CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaoverloading
loxosceles
loxosceles

Reputation: 356

Java: Overloading array methods for specific types

I got this ArrayTools class which does a number of array operations on a integer array.

public class ArrayTools {
private int arr[];
    /* other variables */

public ArrayTools(int max) {
    arr = new int[max];
             /* other stuff */
}

At the moment all the methods of that class take that integer array to work with.

Now I need to implement exactly same methods for a float array. I obviously don't want to c&p the whole code into a new ArrayToolsFloat class changing 'int' into 'float' being this the only difference between them. I guess the "right" way is to overload the methods, therefor I wrote a new constructor:

private int integerArray[];
private float floatArray[];    

 /* constructor which creates the type of array based on the input of the second parameter */
public ArrayTools(int max, String arrayType) {
    if (arrayType.equals("float")) { 
        floatArray = new float[max];
    } else if (arrayType.equals("int")){
        integerArray = new int[max];
    }

Now the problem is that I can't find out how to use the array in a generic way. My methods still don't know which array was created and I don't want to call them with a parameter which specifies that. Doesn't seem to make sense. The constructor doesn't let me declare the private vars inside. Otherwise I would do this:

if (arrayType.equals("float")) { 
        private float genericArray = new float[max];
    } else if (arrayType.equals("int")){
        private int genericArray = new int[max];
    }

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1366

Answers (1)

RMachnik
RMachnik

Reputation: 3694

Use Float and Integer objects and implement it using generics.

    public class ArrayTools<T>{
       private List<T> arr;
       public ArrayTools(int max) {
          arr = new ArrayList<T>(max);
             /* other stuff */
       }
    }

to use that class you simply can do it in that way

ArrayTools<Float> floatArrayTools = new ArrayTools<Float>(max);
ArrayTools<Integer> floatArrayTools = new ArrayTools<Integer>(max);

Upvotes: 3

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