Thread: What's wrong in my loop!!

Hey guys!

I have a list array of integer type that consist of arrays with the index value of strings that I have stored in a string array. I want to get the actual string values for those indexes, so I created a set inside a loop that iterate over the different arrays stored in the list then another loop that iterates over every integer element inside the arrays. I want to use the set to store the string value of every index in the arrays. However, I'm only getting the set filled up with the correct values only for the first array. And I get all the strings printed inside the set of all the rest arrays.
This is my code:

//printing out the content of the clusters
		       	    for(int i = 0; i < clusters.size(); i++){
		       	    	System.out.println("cluster " + i + ":" + Arrays.toString(clusters.get(i)));
				     for(int j = 0; j< clusters.get(i).length; j++){
 
 
					    	ID_CLUSTER.add(STRINGS[clusters.get(i)[j]].toString());      
 
				     } 
			       	 System.out.println("cluster " + ID_CLUSTER);
                   }

And this is what I get:
cluster 0:[2, 0, 1]
cluster ["This is another string", "A different string", "This is a string"]
cluster 1:[3]
cluster ["This is another string", "Short", "A different string", "This is a string"]
cluster 2:[4]
cluster ["This is another string", "A very very very very very very very very very very very long long long long string", "Short", "A different string", "This is a string"]

I appreciate any advice!

Is this all of the code?

Off course no! This is only the loop part in which I need to store the strings value of each index in a string set. Why do u need to have all the code?

Not necessarily all of the code, but the array lists might help. Typically, if I don't see something right away in code, I dump it into my compiler and play around until I figure it out.

Thanx for ur attention!! Actually I don't obtain the list array directly from a code that I wrote! I use an external library that returns the list array as an output of one of its methods. So trying to play with the code what i'm noting is that my loop creates adds the string values for the first array, and keep on adding the rest of values to that set. So basically, what I want to do is create an empty set after each loop to add only the values associated with the indexes stored in a specific array! Any idea about how to do that?

Originally Posted by GregBrannon

Please use standard Java terms so that we have some chance of understanding what you're asking. What's a "list array?" Do you mean ArrayList? Looking at the code, I think so, but I can't be sure what I'm looking at is what you're talking about.

The above objective statement is not clear. Again, I don't know what you mean by "empty set." A set is a collection that does not contain duplicates. Is that what you mean? Giving your variables better names would also be helpful.

It "sounds" like you're using one collection to indicate the indices of which values to collect from another collection to store in a third collection. Something like:

    // method collectStrings() returns an array of Strings collected from the
    // argument ArrayList stringList at the indices specified by the elements
    // of the argument int[] indexArray
    public String[] collectStrings( int[] indexArray, ArrayList<String> stringList )
    {
        String[] resultArray = new String[indexArray.length];
 
        for ( int i = 0 ; i < indexArray.length ; i++ )
        {
            resultArray[i] = stringList.get( indexArray[i] );
        }
 
        return resultArray;
 
    } // end method collectStrings()

Note that this example has no error checking.

So sorry for not being able to explain my point! Yes list array == ArrayList.
Here is exactly what I'm doing: I have an Array of type Object with some strings, I passed that array to a method where some calculations are done to group similar strings together. The output of that method is an ArrayList of type int[]. Now, I'm trying to loop through the int[] that are inside the list and then I'm using an inner loop to loop through each element of those arrays. What I want to get as a result is the strings grouped based on the indices that are in the int[].
So I tried using an ArrayList of type String, and also tried the Set of type String to store the strings instead of their indices. What I'm seeing is that my loop adds the Strings to the Set or the ArrayList and keeps on adding the new values after each loop. While what I want to achieve is just adding only the Strings of specific indices. I hope I explained myself better this time. Looking forward hearing your comments.