How to sort a list in Scala by two fields?

how to sort a list in Scala by two fields, in this example I will sort by lastName and firstName?

case class Row(var firstName: String, var lastName: String, var city: String)

var rows = List(new Row("Oscar", "Wilde", "London"),
                new Row("Otto",  "Swift", "Berlin"),
                new Row("Carl",  "Swift", "Paris"),
                new Row("Hans",  "Swift", "Dublin"),
                new Row("Hugo",  "Swift", "Sligo"))

rows.sortBy(_.lastName)

I try things like this

rows.sortBy(_.lastName + _.firstName)

but it doesn't work. So I be curious for a good and easy solution.


rows.sortBy(r => (r.lastName, r.firstName))

rows.sortBy (row => row.lastName + row.firstName)

If you want to sort by the merged names, as in your question, or

rows.sortBy (row => (row.lastName, row.firstName))

if you first want to sort by lastName, then firstName; relevant for longer names (Wild, Wilder, Wilderman).

If you write

rows.sortBy(_.lastName + _.firstName)

with 2 underlines, the method expects two parameters:

<console>:14: error: wrong number of parameters; expected = 1
       rows.sortBy (_.lastName + _.firstName)
                               ^

In general, if you use a stable sorting algorithm, you can just sort by one key, then the next.

rows.sortBy(_.firstName).sortBy(_.lastName)

The final result will be sorted by lastname, then where that is equal, by firstname.