ARRAY - simple (but tricky?)

Question

Hi, I have a simple querstion regarding Array intialization.
I know that JAVA has the functionality to declare and initialize array in one line:
String stringarray[] = { "string1","string2","string3"};
Now my question is, why separating this kind of initialization from its declaration is not allowed?
String stringarray[];
stringarray = { "string1","string2","string3"};
Thanks

Answer 1

Okay, let me try again.
In order to create an array, the compiler needs to know what type of array to create. If I have code like this:
Object[] o;
o = { new Long(1), new Long(2) };The compiler could create either an Object array, a Number array, or a Long array, and the code would run fine. Except that somewhere along the line your code might have expected something different and a class-cast exception would get thrown.
So, to keep it simple, the rule seems to be that arrays can only be created when it is explicit what type is going to be created - in other words when there is no chance for ambiguity. The following lines don't have any ambiguity:
// a variable declaration gives the explicit type to use
Object[] o = { new Long(1), new Long(2) };
Number[] n;
// the "new" operator explicitly tells what type to use
n = new Number[] { new Long(1), new Long(2) };SO, although the following seems pretty obvious to a human viewer:
Object[] o = { new Long(1), new Long(2) };
// versus
Object[] o;
   // some code here ..
o = { new Long(1), new Long(2) };The second part introduces the possibilty of ambiguity, because the array creation isn't part of a statement that explicitly tells the compiler what type of array to create. Take for example:
Number[] n = { new Long(0), new Long(1)};
Object[] o;
o = n;Which shows how an array of one type can be assigned to another that is part of the heirarchy.
As I mentioned above, I agree that this should be allowed, but I believe it was left out of the language because of the issues I've mentioned.