Can I use the method if the object is held by an multidimensional array?

Question

I saw some post quite similar but did not hit spot on.

I was thinking something like this:

Object[][] test = {
          {"Name", new JTextField()},
          {"Gender", new JComboBox()}
}

I tried something like this but i cannot use the method of the JTextField or the JComboBox. How do I instantiate this depending on there 1-index? Is this possible?

You might want to store your components in a Map instead of an array. — assylias, Jul 26 '12 at 16:08
a similar post with a nice solution: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2172718/can-java-store-methods-in-arrays — applepie, Jul 26 '12 at 16:22
Map?.. im not that expert yet in java, so let me take a look at it. Thanks for the reply. — oneofakind, Aug 01 '12 at 06:31

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 26 '12 at 16:09

4

If you know for sure what it is, you can cast it when you get it out, like this

JComboBox box = (JComboBox)(test[1][1]);
box.whatever();

However, instead of using an Object[][], why not just make a class?

class UIWidgets {
    JTextField name;
    JComboBox gender;
}

answered Jul 26 '12 at 16:09

corsiKa

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what if, we assuming that in the array it can be any objects anytime. So my casting cannot be static right? a class? What i'm really trying to do is to pass this Object[][], what ever the contents may be, and then create them. Like i said my casting cannot be constant considering the different possibilities. (try catch could be) but is there other ways to approach this? – oneofakind Aug 01 '12 at 06:30

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 26 '12 at 16:08

2

You need to cast first before you can access methods specific to the type, since Java sees them all as instances of Object:

((JTextField)test[0][1]).CallMethodHere();

Or alternately:

JTextField tf = (JTextField)test[0][1];
// do something with tf

answered Jul 26 '12 at 16:08

mellamokb

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what if, we assuming that in the array it can be any objects anytime. So my casting cannot be static right? what other way to i approach this? – oneofakind Aug 01 '12 at 06:28

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 27 '12 at 05:15

0

Try this:

((JTextField) test[0][1]).setText("someText");

edited Jul 27 '12 at 05:15

Conner

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answered Jul 26 '12 at 16:09

higuaro

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Can I use the method if the object is held by an multidimensional array?

3 Answers3