Java™ How to Program, Seventh Edition

7.1. Introduction

This chapter introduces data structures—collections of related data items. Arrays are data structures consisting of related data items of the same type. Arrays are fixed-length entities—they remain the same length once they are created, although an array variable may be reassigned such that it refers to a new array of a different length. We study data structures in depth in Chapters 17–19.

After discussing how arrays are declared, created and initialized, we present a series of practical examples that demonstrate several common array manipulations. We also present a case study that examines how arrays can help simulate the shuffling and dealing of playing cards for use in an application that implements a card game. The chapter ...