Adding ArrayLists to another ArrayList in java

Question

I want to find the minimum and the maximum from a matrix from each column. My function

public static void findMinMax(double[][] matrix) {
        ArrayList<Double> column = new ArrayList<Double>();
        ArrayList<Double> minmax = new ArrayList<Double>();
        ArrayList<ArrayList<Double>> minMaxValues = new ArrayList<ArrayList<Double>>();
            for (int j=0;j<matrix[1].length;j++) {
                column.clear();
                minmax.clear();
                for (int i=0;i<matrix.length;i++) {
                    column.add(matrix[i][j]);
                }
                double max = Collections.max(column);
                double min = Collections.min(column);
                minmax.add(min);
                minmax.add(max);
                try {
                    System.out.println("adding to final minmax " + j);
                    minMaxValues.add(minmax);
                    System.out.println(minMaxValues);
                } catch (Exception ex) {
                    System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
                }
            }
            System.out.println(minMaxValues);
    }

The problem is that at the last iteration it adds to minMaxValues only the last minmax ArrayList. Here is an example of the output

adding to final minmax 0
[[-3.5, 4.5]]
adding to final minmax 1
[[-3.5, 4.5], [-3.5, 4.5]]
adding to final minmax 2
[[-3.5, 4.5], [-3.5, 4.5], [-3.5, 4.5]]
adding to final minmax 3
[[-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 4
[[-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 5
[[-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 6
[[-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2], [-3.5, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 7
[[-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 8
[[-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 9
[[-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2], [-3.9, 4.2]]
adding to final minmax 10
[[-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5], [-3.9, 4.5]]

As you can see it works fine until minmax 10 where I don't understand what happens. Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

You need to reinitialize ArrayList<Double> minmax for every iteration. Otherwise your result list will just contain 11 references to the same list , containing the last values that you put in.

You need to move

ArrayList<Double> minmax = new ArrayList<Double>();

inside your loop.