How to declare and initialize Array in Java Programming

In this tutorial, we will take a look at ways in which how we can declare and initialize an Array in Java Programming Language,

Part 1: Declaring an Array

data-type[ ] variableName;

int[] myIntArray;

Declaring an Array in Java is quite similar to declaring a variable, the only difference you will see is that the datatype has rectangular brackets [] around it, wherever you see these brackets around a datatype in Java it is to signify that its an Array,

// Array of Primitive Type
int[] evenNumbers;
double[] measurements;
boolean[] validity;

// Array of Object Type
String[] userNames;
Employee[] employeeArr;

⛏️ You can also declare an Array as int evenNumbers[] where the brackets are placed at the end of the variable name and not the datatype, but this is not the preferred way!

Arrays are Objects in Java, so if you try to use the array Object that's defined with unitized to null, you will get NullPointerException.

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] evenNumbers = null;
        System.out.println(evenNumbers.length);
    }

⛔️ Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
   at Example.main(Example.java:5)

Part 2: Initilizing an Array

When you just declare an Array there is no memory allocated, so if you try to use it you will get a Compile Time Error,

java: variable evenNumbers might not have been initialized

As Array's in Java are of type Object, you can initialize them using a new keyword followed by the data-type and size of the Array value between the braces,

int[] evenNumbers = new int[10];
double[] measurements = new double[10];
boolean[] validity = new boolean[10];
String[] userNames = new String[10];

If you do not provide the size you will get an compilation time error saying "array dimension missing"

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String[] cha = new String[];
    }

⛔️ java: array dimension missing

When you print the variables now, you will see that you get [ which implies an Array, followed by I -> Integer Array, D -> Double Type Array, Z -> Boolean Type Array, followed by @ and the Object hash,

System.out.println(evenNumbers);
System.out.println(measurements);
System.out.println(validity);
System.out.println(userNames);

[I@6bdf28bb
[D@6b71769e
[Z@2752f6e2
[Ljava.lang.String;@e580929

When you initialize an Array the elements of the array are initialized to the default value by the JVM,

• integer Array elements default value: 0
• double Array elements default value: 0.0
• boolean Array elements default value:
• char Array elements default value: NUL
• String/User Defined Array elements default value: null

int[] myArray = {10,20,30,40,50}