Populate tableview with two dimensional array

Question

Am new to Javafx and wondering how to populate a tableview from a 2-dimensional array of String:

    String[][] staffArray = (String[][]) connection.getAll(\         


        

Answer 1

Best practices for TableView in JavaFX are to use Objects with Properties and bind them to Columns.

I would suggest moving on or converting your 2 dimensional array to a more Strongly Typed model.

What you are aiming for is to have a ObservableList<Model> that you can then assign to your TableView.

Oracle has a really good introduction to the TableView that show cases the recommendations I suggested.

Answer 2

I think JavaFX should have a method that just takes 2d arrays and makes tables but it's not that hard to make. The trick is to use the CellValueFactory to get the right array index for each column instead of getting a bean. This is similar to code I use.

import java.util.Arrays;
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.beans.property.SimpleStringProperty;
import javafx.beans.value.ObservableValue;
import javafx.collections.FXCollections;
import javafx.collections.ObservableList;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.TableColumn;
import javafx.scene.control.TableView;
import javafx.scene.control.TableColumn.CellDataFeatures;
import javafx.scene.layout.StackPane;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import javafx.util.Callback;

public class TableViewSample extends Application {

    @Override
    public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
        StackPane root = new StackPane();
        String[][] staffArray = {{"nice to ", "have", "titles"},
                                 {"a", "b", "c"},
                                 {"d", "e", "f"}};
        ObservableList<String[]> data = FXCollections.observableArrayList();
        data.addAll(Arrays.asList(staffArray));
        data.remove(0);//remove titles from data
        TableView<String[]> table = new TableView<>();
        for (int i = 0; i < staffArray[0].length; i++) {
            TableColumn tc = new TableColumn(staffArray[0][i]);
            final int colNo = i;
            tc.setCellValueFactory(new Callback<CellDataFeatures<String[], String>, ObservableValue<String>>() {
                @Override
                public ObservableValue<String> call(CellDataFeatures<String[], String> p) {
                    return new SimpleStringProperty((p.getValue()[colNo]));
                }
            });
            tc.setPrefWidth(90);
            table.getColumns().add(tc);
        }
        table.setItems(data);
        root.getChildren().add(table);
        primaryStage.setScene(new Scene(root, 300, 250));
        primaryStage.show();
    }
}