JTable sort with dual tables to keep in sync in Java 1.4

Is there a way where I can have a parent JTable sort value be passed and set the sort of a child JTable in Java 1.4? What I have is a parent JTable of subjects with about 6 columns and a child JTable that is a subset of the parent JTable with the same columns. What I need to do is when the user selects a item from the parent JTable and updates the child JTable, the sort is changed to whatever the parent JTable is at that time. I had this working fine with Java 1.6 with开发者_高级运维 the TableRowSorter class until I realized I had to use Java 1.4 - which the TableRowSorter class is non-existent.

Is the problem that you need to provide a sort for your tables the way that TableRowSorter did, or that you need to pass the sort key from the parent to the child?

If the former, you could back your JTables with a TableModels that contain row objects that implement Comparable. You can then implement your own Comparator classes per column. You can then, in your custom TableModel set the appropriate Comparator on your backing sorted Collection.

If the latter, I imagine that you are implementing ListSelectionListener in order to trigger the population of the child table with the correct data. In this same process you can query the parent table for its current Comparator and apply that to the child table model.