An array declaration includes the data type of its
elements and a set of square brackets ‘[]’ to distinguish it from a variable declaration of a simple
data type. If the array elements are
known at the time the array is declared (as opposed to them being computed in
the program), these values can be listed in a set of curly braces ‘{}’, and are separated by
commas. The syntax for declaring and
initializing an array is: dataType[] arrayVariable =
{value1, value2, …, valueN}; A statement to
declare an array of integers with the values 2, 3, 6, 8, and 11 would be: int[] numbers = {2, 3, 6, 8, 11}; The variable numbers is a reference to a collection of the 5
integer values between the curly braces.
Declaring and initializing an array of a different type follows the
same form. The statement char[] vowels = {‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’,
‘o’, ‘u’}; creates an array of characters referenced
by the variable vowels. The array values are
surrounded by single quotes since they are characters. An array can also hold more complex values
such as Strings. Here’s an example: String[] rivers = {“Amazon”, “Nile”, “Yangtze”, “ To obtain the number of elements in an array, we can use the length field along with the array
reference: System.out.println(numbers.length); // length is a field, not a method System.out.println(rivers.length); The first statement will output 5, the number of element in the numbers array, while the second will output
4, the number of rivers listed between the curly braces. |