My output is just giving weird characters

Question

public static void main(String args[])
    {
        int[] a = {0, 1, 2, 3};
        int[] b = {100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105};
        System.out.print(shuffleArrays(a, b));
    }

    public static int[] shuffleArrays(int[] a, int[] b)
    {
        int[] c = new int[a.length+b.length];
        for (int i=0; i<b.length-1; i++)
        {
            if (i<a.length-1 && i<b.length-1)
                c[i] = c[i] + (a[i] + b[i]);
            else if (i>=a.length-1)
                c[i] = c[i] + b[i];
            else if (i>=b.length-1)
                c[i] = c[i] + a[i];
        }

        return c;
    }

This is giving me an output of "[I@1837b90c". No idea why this is happening. Am I calling on the method incorrectly?

Use `System.out.print(Arrays.toString(shuffleArrays(a, b)));` — Reimeus, Oct 09 '13 at 23:05
Why do you need to repeat `c[i] +` continuously instead of using `c[i] +=`? — phuclv, Oct 06 '20 at 14:09

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 09 '13 at 23:07

You're printing the reference to the array that is returned by shuffleArrays. This does not automatically print out the contents of the array, but instead prints the array reference. You would want to do something like the following:

System.out.print(Arrays.toString(shuffleArrays(a, b)))

libik · Answer 2 · 2013-10-10T02:30:56.137

Also you have the wrong method, this one is working fine :

public static void main(String args[]) {
    int[] a = {0, 1, 2, 3};
    int[] b = {100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105};
    //c[] = {0, 100, 1, 101, 2, 102, 3, 103, 104, 105}
    System.out.print(Arrays.toString(shuffleArrays(a, b)));
}

public static int[] shuffleArrays(int[] a, int[] b) {
       public static int[] shuffleArrays(int[] a, int[] b) {
    int[] c = new int[a.length + b.length];
    int[] smaller;
    int[] bigger;
    if (a.length < b.length){
        smaller = a;
        bigger = b;
    } else {
        smaller = b;
        bigger = a;
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < smaller.length; i++) {
        c[i*2] = smaller[i];
        c[i*2+1] = bigger[i];
    }
    for (int i = 0; i < bigger.length - smaller.length; i++) {
        c[smaller.length*2+i] = bigger[smaller.length+i];
    }

    return c;
}

Sorry, I didnt noticed, I am blind. However I reworked that with much better solution, which I tested properly and it works :). I edited my answer, so take a look. — libik, Oct 10 '13 at 02:31

My output is just giving weird characters

2 Answers2