Slide 1

CS202 Java-27

Arrays are defined…

lint [] array_name; int array_name [];

lYou don’t specify the size of an array because no space is allocated for the elements at this point

lAll we have is a reference to an array

•(like in C++ where the name of the array is the starting address of the first element, now in Java the name of the array is a reference)

lTo allocate memory we must specify an initialization expression (which unlike C++ can happen anywhere in your code

•int [] array_name = {1,2,3,4,5}; //starting with element zero

•A reference can then be used to also access this array:

•int [] reference;

•reference = array_name;

lWe can also allocate arrays on the heap

•reference = new int [size];

lAll arrays have an implicit member that specifies how many elements there are (its length)