Hot cup of Java sir?

Arrays are known as a data structure as they can hold more than one value. In order to fully understand arrays it is best to start off with an example.

Name	Test 1	Test 2
Bert	8	3
Fiona	5	7
Sally	7	6
George	7	7
Fred	5	4

We could store these in variables as follows :-

String name1;
int test1a;
int test1b;
Name1 = "Bert";
Test1a = 8;
Test1b = 3;
String name2;
int test2a;
int test2b;
Name1 = "Fiona";
Test1a = 5;
Test1b = 7;

Etc-

This means that by the end we will have 15 separate variables. This is clearly not a good way to store this information. What happens if there was 100 students? We would have 300 variables. By using arrays we can store the above information in just 3 arrays.

String names[] = new String[5];
int test1[5] = new int[5];
int test2[5] = new int[5];
Names[1] = "Bert";
Test1[1] = 8;
Test2[1] = 3;
Names[2] = "Fiona";
Test1[2] = 5;
Test2[2] = 7;

Etc

This is much more efficient. What we have effectively done is created a one dimensional table (or just a single column) to store our data in. We have assigned a name to the array, given it a size and then placed data within it.

Arrays work very well with itteration.

Basics