Is there a way to define a default value for an object in array to be initialized with?
In the same way that primitive types are initialized when declaring an array of them:
int[] myIntArray = new int[5]; // we now have an array of 5 zeroes
char[] myCharArray = new char[2]; // an array in which all members are "\u0000"
etc.
I'd like to declare an array of objects of a type that I've defined, and have them automatically initialize in a similar fashion.
I suppose this would mean I'd like to run new myObject()
for each index in the array (with the default constructor).
I haven't been able to find anything relevant online, the closest I got was to use Arrays.fill(myArray, new MyObject())
after initializing the array (which actually just creates one object and fills the array with pointers to it), or just using a loop to go over the array and initialize each cell.
thank you!
EDIT: I realized this is relevant not just to arrays, but for declaring objects in general and having them default to a value / initialize automatically.
The Java 8 way:
MyObject[] arr = Stream.generate(() -> new MyObject())
.limit(5)
.toArray(MyObject[]::new);
This will create an infinite Stream of objects produced by the supplier () -> new MyObject()
, limit the stream to the total desired length, and collect it into an array.
If you wanted to set some properties on the object or something, you could have a more involved supplier:
() -> {
MyObject result = new MyObject();
result.setName("foo");
return result;
}