Lecture 7 — Objects and Arrays

CITS2005 Object Oriented Programming

Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering

University of Western Australia

1 / 29
Contents

• See Chapters 4 and 5 of the textbook

• Objects and garbage collection
• Arrays
• Multidimensional arrays
• For loops with arrays

2 / 29
How Objects are Stored

public class BankExample3 {

public static void main(String[] args) {
BankAccount account1, account2;
account1 = new BankAccount();
account2 = account1; // Same object
account1.ownerName = "Donald Knuth";
account1.balance = 1000;
}
}

• Consider this example from the previous lecture

• How are account1 and account2 stored?

3 / 29
How Objects are Stored

BankAccount
account1 BankAccount Object
balance = 1000
ownerName = "Donald Knuth"

BankAccount
account2

• Non-primitive variables store references

• Variables storing primitive types (e.g., int, char) store them directly for efficiency
• This why the default values for a variable storing an object is null, but it is 0 or false
for primitive types
4 / 29
Garbage Collection

BankAccount
account1 BankAccount Object
balance = 1000
ownerName = "Donald Knuth"

BankAccount
account2

• Variables disappear when their scope ends

• What happens to an object when no more variables reference it?
• Garbage collection
5 / 29
Garbage Collection

• In languages like C and C++, you need to manage memory yourself

• In Java, objects get automatically deleted and their memory is reclaimed
• The garbage collector runs in the background checking for objects with no references
• If you used new to create something, the garbage collector will keep track of it
• Note that this means primitive types are not garbage collected
• The are stored directly “inside” the variables
• Once the variable is out of scope, their memory is reclaimed

6 / 29
Arrays

• Almost all objects in Java are defined by a class

• Arrays are the exception
• They are a special type that is an object, but not defined by a class
• They group a collection of variables together
• int[] example = new int[10];
• In general: type[] array-name = new type[size]
• Warning: our textbook sometimes uses int example[] = new int[10] syntax!
• Since they are implemented as special objects in Java, they are garbage collected and
passed by reference

7 / 29
Indexing Arrays
public class Nums {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int[] nums = new int[4];
nums[0] = 3;
nums[1] = 1;
nums[2] = 4;
nums[3] = 1;
for (int num : nums) // For each element in nums
System.out.println(num);
}
}

• The elements of an array can be accessed using square brackets: array-name[index]

• An array of length n is indexed using by 0, 1, . . . , n − 1
• This is called zero indexing
8 / 29
How Objects are Stored

nums[0] nums[1] nums[2] nums[3]

3 1 4 1

• A diagram for the previous program’s array

9 / 29
Arrays and args

public class HelloCITS3 {

public static void main(String[] args) {
for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
System.out.println("args[" + i + "] is " + args[i]);
}
}
}

• This is from Lecture 1

• args is an array of Strings
• Notice that the elements are indexed from 0 to args.length-1
• Indexing an array out of this range will cause an error

10 / 29
Histogram

• Lets try to put together what we have learned into a Histogram program
• Use Scanner to read in numbers from 1 to 10
• Create a frequency histogram of the numbers entered
• An array is used to store the histogram
• Print them to the terminal
• Note that we will need to use a new method of Scanner called hasNextInt()
• We will also see System.out.print() (not println())

11 / 29
Histogram

import java . util .Scanner;

public class Histogram {

public static void main(String [] args) {
int [] histogram = new int [11]; // Create the array . Note that the size is 11, not 10
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out. println (”Enter numbers between 1 and 10.”);
while (sc .hasNextInt()) { // Loop until the user enters something that is not an integer
int n = sc. nextInt () ;
if (n < 1 || n > 10) {
System.out. println (” Invalid number: ” + n + ”. Enter a number between 1 and 10.”);
continue ; // Skip invalid numbers
}
histogram[n]++; // Increment the counter for the number
}
for ( int i = 1; i < histogram.length; i ++) { // Goes from 1 to 10
System.out. print ( i + ”: ”);
for ( int j = 0; j < histogram[i ]; j++)
System.out. print (”∗”); // . print () is used instead of . println () to print on the same line
System.out. println () ; // End the line
}
}
}

