| The only way I can think of to hold it outside the class is with a singleton, at which point you've just really raised the complexity just to sort.
Like I said, I use Comparable to enforce natural ordering, but if I want to sort in more than one way, I use Comparator. Granted, it is a bit of a hack designed to pass a method to a method, but it simply is the way to go when using different sort methods on the same object. |