Java String Array Examples

Oct 14, 2015 Array, Core Java, Examples, Snippet, String comments

A Java String Array is an object that holds a fixed number of String values. Arrays in general is a very useful and important data structure that can help solve many types of problems. It's simplicity on how to access contents through index makes it powerful yet user-friendly. Here are some examples on how to use String Array in Java.

String Array Declaration

Square brackets is used to declare a String array. There are two ways of using it. The first one is to put square brackets after the String reserved word. For example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray;

Another way of declaring a String Array is to put the square brackers after the name of the variable. For example:

String thisIsAStringArray[];

Both statements will declare the variable "thisIsAStringArray" to be a String Array. Note that this is just a declaration, the variable "thisIsAStringArray" will have the value null. And since there is only one square brackets, this means that the variable is only a one-dimensional String Array. Examples will be shown later on how to declare multi-dimensional String Arrays.

String Array Declaration With Initial Size

Arrays are usually used when we know how many objects are needed. Hence, arrays are usually declared with an initial size. Here is an example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = new String[5];

This will declare a String Array with 5 elements. Each element can be accessed using index that starts with 0. The fist element is "thisIsAStringArray[0]", the second element is "thisIsAStringArray[1]", and so on. Here is an example of declaring a String Array with size 5 and assigning values to each element:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = new String[5];
thisIsAStringArray[0] = "AAA";
thisIsAStringArray[1] = "BBB";
thisIsAStringArray[2] = "CCC";
thisIsAStringArray[3] = "DDD";
thisIsAStringArray[4] = "EEE";

Note, since there are only 5 elements and index started from 0, the last index will be 4. Or we could use the formula ( array length - 1). This means if we access the index greater than 4, an Exception will be raised. Example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = new String[5];
thisIsAStringArray[5] = "FFF";

The code will throw a java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.

String Array Initialization on Declaration

There are multiple ways to initialize a String Array. Initialization can also be done at the same time as the declaration. Here is an example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"AAA", "BBB", "CCC", "DDD", "EEE"};

This will create a String Array of length 5. Element at index 0 will have the value "AAA", element at index 1 will have the value "BBB", and so on. Hence, when we run this code:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"AAA", "BBB", "CCC", "DDD", "EEE"};
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[0] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[1] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[2] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[3] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[4] );

It will produce this output:

AAA
BBB
CCC
DDD
EEE

Another syntax to declare and initialize a String array together is by using the new operator. Here is an example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = new String[]{"AAA", "BBB", "CCC", "DDD", "EEE"};

The behaviour is the same as the example above: "String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"AAA", "BBB", "CCC", "DDD", "EEE"};"

String Array Initialization After Declaration

The code for initializing an array can be separated from the declaration code. This is useful when values are not known during declaration. Here is an example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray;
if (fruits) {
    thisIsAStringArray = new String[] {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
} else {
    thisIsAStringArray = new String[] {"Asparagus", "Carrot", "Tomato"};
}

Note that the value of the array depends on the value of fruits variable. The array can have the values {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"} if fruits is true, or {"Asparagus", "Carrot", "Tomato"} if fruits is false.

Note that initializing an array will override the old contents of the array. For example

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
thisIsAStringArray = new String[] {"Asparagus", "Carrot", "Tomato"};
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[0] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[1] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[2] );

The code will have the output below. This is because the old contents {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"}, will be discarded and replaced with the new contents.

Asparagus
Carrot
Tomato

Also note that even the size of array will be changed if re-initialized. For example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
thisIsAStringArray = new String[] {"Asparagus", "Carrot"};
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[0] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[1] );
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray[2] );

Will have the following output:

Asparagus
Carrot
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 2
	at ArrayTest.main(ArrayTest.java:10)

The exception is because the thisIsAStringArray variable will only have 2 elements after the second initialization.

String Array Length/Size

The property length of a String Array can be used to determine the number of elements in an Array. Here is an example usage:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
System.out.println( thisIsAStringArray.length );

This will have the output:

Because there are 3 elements in the declared array.

Iterate Through String Array

Since the size and contents of a String Array can vary, it is useful to iterate through all the values. Here is an example code using style that can run prior to Java 5.

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
for( int i = 0; i < thisIsAStringArray.length; i++)
{
    String element = thisIsAStringArray[i];
    System.out.println( element );    
}

The code will start from index 0, and continue upto length - 1, which is the last element of the array. This code will run on any version of Java, before of after Java 5

The code will have the output:

Apple
Banana
Orange

Another way is to use the enhanced for loop of Java 5. For example:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
for( String element:thisIsAStringArray)
{
    System.out.println( element );    
}

The code will have the same output as the previous example:

Test if String Array Contains a Value

When we have an array of Strings, it is usually common to have a scenario where we wish to know if the array contains a specific value. One way to do it is to have custom code:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
String stringToSearch = "Banana";
boolean found = false;
for (String element:thisIsAStringArray) {
    if ( element.equals( stringToSearch )) {
        found = true;
    }
}
if (found) {
    System.out.println( "The array contains the string: " + stringToSearch );
} else {
    System.out.println( "The array does not contains the string: " + stringToSearch );
}

This code will loop through the array and check one by one if an element is equal to the item being searched for. The output of the code will be:

The array contains the string: Banana

We can place a break when we found the item, to make it run faster.

