Java Notes: Vectors

Vectors (the java.util.Vector class) are commonly used instead of arrays, because they expand automatically when new data is added to them. The Java 2 Collections API introduced the similar ArrayList data structure. ArrayLists are unsynchronized and therefore faster than Vectors, but less secure in a multithreaded environment. The Vector class was changed in Java 2 to add the additional methods supported by ArrayList. See below for a reasons to use each. The description below is for the (new) Vector class.

Vectors can hold only Objects and not primitive types (eg, int). If you want to put a primitive type in a Vector, put it inside an object (eg, to save an integer value use the Integer class or define your own class). If you use the Integer wrapper, you will not be able to change the integer value, so it is sometimes useful to define your own class.

To Create a Vector

You must import either import java.util.Vector; or import java.util.*;. Vectors are implemented with an array, and when that array is full and an additional element is added, a new array must be allocated. Because it takes time to create a bigger array and copy the elements from the old array to the new array, it is a little faster to create a Vector with a size that it will commonly be when full. Of course, if you knew the final size, you could simply use an array. However, for non-critical sections of code programmers typically don't specify an initial size.

• Create a Vector with default initial size
  Vector v = new Vector();
• Create a Vector with an initial size
  Vector v = new Vector(300);

To Add elements to the end of a Vector

v.add(s); // adds s to the end of the Vector v

To get the elements from a Vector (ListIterator)

You can use a for loop to get all the elements from a Vector, but another very common way to go over all elements in a Vector is to use a ListIterator. The advantage of an iterator is that it it can be used with other data structures, so that i