Format names to title case

Question

So I'm writing a program to format names to title case and display them in alphabetic order. Any advice please? And how can i add more methods?

public static void main (String [] args)
{    
    //local variables
    string name1;
    string name2;

     myLib = new Library();

     /********************   Start main method  *****************/

     //prompt user for first Name
     System.out.print("Enter First Name : ");
     name1 = Keyboard.readChar(); 

     //prompt user for second
     System.out.print("Enter Second Name : ");
     name2 = Keyboard.readChar(); 

     //Format names to Title Case
     name1.replace(0, name1.length(), name1.toString().toLowerCase());
     name2.replace(0, name2.length(), name2.toString().toLowerCase()); 

     name1.setCharAt(0, Character.toTitleCase(name1.charAt(0)));
     name2.setCharAt(0, Character.toTitleCase(name2.charAt(0)));

     //clear the screen
     myLib.clrscr();

     //Display names in alphabet order
     if (name1.toString().compareTo(name2.toString()) >= 0) {
         System.out.println(name2 + " " + name1);    
     } else {
         System.out.println(name1 + " " + name2);
     }    

     //pause the screen
     //myLib.pause();

  } //end main method

} //end

Answer 1

Usually in these cases you can implement a Comparator<String>. This way it'll be portable, and can make use of the Collections API (e.g. Collections.sort(collection, TITLE_CASE_COMPARATOR);.

private static final Comparator<String> TITLE_CASE_COMPARATOR = new Comparator<String>() {
   @Override
   public int compare(String o1, String o2) { 
     // null-safe checks
     // equal
     if (o1 == null && o2 == null) { return 0; }
     // greater than, implies o2 is null
     else if (o1 != null) { return 1; } 
     // less than, implies o1 is null
     else if (o2 != null) { return -1; } 

     // title case comparison here
   }
};

Some other ideas/methods you can also consider:

• Check cases where title cases do not apply (just to name a few [there are more]: a, an, the, or)
• Think about choosing the right collection, some collections take a Comparator as an argument which maintains the order for you (depending when/where you want to display the sorted results)
• You might also consider a pretty formatting for it, such as the total of entries that were processed (maintaining a history of previous inputs)
• Additional considerations for handling input (empty input, ignoring invalid characters, duplicate entries)

Answer 2

Create a List

List<String> al = new ArrayList<String();

and add (you can also use something like while(! stringRead.isEmpty()) {..} )

name = Keyboard.readChar()).toLowerCase();
al.add(name.substring(0, 1).toUpperCase() + name.substring(1));

EDIT after comment

1°) then Sort (the list is 'cloned') and print directly frome the Constructor return
This solution is recommended to protect data published in a Web page.

System.out.println(new TreeSet<String>(al).toString());

2°) The List is sorted then printed

Collections.sort(al);
System.out.println(al.toString());