Java Array Syntax Soup: Syntactic Irregularity and Ad Hoc Logic

Here is a example of Java array.

public class Ar {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] myA;
        myA = new int[10];
        myA[3] = 7;
    }
}

Note the idiocy. The [] is used in multiple places. Each place has different semantics.

In this irregular but convenient syntax: int[] v = {3,4};, it does several things in one shot: {array type declaration, value assignment, number of elements declaration, slots fulfillment}. However, this syntactical idiosyncrasy cannot be used generally. For example, the following is a syntax error:

 int[] v = new int[2];
 v = {3, 4};

Here is a complete code you can try.

public class H {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] v = new int[2];
        v = {3,4};
        System.out.print(v[0]);
    }
}

The compiler error is: “illegal start of expression”.

Note that the following syntax, which seems logical and regular, is not a valid syntax:

int[] myA; // declare myA to be a array of int
myA = new int[2]; // give myA a value and declare its length

myA[] myB; // declare myB to be another array of “type myA”. (COMPILER ERROR!)
myB = new myA[3]; // give myB a value and declare its length

The technical reason that the above gives a compiler error, is because myA isn't a Java datatype.