Re: Newbie Question - ArrayLists and referencing it

From:
 "Chris ( Val )" <chrisval@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:00:38 -0800
Message-ID:
<1194786038.265069.84990@i13g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
On Nov 11, 5:47 am, Daniel Pitts
<newsgroup.spamfil...@virtualinfinity.net> wrote:

Chris ( Val ) wrote:

public class MyProg1
 {
  public static void main( String[] args )
   {
    ArrayList<Integer> data = new ArrayList<Integer>();
    ArrayList table[] = new ArrayList[ 5 ];

    Arrays.fill( table, new ArrayList<Integer>() );

    data.add( 1 );
    data.add( 3 );
    data.add( 4 );

    for( int i = 0; i < data.size(); i++ ) {
      table[ i ].add( i, data.get( i ) );
     }
   }
 }


Whoops, Chris, you're wrong :-(
Specifically> Arrays.fill( table, new ArrayList<Integer>() );

This will put the *same* ArrayList into every slot in table.


Wow :-)
My apologies to the OP.

I guess I assumed that "new ArrayList<Integer>()" would
create and add a *new unique copy* of an ArrayList into
each slot of the array.

Seems I have a bit more to learn about Java references.
Thank you for the correction.

While I think the OP is going about this problem the wrong way, the
solution he needed was:

table[i].add(data.get(i));


Yes, I had that originally, but whilst experimenting
with the version I posted, I forgot to revert back to
this one.

To the OP:
Try not to mix arrays and Collections. As a matter of fact, for the
most part its best to deal with Collections, and avoid arrays all together.


Good advice.

--
Chris

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