Why Arrays are Useful
- Bunch of variables smashed together in an organized fashion
- Reduces the number of variables you'll need to use
- Can be sorted
Things to Note
- Arrays have a different syntax than just creating a bunch of variables
- You can cause errors by going outside the boundaries of Arrays (
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException) - Arrays come in different forms: Arrays and ArrayLists
- Arrays need to have their size defined before you can use them
- ArrayLists don't need their size defined and can grow and shrink dynamically
- Arrays are zero based (i.e. an item at position 0 is actually the FIRST item in the array, item at position 1 is the second and so on)
Multi-dimensional Arrays
- Remember math class? Think of them like a matrix
Homework: