How to initialize a character array when all characters are predefined?

[chaitanya karthikk]

Hi everybody, I am having a character array which stores digits, alphabets lower and upper case, this wont change dynamically, I mean the array is constant.

final public static char chars[]=new chars[62];

Now I want to populate this array with characters, I can do this manually, but I want to write a function for that and make my program to populate the array.

Here comes the problem. Should I use a static method or non-static method?

thank you all in advance. Thank you all in advance.

[Wouter Oet]

I would go for an static initializer

[chaitanya karthikk]

Thank you Mr.Wouter. Another doubt, I should call the static method to initialize the array, anyhow I am having non-static methods also, So I have to create object for that class, my question is should I call the static method from the class in which I am using this class or should I make a call in the constructor?

class Example
{
......
......
StringGenerator generator=new StringGenerator();
StringGenerator.setChars();
generator.callme();
.......
.......
}

or

class StringGenerator
{
final static char[] chars=new char[62];
public StringGenerator()
{
setChars();
}
public static void setChars()
{
....
....
}
public String callMe()
{
....
....
}
}

Thank you in advance.

[K Abhijit]

Go with Wouter Oet's recommendation...
Since your array is static and final, Static Initializer is the best place to initialize it which get auto invoked when the class( of which static initializer is defined) definition gets loaded in to memory....

[chaitanya karthikk]

Thank you Abhijith.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Note that the best way to initialize a character array is to start with a String and use "toCharArray()":

final char[] letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".toCharArray();

[chaitanya karthikk]

Thank you Ernest.