I need explanation of index.

Question

I think I'm having some trouble understanding what index values are. I would appreciate any help.

Jakob Wozniak · Accepted Answer

Indexes work like this: in a string containing "TeamTreehouse", the characters in the string are indexed. So if you wanted to get the first letter of the string, you would ask it for the character index 0 (this is because indexes start at 0 instead of 1). If you asked for index 3, you would get back "m".
java
String name = "TeamTreehouse";
System.out.println(name.charAt(0));         /*  This will print "T"   */
System.out.println(name.substring(0,4))  /*  This will print "Team"  */

Ryan Ruscett · Answer

Hey,
When I put something into an array, like below. It's not just the strings that it stores. It will store the string and associate it with an index which I can use to get data out and put data into the array. It referes to the location of something inside a data structure. I'll show you.
```java
private String[] words = new String[5];
```
Now I have an array of strings that takes 5 values. I really have this.
```java
0 []
1[]
2[]
3[]
4[]
```
When I try and store a word into the words array, I must tell java where in the array to store the value. If I want words to be the first value. I would give it an index value of 0, if I want the value to go into the 5th spot I would use an index value of 4. All the index value does is allow me to pick out data inside my data structure and or put data in at a specific spot. I identify that specific spot by use of index values.
```java
words[1] = "Hello"
words[4] = "World"
```
Now I have this.
```java
0[Hello]
1[]
2[]
3[]
4[World]
```
What these index values allow me to do. Is retrieve values form my array. If I just said, give me a value array. It would say what value do you want? I can say hey, array, give me the word Hello. Since that defeats the purpose of an array in some ways. If I know the value I want, than I don't need to get it from the array. I can just give it. But if I don't know the value I want, I have to tell the array, give me the "second" value inside the data structure or array. Than it says oh ok, you want the second value. I can do that. In this case you get a null since there is no value. 
Does that help make more sense our of it? Let me know if you have additional questions. I can try to explain again.

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Uriah Nevins

Uriah Nevins

I need explanation of index.

2 Answers

Jakob Wozniak

Jakob Wozniak

Uriah Nevins

Uriah Nevins

Ryan Ruscett

Ryan Ruscett