How do I copy the contents of one ArrayList into a

Question

I have some data structures, and I would like to use one as a temporary, and another as not temporary.

ArrayList<Object> myObject = new ArrayList<Object>();
ArrayList<Object> myTempObject = new ArrayList<Object>();


//fill myTempObject here
....

//make myObject contain the same values as myTempObject
myObject = myTempObject;

//free up memory by clearing myTempObject
myTempObject.clear();

now the problem with this of course is that myObject is really just pointing to myTempObject, and so once myTempObject is cleared, so is myObject.

How do I retain the values from myTempObject in myObject using java?

Answer 1

Lets try the example

     ArrayList<String> firstArrayList = new ArrayList<>();
            firstArrayList.add("One");
            firstArrayList.add("Two");
            firstArrayList.add("Three");
            firstArrayList.add("Four");
            firstArrayList.add("Five");
            firstArrayList.add("Six");
            //copy array list content into another array list
             ArrayList<String> secondArrayList=new ArrayList<>();
            secondArrayList.addAll(firstArrayList);
            //print all the content of array list
            Iterator itr = secondArrayList.iterator();
            while (itr.hasNext()) {
                System.out.println(itr.next());
            }

In print output as below

One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six

We can also do by using clone() method for which is used to create exact copy

for that try you can try as like

 **ArrayList<String>secondArrayList = (ArrayList<String>) firstArrayList.clone();**
    And then print by using iterator
      **Iterator itr = secondArrayList.iterator();
                while (itr.hasNext()) {
                    System.out.println(itr.next());
                }**

Answer 2

Copy of one list into second is quite simple , you can do that as below:-

ArrayList<List1> list1= new ArrayList<>();
ArrayList<List1> list2= new ArrayList<>();
//this will your copy your list1 into list2
list2.addAll(list1);

Answer 3

Supopose you want to copy oldList into a new ArrayList object called newList

ArrayList<Object> newList = new ArrayList<>() ;

for (int i = 0 ; i<oldList.size();i++){
    newList.add(oldList.get(i)) ;
}

These two lists are indepedant, changes to one are not reflected to the other one.

Answer 4

originalArrayList.addAll(copyArrayList);

Please Note: When using the addAll() method to copy, the contents of both the array lists (originalArrayList and copyArrayList) refer to the same objects or contents. So if you modify any one of them the other will also reflect the same change.

If you don't wan't this then you need to copy each element from the originalArrayList to the copyArrayList, like using a for or while loop.

Answer 5

to copy one list into the other list, u can use the method called Collection.copy(myObject myTempObject).now after executing these line of code u can see all the list values in the myObject.

Answer 6

Suppose you have two arraylist of String type . Like

ArrayList<String> firstArrayList ;//This array list is not having any data.

ArrayList<String> secondArrayList = new ArrayList<>();//Having some data.

Now we have to copy the data of second array to first arraylist like this,

firstArrayList = new ArrayList<>(secondArrayList );

Done!!