Array Declaration, Construction, and Initialization

• Arrays can hold primitives or objects, but the array itself is always an object.
• When you declare an array, the brackets can be left or right of the name.
• It is never legal to include the size of an array in the declaration.
• You must include the size of an array when you construct it (using new) unless you are creating an anonymous array.
• Elements in an array of objects are not automatically created, although primitive array elements are given default values.
• You'll get a NullPointerException if you try to use an array element in an object array, if that element does not refer to a real object.
• Arrays are indexed beginning with zero.
• An ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException occurs if you use a bad index value.
• Arrays have a length variable whose value is the number of array elements.
• The last index you can access is always one less than the length of the array.
• Multidimensional arrays are just arrays of arrays.
• The dimensions in a multidimensional array can have different lengths.
• An array of primitives can accept any value that can be promoted implicitly to the array's declared type;. e.g., a byte variable can go in an int array.
• An array of objects can hold any object that passes the IS-A (or instanceof) test for the declared type of the array. For example, if Horse extends Animal, then a Horse object can go into an Animal array.
• If you assign an array to a previously declared array reference, the array you're assigning must be the same dimension as the reference you're assigning it to.
• You can assign an array of one type to a previously declared array reference of one of its supertypes. For example, a Honda array can be assigned to an array declared as type Car (assuming Honda extends Car).