How can I concatenate two arrays in Java?

Question

I need to concatenate two String arrays in Java.

void f(String[] first, String[] second) {
    String[] both = ???
}

What is the easiest way to do this?

Answer 1

It's possible to write a fully generic version that can even be extended to concatenate any number of arrays. This versions require Java 6, as they use Arrays.copyOf()

Both versions avoid creating any intermediary List objects and use System.arraycopy() to ensure that copying large arrays is as fast as possible.

For two arrays it looks like this:

public static <T> T[] concat(T[] first, T[] second) {
  T[] result = Arrays.copyOf(first, first.length + second.length);
  System.arraycopy(second, 0, result, first.length, second.length);
  return result;
}

And for a arbitrary number of arrays (>= 1) it looks like this:

public static <T> T[] concatAll(T[] first, T[]... rest) {
  int totalLength = first.length;
  for (T[] array : rest) {
    totalLength += array.length;
  }
  T[] result = Arrays.copyOf(first, totalLength);
  int offset = first.length;
  for (T[] array : rest) {
    System.arraycopy(array, 0, result, offset, array.length);
    offset += array.length;
  }
  return result;
}

Answer 2

How about simply

public static class Array {

    public static <T> T[] concat(T[]... arrays) {
        ArrayList<T> al = new ArrayList<T>();
        for (T[] one : arrays)
            Collections.addAll(al, one);
        return (T[]) al.toArray(arrays[0].clone());
    }
}

And just do Array.concat(arr1, arr2). As long as arr1 and arr2 are of the same type, this will give you another array of the same type containing both arrays.

Answer 3

String [] both = new ArrayList<String>(){{addAll(Arrays.asList(first)); addAll(Arrays.asList(second));}}.toArray(new String[0]);

Answer 4

One-liner in Java 8:

String[] both = Stream.concat(Arrays.stream(a), Arrays.stream(b))
                      .toArray(String[]::new);

Or:

String[] both = Stream.of(a, b).flatMap(Stream::of)
                      .toArray(String[]::new);

Answer 5

The Functional Java library has an array wrapper class that equips arrays with handy methods like concatenation.

import static fj.data.Array.array;

...and then

Array<String> both = array(first).append(array(second));

To get the unwrapped array back out, call

String[] s = both.array();

Answer 6

This works, but you need to insert your own error checking.

public class StringConcatenate {

    public static void main(String[] args){

        // Create two arrays to concatenate and one array to hold both
        String[] arr1 = new String[]{"s","t","r","i","n","g"};
        String[] arr2 = new String[]{"s","t","r","i","n","g"};
        String[] arrBoth = new String[arr1.length+arr2.length];

        // Copy elements from first array into first part of new array
        for(int i = 0; i < arr1.length; i++){
            arrBoth[i] = arr1[i];
        }

        // Copy elements from second array into last part of new array
        for(int j = arr1.length;j < arrBoth.length;j++){
            arrBoth[j] = arr2[j-arr1.length];
        }

        // Print result
        for(int k = 0; k < arrBoth.length; k++){
            System.out.print(arrBoth[k]);
        }

        // Additional line to make your terminal look better at completion!
        System.out.println();
    }
}

It's probably not the most efficient, but it doesn't rely on anything other than Java's own API.