Question

I’m writing a module which serializes others and I’ve got everything working only I’m unsure of how I should deserialize multidimensional arrays.

The problem is, I need to deserialize something like this(There are other attributes for each node, such as the objects SUID, that I’ve excluded for simplicity’s sake.)

<var object="[[I">
    <_0 object="[I">
        <_0 object="java.lang.Integer">1</_0>
        <_1 object="java.lang.Integer">2</_1>
    </_0>
    <_1 object="[I">
        <_0 object="java.lang.Integer">3</_0>
        <_1 object="java.lang.Integer">4</_1>
    </_1>
</var>

Where the “object” attribute on each node describes what object it is. If it is an array of a primitive type, it will begin with an array of [ brackets, where each one represents a count in its depth. I.e:

type int[][] = [[I

type int[] = [i

The problem is I don’t know how I’d programatically create an array with a depth of x? I.e, if I had to do it my way it would probably be something like:

switch(iArrayDepth)
{
    case 1:
        return new ArrayList<Integer>();
    case 2:
        return new ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>>();
    case 3:
        return new ArrayList<ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>>>();
etc...
}

There must be a better way of doing it :S

Another problem arises when I need to unbox this array and make it a mutlidimensional array of a primitive type.

Answer 1

ArrayList is not an array. Generics have type erasure at runtime so what you are trying to with the switch is meaningless at runtime.

If you want to create a List just create it without generics.

List list = new ArraysList();

If you want to create an array of a specific type you can use Arrays.

Object array = Arrays.newArray(arrayType, arrayDepth);

I would rethink your file format. Its verbose for the amount of data you are conveying.

how about something like

int[[ 2
1,2
3,4

This conveys the same information in a much more compact format.