Why do I get an initialization error here?

[Maduranga Liyanage]

Hello;

I have declared an inner class as following:

public class FileChooser implements ActionListener {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
 
commandDisplay.append("File chooser selected...");
 
JFileChooser fileNames = new JFileChooser();
fileNames.setMultiSelectionEnabled(true);
fileNames.showSaveDialog(frame);
File[] selectedFiles = fileNames.getSelectedFiles();
 
int counter=0;
        String[] selectedFileNames;
 
for(File fileName:selectedFiles) {
selectedFileNames[counter] = fileName.getName();
System.out.println(selectedFileNames[counter]);
counter++;
}
}
}

When I compile the class I get the following error:

ShellCommandInterface.java:132: variable selectedFileNames might not have been initialized
selectedFileNames[counter] = fileName.getName();

But when I declare selectedFileNames as just a String (not String[] and no [counter]), it works fine.

What am I doing wrong here.

Cheers.

[ July 28, 2008: Message edited by: Maduranga Liyanage ]
[ July 28, 2008: Message edited by: Maduranga Liyanage ]

[Manuel Leiria]

You must initialize the array String[] selectedFileNames before using it.Something like this:

String[] selectedFileNames = new String[selectedFiles.length];

but you must know a priori the size
[ July 28, 2008: Message edited by: Manuel Leiria ]

[Maduranga Liyanage]

Arrr...
Thanks a lot mate.
I guess I have to use an ArrayList... I cannot know the length in advance.

Thanks again.

[Manuel Leiria]

Originally posted by Maduranga Liyanage:
Arrr...
Thanks a lot mate.
I guess I have to use an ArrayList... I cannot know the length in advance.

Thanks again.

From your code I see that selectedFileNames array will have the same length as the selectedFiles array.