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initializing ArrayList

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posted 16 years ago

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I am missing something simple and fundamental. Maybe you guys can help.

With an "old-style" array, I can initialize it like this:
int[] myArray = new int[]{ 2000, 100, 40, 60};

With an ArrayList, it seems like I have to do
ArrayList<Integer> myArray = new ArrayList<Integer>();
myArray.add(2000)
myArray.add(100)
myArray.add(40)
myArray.add(60)
for each element that I want to add. Is there a way that I can add any number of integers to my ArrayList in a single line of code?

Any ideas?

Freddy Wong

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posted 16 years ago

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As far as I know, there isn't a way to initialize the ArrayList as what you normally do with Java array. But of course, there's nothing stopping you from creating a method to do such a thing
For example:

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Bill Jones

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posted 16 years ago

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You're the man, Freddy Wong. Here is what I did that worked. Since I won't always know the number of integer elements in the array, I decided to pass in an "old-style" array to the initArrayList method. Thank you!

main:
ArrayList<Integer> note = new ArrayList<Integer>();
int[] myArray = new int[]{ 58,63,67,72,70,63,62,63 };
note = initArrayList(myArray);

method:
public ArrayList<Integer> initArrayList(int[] a) {
ArrayList<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();
for (int i : a) {
list.add(i);
} //close for loop
return list;
} //close initArrayList method

Garrett Rowe

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posted 16 years ago

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You can also do this:

But note the List returned from Arrays.asList() is fixed size. If you need a non fixed-size List you can do this:

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didi Dji

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posted 16 years ago

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I know that the post is old but I just wanted to make BIG thanks to Freddy Wong and specially to Garrett Rowe for their replies cause it was EXACLTY what I was looking for . I was so happy to find it cause I've been searching for more than 1 hour on the API of sun and on google without finding something very nice x).I'm very happy and I just wanted to say :

Thank you a loooooot ^__^

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Manuel Leiria

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posted 16 years ago

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How about,

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Evelina Vrabie

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posted 15 years ago

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Manuel Leiria wrote:How about,

List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>(); Collections.addAll(list, 10, 20, 30, 40, 500, 3);

Or ArrayList<Integer> arr = new ArrayList<Integer>() {{ add(30); add(40); }}; Same syntax can be used with Map (use put instead of add)

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Larry Swanson

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posted 13 years ago

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This thread is ancient, but here's another method I saw in a seminar with Adam Bien.

I'm not quite sure what's going on here though...

Larry

Rob Spoor

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posted 13 years ago

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It creates an anonymous subclass of ArrayList (the outer pair of {}). This anonymous subclass has an initializer block (the inner pair of {}) which executes the add methods. It's a nasty little hack that should be avoided.

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Jesper de Jong

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posted 13 years ago

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That trick is called "double brace initialization". I agree with Rob that it's a dirty trick that should be avoided.

(Note that Evelina Vrabie already mentioned this trick in her post of April 9, 2009).

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Anish Kurian Thomas

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posted 13 years ago

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There is another way you can do this :

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Ernest Friedman-Hill

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posted 13 years ago

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Anish Kurian Thomas wrote:There is another way you can do this :
ArrayList<Integer> myArray = (ArrayList<Integer>)Arrays.asList(1,2,3);

You could do that, but only if you enjoy ClassCastExceptions, because that's what you'd get. Arrays.asList() does not return an ArrayList.

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Anish Kurian Thomas

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posted 13 years ago

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Sorry .. I was wrong.. Thank you Ernest Friedman-Hill for pointing this out.

I believe the code will work by changing into:

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Vinay M Raju

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posted 12 years ago

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Very useful information. Thansk a lot !!

Randall Twede

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posted 12 years ago

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very interesting topic but i would have just used an array

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Winston Gutkowski

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posted 12 years ago

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Vinay M Raju wrote:Very useful information. Thansk a lot !!

It should be pointed out that Anish's code is redundant. What Ernest was trying to highlight is that Arrays.asList() returns a List, not an ArrayList (actually, the List is an ArrayList - at least right now - but you shouldn't take it for granted).

It's almost invariably best to use interfaces anyway, so far better is:
List<Integer> myArray = Arrays.asList(1,2,3);

Randall Twede wrote:very interesting topic but i would have just used an array

Then you're missing out. Apart from fixed-length primitive arrays and String.split(), I hardly ever use them any more.

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Stephan van Hulst

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posted 12 years ago

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If you really must have an ArrayList, what you can also do is the following:
This makes use of the fact that every concrete collection type is supposed to have a constructor that copies the elements from an existing collection; in this case the new ArrayList copies the elements from the List returned by the asList() method.

[edit]

Wow, never mind, I completely missed Anish's example.

Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.