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What is the fastest way to fill an ArrayList with null in java?

I want a List of n Sets of Integers and initially this list should be filled with null.
A lot of the Sets will be initialised later, and some will remain null.
I have tried different methods to implement this, some of them are included here:
List<HashSet<Integer>> List_of_Sets = Arrays.asList(new HashSet[n]);
ArrayList<HashSet<Integer>> List_of_Sets = new ArrayList<>(n);
while(n-- > 0) List_of_Sets.add(null);
Is there a faster way to do this?
For clarification an example for arrays would be Arrays.fill() used to be slower than:
/*
* initialize a smaller piece of the array and use the System.arraycopy
* call to fill in the rest of the array in an expanding binary fashion
*/
public static void bytefill(byte[] array, byte value) {
int len = array.length;
if (len > 0){
array[0] = value;
}
//Value of i will be [1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ..., len]
for (int i = 1; i < len; i += i) {
System.arraycopy(array, 0, array, i, ((len - i) < i) ? (len - i) : i);
}
}
^above code is from Ross Drew's answer to Fastest way to set all values of an array?

Is there a faster way to do this?
As far as I am aware, no. Certainly, there is no easy way that is faster.
Based on how it works, I think (but I have not tested) that the Arrays.asList(new HashSet[n]) should be the fastest solution.
It would be possible to implement a custom List implementation that is like an ArrayList but is pre-initialized to N null values. But under the hood the initialization will be pretty much identical with what happens in the List implementation that asList returns. So I doubt that any performance improvements would be significant ... or worth the effort.
If you want to be sure of this, you could write a benchmark of the various options. However, I don't think this is the right approach in this case.
Instead I would recommend benchmarking and profiling your entire application to determine if operations on this list are a real performance hotspot.
If it is not a hotspot, my recommendation would be to just use the Arrays.asList approach and spend your time on something more important.
If it is a hotspot, you should consider replacing the List with an array. From your earlier description it seemed you are going to use the List like an array; i.e. using positional get and set operations, and no operations that change the list size. If that is the case, then using a real array should be more efficient. It saves memory, and avoids a level of indirection and (possibly) some bounds checking.
One reason not to do this would be if you needed to pass the array to some other code that requires a List.

If resizing is not important to you then implementing your own list might be fast. It might also be buggy. It would at least be interesting to benchmark compared to Java's lists. One strange effect that you might see is that standard lists might be optimised by the JIT sooner, as they could be used internally by Java's standard library.
Here is my attempt, although I suggest you don't use it. Use a standard list implementation instead.
import java.util.*;
public class FastListOfNullsDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Set<Integer>[] arr = new Set[100_000]; // all set to null by default.
List<Set<Integer>> myList = new ArrayBackedList<>(arr);
myList.set(3, new TreeSet<Integer>());
myList.get(3).add(5);
myList.get(3).add(4);
myList.get(3).add(3);
myList.get(3).add(2);
myList.get(3).add(1);
// Let's just print some because 100,000 is a lot!
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
System.out.println(myList.get(i));
}
}
}
class ArrayBackedList<T> extends AbstractList<T> {
private final T[] arr;
ArrayBackedList(T[] arr) {
this.arr = arr;
}
#Override
public T get(int index) {
return arr[index];
}
#Override
public int size() {
return arr.length;
}
#Override
public T set(int index, T value) {
T result = arr[index];
arr[index] = value;
return result;
}
}
Another possibility would be implementing an always-null, fixed-size list. Use that to initialise the ArrayList. I won't promise that it is fast but you could try it out.
import java.util.*;
public class FastListOfNullsDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
List<Set<Integer>> allNull = new NullList<>(100_000);
List<Set<Integer>> myList = new ArrayList<>(allNull);
myList.set(3, new TreeSet<Integer>());
myList.get(3).add(5);
myList.get(3).add(4);
myList.get(3).add(3);
myList.get(3).add(2);
myList.get(3).add(1);
System.out.println(myList.size());
// Let's just print some because 100,000 is a lot!
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
System.out.println(myList.get(i));
}
}
}
class NullList<T> extends AbstractList<T> {
private int count;
NullList(int count) {
this.count = count;
}
#Override
public T get(int index) {
return null;
}
#Override
public int size() {
return count;
}
}

