Variable number of two dimensional arrays into one big array

Question

I have a variable number of two dimensional arrays.
The first dimension is variable, the second dimension is always 7.
i.e.:
Object[][] array0 = {
{"tim", "sanchez", 34, 175.5, "bla", "blub", "[email protected]"},
{"alice", "smith", 42, 160.0, "la", "bub", "[email protected]"},
Object[][] array1 = {
{"john", "sdfs", 34, 15.5, "a", "bl", "[email protected]"},
{"joe", "smith", 42, 16.0, "a", "bub", "[email protected]"},
Object[][] arrayi = ...I'm generating these arrays with a for-loop:
     for (int i = 0; i < filter.length; i++) {
          MyClass c = new MyClass(filter);
          //data = c.getData();
Where "filter" is another array which is filled with information that tells "MyClass" how to fill the arrays.
"getData()" gives back one of the i number of arrays.
Now I just need to have everything in one big two dimensional array.
i.e.:Object[][] arrayComplete = {
{"tim", "sanchez", 34, 175.5, "bla", "blub", "[email protected]"},
{"alice", "smith", 42, 160.0, "la", "bub", "[email protected]"},
{"john", "sdfs", 34, 15.5, "a", "bl", "[email protected]"},
{"joe", "smith", 42, 16.0, "a", "bub", "[email protected]"},
Any idea on how to accomplish this? It's blowing my mind right now.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Answer 1

Just brainstorming here:
Why not put your actual data in a class and store that in a LinkedList (so you know the total number of elements for your multi-dimensional array). Then initalize your multi-dimensional array and populate it? Haven't tested the following, but thinking something along the lines of
public class MyData {
     //data here
     public Object[] toArray() {
          //something similar to this
          return new Object[] = {"tim", "sanchez", 34, 175.5, "bla", "blub", "[email protected]"};
LinkedList<MyData> data = new LinkedList<MyData>();
data.add(mydata1);
//however many times you need
Object[][] arrayComplete = new Object[data.size()][7];
for(int i = 0; i < data.size(); i++) {
     arrayComplete[i] = data.removeFirst().toArray();
}Another option for knowing how many rows you would need might be using something like:
int rows = 0;
rows += array1.length;
rows += array2.length;
//etc...But is not entirely useful if you don't know how many variable arrays you have (although reflections might help if the name of the array variable is incremented systematically, someone told me earlier to avoid reflections since it could make debugging a LOT more difficult).
Edited by: bogdana on Apr 1, 2010 10:38 AM