Anonymous Arrays in Java

What is an Anonymous Array in Java?

You define an anonymous array with the new keyword, followed by the type, square brackets [], and the elements enclosed in curly braces {}.

new <data_type>[] {element1, element2, ...};

Imagine you have a method that calculates the sum of integers in an array.

public static int sum(int[] numbers) {
    int total = 0;
    for (int num : numbers) {
        total += num;
    }
    return total;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Instead of creating a named array first:
    // int[] myNumbers = {10, 20, 30};
    // int result = sum(myNumbers);

    // We can call the method directly with an anonymous array:
    int result = sum(new int[]{10, 20, 30}); 
    
    System.out.println("The sum is: " + result); // Prints "The sum is: 60"
}
        

• Benefit (Conciseness): It reduces code verbosity by avoiding the need for a temporary array variable.
• Limitation (One-time Use): Since the array has no name, you cannot refer to it again after the expression in which it was created is executed.