the elements of the set in sorted order. As with the
Set interface, it is conventional for all
implementations of SortedSet to provide a
no-argument constructor that creates an empty set and a copy
constructor that expects a Collection object
specifying the initial (unsorted) contents of the set. Furthermore,
when creating a SortedSet, there should be a way
to specify a Comparator object that compares and
sorts the elements of the set. If no Comparator is
specified, the elements of the set must all implement
java.lang.Comparable so they can be sorted in
their natural order. See also Set,
treeSet, and SortedMap.
SortedSet defines
a few methods in addition to those it inherits from the
Set interface. first( ) and
last( ) return the lowest and highest objects in
the set. headSet( ) returns all elements from the
beginning of the set up to (but not including) the specified element.
tailSet( ) returns all elements between (and
including) the specified element and the end of the set.
subSet( ) returns all elements of the set from
(and including) the first specified element up to (but excluding) the
second specified element. Note that all three methods return a
SortedSet that is implemented as a view onto the
original SortedSet. Changes in the original set
are visible through the returned set and vice versa.
public interface SortedSet<E> extends Set<E> {
// Public Instance Methods
Comparator<? super E> comparator( );
E first( );
SortedSet<E> headSet(E toElement);
E last( );
SortedSet<E> subSet(E fromElement, E toElement);
SortedSet<E> tailSet(E fromElement);
}
Implementations
treeSet
Passed To
Collections.{checkedSortedSet( ),
synchronizedSortedSet( ),
unmodifiableSortedSet( )},
PriorityQueue.PriorityQueue( ),
treeSet.TreeSet( )
Returned By
Collections.{checkedSortedSet( ),
synchronizedSortedSet( ),
unmodifiableSortedSet( )},
treeSet.{headSet( ), subSet( ),
tailSet( )}
 | 
