Java issue

jimmyendless

I have a disagreement with a person on code below.

String results[] = new String[21];

I thought this was a string array but I have been told that it isn't and that
its a single string 21 characters long, so what is it?

and then I was printing the results from 20 students so I used a 'for' loop going from 1 to 21 and used the index 'i' to describe each student as in

..... ("Student %d %s",i,results) ......

Anyway I was told that starting a 'for' loop not from zero was also wrong.
What do ye guys think, am I completely wrong here, am I missing something?
I program outputted as it was supposed to but was written 'wrong'.

Robby91

I thought this was a string array but I have been told that it isn't and that
its a single string 21 characters long, so what is it?

Have you tried testing it out yourself? I don't know myself (my programming experience is rather limited) so I can't give a definite answer, but I can't see why it wouldn't be an array of Strings.

Anyway I was told that starting a 'for' loop not from zero was also wrong

From what I recall, Java arrays have a first index of [0], so going from [1] to [21] means that you'd completely miss the first index, and exceed your defined array size (since the array with 21 indices would go from [0] to [20] I believe).

Joneser

You are right, you can indeed create an array of strings in the way you can with ints and chars. Also you should always start your "for loop" at 0 if you want to iterate through the entire array.

jimmyendless

So that's not a string array, is it a char array?

I didn't want to iterate from zero cause I didn't want a 'student 0' in my printed output and I didn't save any data in the first element of the array. The program worked perfectly but the logic I used was not appreciated.

Joneser

It is a String array. Bit of googling... http://www.devdaily.com/java/java-string-array-reference-java-5-for-loop-syntax

Chefburns

jimmyendless wrote: »

So that's not a string array, is it a char array?

I didn't want to iterate from zero cause I didn't want a 'student 0' in my printed output and I didn't save any data in the first element of the array. The program worked perfectly but the logic I used was not appreciated.

It is an array of strings a char array would be char results[];

Anima

I didn't want to iterate from zero cause I didn't want a 'student 0' in my printed output and I didn't save any data in the first element of the array. The program worked perfectly but the logic I used was not appreciated.

You're not indexing your results array though? So you'll be printing the same one for each iteration of the loop, unless I'm mistaken...

[PHP]
for( int i=0; i < results.length; ++i )
System.out.printf( "Student %d %s", i+1, results );
[/PHP]

croo

jimmyendless wrote: »

String results[] = new String[21];

Java is pretty flexible when it comes to the syntax of defining the array but there is a common standard used which is:

String[] results = new String[21]

Think about it as defining an array of strings called results rather than an array of results! As I said, your syntax will work fine, the other is the standard convention used for the syntax.

Webmonkey

jimmyendless wrote: »

I have a disagreement with a person on code below.

String results[] = new String[21];

I thought this was a string array but I have been told that it isn't and that
its a single string 21 characters long, so what is it?

and then I was printing the results from 20 students so I used a 'for' loop going from 1 to 21 and used the index 'i' to describe each student as in

..... ("Student %d %s",i,results) ......

Anyway I was told that starting a 'for' loop not from zero was also wrong.
What do ye guys think, am I completely wrong here, am I missing something?
I program outputted as it was supposed to but was written 'wrong'.

As everyone stated you are correct in saying it's an array of strings. To say it's an array of characters shows lack of knowledge.

However, in practice, they were correct about starting at element 0, otherwise you'll miss the first one and the last index will be 20 in this case. (n-1).

But if it was your intention to skip the first student then starting at 1 is correct but don't go beyond the array, but i'm sure you know that already as you'll get an exception.

Galtee

jimmyendless wrote: »

I have a disagreement with a person on code below.

String results[] = new String[21];

I thought this was a string array but I have been told that it isn't and that
its a single string 21 characters long, so what is it?

and then I was printing the results from 20 students so I used a 'for' loop going from 1 to 21 and used the index 'i' to describe each student as in

..... ("Student %d %s",i,results) ......

Anyway I was told that starting a 'for' loop not from zero was also wrong.
What do ye guys think, am I completely wrong here, am I missing something?
I program outputted as it was supposed to but was written 'wrong'.

Maybe the confusion lies in the fact that you can reference a string as an array of characters so to a new eye the above would look like you were specifying the length of the string?