Prior to Java 5, the only way to iterate the members of an array was to use a for loop and the array’s indexes. For example, the following code iterates over a String array referenced by the variable names:
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
System.out.println("\t- " + names[i]);
}
Java 5 enhanced the for statement. You can now use it to iterate over an array or a collection without the index. Use this syntax to iterate over an array:
for (
elementType
variable
:
arrayName
)
Where arrayName is the reference to the array, elementType is the element type of the array, and variable is a variable that references each element of the array.
For example, the following code iterates over an array of Strings.
String[] names = { "John", "Mary", "Paul" };
for (String name : names) {
System.out.println(name);
}
The code prints this on the console.
John
Mary
Paul