Initialize part of an array in java

Question

I am learning java and I did not see anything in the documentation about this. Is it possible to initialize only part of an array, with a bunch of different strings like so in one line:

String[] anArray = new String[20] {"water", "shovel", "berries", "stick", "stone", "seed", "axe"};

Only 7 spaces in the array are filled, and the rest can be initialized later? Is this possible? I find manually filling each space anArray[i] cumbersome. I also do not want to use an ArrayList, for reasons elsewhere in my code.

Help appreciated!

GBlodgett · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-22 23:44:31Z

3

No you cannot do this the way you are trying. This is because (According to the docs tutorial) This way of declaring an array:

String[] array = {"Apple", "Orange"};

is a shortcut of doing:

String[] array = new String[2];
array[0] = "Apple";
array[1] = "Orange";

In the tutorial it says about the first way:

Here the length of the array is determined by the number of values provided between braces and separated by commas.

It is not valid to both declare the size and then try to do the shortcut syntax of declaring an array. (The actual warning given is: Cannot define dimension expressions when an array initializer is provided)

answered Jun 22, 2018 at 23:44

GBlodgett

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Serge Breusov · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-22 23:40:01Z

2

You can do something like this, it will create array with new size based on provided.

    String[] temp = new String[] {"water", "shovel", "berries", "stick", "stone", "seed", "axe"};
    String[] val = Arrays.copyOf(temp, 20);

    System.out.println(val.length);
    System.out.println(Arrays.toString(val));

The output will be:

20
[water, shovel, berries, stick, stone, seed, axe, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null]

answered Jun 22, 2018 at 23:40

Serge Breusov

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Rohan Over a year ago

Thanks! Although not ideal, it is closest to what I was trying to do.

Serge Breusov Over a year ago

@Rohan Great! Yeah... java has limitations((( You can try Kotlin which also work on JVM and can be used for android deveelopment. It's pretty nasty;)

fastcodejava · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-23 00:46:07Z

1

It is not possible as such, but one can put null and assign later.

String[] arr = new String[] {"water", "shovel", "berries", "stick", null, null};

edited Jun 23, 2018 at 0:46

answered Jun 23, 2018 at 0:21

fastcodejava

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GBlodgett Over a year ago

This seems like a good compromise of what the OP is trying to do, and the limitations of initializing an array. (Just a warning though the line you show won't compile.)

Peter1982 · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-22 23:43:56Z

-2

Yes it is possible but little by difference.

String anArray = new String[] {"water", "shovel", "berries", "stick", "stone", "seed", "axe"};

create array of size 7

String anArray = new String[20];

create array of size 20 and than you can initilize it

anArray[0] = "water";
anArray[1] = "shovel";
...

answered Jun 22, 2018 at 23:43

Peter1982

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