Re: pulling object methods out of an ArrayList

By defrault toString method would be invoked when you try to print the
obtained object directly.
Even if you try to print the ArrayList toString would be invoked again.
In most of the cases toString would have the default implementation of
Object class i.e it would return the

ClassName@hashcode

So you are getting the output as


If you would like to get some sensible output for the same you would
need to over ride the toString method in Variable class.

May be this small example would make things clear to you

=============== Code Start ==========================
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * @date Dec 22, 2006
 * @author Ck
 * @copyright (c) http://www.gfour.net
 */
public class TestArrayList {
    public static void main(String [] args){
        Object o=null;
        List< Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
        list.add(new String("String1"));
        list.add(new Integer(10));
        list.add(new Person("Sample name Example"));
        Iterator<Object> it = list.iterator();
        // if you iterate normally and toString() is not implemented
        System.out.println("if you iterate normally and toString() is not
implemented");
        while (it.hasNext()){
            o = it.next();
            System.out.println(o);
        }
        // Here we are casting the object to Person type and invoking getName
        System.out.println(((Person) o).getName());
    }
}
class Person {
    Person (String name){
        this.name=name;
    }
    private String name;

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
}

=============== Code ends ========================

Please remember that String and Integer wrapper classes have the
toString method to return the value.

If you modify the Person class as follow you would notice the change in
output

=============== Code Starts ===========================

class Person {
    Person (String name){
        this.name=name;
    }
    private String name;

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
    // Overriding the toString method of the object class
    public String toString(){
        return this.name;
    }
}

============== Code ends ==============

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Ck
http://www.gfour.net

SuperGh0d@gmail.com wrote: