Introduction to Dynamic Array - The Coding Shala

Home >> Data Structures >> Introduction to Dynamic Array

Introduction to Dynamic Array

Arrays can be dynamic in size or I can say sometimes we don't know the size of an array at the starting point. In this case, we need to declare an array of variable size. For that, we use ArrayList in Java(vector in C++).

NOTE: ArrayList is a part of Collections.

The following example explains the basics operation of dynamic Array or ArrayList: 

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

//ArrayList Example
public class Main{
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  //initializing an ArrayList
  ArrayList<Integer> arr0 = new ArrayList<>();
  
  //inserting elements into arrayList
  for(int i=1; i<=5;i++) {
   arr0.add(i);   //add method
  }
  
  //accessing elements from an arrayList
  for(int i=0;i<5;i++) {
   System.out.print(arr0.get(i)+" ");  //index starts with 0
  }
  System.out.println();
  
  //get length of an arraylist
  System.out.println("Size of arr0 is: "+arr0.size());
  
  //modifying element
  //set(index, element);
  
  arr0.set(0, 10);
  arr0.set(3, 15);
  
  //adding element at particular index
  arr0.add(0, 21);
  
  for(int i : arr0) System.out.print(i+" ");
  System.out.println();
  
  //remove an element
  arr0.remove(arr0.size()-1); //remove last element
  for(int i : arr0) System.out.print(i+" ");
  System.out.println();
  
  //sorting an arraylist
  System.out.println("After sorting arr0");
  Collections.sort(arr0);
  System.out.println(arr0);
  
  //adding an array to arraylist
  Integer[] a = {5,2,3,1,3};
  ArrayList<Integer> arr2;
  arr2 = new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(a));
  System.out.println("ArrayList arr2 is: "+arr2);
  
  //copying an arrayList
  ArrayList<Integer> arr3 = arr2;  //here arr3 is just reference of arr2
  ArrayList<Integer> arr4 = new ArrayList<>(arr2); //this new copy of arr2
  arr3.add(40);
  arr4.add(30);
  System.out.println("arraylist arr3 is: "+arr3);  //same as arr2
  System.out.println("arraylist arr2 is: "+arr2);
  System.out.println("arraylist arr4 is: "+arr4);
 }
}

Output: 

1 2 3 4 5 
Size of arr0 is: 5
21 10 2 3 15 5 
21 10 2 3 15 
After sorting arr0
[2, 3, 10, 15, 21]
ArrayList arr2 is: [5, 2, 3, 1, 3]
arraylist arr3 is: [5, 2, 3, 1, 3, 40]
arraylist arr2 is: [5, 2, 3, 1, 3, 40]
arraylist arr4 is: [5, 2, 3, 1, 3, 30]

Other Posts You May Like

• Java Arrays
• Introduction to Array Data Structure
• Introduction to String
• Introduction to Linked List
• Introduction to Graph Data Structure

Please leave a comment below if you like this post or found some error, it will help me to improve my content.