Wednesday 5 August 2015

Compare two arrays

For primitive type: Arrays.equals(a1,a2)
For reference type: Arrays.deepEquals(a1,a2)

How to compare array contents?
A simple way is to run a loop and compare elements one by one.

Java provides a direct method Arrays.equals() to compare two arrays.

Actually, there is a list of equals() methods in Arrays class for different primitive types (int, char, ..etc) and one for Object type (which is base of all classes in Java).

import java.util.Arrays;
class ArraysCompare {
       public static void main (String[] args) {
              int arr1[] = {1, 2, 3};
              int arr2[] = {1, 2, 3};
              if (Arrays.equals(arr1arr2)) {
                     System.out.println("Same");
              } else {
                     System.out.println("Not same");
              }
       }
}
Output:
Same

Issue with the equals() method:
import java.util.Arrays;
class ArraysCompare {
       public static void main (String[] args) {
              // inarr1 and inarr2 have same values
              int inarr1[] = {1, 2, 3};
              int inarr2[] = {1, 2, 3};  
              Object[] arr1 = {inarr1}; //arr1 contains only one element
              Object[] arr2 = {inarr2}; //arr2 also contains only one element
              if (Arrays.equals(arr1arr2)) { //will not work for reference.
                     System.out.println("Same");
              } else {
                     System.out.println("Not same");
              }
       }
}
Output:
Not Same

If the arrays contain arrays inside them or some other references which refer to different object but have same values.


import java.util.Arrays;
class ArraysCompare {
       public static void main (String[] args) {
              // inarr1 and inarr2 have same values
              int inarr1[] = {1, 2, 3};
              int inarr2[] = {1, 2, 3};  
              Object[] arr1 = {inarr1};//arr1 contains only one element
              Object[] arr2 = {inarr2};//arr2 also contains only one element
              if (Arrays.deepEquals(arr1arr2)) {
                     System.out.println("Same");
              } else {
                     System.out.println("Not same");
              }
       }
}
Output:
Same

2 comments:

  1. Precise and crisp explanation. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. What will be the output for

    import java.util.Arrays;
    class Test
    {
    public static void main (String[] args)
    {
    int inarr1[] = {1, 2, 3};
    int inarr2[] = {1, 2, 3};
    Object[] arr1 = {inarr1}; // arr1 contains only one element
    Object[] arr2 = {inarr2}; // arr2 also contains only one element
    Object[] outarr1 = {arr1}; // outarr1 contains only one element
    Object[] outarr2 = {arr2}; // outarr2 also contains only one element
    if (Arrays.deepEquals(outarr1, outarr2))
    System.out.println("Same");
    else
    System.out.println("Not same");
    }
    }

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...