Question

If I write out an array the long way in a seperate class such as

public Student [] getArray(){
    Student [] studentArray = new Student[3];
    studentArray[0] = new Student (”Mel”);
    studentArray[1] = new Student (”Jared”);
    studentArray[2] = new Student (”Mikey”);
    return studentArray;
}

Will the return statement return all the names to my other class that I’m actually going to run, or just one?

Answer 1

Here, the return statement will return the entire array, which means that the caller can access all three of the Student objects. For example:

Student[] arr = getArray();
System.out.println(arr[0]); // Prints out Mel student
System.out.println(arr[1]); // Prints out Jared student
System.out.println(arr[2]); // Prints out Mikey student

If you want to return just one Student, then your return type would be Student and you would have to specifically pick which one to return. In Java, returning an array always returns the entire array, and you don’t need to say that you’re returning all of the contents with it.

Hope this helps!