Properly formatting output of arraylist data?

Question

I have a method in my switch statement explaining to print my arraylist (i.e - System.out.println(drinkList);)

           ArrayList<String> drinkList = new ArrayList<String>();
           System.out.print("Please enter a drink information to add:\n");
           inputInfo = scan.nextLine().trim();
           drinkLink = DrinkParser.parseStringToDrink(inputInfo);
           drinkList.add(drinkLink.toString()); //Take in user data to parse into parts

Then I called it using the code System.out.println(drinkList);

My problem is the output prints the following as such:

[

Data Entry 1

,

Data Entry 2

]

I want to remove the brackets and the comma.

Show us what your method contains then

michaelsnowden
– michaelsnowden

2014-02-04 22:48:35 +00:00
Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 22:48 — michaelsnowden
– michaelsnowden, Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 22:48
I'll add basic code to my OP. It's a lot of code.

KnowledgeGeek
– KnowledgeGeek

2014-02-04 22:49:31 +00:00
Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 22:49 — KnowledgeGeek
– KnowledgeGeek, Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 22:49

Martin Dinov · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-04 22:53:00Z

1

Don't call the toString() method on the ArrayList but loop through it and build a string yourself. Do something like:

StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
for (String value : drinkList) {
    builder.append(value) + ",";
}
String text = builder.toString();
System.out.println(text);

That'll make sure that the resulting string has the format that you want - in this case comma-separated entries.

answered Feb 4, 2014 at 22:53

Martin Dinov

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1 Comment

KnowledgeGeek Over a year ago

The builder.append is giving me an error, not letting me compile.

Ashot Karakhanyan · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-04 23:50:56Z

0

Use the following code to remove the brackets and the commas:

String s = "[\nData Entry 1\n,\n Data Entry 2\n]";
String result = s.replaceAll("[^\\dA-Za-z\n]", "");
System.out.println(result);

The result is:

Data Entry 1

Data Entry 2

Or, you can override toString() method for your class.

edited Feb 4, 2014 at 23:50

answered Feb 4, 2014 at 23:11

Ashot Karakhanyan

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