How to put INT into name of variable

Question

So i have a lot of variables called really similar.

im1=...;
im2=...;//And so on

I need to be able to use .setText(); with it. I also have a int that shows what variable do i need. How can i make this stuff?

int number=2;
im<number>.setText();// I want to make this like im2.setText();

Answer 1

You could use reflection to do that. But reflection is slow and error-prone, and should be used only as a last resort.

Better to use other data structures provided by Java.

Array

An array gives you an sequence of objects. Access each element by way of an annoyingly zero-based index number.

String[] names = new String[ 3 ] ;

names[ 0 ] = "Alice" ;
names[ 1 ] = "Bob" ;
names[ 2 ] = "Carol" ;

If your variable number is one-based ordinal number, just subtract one to access array.

String name = names[ number - 1 ] ;

List

List is similar to array, but much more flexible and helpful.

List< String > names = List.of( "Alice", "Bob", "Carol" ) ;

Retrieval in List also uses annoying zero-based index counting.

String name = names.get( number - 1 ) ;

NavigableSet

If you want to collect objects in sorted order, use an implementation of the NavigableSet interface. The Java platform includes two, TreeSet and ConcurrentSkipListSet.

Third parties may also provide implementations. Perhaps in Google Guava, or Eclipse Collections.

Map

And I suggest you learn about key-value pairs in a Map.

Map< Integer , String > numberedNames = 
    Map.of( 
        1 , "Alice" ,
        2 , "Bob" ,
        3 , "Carol" 
    )
;

Retrieval.

String name = numberedNames.get( number ) ;

The code shown here transparently uses auto-boxing to automatically convert from int primitive values to Integer objects.

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See the tutorials online provided free of cost by Oracle. They cover all three, arrays, List, and Map.