Passing array as argument BUT individually

Question

I want to have an abstract function such as

init(int... conditions);

So that inherited classes can have variety of init conditions; may some classes require less number of arugments and may others will take more than the others.

However I wish to rather pass them individually like following

init(arr[0], arr[1], arr[2]... arr[size-1]);

than

init(arr);

Is such approach possible? If not, then should I be better of just passing an array?

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Sorry for the confusion that I seem to create.

I have an array of size n that varies. I cannot hard code passing the argument because the number of arguments is dependable. I do not want to go for function overload for different versions of init method because that will create about dozen of different versions of init method.

Answer 1

You don't need to overload the method. Just use the so called variable arguments . The are available in Java since version 1.5. For example:

public void init(int... conditions) { ... }

You can use the method in two ways:

1. Pass the array itself. Like this:

   init(array);

2. Pass each of the array elements. Like this:

   init(array[0], array[1], ... array[n]);

Note that if you want to have other arguments for this method, they should be placed in the method signature only before the variable arguments.

Answer 2

You can always use the variable arguments method parameter. In fact it has the same method signature as what you posted above.

public void init(int... conditions){}

This makes conditions an int[], which you can iterate over to get your init conditions.