12 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• Arrays are stored by reference like objects

• They are a kind of object (e.g., new)
• This means two array variables can point to the same array

13 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• int[] a, b;

14 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• int[] a, b;
• a = new int[3];

15 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• int[] a, b;
• a = new int[3];
• b = a;

16 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• int[] a, b;
• a = new int[3];
• b = a;
• System.out.println(b[2]);

17 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• int[] a, b;
• a = new int[3];
• b = a;
• System.out.println(b[2]);
• a[2] = 9;

18 / 29
Arrays and Objects

• int[] a, b;
• a = new int[3];
• b = a;
• System.out.println(b[2]);
• a[2] = 9;
• System.out.println(b[2]);

19 / 29
Mid-lecture break

20 / 29
Multidimensional Arrays

• Java allows multidimensional arrays

• int[][] table = new int[3][4];
• This is a 2D array—analogous to a spreadsheet with 3 rows and 4 columns
• type[][] name = new type[x][y];

21 / 29
Multidimensional Arrays

• More dimensions are possible

• String[][][] threeDee = new String[5][5][5];
• Arrays can be initialised with regular dimensions: new type[x][y]
• Or they can be initialised with irregular dimensions by leaving out a suffix of dimensions:
new type[x][]
• These are called “ragged” or “irregular” arrays

22 / 29
Multidimensional Arrays

• Multidimensional arrays are actually arrays of arrays

• int[][] myArray = new int[5][];

myArray
null null null null null

23 / 29
Multidimensional Arrays

• Multidimensional arrays are actually arrays of arrays

• int[][] myArray = new int[5][];
• myArray[0] = new int[2];
• myArray[2] = new int[2];

0 0 0 0

myArray
[0] null [2] null null

24 / 29
Multidimensional Arrays
• Multidimensional arrays are actually arrays of arrays
• int[][] myArray = new int[5][];
• myArray[0] = new int[2];
• myArray[2] = new int[2];
• myArray[0][0] = 1;
• myArray[2][1] = 3;

1 0 0 3

myArray
[0] null [2] null null

25 / 29
Multidimensional Arrays

public class Arrays2d {

public static void main(String [] args) {
int [][] table = new int [3][4];
System.out. println ( table . length) ;
System.out. println ( table [0]. length) ;
System.out. println ( table [1][2]) ; // Numeric types are initialized to 0
String [] names;
names = new String[3];
System.out. println (names[0] == null); // Strings are initialized to null
names[0] = ”Alice”;
System.out. println (names[0]);
char [][][] grid = new char [2][][];
System.out. println ( grid [0] == null); // Each array is initialized to null
grid [0] = new char [4][3];
grid [1] = new char [2][1];
System.out. println ( grid [0][0][0]) ; // chars are initialized to \u0000 ((int) 0)
}
}

26 / 29
Array Initialisation

• Arrays can be initialised with specific values using a special syntax

• String[] names = {"Donald", "Alan"};
• int[][] myArray = {{1,2},{3,4,5}};

27 / 29
Arrays and for

• Arrays and for loops go well together

• A for loop can be used to iterate through the indexes of an array
• for (int index = 0; index < myArray.length; ++index)
• The built-in .length member helps
• Arrays also work naturally with for-each loops
• for (int number : myArray)
• Nested loops can process with multidimensional arrays

28 / 29
Arrays and for

public class ArrayFor {

public static void main(String [] args) {
int [][] multiples = new int [5][5];
// for loops go well with arrays
for ( int i = 0; i < multiples . length ; i ++) {
for ( int j = 0; j < multiples [ i ]. length ; j++) { // Notice the use of . length
multiples [ i ][ j ] = (i + 1) ∗ ( j + 1);
}
}
// So do for −each loops
for ( int [] row : multiples ) {
for ( int num : row) {
System.out. print (num + ”\t”);
}
System.out. println () ;
}
}
}

29 / 29