Question

i am interested in using a String array as an element in a Vector object. The array will always be of length 2. Is there a better way for this data structure? Reason for using the Vector is because of dynamic resizing, ie the number of elements vary and i would like to use the add and trimToSize methods for Vector.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Use ArrayList and a custom object instead.

public class MyStrings {
    private String string1;
    private String string2;

    public MyStrings(String string1, String string2) {
        this.string1 = string1;
        this.string2 = string2;
    }

    public String getString1() {
        return string1;
    }

    public String getString2() {
        return string2;
    }
}

Then to use it:

List<MyStrings> list = new ArrayList<MyStrings>();
list.add(new MyString("apple", "orange");
// To iterate:
for (MyStrings myStrings : list) {
    System.out.println(myStrings.getString1());
    System.out.println(myStrings.getString2());
}

Vector is no longer considered a good dynamic array in Java because of extra synchronization logic that’s more or less useless, so it just adds unnecessary overhead. ArrayList is the go-to dynamic array. You could also use LinkedList, which is a doubly-linked list.

Of course, you should also use better naming conventions that describe what the values actually mean instead of the names that I used in my example.