If you don't wanna spend so much time with string operations you could use java serialization + commons codecs like this:
public void stringArrayTest() throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException, DecoderException {
String[] strs = new String[] {"test 1", "test 2", "test 3"};
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(strs));
// serialize
ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
new ObjectOutputStream(out).writeObject(strs);
// your string
String yourString = new String(Hex.encodeHex(out.toByteArray()));
System.out.println(yourString);
// deserialize
ByteArrayInputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(Hex.decodeHex(yourString.toCharArray()));
System.out.println(Arrays.toString((String[]) new ObjectInputStream(in).readObject()));
}
This will return the following output:
[test 1, test 2, test 3]
aced0005757200135b4c6a6176612e6c616e672e537472696e673badd256e7e91d7b47020000787000000003740006746573742031740006746573742032740006746573742033
[test 1, test 2, test 3]
If you are using maven, you can use the following dependency for commons codec:
<dependency>
<groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
</dependency>
As suggested with base64 (two lines change):
String yourString = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(out.toByteArray()));
ByteArrayInputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(Base64.decodeBase64(yourString.getBytes()));
In case of Base64 the result string is shorter, for the code exposed below:
[test 1, test 2, test 3]
rO0ABXVyABNbTGphdmEubGFuZy5TdHJpbmc7rdJW5+kde0cCAAB4cAAAAAN0AAZ0ZXN0IDF0AAZ0ZXN0IDJ0AAZ0ZXN0IDM=
[test 1, test 2, test 3]
Regarding the times for each approach, I perform 10^5 executions of each method and the result was as follows:
- String manipulation: 156 ms
- Hex: 376 ms
- Base64: 379 ms
Code used for test:
import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;
import org.apache.commons.codec.DecoderException;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Hex;
public class StringArrayRepresentationTest {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException, DecoderException {
String[] strs = new String[] {"test 1", "test 2", "test 3"};
long t = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i =0; i < 100000;i++) {
stringManipulation(strs);
}
System.out.println("String manipulation: " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - t));
t = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i =0; i < 100000;i++) {
testHex(strs);
}
System.out.println("Hex: " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - t));
t = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i =0; i < 100000;i++) {
testBase64(strs);
}
System.out.println("Base64: " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - t));
}
public static void stringManipulation(String[] strs) {
String result = serialize(strs);
unserialize(result);
}
private static String[] unserialize(String result) {
int sizesSplitPoint = result.toString().lastIndexOf('$');
String sizes = result.substring(sizesSplitPoint+1);
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(sizes, ";");
String[] resultArray = new String[st.countTokens()];
int i = 0;
int lastPosition = 0;
while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
String stringLengthStr = st.nextToken();
int stringLength = Integer.parseInt(stringLengthStr);
resultArray[i++] = result.substring(lastPosition, lastPosition + stringLength);
lastPosition += stringLength;
}
return resultArray;
}
private static String serialize(String[] strs) {
StringBuilder sizes = new StringBuilder("$");
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
for (String str : strs) {
if (sizes.length() != 1) {
sizes.append(';');
}
sizes.append(str.length());
result.append(str);
}
result.append(sizes.toString());
return result.toString();
}
public static void testBase64(String[] strs) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException, DecoderException {
// serialize
ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
new ObjectOutputStream(out).writeObject(strs);
// your string
String yourString = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(out.toByteArray()));
// deserialize
ByteArrayInputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(Base64.decodeBase64(yourString.getBytes()));
}
public static void testHex(String[] strs) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException, DecoderException {
// serialize
ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
new ObjectOutputStream(out).writeObject(strs);
// your string
String yourString = new String(Hex.encodeHex(out.toByteArray()));
// deserialize
ByteArrayInputStream in = new ByteArrayInputStream(Hex.decodeHex(yourString.toCharArray()));
}
}