Assigning array values using exception handling

Question

I am writing a loop that assigns the number 15 to every element in an array without using any comparison operators such as such as <,==,>, or !=.

There's apparently a way to do this using exception handling.

Any ideas?

Here's what I tried:

public class ArrayProblem {


public static void main(String[] args) {

    int[] arrayElements = {0,0,0,0,0};
    boolean isValid = true;
    System.out.println("Array element values before: " + arrayElements[0] + "," + arrayElements[1] + "," + arrayElements[2] + "," + arrayElements[3] + "," + arrayElements[4]);

   try
    {
       while(isValid)
       {
       throw new Exception();
       }
     }

   catch(Exception e)
    {
        System.out.println(e.getMessage());
    }

    finally
    {
        //finally block executes and assigns 15 to each array element
        arrayElements[0] = 15;
        arrayElements[1] = 15;
        arrayElements[2] = 15;
        arrayElements[3] = 15;
        arrayElements[4] = 15;
        System.out.println("New array element values are " + arrayElements[0] + "," + arrayElements[1] + "," + arrayElements[2] + "," + arrayElements[3] + "," + arrayElements[4]); 
    }
  }
}

Your solution assumes that the size of the array is 5. Is that the problem? You need to do it dynamically? — Sotirios Delimanolis
– Sotirios Delimanolis, Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 2:02
The size of the array is arbitrary, I just used 5 array elements for my example, it could be any number of elements. — Steve Walsh
– Steve Walsh, Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 2:06

Special Sauce · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-21 02:12:38Z

5

Arrays.fill(intArray, 15);

Internally, this function likely does comparisons, but maybe it meets your constraints?

If the solution requires a loop, here is another way with no direct comparisons:

int[] array = new int[10];
int arrIdx = -1;
for (int i : array){
    arrIdx++;
    array[arrIdx]=15;
    System.out.println(array[arrIdx]);
}

edited Jun 21, 2015 at 2:12

answered Jun 21, 2015 at 2:00

Special Sauce

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2 Comments

Steve Walsh Over a year ago

That may just work, I think the only constraint in the problem is that the loop has to assign the value 15 to each element of the array with using the stated operators, so I can't see why the Arrays.fill function couldn't be used to solve the problem.

Special Sauce Over a year ago

@SteveWalsh Just added another solution which does not require try-catch.

Sotirios Delimanolis · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-21 02:08:45Z

3

This is a terrible idea in real code. If you simply need a hackish solution, just loop while incrementing an index counter, accessing each array element, until you go out of bounds

// prepare array, arbitrary size
Random random = new Random();
int size = random.nextInt(20);
int[] array = new int[size];

int i = 0;
// solution
try {
    for (;;)
        array[i++] = 15;
} catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
    // ignore
}

// verify
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array));

answered Jun 21, 2015 at 2:08

Sotirios Delimanolis

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