Return the first index from arraylist where string was found logic confusion

guys so I have this method that I am trying to construct, I am just having a hard time understanding the logic. This is the condition of the method:
public int search(String str) – search the list for parameter str.
Searches should work regardless of case. For example, “TOMATO” is
equivalent to “tomato.”
Hint: the String class has a method called
equalsIgnoreCase. If the string str appears more than once in the
ArrayList, return the first index where the string str was found or
return -1 if the string str was not found in the ArrayList.
This is what I have so far for my code, I am not sure if this is the right way to do it. My ArrayList is defined as words.
In order to solve this issue, I am thinking of using a foreach statement to iterate through the ArrayList then an If to check if the words match then return the Index value based on the match but I am getting error. The other confusion I am having is how do I only return the first Index value only. Maybe I am doing this wrong. Any help or direction is appreciated.
public int search(String str)
{
for(String s : words)
if(s.contains(s.equalsIgnoreCase(str)))
return s.get(s.equalsIgnoreCase(str));
}

The first answer unnecessarily has to search through the list of words to find the index once it has determined that the word is in the list. The code should be able to already know the index. This is the more efficient approach:
public int search(String str) {
int i = 0;
for (String s : words) {
if (s.equalsIgnoreCase(str))
return i;
i++;
}
return -1;
}
There is also the more classic approach...the way it might have been done before the enhance for loop was added to the Java language:
public int search(String str) {
for (int i = 0; i < words.size(); i++)
if (words.get(i).equalsIgnoreCase(str))
return i;
return -1;
}

You actually overcomplicated it a little bit
public int search(String str) {
for(String s : words) {
if(s.equalsIgnoreCase(str)) {
return words.indexOf(s);
}
}
return -1;
}
Since the return method will stop running more code in the function it will always return the first matching word.

You can use stream also to resolve this problem:
public boolean search(List<String> words, String wordToMatch)
{
Predicate<String> equalityPred = s -> s.equalsIgnoreCase(wordToMatch);
return words.stream().anyMatch(equalityPred);
}

