Converting array of characters to arraylist of characters

Question

I am stuck at this problem (sending keys to GUI) where I am converting a string to a character array then I want the characterarray as an arraylist. Essentially:

String s = "ABC";
char[] cArray = s.toCharArray();
ArrayList<Character> cList = ??

I want cList to be a character arraylist of the form ['A', 'B', 'C']. I don't know how to unpack it and then make an ArrayList out of it. Arrays.asList() returns a List<char[]> which is not what I want or need.

I do know I can loop and add to a list, I am looking for something simpler (surely one exists).

Bhesh Gurung · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-25 21:14:32Z

15

You have to loop through the array:

List<Character> cList = new ArrayList<Character>();
for(char c : cArray) {
    cList.add(c);
}

Note: Arrays.asList() works only for reference types not primitives.

answered Feb 25, 2013 at 21:14

Bhesh Gurung

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2 Comments

Aurand Over a year ago

I'm pretty sure that it will autobox primitives. Unless you're very concerned about performance I don't see a reason not to use it.

danidemi Over a year ago

@Aurand, not really. Arrays.asList(new char[]{'a','b', 'c'}) actually returns a List with only one element: an array with 'a', 'b' and 'c', not a List with three items as one would maybe expect.

JohnnyO · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-25 21:31:49Z

4

To my knowledge, this does not exist in the core JDK, but the functionality is provided by several common libraries.

For example, Apache Commons Lang has a method with the following signature in ArrayUtils:

Character [] toObject(char [] input)

Similarly, the Google Guava library has a even more direct method in the Chars class:

public static List<Character> asList(char... backingArray)

answered Feb 25, 2013 at 21:31

JohnnyO

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1 Comment

arynaq Over a year ago

While @Bhesh Gurung had a helpful answer I was looking for the more direct method, will accept this as my answer (and get to install Google Guava).

Shell · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-09 05:36:59Z

3

Character[] chArray = {'n','a','n','d','a','n','k','a','n','a','n'};

List<Character> arrList = Arrays.asList(chArray);

edited Aug 9, 2014 at 5:36

Shell

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answered Aug 9, 2014 at 5:18

Kishore

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