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
String stringToSearch = "Banana";
boolean found = false;
for (String element:thisIsAStringArray) {
    if ( element.equals( stringToSearch )) {
        found = true;
		break;
    }
}
if (found) {
    System.out.println( "The array contains the string: " + stringToSearch );
} else {
    System.out.println( "The array does not contains the string: " + stringToSearch );
}

The break will stop the loop when we found an element match. We can also factor this out as a separate method, if this will be a commonly used routine:

public static boolean contains(String[] stringArray, String stringToSearch)
{
    boolean result = false;
    for (String element:stringArray) {
        if ( element.equals( stringToSearch )) {
            result = true;
            break;
        }
    }
    return result;
}
public static void main( String[] args )
{
    String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
    System.out.println( "The array contains the string Apple: " + contains(thisIsAStringArray, "Apple") );
    System.out.println( "The array contains the string Carrots: " + contains(thisIsAStringArray, "Carrots") );
}

As shown, the function can be called multiple times because it is re-factored as a utility method. Here is the output of the code:

The array contains the string Apple: true
The array contains the string Carrots: false

Add element to String Array

If you have a String array with length 5 and want to add a 6th element, this is not possible because the size of an array is fixed when created. only possible way is to re-create a new String Array with larger capacity to be able to put the new value at the end. Here is an example code:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};    
String[] tempArray = new String[ thisIsAStringArray.length + 1 ];
for (int i=0; i<thisIsAStringArray.length; i++)
{
    tempArray[i] = thisIsAStringArray[i];
}
tempArray[thisIsAStringArray.length] = "Carrots";
thisIsAStringArray = tempArray;   
for (String element:thisIsAStringArray) {
    System.out.println( element );
}

The example code above started with a String Array of size 3. Another array was created with size larger than 1. The 3 elements were then copied and the new value is added on the last index. The code will print the following result:

Apple
Banana
Orange
Carrots

We can refactor the logic to a separate function. For example:

public static String[] add(String[] stringArray, String newValue)
{
    String[] tempArray = new String[ stringArray.length + 1 ];
    for (int i=0; i<stringArray.length; i++)
    {
        tempArray[i] = stringArray[i];
    }
    tempArray[stringArray.length] = newValue;
    return tempArray;
}
public static void main( String[] args )
{
    String[] thisIsAStringArray = {"Apple", "Banana", "Orange"};
    thisIsAStringArray = add(thisIsAStringArray, "Carrots");
    for (String element:thisIsAStringArray) {
        System.out.println( element );
    }
}

This will have the same output as the previous example.

Sort String Array

Another common situation in Java is the need to sort elements of an array. One way to do this is to code our own routine based on some well known algorithm. Here is an example of how to Sort String Array in Java using Bubble Sort:

public static void bubbleSort( String[] arr ) {
    int j = 0;
    String tmp;
    boolean sorted = false;
    while ( !sorted ) {
        sorted = true;
        j++;
        for ( int i = 0; i < arr.length - j; i++ ) {
            if (arr[i].compareTo( arr[i + 1] ) > 0) {
                tmp = arr[i];
                arr[i] = arr[i + 1];
                arr[i + 1] = tmp;
                sorted = false;
            }
        }
    }
}
public static void main( String[] args ) {
    String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Banana", "Orange", "Cherry", "Apple", "Pineapple", "Melon", "Plum" };
    bubbleSort( thisIsAStringArray );
    for ( String element : thisIsAStringArray ) {
        System.out.println( element );
    }
}

The code will output the Strings in the array in order alphabetically.

Apple
Banana
Cherry
Melon
Orange
Pineapple
Plum

But since sorting is a common programming problem, Java has a built-in solution for this. We can use the sort method in java.util.Arrays class. Here is a shortened example of our code above using Arrays.sort() method:

public static void main( String[] args ) {
    String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Banana", "Orange", "Cherry", "Apple", "Pineapple", "Melon", "Plum" };
    Arrays.sort(thisIsAStringArray );
    for ( String element : thisIsAStringArray ) {
        System.out.println( element );
    }
}

And the output will be the same, the alphabetically sorted strings in the array.

Convert String Array to a String

For display purposes, it is sometimes required to convert a String Array to a String. The utility class java.util.Arrays has a convenience method for this. Here is an example code for the conversion:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange" };
String theString = Arrays.toString( thisIsAStringArray );
System.out.println( theString );

And this will be the output:

[Apple, Banana, Orange]

The elements are separated by comma in the converted String, and enclosed in square brackets. To implement a custom behaviour, we may implement our own code for that:

We may implement our own that uses a custom delimiter without the square brackets. Here is an example of converting String Array to String with custom delimiter:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange" };
String delimiter = "-";
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for ( String element : thisIsAStringArray ) {
    if (sb.length() > 0) {
        sb.append( delimiter );
    }
    sb.append( element );
}
String theString = sb.toString();
System.out.println( theString );

