I want to create a class (Array) that performs different methods on arrays. What I have so far is overloaded constructors for different types of arrays (ints, strings, etc). However this class will also need to create an array of classes, so how could I pass in a class name and have my Array class create an array of that class?
I could just hard code it in for the class I know I will make an array of but I want to make my Array class versatile enough to have this work with any class I make in the future.
You can do something like:
public class Array<T> {
private final T[] arr;
public Array(final int size, final Class<T> clazz) {
this.arr = createArray(size, clazz);
}
private T[] createArray(final int size, final Class<T> clazz) {
return (T[]) java.lang.reflect.Array.newInstance(clazz, size);
}
}
which you can call instantiate by using:
final Array<String> strings = new Array<>(5, String.class);
I would also suggest a different name for your class as Array
is already used by the Java API.
As @andresp said, you can make a new class with an array as a private field. Another option to avoid having to pass a Class<T>
as an argument in addition to the type parameter is to replace the array with java.util.ArrayList
, which functions just like an array with a few differences.
For example:
public class MyArray {
private final java.util.ArrayList arr;
public MyArray(java.util.ArrayList arr) {
this.arr = arr;
}
// Add your additional methods here.
}