Searching in a ArrayList with custom objects for certain strings

I have a ArrayList with custom objects. I want to search inside this ArrayList for Strings.

The class for the objects look like this:

public class Datapoint implements Serializable {

  private String stateBased;
  private String name;
  private String priority;
  private String mainNumber;
  private String groupadress;
  private String dptID;

  public Datapoint(){
  }

  public String getMainNumber() {
    return mainNumber;
  }

  public void setMainNumber(String mainNumber) {
    this.mainNumber = mainNumber;
  }

  public String getName() {
    return name;
  }

  ..and so on

I know how to search for a string in a ArrayList but how to do that in a ArrayList with my custom objects:

ArrayList<String> searchList = new ArrayList<String>();
String search = "a";
int searchListLength = searchList.size();
for (int i = 0; i < searchListLength; i++) {
if (searchList.get(i).contains(search)) {
//Do whatever you want here
}
}

So I want to have a function to search in my ArrayList with for example five objects for all "name" strings.

The easy way is to make a for where you verify if the atrrtibute name of the custom object have the desired string

    for(Datapoint d : dataPointList){
        if(d.getName() != null && d.getName().contains(search))
           //something here
    }

I think this helps you.

UPDATE: Using Java 8 Syntax

List<DataPoint> myList = new ArrayList<>();
//Fill up myList with your Data Points

List<DataPoint> dataPointsCalledJohn = 
    myList
    .stream()
    .filter(p-> p.getName().equals(("john")))
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

If you don't mind using an external libaray - you can use Predicates from the Google Guava library as follows:

class DataPoint {
    String name;

    String getName() { return name; }
}

Predicate<DataPoint> nameEqualsTo(final String name) {
    return new Predicate<DataPoint>() {

        public boolean apply(DataPoint dataPoint) {
            return dataPoint.getName().equals(name);
        }
    };
}

public void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

    List<DataPoint> myList = new ArrayList<DataPoint>();
    //Fill up myList with your Data Points

    Collection<DataPoint> dataPointsCalledJohn =
            Collections2.filter(myList, nameEqualsTo("john"));

}