Java - Convert a Vector to an Array of Strings

In this tutorial, we'll see how to convert a Vector to an array of Strings in java. There are two methods we can use to get an array of String from Vector.

Vector to Array with using toArray()

Let's take a look at the example below where we are converting a Vector of Strings to an array using the method toArray().
public String toArray(): returns an array of strings.

import java.util.Vector; 

public class VectorToArray {

 public static void main(String[] args) {

 Vector< String> vector = new Vector< String> (); 
 //add elements
 vector.add("elt1"); 
 vector.add("elt2"); 
 vector.add("elt3"); 
 
 System.out.println("Vector Elements:"); 
 for(String e:vector)
 System.out.println(e); 

 //Convert Vector to an array
 String[] array = vector.toArray(new String[vector.size()]); 
 //display elements
 System.out.println("Elements de array:"); 
 for(String e:array){
 System.out.println(e); 
 }
 }
}

Runtime:

Vector Elements:
elt1
elt2
elt3
Array Elements:
elt1
elt2
elt3

Note that it is more efficient to pass the correctly array size new String[vector.size()] in the method because, in this case, the method will use this array.

Vector to Array using copyInto()

This method consists of proceeding in two steps:

Create an array with an initialized size with that of Vector
Call the copyInto(String array[]) method on Vector

The copyInto() allows you to copy all the elements of the Vector collection to a new array.

import java.util.Vector; 

public class VectorToArray {

 public static void main(String[] args) {

 Vector< String> vector = new Vector< String> (); 
 //add elements
 vector.add("s1"); 
 vector.add("s2"); 
 vector.add("s3"); 
 
 System.out.println("Vector Elements:"); 
 for(String e:vector)
 System.out.println(e); 

 //Convert Vector to an array
 String[] array = new String[vector.size()]; 
 vector.copyInto(array); 
 //display elements
 System.out.println("Elements copied to array:"); 
 for(String e:array){
 System.out.println(e); 
 }
 }
}

Runtime:

Vector Elements:
s1
s2
s3
Elements copied to array: 
s1
s2
s3