code: private ArrayList<String> getStrings(Object o) {
      ArrayList<String> retval = new ArrayList<String>();
      retval.clear();
      if (o == null)
        retval.add("null");
      else if (o instanceof String)
        retval.add((String) o);
      else if (o instanceof Calendar)
        retval.add(dateFormatter.format(((Calendar) o).getTime()));
      else if (o instanceof InetAddress[])
        for (InetAddress ip : ((InetAddress[]) o))
          retval.add(ip.getHostAddress());
      else if (o instanceof String[])
        for (String s : (String []) o)
          retval.add(s);
      else
        retval.add(o.toString());
  
      return retval;
    }
docs: Extract String representations from an Object.
  
  @param o the input object
  
  @return an ArrayList that contains Strings found in o