How to check if an array in an arraylist contains a certain value?

Question

I have an array list which contains arrays of type String. I create the array list and add arrays to it with the following code:

List<String[]> transaction = new ArrayList<String[]>();

String[] transactionLine = new String[7];
transactionLine[0] = "0";
transactionLine[1] = "1";
//.....
transactionLine[6] = "some value";

transactionLines.add(transactionLine);

Now I want to test if one of the arrays contain a certain value. I tried it like this, but then it checks for an array and not an element of an array:

if(transactionLines.contains("some value")) { 
     //Do some stuff with it
}

I know this doesn't work, but I don't now how to do it otherwise. I couldn't find any post of this already on Stackoverflow (not with the logical search terms for this problem anyway).

Note: I have chosen this structure of arrays in an arraylist, because I have a fixed number of columns (as suggested in how to create dynamic two dimensional array in java?).

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

@assylias suggestion to use the object oriented way is good, but his example does not tell if the list contains a transaction where one property has a certain value. This example does:

public class Test {

    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        final List<TransactionLine> transaction = new ArrayList<>();

        transaction.add(new TransactionLine(1, "some value"));
        transaction.add(new TransactionLine(2, "another value"));
        transaction.add(new TransactionLine(3, "yet another value"));

        System.out.println(containsName(transaction, "some value"));
        System.out.println(containsName(transaction, "non-existent value"));
    }

    // Iterates over all transactions until a transaction is found that has the
    // same name as specified in search
    private static boolean containsName(final List<TransactionLine> transaction, final String search) {
        for (final TransactionLine transactionLine : transaction) {
            if (transactionLine.getName().equals(search)) {
                return true;
            }
        }

        return false;
    }

    private static class TransactionLine {

        private int id;

        private String name;

        public TransactionLine(final int id, final String name) {
            this.id = id;
            this.name = name;
        }

        public int getId() {
            return id;
        }

        public void setId(final int id) {
            this.id = id;
        }

        public String getName() {
            return name;
        }

        public void setName(final String name) {
            this.name = name;
        }

    }

}

Here is an example with two classes (Transaction and TransactionLine):

Test:

public class Test {

    public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {
        final Transaction transaction = new Transaction();

        transaction.add("some name");
        transaction.add("another name");
        transaction.add("yet another name");

        System.out.println(transaction.containsName("some name"));
        System.out.println(transaction.containsName("non-existent name"));
    }

}

Transaction:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Transaction {

    private final List<TransactionLine> transactionLines = new ArrayList<>();

    public void add(final String name) {
        final TransactionLine tl = new TransactionLine(transactionLines.size(), name);

        transactionLines.add(tl);
    }

    public boolean containsName(final String name) {
        for (final TransactionLine transactionLine : transactionLines) {
            if (transactionLine.getName().equals(name)) {
                return true;
            }
        }

        return false;
    }

}

TransactionLine:

public class TransactionLine {

    private int id;

    private String name;

    public TransactionLine() {
    }

    public TransactionLine(final int id, final String name) {
        this.id = id;
        this.name = name;
    }

    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(final int id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(final String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

}