Why does the toString method in java not seem to work for an array

Question

I want to convert a character array to a string object using the toString() method in java. Here is a snippet of the test code I used:

import java.util.Array         


        

Answer 1

I don't know where you get the idea that "in principle" it should print "abcdef". Where is that documented?

Something like [C@6e1408 is certainly not random gibberish - it's the same way of constructing a string from an object as any other type that doesn't override toString() inherits - it's a representation of the type ([ indicating an array; C indicating the char primitive type) followed by the identity hash code in hex. See the documentation for Object.toString() for details. As it happens, arrays don't override toString.

If you want [a, b, c, d, e, f] you can use Arrays.toString(char[]). If you want abcdef you can use new String(char[]).