An array is a data structure which stores a fixed-size sequential collection of elements of the same type. An array can be accessed by an index. Example: numbers[2], numbers[3],...

Declaring Array Variables

dataType[] arrayRefVar;   // preferred way.
or
dataType arrayRefVar[];  // works but not preferred way.

This is the syntax. To use an array in a program, you must declare a variable to reference the array, and you must specify the type of array the variable can reference. Here is the syntax for declaring an array variable.

Creating Arrays

You can create an array by using the new operator with the following syntax:

arrayRefVar = new dataType[arraySize];

The above statement does two things:

• It creates an array using new dataType[arraySize].

• It assigns the reference of the newly created array to the variable arrayRefVar.

Declaring an array variable, creating an array, and assigning the reference of the array to the variable can be combined in one statement, as shown below −

dataType[] arrayRefVar = new dataType[arraySize];

Alternatively you can create arrays as follows −

dataType[] arrayRefVar = {value0, value1, ..., valuek};

The array elements are accessed through the index. Array indices are 0-based; that is, they start from 0 to arrayRefVar.length-1.

Processing Arrays

For processing array elements, we often use either for loop or foreach loop because all of the elements in an array are of the same type and the size of the array is known.

double[] myList = {1.9, 2.9, 3.4, 3.5};

      // Print all the array elements
      for (int i = 0; i < myList.length; i++) {
         System.out.println(myList[i] + " ");
      }

foreach loop

A foreach loop or enhanced for loop, which enables you to traverse the complete array sequentially without using an index variable.

The following code displays all the elements in the array myList:

      double[] myList = {1.9, 2.9, 3.4, 3.5};

      // Print all the array elements
      for (double element: myList) {
         System.out.println(element);
      }

Methods of the Arrays Class

public static int binarySearch(Object[] a, Object key)

Searches the specified array of Object ( Byte, Int , double, etc.) for the specified value using the binary search algorithm. The array must be sorted prior to making this call. This returns index of the search key, if it is contained in the list - otherwise, it returns (insertion point + 1).

 

public static boolean equals(long[] a, long[] a2)

Returns true if the two specified arrays of longs are equal to one another. Two arrays are considered equal if both arrays contain the same number of elements, and all corresponding pairs of elements in the two arrays are equal. This returns true if the two arrays are equal. Same method could be used by all other primitive data types (Byte, short, Int, etc.)

 

public static void fill(int[] a, int val)

Assigns the specified int value to each element of the specified array of ints. The same method could be used by all other primitive data types (Byte, short, Int, etc.)

 

public static void sort(Object[] a)

Sorts the specified array of objects into an ascending order, according to the natural ordering of its elements. The same method could be used by all other primitive data types (Byte, short, Int, etc.)