How to avoid null insertion in ArrayList while inserting element?  ArrayList&lt;String&gt; al=new ArrayList&lt;String&gt;(); al.add(null);//should avoid . . . al.add("Ramesh");
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I use object != null a lot to avoid . What is an alternative to: if (someobject != null) {     someobject.doCalc(); }
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It seems to me that a lot of my debugging time is spent chasing down null-reference exceptions in complex statements. For instance:  For Each game As IHomeGame in _GamesToOpen.GetIterator()   Why, when I get a NullReferenceException, can I get the line number in the stack trace, but not the name of the object that equals null. In other words, why:  Object reference not set to an instance of an object.   instead of  _GamesToOpen is not set to an instance of an object.   or  Anonymous object returned by _GamesToOpen.GetIterator() is null.   or  game was set to null.   Is this strictly a design choice, meant to protect the anonymity of the code or is there a compelling reason in compiler design not to include this information in the debug-time exception?
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How to add new item in existing string array in C#.net?  I need to preserve the existing data.
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I always thought Java uses pass-by-reference. However, I've seen a couple of blog posts (for example, ) that claim that it isn't (the blog post says that Java uses pass-by-value). I don't think I understand the distinction they're making. What is the explanation?
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In my spring application context file, I have something like:  &lt;util:map id="someMap" map-class="java.util.HashMap" key-type="java.lang.String" value-type="java.lang.String"&gt;     &lt;entry key="some_key" value="some value" /&gt;     &lt;entry key="some_key_2" value="some value" /&gt;    &lt;/util:map&gt;   In java class, the implementation looks like:  private Map&lt;String, String&gt; someMap = new HashMap&lt;String, String&gt;(); someMap = (HashMap&lt;String, String&gt;)getApplicationContext().getBean("someMap");   In Eclipse, I see a warning that says:  Type safety: Unchecked cast from Object to HashMap  What did I do wrong? How do I resolve the issue?
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I have a Category entity which has a Nullable ParentId field. When the method below is executing and the categoryId is null, the result seems null however there are categories which has null ParentId value.  What is the problem in here, what am I missing?  public IEnumerable&lt;ICategory&gt; GetSubCategories(long? categoryId) {     var subCategories = this.Repository.Categories.Where(c =&gt; c.ParentId == categoryId)         .ToList().Cast&lt;ICategory&gt;();      return subCategories; }   By the way, when I change the condition to (c.ParentId == null),  result seems normal.
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I use a lot of lists and arrays but I have yet to come across a scenario in which the array list couldn't be used just as easily as, if not easier than, the linked list.  I was hoping someone could give me some examples of when the linked list is notably better.
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I have an ArrayList&lt;String&gt;, and I want to remove repeated strings from it. How can I do this?
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Why does it (apparently) make a difference whether I pass null as an argument directly, or pass an Object that I assigned the value null?  Object testVal = null; test.foo(testVal);    // dispatched to foo(Object) // test.foo(null);    // compilation problem -&gt; "The method foo(String) is ambiguous"     public void foo(String arg) { // More-specific     System.out.println("foo(String)"); }  public void foo(Object arg) { // Generic     System.out.println("foo(Object)"); }   In other words, why is the (commented-out) second call to foo(...) not dispatched to foo(Object)?  Update: I use Java 1.6. I could compile Hemal's code without problems, but mine still doesn't compile. The only difference I see is that Hemal's methods are static while mine are not. But I really don't see why this should make a difference...?  Update 2: Solved. I had another method foo(Runnable) in my class, so the dispatcher couldn't unambiguously select the single most specific method. (See my comment in Hemal's second answer.) Thanks everyone for your help.
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I had the following exception thrown at me when trying to process more than one selected records via a custom button in the list view.    Class Code  global class MerchandiseInventoryClass {      webservice static void ConverttoInventory(String[] merchandise_id)    {        //Convert Merchandise collection into Inventory Collection...         Merchandise__c[] merchandise_collection = [SELECT ID,Author__c,Book_Title__c,Edition__c,Publisher__c,Total_Merchandise_QtyTotal_Qty__c,Status__c FROM Merchandise__c WHERE ID = :merchandise_id];          Inventory__c i = new Inventory__c(); //Line 1        List&lt;Inventory__c&gt; newInventory = new List&lt;Inventory__c&gt;();        for(Merchandise__c m : merchandise_collection )        {            if(m.Status__c !='Fully Converted')            {            i.Author__c = m.Author__c ;            i.Book_Title__c = m.Book_Title__c;            i.Edition__c = m.Edition__c;            i.Publisher__c = m.Publisher__c;            i.Qty_Available__c = m.Total_Merchandise_QtyTotal_Qty__c;            i.Merchandise__c = m.Id;            m.Uninventoried_Qty__c = 0;            m.Status__c = 'Fully Converted';            newInventory.add(i);            }        }        insert newInventory;        update merchandise_collection;    }  }   By moving the Line 1 to within the for loop solved the issue for me.  Thanks to this post (refer the Best Answer in that post)    What puzzles me is that WHY i have to instantiate "i" for every iteration within the loop.  Why the list collection ("newInventory") is complaining that are duplicate elements and why should it even confuse in the first place when I am performing an "insert" even ?
