Is it possible to use a String instead of a variable name in Java

Question

I've created 3 variables

radio1 radio2 radio3

is it possible to use a for loop and from a String called "radio" to add the counter in the end in order to get the variable?

for instance something like this

for(i=1;i<=3;i++)
    if(("radio" + i).method())
          do something

thanks in advance

Answer 1

You can use a Radio object and use arrays instead:

Radio[] radios = new Radio[] {radio1, radio2, radio3};
for(i=0;i<3;i++)
    if(radios[i].method())
          do something

If you want to access variable by forming their names, you can also use Java's reflection API. But it is an expensive operation and is not advisable in general.

Answer 2

It looks to me like you want to use a Dictionary or similar data structure, which lets you store objects indexed by, for example, a string.

EDIT

As several people noted, HashMap is a more modern and better alternative.