What's the simplest way to print a Java array?

Question

What's the simplest way to print a Java array?

Question

In Java, arrays don't override toString(), so if you try to print one directly, you get the className + '@' + the hex of the hashCode of the array, as defined by Object.toString():

int[] intArray = new int[] {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
System.out.println(intArray);     // prints something like '[[email protected]'

But usually, we'd actually want something more like [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. What's the simplest way of doing that? Here are some example inputs and outputs:

// Array of primitives:
int[] intArray = new int[] {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
//output: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

// Array of object references:
String[] strArray = new String[] {"John", "Mary", "Bob"};
//output: [John, Mary, Bob]

Alex Spurling

2019/07/07

Read less…

Always check the standard libraries first.

import java.util.Arrays;

Then try:

System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array));

or if your array contains other arrays as elements:

System.out.println(Arrays.deepToString(array));

Limbic System

2020/05/22

This is nice to know, however, as for "always check the standard libraries first" I'd never have stumbled upon the trick of Arrays.toString( myarray )

--since I was concentrating on the type of myarray to see how to do this. I didn't want to have to iterate through the thing: I wanted an easy call to make it come out similar to what I see in the Eclipse debugger and myarray.toString() just wasn't doing it.

import java.util.Arrays;
.
.
.
System.out.println( Arrays.toString( myarray ) );

Russ Bateman

2010/11/29

In JDK1.8 you can use aggregate operations and a lambda expression:

String[] strArray = new String[] {"John", "Mary", "Bob"};

// #1
Arrays.asList(strArray).stream().forEach(s -> System.out.println(s));

// #2
Stream.of(strArray).forEach(System.out::println);

// #3
Arrays.stream(strArray).forEach(System.out::println);

/* output:
John
Mary
Bob
*/

Eric Baker

2016/03/27

Starting with Java 8, one could also take advantage of the join() method provided by the String class to print out array elements, without the brackets, and separated by a delimiter of choice (which is the space character for the example shown below):

String[] greeting = {"Hey", "there", "amigo!"};
String delimiter = " ";
String.join(delimiter, greeting)

The output will be "Hey there amigo!".

laylaylom

2015/12/23

If you're using Java 1.4, you can instead do:

System.out.println(Arrays.asList(array));

(This works in 1.5+ too, of course.)

Ross

2009/01/03

Esko · Accepted Answer · 2/8/2019 8:00:52 PM

Since Java 5 you can use Arrays.toString(arr) or Arrays.deepToString(arr) for arrays within arrays. Note that the Object[] version calls .toString() on each object in the array. The output is even decorated in the exact way you're asking.

Examples:

Simple Array:

String[] array = new String[] {"John", "Mary", "Bob"};
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array));

Output:

[John, Mary, Bob]

Nested Array:

String[][] deepArray = new String[][] {{"John", "Mary"}, {"Alice", "Bob"}};
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(deepArray));
//output: [[Ljava.lang.String;@106d69c, [Ljava.lang.String;@52e922]
System.out.println(Arrays.deepToString(deepArray));

Output:

[[John, Mary], [Alice, Bob]]

`double` Array:

double[] doubleArray = { 7.0, 9.0, 5.0, 1.0, 3.0 };
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(doubleArray));

Output:

[7.0, 9.0, 5.0, 1.0, 3.0 ]

`int` Array:

int[] intArray = { 7, 9, 5, 1, 3 };
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(intArray));

Output:

[7, 9, 5, 1, 3 ]