ArrayList - How to modify a member of an object?

You can do this:

myList.get(3).setEmail("new email");

Fixed. I was wrong: this only applies on element reassignment. I thought that the returned object wasn't referencing the new one.

It can be done.

Q: Why?
A: The get() method returns an object referencing the original one.

So, if you write myArrayList.get(15).itsVariable = 7
or
myArrayList.get(15).myMethod("My Value"),
you are actually assigning a value / using a method from the object referenced by the returned one (this means, the change is applied to the original object)

The only thing you can't do is myArrayList.get(15) = myNewElement. To do this you have to use list.set() method.

You can iterate through arraylist to identify the index and eventually the object which you need to modify. You can use for-each for the same as below:

for(Customer customer : myList) {
    if(customer!=null && "Doe".equals(customer.getName())) {
        customer.setEmail("[email protected]");
        break;
    }
}

Here customer is a reference to the object present in Arraylist, If you change any property of this customer reference, these changes will reflect in your object stored in Arraylist.

Assuming Customer has a setter for email - myList.get(3).setEmail("[email protected]")

I wrote you 2 classes to show you how it's done; Main and Customer. If you run the Main class you see what's going on:

import java.util.*;

public class Customer {

    private String name;
    private String email;

    public Customer(String name, String email) {
        this.name = name;
        this.email = email;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public String getEmail() {
        return email;
    }

    public void setEmail(String email) {
        this.email = email;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return name + " | " + email;
    }

    public static String toString(Collection<Customer> customers) {
        String s = "";
        for(Customer customer : customers) {
            s += customer + "\n";
        }
        return s;
    }

}


import java.util.*;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<Customer> customers = new ArrayList<>();
        customers.add(new Customer("Bert", "[email protected]"));
        customers.add(new Customer("Ernie", "[email protected]"));
        System.out.println("customers before email change - start");
        System.out.println(Customer.toString(customers));
        System.out.println("end");
        customers.get(1).setEmail("[email protected]");
        System.out.println("customers after email change - start");
        System.out.println(Customer.toString(customers));
        System.out.println("end");
    }

}

to get this running, make 2 classes, Main and Customer and copy paste the contents from both classes to the correct class; then run the Main class.

Use myList.get(3) to get access to the current object and modify it, assuming instances of Customer have a way to be modified.

You can just do a get on the collection then just modify the attributes of the customer you just did a 'get' on. There is no need to modify the collection nor is there a need to create a new customer:

int currentCustomer = 3;

// get the customer at 3
Customer c = list.get(currentCustomer);
// change his email
c.setEmail("[email protected]");

Well u have used Pojo Entity so u can do this. u need to get object of that and have to set data.

myList.get(3).setEmail("email");

that way u can do that. or u can set other param too.

If you need fast lookup (basically constant time) of a object stored in your collection you should use Map instead of List.

If you need fast iteration of the objects you should use List.

So in your case...

Map<String,Customer> customers = new HashMap<String,Customer>();

//somewhere in the code you fill up the Map, assuming customer names are unique
customers.put(customer.getName(), customer)

// at some later point you retrieve it like this; 
// this is fast, given a good hash
// been calculated for the "keys" in your map, in this case the keys are unique 
// String objects so the default hash algorithm should be fine
Customer theCustomerYouLookFor = customers.get("Doe");

// modify it
theCustomerYouLookFor.setEmail("[email protected]")

Without function here it is...it works fine with listArrays filled with Objects

example `

al.add(new Student(101,"Jack",23,'C'));//adding Student class object  
      al.add(new Student(102,"Evan",21,'A'));  
      al.add(new Student(103,"Berton",25,'B'));  
      al.add(0, new Student(104,"Brian",20,'D'));
      al.add(0, new Student(105,"Lance",24,'D'));
      for(int i = 101; i< 101+al.size(); i++) {  
              al.get(i-101).rollno = i;//rollno is 101, 102 , 103, ....
          }

Any method you use, there will always be a loop like in removeAll() and set().

So, I solved my problem like this:

for (int i = 0; i < myList.size(); i++) {

        if (myList.get(i).getName().equals(varName)) {

            myList.get(i).setEmail(varEmail);
            break;

        }
    }

Where varName = "Doe" and varEmail = "[email protected]".

I hope this help you.

Try this.This works while traversing the code and modifying the fields at once of all the elements of Arraylist.

public Employee(String name,String email){
this.name=name;
this.email=email;
}

public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}

public String getName() {
return name;
}

public void setEmail(String email) {
this.email = email;
}

public String getEmail() {
return email;
}

for(int i=0;i++){
List.get(i).setName("Anonymous");
List.get(i).setEmail("[email protected]");
}