Fundamental misunderstanding of objects and attributes in Java

I'm sitting on an assignment for university and I'm at a point, where I fear I haven't really understood something fundamental in the concecpt of Java or OOP altogether. I'll try to make it as short as possible (maybe it's sufficient to just look at the 3rd code segment, but I just wanted to make sure, I included enough detail). I am to write a little employee management. One class within this project is the employeeManagement itself and this class should possess a method for sorting employees by first letter via bubblesort.
I have written 3 classes for this: The first one is "Employee", which contains a name and an ID (a running number) , getter and setter methods and one method for checking whether the first letter of one employee is smaller (lower in the alphabet) than the other. It looks like this:
static boolean isSmaller(Employee source, Employee target) {
char[] sourceArray = new char[source.name.length()];
char[] targetArray = new char[target.name.length()];
sourceArray = source.name.toCharArray();
targetArray = target.name.toCharArray();
if(sourceArray[0] < targetArray[0])
return true;
else
return false;
}
I tested it and it seems to work for my case. Now there's another class called EmployeeList and it manages the employees via an array of employees ("Employee" objects). The size of this array is determined via constructor. My code looks like this:
public class EmployeeList {
/*attributes*/
private int size;
private Employee[] employeeArray;
/* constructor */
public EmployeeList(int size) {
this.employeeArray = new Employee[size];
}
/* methods */
public int getSize() {
return size;
}
public void setSize(int size) {
this.size = size;
}
/* adds employee to end of the list. Returns false, if list is too small */
boolean add(Employee m) {
int id = m.getID();
if (id > employeeArray.length) {
return false;
} else {
employeeArray[id] = m;
return true;
}
}
/* returns employee at certain position */
Employee get(int index) {
return employeeArray[index];
}
/* Sets employee at certain position. Returns null, if position doesn't exist. Else returns old value. */
Employee set(int index, Employee m) {
if (employeeArray[index] == null) {
return null;
} else {
Employee before = employeeArray[index];
employeeArray[index] = m;
return before;
}
}
Now comes my real problem: In a third class called "employeeManagement" I am supposed to implement the sorting algorithm. The class looks like this:
public class EmployeeManagement {
private EmployeeList ml = new EmployeeList(3);
public boolean addEmployee(Employee e) {
return ml.add(e);
}
public void sortEmployee() {
System.out.println(ml.getSize()); // I wrote this for debugging, exactly here lies my problem
for (int n = ml.getSize(); n > 1; n--) {
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
if (Employee.isSmaller(ml.get(i), ml.get(i + 1)) == false) {
Employee old = ml.set(i, ml.get(i + 1));
ml.set(i+1, old);
}
}
}
}
The "println" before my comment returns "0" in console... I am expecting "3" as this is the size I gave the "EmployeeList" as parameter of the constructor within my "EmployeeManagement" class. Where is my mistake ? And how can I access the size of the object I created in the "EmployeeManagement" class (the "3") ? I'm really looking forward to your answers!
Thanks,
Phreneticus

You are not storing size in your constructor. Something like,
public EmployeeList(int size) {
this.employeeArray = new Employee[size];
this.size = size; // <-- add this.
}
Also, setSize isn't going to automatically copy (and grow) the array. You will need to copy the array, because Java arrays have a fixed length. Finally, you don't really need size here since employeeArray has a length.

The size variable you are calling is the class field. If you take a quick look at your code, the getter is getting the field (which is initialized as zero when created). The size you are using it. The good way of doing it would be to get the size of the array in the getter like this:
public int getSize() {
return employeeArray.length;
}
This would return the size of the array in the object.

Comparators and HashMaps for Markov Chain

I am trying to make a markov chain in Java/Processing, that will read a book then be able to cut it up in probabilistic ways. Programming is a hobby…
I had the idea that the way to do it was to use a HashMap, and store a Word Object within it. I could easily do this with a String, but within each unique Word it needs to have another HashMap that will store more yet more Word Objects for the Words that follow it, and so on until we have made a model with a sufficient level of complexity.
The problems are that I can’t seem to be able to check whether or not a Word Object is already within the Map by its String name.
Through looking around on SO I can see that it is likely that I will need a Comparator — but all the examples that I have seen use compare or compareTo, when I think that I need something that is more like equals? I don’t need anything at all to do with Sorting, the order will be worked out in the second part of the program.
The code below is pretty horrible — I have been hacking away at this problem for ages but I can’t find an explanation that is sufficiently dumbed down enough for me to understand it.
In Pseudo:
read book
If the Word is not in the Map, put it in there
If the Word is in the Map, iterate the key
Check the Words that follow this Word, and check in the same way if they are within the first Word’s Map, adding as necessary… repeat…
When this is complete
Using the Integer values as probabilities, pick a word
from that Word’s Map, find a Word that is probable to follow it
repeat until desired length is achieved
Code so far:
///markovs
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Comparator;
HashMap<Word, Integer> book;
void setup()
{
book = new HashMap<Word, Integer>();
String[] rows = loadStrings("crash.txt");
for (int i = 0; i < rows.length; i++)
{
if (trim(rows[i]).length() == 0)
{
continue;
}
String[] pieces = split(rows[i], " ");
for (int j = 0; j<pieces.length; j++)
{
Word temp = new Word(pieces[j]);
//c++;
if (book.compare(temp)) {
println("this worked for once");
//iterate here
} else {
book.put(temp, 1);
println("didn’t work");
//book.add(temp);
book.put(temp, 1);
}
}
}
println(book.size());
//println(c);
//println(book);
}
class WordComparator implements Comparator<Word> {
#Override
public int compare(Word w1, Word w2) {
String w1name = w1.name;
String w2name = w2.name;
if (w1name.equals(w2name)) {
return 1;
} else {
return 0;
}
}
}
class Word
{
String name;
int value=1;
int depth;
HashMap<String, Integer> list;
Word(String name_)
{
this.name = name_;
}
int compareTo(Word w) {
if (w.name.equals(this.name)) {
return 0;
} else {
return -1;
}
}
Word(Word w)
{
this.depth = w.depth+1;
}
void nextWord(String word)
{
}
void count() {
value++;
}
void makeHash()
{
list = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
}
}

