Initialize 2D array

Shorter way is do it as follows:

private char[][] table = {{'1', '2', '3'}, {'4', '5', '6'}, {'7', '8', '9'}};

How about something like this:

for (int row = 0; row < 3; row ++)
    for (int col = 0; col < 3; col++)
        table[row][col] = (char) ('1' + row * 3 + col);

The following complete Java program:

class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        char[][] table = new char[3][3];
        for (int row = 0; row < 3; row ++)
            for (int col = 0; col < 3; col++)
                table[row][col] = (char) ('1' + row * 3 + col);

        for (int row = 0; row < 3; row ++)
            for (int col = 0; col < 3; col++)
                System.out.println (table[row][col]);
    }
}

outputs:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

This works because the digits in Unicode are consecutive starting at \u0030 (which is what you get from '0').

The expression '1' + row * 3 + col (where you vary row and col between 0 and 2 inclusive) simply gives you a character from 1 to 9.

Obviously, this won't give you the character 10 (since that's two characters) if you go further but it works just fine for the 3x3 case. You would have to change the method of generating the array contents at that point such as with something like:

String[][] table = new String[5][5];
for (int row = 0; row < 5; row ++)
    for (int col = 0; col < 5; col++)
        table[row][col] = String.format("%d", row * 5 + col + 1);