Calling a variable by 2 names

Question

Some times I want to call a variable by an indexed name.
for (int i= 0; i <5; i++)
array[i] = from;
from[0] contains the number of names
from[1] contains the number o people
from[2] contains the number of dogs
from[3] contains the number of cats
from[4] contains the number of birds
In other parts of the program, to make it more understandable, I want to refer to numOfBirds rather than from[4]. countOfBirdies = numOfBirdsIs there a way to set up the name equivalence in Java?
Thank you                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Answer 1

zscipio wrote:
I am interested is satisfying both concepts as it is possible in some other languages. One simple way is to introduce named indexes, like
public class NumberOf {
   private NumberOf(){} // private constructor to prevent instantiation
   public static final int NAMES = 0;
   public static final int PEOPLE = 1;
   public static final int DOGS = 2;
   public static final int CATS = 3;
   public static final int BIRDS = 4
   public static final int SIZE = 5; // number of constants
}Now you can do,
for (int i= 0; i <NumberOf.SIZE; i++) {
   array[i] = from;
countOfBirdies = array[NumberOf.BIRDS];It's probably not exactly what you wanted but at least you're using symbolic names rather than naked indexes.