Initialising a multidimensional array in Java

java multidimensional-array
burntsugar picture burntsugar · Jul 1, 2009 · Viewed 410.7k times · Source

What is the correct way to declare a multidimensional array and assign values to it?

This is what I have:

int x = 5;
int y = 5;

String[][] myStringArray = new String [x][y];

myStringArray[0][x] = "a string";
myStringArray[0][y] = "another string";

Answer

aioobe picture aioobe · Oct 27, 2011

Java doesn't have "true" multidimensional arrays.

For example, arr[i][j][k] is equivalent to ((arr[i])[j])[k]. In other words, arr is simply an array, of arrays, of arrays.

So, if you know how arrays work, you know how multidimensional arrays work!

Declaration:

int[][][] threeDimArr = new int[4][5][6];

or, with initialization:

int[][][] threeDimArr = { { { 1, 2 }, { 3, 4 } }, { { 5, 6 }, { 7, 8 } } };

Access:

int x = threeDimArr[1][0][1];

or

int[][] row = threeDimArr[1];

String representation:

Arrays.deepToString(threeDimArr);

yields

"[[[1, 2], [3, 4]], [[5, 6], [7, 8]]]"

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