String comparators

These sorting orders are used by the TopNMetricSpec, , GroupByQuery’s LimitSpec, and .

Sorts values by converting Strings to their UTF-8 byte array representations and comparing lexicographically, byte-by-byte.

Suitable for strings with both numeric and non-numeric content, e.g.: “file12 sorts after file2”

This ordering is not suitable for numbers with decimal points or negative numbers.

• Negative numbers are sorted after positive numbers (because numeric characters precede the “-“ in the negative numbers).

Sorts values as numbers, supports integers and floating point values. Negative values are supported.

This sorting order will try to parse all string values as numbers. Unparseable values are treated as nulls, and nulls precede numbers.

Sorts values by their string lengths. When there is a tie, this comparator falls back to using the String compareTo method.

Sorts values as versions, e.g.: “10.0 sorts after 9.0”, “1.0.0-SNAPSHOT sorts after 1.0.0”.

See for more details on how this ordering sorts values.