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Looking for reviewers to suggest optimization and improvements, and to evaluate coding practices.  final class Variables {     private final int x;     private final int y;      Variables(int x2, int y2) {         this.x = x2;         this.y = y2;     }      public int getX() {         return x;     }      public int getY() {         return y;     }      @Override public String toString()  {          return "x = " + x + " y = " + y;     } }  public final class FindMissing {      private FindMissing() {};      /**  * Takes an input a sorted array with two variables that repeat in the  * range. Remaining variable are consecutive. and returns two variables that repeats  *   * eg: for a range of 1,2,3,4, a valid input is [1, 4], [1, 3] etc.  *   * @param a : the sorted array.  */ /*  * Why is start needed ?  * If start is not given then if a1 is empty how do we know if missing numbers were  * [1, 2] or [4, 5] ??.   */ public static Variables sortedConsecutiveTwoMissing (int[] a, int startOfRange) {     if (a == null) throw new NullPointerException("a1 cannot be null. ");      int low = startOfRange;     // calculating the highest value of the range. it needs to be 2 more than length since all elememts are consecutive.     int high = startOfRange + (a.length - 1) + 2;      int i = 0;     boolean foundX = false;     int x = 0;       while (i &lt; a.length) {         if (a[i] != low) {             if (foundX) {                 return new Variables(x, low);             } else {                 x = low;                 foundX = true;             }         } else {             i++;         }         low++;     }      return new Variables(x, high);  }  public static void main(String[] args) {         // unsortedConsecutiveTwoMissing         int[] a6 = {1, 4};         System.out.println("Expected 2 and 3, Actual " + sortedConsecutiveTwoMissing(a6, 1));         // unsortedConsecutiveTwoMissing         int[] a7 = {-4, -1};         System.out.println("Expected -3 and -2, Actual " + sortedConsecutiveTwoMissing(a7, -4));         int[] a8 = {-4, -3, -2, -1};         System.out.println("Expected 0 and 1, Actual " + sortedConsecutiveTwoMissing(a8, -4));         int[] a9 = {5};         System.out.println("Expected 4 and 6, Actual " + sortedConsecutiveTwoMissing(a9, 4));         }      }
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Someone told me it's more efficient to use StringBuffer to concatenate strings in Java than to use the + operator for Strings. What happens under the hood when you do that? What does StringBuffer do differently?
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I have a simple setter method for a property and null is not appropriate for this particular property. I have always been torn in this situation: should I throw an , or a ? From the javadocs, both seem appropriate. Is there some kind of an understood standard?  Or is this just one of those things that you should do whatever you prefer and both are really correct?
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There are situations, where it is practical to have a type-cast return a null value instead of throwing a ClassCastException. C# has the as operator to do this. Is there something equivalent available in Java so you don't have to explicitly check for the ClassCastException?
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Here's the scenario...    if (entry.Properties["something"].Value != null)   attribs.something = entry.Properties["something"].Value.ToString();   While effective and working correctly, this looks ugly to me.  If I don't check for a null before performing the ToString() then it throws an exception if the property was null.  Is there a better way to handle this scenario?  Much appreciated!
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What would be the best way to look in a string[] to see if it contains a element. This was my first shot at it. But perhaps there is something that I am overlooking. The array size will be no larger than 200 elements.  bool isStringInArray(string[] strArray, string key) {     for (int i = 0; i &lt;= strArray.Length - 1; i++)         if (strArray[i] == key)             return true;     return false; }
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I saw this reply from Jon on :     If you want a single collection to   contain multiple unrelated types of   values, however, you will have to use   List&lt;object&gt;   I'm not comparing ArrayList vs List&lt;&gt;, but ArrayList vs List&lt;object&gt;, as both will be exposing elements of type object. What would be the benefit of using either one in this case?  EDIT: It's no concern for type safety here, since both class is exposing object as its item. One still needs to cast from object to the desired type. I'm more interested in anything other than type safety.  EDIT: Thanks Marc Gravell and Sean for the answer. Sorry, I can only pick 1 as answer, so I'll up vote both.