for each loop and final

[mayur dhawan]

Hi,

I just came across this question.

for(final Object o : abc)
System.out.println(o);

I want to know why is this code working. The point of confusion is the final keyword.Is a new object reference is being created and destroyed in every iteration of the loop or what?

Please solve the question.

thanks in advance.
mayur

[Deepak Bala]

It simply means you cannot modify the object reference after it has been set. Try this inside the loop - o = null;

[marc weber]

This does seem odd at first, but it's explained in JLS 14.14.2 The enhanced for statement.

You will see that an enhanced for loop is equivalent to a regular for loop in which the iteration mechanism (either an Iterator or a counter based on an array's length) is part of the loop parameters, but the variable modifiers (like "final") are actually within the loop body. So in this case, "final" applies only within each iteration.