Programming Tutorials

arraycopy() in Java

By: Jagan Printer Friendly Format    

The arraycopy() method can be used to copy quickly an array of any type from one place to another. This is much faster than the equivalent loop written out longhand in Java. Here is an example of two arrays being copied by the arraycopy() method. First, a is copied to b. Next, all of a's elements are shifted down by one. Then, b is shifted up by one.

// Using arraycopy().
class ACDemo {
static byte a[] = { 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 };
static byte b[] = { 77, 77, 77, 77, 77, 77, 77, 77, 77, 77 };
public static void main(String args[]) {
System.out.println("a = " + new String(a));
System.out.println("b = " + new String(b));
System.arraycopy(a, 0, b, 0, a.length);
System.out.println("a = " + new String(a));
System.out.println("b = " + new String(b));
System.arraycopy(a, 0, a, 1, a.length - 1);
System.arraycopy(b, 1, b, 0, b.length - 1);
System.out.println("a = " + new String(a));
System.out.println("b = " + new String(b));
}
}

As you can see from the following output, you can copy using the same source and destination in either direction:

a = ABCDEFGHIJ
b = MMMMMMMMMM
a = ABCDEFGHIJ
b = ABCDEFGHIJ
a = AABCDEFGHI
b = BCDEFGHIJJ