Question

I want a function / data structure that can do this:

func(int dim){

if(dim == 1)

int[] array;

else if (dim == 2)

int[][] array;

else if (dim == 3)

int[][][] array;

..

..

.

}

anyone know how?

Answer 1

Edit

Or you could use Array.newInstance(int.class, sizes). Where sizes is an int[] containing the desired sizes. It will work better because you could actually cast the result to an int[][][]...

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Original Answer

You could use the fact that both int[] and Object[] are Objects. Given that you want a rectangular multidimensional array with sizes given by the list sizes

Object createIntArray(List<Integer> sizes) {
    if(sizes.size() == 1) {
        return new int[sizes.get(0)];
    } else {
        Object[] objArray = new Object[sizes.get(0)];
        for(int i = 0; i < objArray.length; i++) {
           objArray[i] = createIntArray(sizes.subList(1, sizes.size());
        }
        return objArray;
    }
}

You lose all static type checking, but that will happen whenever you want a dynamically dimensioned array.