To use an Object as a key in a HashMap, you need to override two methods: equals() and hashCode(). I'm not exactly sure what you're going for, but a simple example that just uses the name variable would look like this:
public boolean equals(Object other){
if(other instanceof Word){
return this.name.equals(((Word)other).name);
}
return false;
}
public int hashCode(){
return name.hashCode();
}
However, if you're just using the name variable anyway, you might be looking for a multimap, which is just a Map that contains a Map that contains...
HashMap<String, HashMap<String, Integer>> bookMap;
Furthermore, while HashMap does not use the compareTo function, the way you've implemented it seems off. First of all, you need to implement Comparable on your class:
class Word implements Comparable<Word>{
And secondly, the compareTo function should return one of 3 values: negative, zero, or positive. Right now you're only returning zero or negative, which doesn't make any sense.
I think you might be better off taking a step back and describing what you're actually trying to do, as your code contains a lot of confusing logic right now.

As for comparing, you can override Object's inherited equals method, something like:
# Override
boolean equals(Object o) {
return o instanceof Word
? o.name.equals(name) : false;
}

Be aware of using your own types as keys for the HashMap, in this case Word. That only works out well if you provide a sensible implementation of .hashCode() and .equals() on Word.
Here it looks like you could just use String instead. String already has the required method implementations. If you really do want to use Word, you could use those methods from String. e.g.
class Word {
String letters;
public int hashCode() {
return letters.hashCode();
}
public boolean equals(Object o) {
if (o == null || o.getClass() != getClass()) return false;
return letters.equals(((Word) o).letters);
}
}
You don't need a compare or compareTo, just these two.

Java: how to get Iterator<Character> from String [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
What is the easiest/best/most correct way to iterate through the characters of a string in Java?
(16 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
I need a Iterator<Character> from a String object. Is there any available function in Java that provides me this or do I have to code my own?

One option is to use Guava:
ImmutableList<Character> chars = Lists.charactersOf(someString);
UnmodifiableListIterator<Character> iter = chars.listIterator();
This produces an immutable list of characters that is backed by the given string (no copying involved).
If you end up doing this yourself, though, I would recommend not exposing the implementation class for the Iterator as a number of other examples do. I'd recommend instead making your own utility class and exposing a static factory method:
public static Iterator<Character> stringIterator(final String string) {
// Ensure the error is found as soon as possible.
if (string == null)
throw new NullPointerException();
return new Iterator<Character>() {
private int index = 0;
public boolean hasNext() {
return index < string.length();
}
public Character next() {
/*
* Throw NoSuchElementException as defined by the Iterator contract,
* not IndexOutOfBoundsException.
*/
if (!hasNext())
throw new NoSuchElementException();
return string.charAt(index++);
}
public void remove() {
throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}
};
}

It doesn't exist, but it's trivial to implement:
class CharacterIterator implements Iterator<Character> {
private final String str;
private int pos = 0;
public CharacterIterator(String str) {
this.str = str;
}
public boolean hasNext() {
return pos < str.length();
}
public Character next() {
return str.charAt(pos++);
}
public void remove() {
throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}
}
The implementation is probably as efficient as it gets.

