Question

• I want to loop trough an arraylist of String arrays.

• These string arrays have only two elements. inside the loop i would like to compare these two elements of each array.

• i would like to do this in a clean and simple way (avoiding classic for, iterator class, etc., if possible -i know how to do this those ways, but I’m looking for a cleaner way-.

• i would prefer a for-each loop (or for + “:”)

• I’m attaching a sample code to show you what i want to do.

what is the best way for doing this?

ArrayList<String[]> myLst = new ArrayList<String[]>();

// the array of strings has two elements

public String getSecondField(String query)
{
    for (String[] binArray : myLst)
    {
        if (binArray[0].equals(query))
        {
            return binArray[1];
        }
    }
    return "";
}

Answer 1

Instead of arrays of two elements, and since all the first elements of each array are unique, use a Map<String, String>. This way, your code will become:

public String getSecondField(String query)
{
    String ret = map.get(query);
    return ret != null ? ret : "";
}