Accepting and Returning Arrays in Java

Why not? You can both pass and return arrays from within a single method. You may need to change the code to something like the following:

  public int[] getDoubledValues(int[] p) {
        int[] b = new int[p.length];
        for(int i=0;i<p.length;i++) {
            b[i] = p[i] + p[i];
        }
        return b;
    }

You can observe the above declaration of the method:

public int[] getDoubledValues(int[] p) {

It is accepting “array as parameter” and “returning an array.” You may also need to modify the testing code as follows:

  private void btnShowActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
  // TODO add your handling code here:
        MyCalc obj2 = new MyCalc();
        int[] ar = {12,23,34,45,56,67};
        obj2.setValues(obj2.getDoubledValues(ar));

        int r;
        r = obj2.getSum();
        this.lblMsg2.setText("Sum = " + String.valueOf(r));
    }                 

Even though I demonstrated how to work only with integer arrays, the same applies for almost any type of data type (including strings). I didn’t include this section in the downloadable, but you can modify the code accordingly and test it yourself. 

The entire code for this article is freely available in the form of a zip file.  That downloadable solution was developed using NetBeans 4.1 IDE together with Microsoft Windows 2003 Standard Edition. I didn’t really test it in any other version or platform.  Please follow the respective platform documentation to get it working.  This series is dedicated to the beginners who wanted to work with NetBeans IDE.

I shall cover working with objects of arrays and communicating with methods in an upcoming article.  Stay tuned till then!

Any doubts, bugs, errors, suggestions, feedback etc. are highly appreciated at jag_chat@yahoo.com.