How do I override the toString method to display elements in a list in Java?

Question

I have been trying to figure this out for hours, but I am unable find an answer that works.

For completeness, I have posted the entire code below. If I do not Override

Answer 1

toString() has no arguments. Overwrite it like so (assuming you are extending a List class):

@Override
public String toString() {
    String result = " ";
    for (int i = 0; i < this.size(); i++) {
        result += " " + this.get(i);
    }
    return result;
}

UPDATE 01

Ok, it seems that what you really want to do is print the contents of the list that is encapsulated by your WordsContainer.

Override toString of WordsContainer like so:

@Override
public String toString() {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    sb.append(" "); // remove this if you do not want two spaces at the front of the returned string
    for (int i = 0; i < this.wordList.size(); i++) {
        sb.append(" " + this.wordList.get(i).toString());
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

Note that you have to change the declaration of wordList to be of type List.

UPDATE 02

This answers the followup question in comments.

You can declare a static utility method that builds a string representation of the contents of any given list of strings like so:

public static String getStringRepresentation(List list) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    sb.append(" "); // remove this if you do not want two spaces at the front of the returned string
    for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {
        sb.append(" " + list.get(i).toString());
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

And use this method like so:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    List list = new ArrayList();
    list.add("foo");
    list.add("bar");
    String listStringRepr = WordsContainer.getStringRepresentation(list);
    System.out.println(listStringRepr);
}