for (char c : myString.toCharArray()) {
}

Stealing from somebody else in another answer, this is probably the best direct implementation (if you're not going to use guava).
/**
* #param string
* #return list of characters in the string
*/
public static List<Character> characters(final String string) {
return new AbstractList<Character>() {
#Override
public Character get(int index) {
return string.charAt(index);
}
#Override
public int size() {
return string.length();
}
};
}

CharacterIterator it = new StringCharacterIterator("abcd");
// Iterate over the characters in the forward direction
for (char ch=it.first(); ch != CharacterIterator.DONE; ch=it.next())
// Iterate over the characters in the backward direction
for (char ch=it.last(); ch != CharacterIterator.DONE; ch=it.previous())

Short answer:
No, you have to code it.
Long answer:
List and Set both have a method for obtaining an Iterator (there are a few other collection classes, but probably not what your looking for). The List and Set interfaces are a part of the Collections Framework which only allow for adding/removing/iterating Objects like Character or Integer (not primitives like char or int). There is a feature in Java 1.5 called auto-boxing that will hide this primitive to Object conversion but I don't recommend it and it won't provide what you want in this case.
An alternative would be to wrap the String in a class of your own that
implements Iterator<Character>
but that might be more work than it is worth.
Here is a code snippet for doing what you want:
String s = "";
List<Character> list = new ArrayList<Character>(s.length());
for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
// note that Character.valueOf() is preferred to new Character()
// you can omit the Character.valueOf() method
// and Java 1.5+ will auto-box the primitive into an Object
list.add(Character.valueOf(s.charAt(i)));
}
Iterator<Character> iterator = list.iterator();

No direct way. Not difficult to code, though:
public static Iterator<Character> gimmeIterator(final String x) {
Iterator<Character> it = new Iterator<Character>() {
String str = x == null ? "" : x;
int pos = -1; // last read
public boolean hasNext() { return(pos+1 < str.length()); }
public Character next() { pos++; return str.charAt(pos); }
public void remove() {
throw new UnsupportedOperationException("remove unsupported for this iterator");
}
};
return it;
}

This can be done with a little help from Apache Commons Lang (if you don't want to use Guava, and want a true java.util.Iterator.
private static Iterator<Character> iterator(String string) {
return Arrays.asList(ArrayUtils.toObject(string.toCharArray())).iterator();
}

With java 8 or newer you can use the stream facility. With the chars() method you can access an IntStream. The IntStream supports the method iterator() that returns an OfInt iterator. OfInt implements Iterator<Integer>.
String str = "foobar";
OfInt ofit = str.chars().iterator();
Iterator<Integer> it = ofit;
It is not a perfect answer, since you asked for Iterator<Character>.
Btw: With str.codePoints() you can also access a code point IntStream.

Not sure if there is a more direct way but you could do something like;
Arrays.asList(string.toCharArray()).iterator();
Scratch that; Arrays.asList doesn't do what I seem to remember it doing.
Edit 2: Seems like it last worked this way in 1.4

The Iterator iterate over a collection or whatever implements it. String class does nost implement this interface. So there is no direct way.
To iterate over a string you will have to first create a char array from it and then from this char array a Collection.

This feels dirty, but you could use Scanner with empty string delimiter:
Scanner scanner = new java.util.Scanner(myInput).useDelimiter("");
Scanner implements Iterator, so scanner is now an Iterator of length-1 strings, which is close.
To continue with the (very?) dirty, in Java 8 you can then do this to succinctly iterate by chars:
for (String s: (Iterable<String>)() -> scanner) {
char c = s.charAt(0);
System.out.println(c);
}
For details on why () -> scanner works (and why it may be dangerous, though not in this use case), see Explain how this lambda can be assigned to an Iterable.