Removing an element from an Array (Java) [duplicate]

Answer 1

You can not change the length of an array, but you can change the values the index holds by copying new values and store them to a existing index number. 1=mike , 2=jeff // 10 = george 11 goes to 1 overwriting mike .

Object[] array = new Object[10];
int count = -1;

public void myFunction(String string) {
    count++;
    if(count == array.length) { 
        count = 0;  // overwrite first
    }
    array[count] = string;    
}

Answer 2

I hope you use the java collection / java commons collections!

With an java.util.ArrayList you can do things like the following:

yourArrayList.remove(someObject);

yourArrayList.add(someObject);

Answer 3

You could use commons lang's ArrayUtils.

array = ArrayUtils.removeElement(array, element)

commons.apache.org library:Javadocs

Answer 4

Your question isn't very clear. From your own answer, I can tell better what you are trying to do:

public static String[] removeElements(String[] input, String deleteMe) {
    List result = new LinkedList();

    for(String item : input)
        if(!deleteMe.equals(item))
            result.add(item);

    return result.toArray(input);
}

NB: This is untested. Error checking is left as an exercise to the reader (I'd throw IllegalArgumentException if either input or deleteMe is null; an empty list on null list input doesn't make sense. Removing null Strings from the array might make sense, but I'll leave that as an exercise too; currently, it will throw an NPE when it tries to call equals on deleteMe if deleteMe is null.)

Choices I made here:

I used a LinkedList. Iteration should be just as fast, and you avoid any resizes, or allocating too big of a list if you end up deleting lots of elements. You could use an ArrayList, and set the initial size to the length of input. It likely wouldn't make much of a difference.

Answer 5

I think the question was asking for a solution without the use of the Collections API. One uses arrays either for low level details, where performance matters, or for a loosely coupled SOA integration. In the later, it is OK to convert them to Collections and pass them to the business logic as that.

For the low level performance stuff, it is usually already obfuscated by the quick-and-dirty imperative state-mingling by for loops, etc. In that case converting back and forth between Collections and arrays is cumbersome, unreadable, and even resource intensive.

By the way, TopCoder, anyone? Always those array parameters! So be prepared to be able to handle them when in the Arena.

Below is my interpretation of the problem, and a solution. It is different in functionality from both of the one given by Bill K and jelovirt. Also, it handles gracefully the case when the element is not in the array.

Hope that helps!

public char[] remove(char[] symbols, char c)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < symbols.length; i++)
    {
        if (symbols[i] == c)
        {
            char[] copy = new char[symbols.length-1];
            System.arraycopy(symbols, 0, copy, 0, i);
            System.arraycopy(symbols, i+1, copy, i, symbols.length-i-1);
            return copy;
        }
    }
    return symbols;
}

Answer 6

Sure, create another array :)