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Let's explore how to set and retrieve items from an array.
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So if your workspace timed out, you might
not be able to access your jshell history,
0:00
normally you can just do
that by using the up arrow.
0:04
Let's go ahead and practice building
our friend's array all over again.
0:07
So let's see.
0:12
I want to say that the type is
a String array named friends and
0:13
I want a new string array
with three elements, right?
0:20
And there we go,
0:26
we have an array with each element
set to the types of default value.
0:27
So we wanna set this first value,
the first value here, this first null.
0:33
We wanna set that to Pasan, so
0:38
the way to access an element of an array
is by using what is known as an index.
0:40
Now one of the more challenging things for
you to remember is that arrays
0:46
are zero based and that means that their
indexes or indices start with zero.
0:52
So the first elements
index is actually zero.
0:57
So here,
lets set the first element to Pasan.
1:01
So first we mention the array, so friends.
1:04
And to specify which element we
are referring to we can add a hard bracket
1:07
followed by the index, which we want
to set the first one which is zero.
1:12
Cuz counting starts at zero with arrays,
so we are gonna say Pasan.
1:17
There we go, and
now if we take a look at our array here,
1:24
we can just type it here,
it will return what the value looks like.
1:27
We'll see that Pasan's on
the first element there.
1:31
Now, I realize that it's weird
that the first element is zero.
1:34
But if you think about it,
we kinda do that too in English.
1:37
So, take a moment and
think about how we report on age.
1:40
Now my youngest daughter
is about to turn three.
1:44
Her first year of life though,
like before her first birthday,
1:47
we talked about how old she
was in terms of months.
1:50
It was never like,
hey how old is this cutie?
1:53
Zero, no, but
it was really her zeroth year.
1:57
Now after she turned one,
we just say one and now she's two.
2:01
We don't really ever say that,
2:05
but to access that first year of
life by index I would use zero too.
2:07
Now as weird as it sounds in baby
years it's okay to say zeroth in
2:12
this array world no matter
how awkward it sounds.
2:16
This starting at zero is such
a confusing thing to remember and
2:20
its the cause of a lot of bugs.
2:24
Now I'll do my best to hammer this home
and by the end of the course I hope to
2:26
have man you enough about it to make
sure that it comes as a second nature.
2:30
So I guess that'd be index
one in the old nature array.
2:36
Okay, so
next in our array we want to add Alena.
2:40
So she would be the second
element in the array.
2:43
So that would be index 1.
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So we'll say friends[1] is Alena.
2:49
There we go and
I refreshed the screen with Ctrl+L and
2:57
now if we take a look at friends here,
we'll see that we have Pasan and Alena.
3:00
And we can access those values
using the same indexing methods.
3:05
So if I say system.out.print.ln and
3:08
we're gonna go ahead and
3:13
say (friends[0] + is awesome!
3:17
We're accessing the values
using the same indexing.
3:25
And if I use the up arrow
we can replace this with.
3:29
1, Alena is awesome, which is true.
3:36
I wonder what happens if we give it
an index that doesn't exist in our array.
3:41
Now we only have three elements.
3:45
So what would happen if I came in here and
made this a 4?
3:46
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException.
3:53
So how do you know what
the upper bound of an array is?
3:56
Well, arrays have a handy public
attribute, which is final, and
3:59
it's named length.
4:03
So if I say friends.length,
I'll see that I have three.
4:05
So you always wanna make sure that
your index is less than the length.
4:10
So let's do this.
4:15
I'm gonna clear the screen again,
that's Ctrl+L.
4:16
So let's do this.
4:18
Let's set the third element to Ben.
4:20
Well, actually,
why don't you try it yourself?
4:22
Why don't you set the third element
4:24
of the friends array to Ben.
4:30
Now go ahead and pause me and
after you get it unpause me and
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I'll show you how I did it.
4:38
So go ahead and pause me.
4:39
Okay, did you fall for it?
4:41
The third element is actually index 2,
right?
4:44
So if we say friends 2 equals Ben, right?
4:47
The last element in our
friends is at index 2,
4:53
therefore it's 1 less than
the link which remember, was 3.
4:56
So you can always get the last element in
an array by subtracting 1 from its length.
5:00
Now you can actually put expressions
in our brackets as well.
5:06
So I can say friends, friends.length which
really is three, we know that minus 1.
5:10
And what will happen is
that we'll calculate and
5:19
then we'll get the value out.
5:21
Now in this example, I already knew which
of my friends were coming along with me.
5:25
So assignment like this,
by index seems kinda silly.
5:29
It feels like I should be able to just
set that when I create my friends
5:33
array, right?
5:36
Well good news, you can.
5:37
It's a bit of a shortcut and
it's known as an array literal.
5:39
Let's look at that right
after this quick break.
5:42
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