Question

I want to create a String from an ArrayList. Currently, I am only able to return the last value from the ArrayList. My code:

eachstep = new ArrayList<String>();
for (int i = 0; i < parsedsteps.size(); i++) {
eachstep.add(parsedsteps.get(i).replaceAll("<[^>]*>", ""));
}                   
for (int i = 0; i < eachstep.size(); i++) {
    String directions = i + "."+" "+eachstep.get(i)+"\n"+;
} 

Gives me:

3.  This is step 3.

Instead of:

1. This is step 1.          
2. This is step 2.
3. This is step 3.

How do I make my for loop create a String with all the values from the ArrayList?

Answer 1

You’ll need to declare your string outside of the loop, and I suggest using StringBuilder as well, it’s more efficient for building strings like this.

StringBuilder directions = new StringBuilder();
for( int i = 0; i < eachstep.size(); i++ )
{
    directions.append( i + "." + " " + eachstep.get( i ) + "\n" );
}

Then when you want to get the string out of the StringBuilder, just call directions.toString().