whats wrong with this program

[vidu sri]

this is an exercise question
i dont understand the explanation that has been given
class Hello {

public static void main (String args[]) {

int i;

System.out.print("Hello ");
i = 0;
while (i <= args.length) {
System.out.print(args[i] + " ");
i = i + 1;
}
System.out.println();
}

}

[Vijitha Kumara]

vidu sri wrote:this is an exercise question
i dont understand the explanation that has been given

Can you show us the explanation? Where you don't understand?

[vidu sri]

This program encounters an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException when i becomes eqaul to args.length. Array indexes start at zero and count to one less than the length of the array as in C and not at 1 as in Fortran. The <= sign should just be a <.

What happens if you don't give Program 3.10 any command line arguments? You aren't testing the number of command line arguments anymore so why isn't an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException thrown?
i is initialized to zero. If the length of the array is zero, then i is not less than args.length, so it never enters the loop and it never tries to read an array element that isn't there.


For math whizzes only: I lied. In certain interpretations of certain number systems the statement i = i + 1 does have a valid solution for i. What is it?
If infinity is considered to be a number, then infinity + 1 equals infinity.

Joshua Davis of Oberllin College's Mathematics Department suggested the alternate and equally valid answer "When '+' represents a group operator, and the group is, for example, the reals under multiplication.

[Rob Spoor]

vidu sri wrote:What happens if you don't give Program 3.10 any command line arguments? You aren't testing the number of command line arguments anymore so why isn't an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException thrown?
i is initialized to zero. If the length of the array is zero, then i is not less than args.length, so it never enters the loop and it never tries to read an array element that isn't there.

Sure the loop is entered. If args.length == 0 and i == 0 (initially), i <= args.length.

[Max Rahder]

You avoid these index problems by using the Java 5 "for-each".

class Hello {
    public static void main (String args[]) {
        for (String s : args){
            System.out.println(s);
        }
      System.out.println();       
  }

}

[David Newton]

Sure, except that the question was "what's wrong with this program", not "make it work" ;)

[Greg Charles]

The problem is <= should be <

args[args.length] is always going to cause an out-of-bounds exception no matter how many args there actually are. In Java (as in C and C++) arrays are indexed from 0 to length - 1.

[David Newton]

Hmm, I think the OP already said that.

[Edgar Balderas]

Greg Charles wrote:The problem is <= should be <

args[args.length] is always going to cause an out-of-bounds exception no matter how many args there actually are. In Java (as in C and C++) arrays are indexed from 0 to length - 1.

He is right.