A challenge

[wtd]

And which type is more specific? The array, or the interface?

[Aziz]

Specific? The array, int[], or course. Collection<Integer> could be any Collection<Integer>, such as List<Integer>, LinkedList<Integer>, HashSet<Integer> etc etc.

Still don't see what problem this is leading to.

[Aziz]

Alright, I get it. I'm not going to reveal it though....

A hint: The actual problem resides in the bar() method's declaration

[UnusedUsername]

Is it that bar() should return a Collection of Integers instead of a int[] because in the for-each loop, the Integer class would be autoboxed to an int anyway?

[wtd]

You're close, but for the wrong reason, UnusedUsername.

[UnusedUsername]

Is the reason because the Integers would be unboxed (not autoboxed) to a int?

But if the return type was a Collection<Integer>, performance should be slower because of the boxing, but perhaps this is offset by the fact that Collection<Integer> is more general than int[]?

I'm still pretty clueless though.

[wtd]

The return type of "int[]" is overly specific. Using an interface to specify the return type allows for more freedom to change the code in the future.

[Chinmay]

wtd @ Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:11 pm wrote:

Aziz is starting to think along the right lines.

I dont have any experience with JAVA but whatever I learn I try to learn perfect

Dosnt the baz class have to be public class and contain a main method otherwise this would not compile since it wouldnt make it an application

[Tony]

Chinmay @ Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:58 pm wrote:

it wouldnt make it an application

A piece of code does not need to be "an application" to compile and be valid. Think library files.