Sorting JTable by 2 columns that represent time

Question

I have a table that consists of three columns: Name | Date-Time | Description

The values for Date-Time are actually stored 2 separate fields in database table and (Outdated database - can't change, so have to work around it).

I have the following code applied:

tbNotes.setAutoCreateRowSorter(true); //tbNotes is the JTable
DefaultRowSorter sorter = ((DefaultRowSorter) tbNotes.getRowSorter());
ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
list.add(new RowSorter.SortKey(2, SortOrder.DESCENDING)); //column 2 because I have an invisible ID column
sorter.setSortKeys(list);
sorter.sort();

The result produced appears correct - the rows are sorted by date with older items appearing towards the bottom. However, sometimes I see this:

It is obvious that the sort looks at the first character in a string and assumes that 1 is bigger than 0 so 12/28/2011 is larger(newer) than 01/03/2012

How would I go about having a proper sort on my JTable by date?

Thank You

P.S. Here is the code for populating the JTable

try {
        DefaultTableModel noteDataModel = new DefaultTableModel() {
            @Override
            public boolean isCellEditable(int row, int column) {
                return false;
            } 
        };
        tbNotes.setModel(noteDataModel);



Object[] objects = new Object[4];
ListIterator<Todonote> todoNoteListIterator = noteList.listIterator();
while (todoNoteListIterator.hasNext()) {
    todoNoteEntity = todoNoteListIterator.next();
        DateFormat noteDateFormatter = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
        String noteDateTime = noteDateFormatter.format(todoNoteEntity.getUserDate())
                        + " - " + todoNoteEntity.getUserTime().substring(0, 2) + ":" + todoNoteEntity.getUserTime().substring(2);
        objects[0] = todoNoteEntity.getPrimaryKey();
        objects[1] = todoNoteEntity.getUserContact().getName();
        objects[2] = noteDateTime;
        objects[3] = todoNoteEntity.getNotes();
        noteDataModel.addRow(objects);
}

Edit 1

I updated the table model with

@Override
 public Class getColumnClass(int column) {
     for (int row = 0; row < getRowCount(); row++) {
         Object o = getValueAt(row, column);

         if (o != null) {
             return o.getClass();
         }
      }

      return Object.class;
 }

It seems to work now, but dates are showing up as Oct 26, 2012 instead of yyyy/MM/dd - HH:mm - how would I fix that?

Answer 1

I'm not sure, but if you want to display a Date object as appointed format like yyyy/MM/dd - HH:mm, why not try the Renderer?