Question

String [] A = {"High","Medium","Low"};
String [] B = {"High","Medium","Low"};
String [] C = {"High","Medium","Low"};
String [] D = {"High","Medium","Low"};
String [] E = {"High","Medium","Low"};
String [] F = {"High","Medium","Low"};

JComboBox Ai = new JComboBox(A); JComboBox Bi = new JComboBox(B);
JComboBox Ci = new JComboBox(C); JComboBox Di = new JComboBox(C);
JComboBox Ei = new JComboBox(E); JComboBox Fi = new JComboBox(F);

....

//add the user choice in arrayList
ArrayList<String> a = new ArrayList<String>();
a.add((String) Ai.getSelectedItem());
a.add((String) Bi.getSelectedItem());
a.add((String) Ci.getSelectedItem());
a.add((String) Di.getSelectedItem());
a.add((String) Ei.getSelectedItem());
a.add((String) Fi.getSelectedItem());

EDITED:
Scenario:
There are 6 groups (Ai,Bi,Ci,Di,Ei,Fi) of choice. On each group, there are 3 sub choice (High(H),Medium(M),Low(L)).The user need to choose one on each of the 6 groups

The choice could be e.g. “HHHLLL” or “MMMLLM” or “HHLLMM” etc.

What is the best way to check and match the user choice without writing many else if ?
e.g.

if(Ai=="High" && Bi=="High" && Ci=="Low" && Di=="High" && Ei=="Low" && Fi=="Medium") {
    System.out.println("Good Choice"); 
}

Thank you.

Answer 1

First off, you don’t need to give a new list of choices to each JComboBox.

String[] choices = {"High", "Medium", "Low"};

JComboBox ai = new JComboBox(choices);
JComboBox bi = new JComboBox(choices);
JComboBox ci = new JComboBox(choices);
JComboBox di = new JComboBox(choices);
JComboBox ei = new JComboBox(choices);
JComboBox fi = new JComboBox(choices);

(Variables in Java usually start with a lowercase letter, so I changed the variable names to lowercase.)

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Next, you can put all six JComboBoxes in an array. You’ll see why this is useful in a moment.

JComboBox[] boxes = {ai, bi, ci, di, ei, fi};

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Now, you can make your user choice string like this:

// Create an ArrayList of Strings, where each string is either "H", "M", or "L"
ArrayList<String> userChoice = new ArrayList<String>()

for (JComboBox box : boxes) {
    // Go through this code once for each JComboBox in boxes
    // The first time through, "box" means the first JComboBox
    // The second time through, "box" is the second JComboBox, etc.
    if (box.getValue().equals("High")) {
         userChoice.add("H");
    } else if (box.getValue().equals("Medium")) {
         userChoice.add("M");
    } else if (box.getValue().equals("Low")) {
         userChoice.add("L")
    }
}

That for-each loop might not be familiar to you. It means “go through this code once for each something in array of somethings.”

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If you use this code, you’ll end up with an ArrayList called userChoice that has something like [“H”, “H”, “M”, “M”, “L”, “L”].