Compiler strange behavior

Question

Hi friends,
I dont know whether this is the right forum page to post this topic.
I've observed a strange behavior of the java compiler may be it is programmed for so.
As we all know that java.lang.System.arraycopy(Object,int,Object,int,int) method can be used to copy the objects & primitive type arrays, how come? for instance
    String s[] = new String[]{"1", "2"};
    String c[] = new String[s.length];
    System.arraycopy(s, 0, c, 0, s.length); // compiles for objects "and"
    byte b[] = new byte[]{1,1,1};
    byte e[] = new byte[b.length];
    System.arraycopy(b, 0, e, 0, b.length); // compiles for primitive as wellI'm not pin-pointing or arguing just wondering & curious. May be the above is an exception to the Compiler.
Can any one of you clear my curosity?
regards,
Afroze.

Answer 1

All arrays are Objects, even arrays of primitive data types. They are treated specially, in terms of syntax and by the compiler, but they are still objects with fields (like "length") and methods (like "clone()").
So in the method arraycopy(Object,int,Object,int,int), the Object arguments can be primitive or Object arrays. Does that help?