Accessing elements in an array
In order to access elements in an array, we need to use their index. The index represents the position in the array. This allows us to retrieve the value at a certain position and assign it a new value. Let’s first talk about indexing.
Understanding indexing
In Java, arrays use zero-based indexing, which means the first element has an index of 0, the second element has an index of 1, and so on. Take a look at our example of the ages array:
int[] ages = {31, 7, 5, 1, 0}; This means that the first element (31) has an index of 0 and the last element has an index of 4.
Figure 6.1 – Indexing explained with the ages array
We count the length of an array like we normally do, starting with 1. So, the length of this array would be 5. The last element in the array has an index equal to the array’s length minus 1. For an array with a length of N, the valid indexes are in the range of 0 to N-1.
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