Where is array's length property defined?
Arrays are special objects in java, they have a simple attribute named length
which is final
.
There is no "class definition" of an array (you can't find it in any .class file), they're a part of the language itself.
10.7. Array Members
The members of an array type are all of the following:
- The
public
final
fieldlength
, which contains the number of components of the array.length
may be positive or zero.The
public
methodclone
, which overrides the method of the same name in classObject
and throws no checked exceptions. The return type of theclone
method of an array typeT[]
isT[]
.A clone of a multidimensional array is shallow, which is to say that it creates only a single new array. Subarrays are shared.
- All the members inherited from class
Object
; the only method ofObject
that is not inherited is itsclone
method.
Resources:
- JLS - Arrays
It's "special" basically, with its own bytecode instruction: arraylength
. So this method:
public static void main(String[] args) {
int x = args.length;
}
is compiled into bytecode like this:
public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
Code:
0: aload_0
1: arraylength
2: istore_1
3: return
So it's not accessed as if it were a normal field. Indeed, if you try to get it as if it were a normal field, like this, it fails:
// Fails...
Field field = args.getClass().getField("length");
System.out.println(field.get(args));
So unfortunately, the JLS description of each array type having a public final field length
is somewhat misleading :(
It's defined in the Java language specification:
The members of an array type are all of the following:
- The
public final
fieldlength
, which contains the number of components of the array.length
may be positive or zero.
Since there is a limitless number of array types (for every class there is a corresponding array type, and then there are multidimensional arrays), they cannot be implemented in a class file; the JVM has to do it on the fly.