Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition

Name

Array

Synopsis

This class contains methods that allow you to set and query the values of array elements, to determine the length of an array, and to create new instances of arrays. Note that the Array class can manipulate only array values, not array types; Java data types, including array types, are represented by java.lang.Class. Since the Array class represents a Java value, unlike the Field, Method, and Constructor classes, which represent class members, the Array class is significantly different (despite some surface similarities) from those other classes in this package. Most notably, all the methods of Array are static and apply to all array values, not just a specific field, method, or constructor.

The get( ) method returns the value of the specified element of the specified array as an Object. If the array elements are of a primitive type, the value is converted to a wrapper object before being returned. You can also use getInt( ) and related methods to query array elements and return them as specific primitive types. The set( ) method and its primitive type variants perform the opposite operation. Also, the getLength( ) method returns the length of the array.

The newInstance( ) methods create new arrays. One version of this method is passed the number of elements in the array and the type of those elements. The other version of this method creates multidimensional arrays. Besides specifying the component type of the array, it is passed an array of numbers. The length ...