The output will use the delimiter dash without square brackets:

Apple-Banana-Orange

We can refactor the logic to a separate method. Here is an example of converting a String Array to String using comma delimiter or any other delimiter:

public static String stringArrayToString( String[] stringArray, String delimiter ) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    for ( String element : stringArray ) {
        if (sb.length() > 0) {
            sb.append( delimiter );
        }
        sb.append( element );
    }
    return sb.toString();
}
public static void main( String[] args ) {
    String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange" };
    String theString = stringArrayToString(thisIsAStringArray, ",");
    System.out.println( theString );
    String theString2 = stringArrayToString(thisIsAStringArray, "=");
    System.out.println( theString2 );
}

The output will be:

Apple,Banana,Orange
Apple=Banana=Orange

Convert String Array to List

One dis-advantage of arrays is that the size is fixed. If we need the size of the array to grow, it is better to use List. Fortunately, this is simple - again by using java.util.Arrays. Here is an example code:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange" };
List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList( thisIsAStringArray );

Note that reading the Javadoc of asList says:

Returns a fixed-size list backed by the specified array. (Changes to the returned list "write through" to the array.) This method acts as bridge between array-based and collection-based APIs, in combination with Collection.toArray. The returned list is serializable and implements RandomAccess.

This means that you can not add items to the List returned by Arrays.asList method. Hence, this code will raise an Exception:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange" };
List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList( thisIsAStringArray );
stringList.add( "WaterMelon" );

When you run this, you will encounter a java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException on the line where "WaterMelon" was being added to the list.

To avoid this problem, we can specifically convert the String Array to an ArrayList. Here is a sample code on how to do that:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange" };
List<String> fixedList = Arrays.asList( thisIsAStringArray );
List<String> stringList = new ArrayList<String>( fixedList );
stringList.add( "WaterMelon" );

The code will construct a new ArrayList based on the returned value of Arrays.asList. All items from fixedList will be added to the stringList. And the ArrayList instance has no limitation of being fixed size. Hence, the code that adds "WaterMelon" will not throw any exception.

Convert String Array to Set

The difference between a Set and a list is that a Set cannot contain duplicate elements while a List can. So if we only want elements of a collection without duplicates, Set is a more appropriate data structure. Here is a sample code on how to convert a String Array to a Set:

String[] thisIsAStringArray = { "Apple", "Banana", "Orange", "Banana" };
List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList( thisIsAStringArray );
Set<String> stringSet = new HashSet<String>( stringList );
System.out.println( "Size of the list is: " + stringList.size() );
System.out.println( "Size of the set is: " + stringSet.size() );

The output will be:

Size of the list is: 4
Size of the set is: 3

The list will have four items, as enumerated in declaration. But since there are two Banana's, the set will only have 3 elements.

Convert list to String Array

If we want the opposite behavior of the sample above, it is also possible to convert a List back to String Array. Here is a sample code that converts a List to String Array:

List<String> stringList = new ArrayList<String>();
stringList.add( "Apple" );
stringList.add( "Banana" );
stringList.add( "Orange" );
String[] stringArr = stringList.toArray( new String[] {} );
for ( String element : stringArr ) {
    System.out.println( element );
}

Note that we need to pass an instance of array to the toArray method. This is to tell the list what type of array it should return.

Two Dimensional String Array in Java

In Java, it is possible to declare an array of arrays - or simply a two-dimensional arrays. This is very useful for storing more complex information. For example, a collection of couples (husband and wife). A couple is composed of two information, the name of the husband, and the name of the wife. If we want to represent an array of couples, then two-dimensional String Array can be used. Here is an example code:

String[][] coupleArray = new String[4][];
coupleArray[0] = new String[] {"John", "Rose"};
coupleArray[1] = new String[] {"Peter", "Abigail"};
coupleArray[2] = new String[] {"Robert", "Josephine"};
coupleArray[3] = new String[] {"Timothy", "Angelina"};

Here, we declared an array of arrays with size 4. We initialize each element with a String Array that represents a pair of husband and wife names.

To access a specific item, we need two index values. For example, to output "Robert", the code should be:

System.out.println( coupleArray[2][0] );

And to access "Josephine", the code should be:

System.out.println( coupleArray[2][1] );

Here is an alternative way of creating a two-dimensional String array and initializing it's values:

String[][] coupleArray = new String[4][2];
coupleArray[0][0] = "John";
coupleArray[0][1] = "Rose";
coupleArray[1][0] = "Peter";
coupleArray[1][1] = "Abigail";
coupleArray[2][0] = "Robert";
coupleArray[2][1] = "Josephine";
coupleArray[3][0] = "Timothy";
coupleArray[3][1] = "Angelina";

Here, we can think of it as creating a multi-dimensional array where the first dimension is of size 4, and the second dimension is of size 2. The effect is the same as the first example. Which means accessing elements is also the same.

Here is an even shorter example where we declare and initialize a two-dimensional string array in a single statement:

String[][] coupleArray = { { "John", "Rose" }, { "Peter", "Abigail" }, { "Robert", "Josephine" }, { "Timothy", "Angelina" } };