Difference between length() and length

[mitra]

Hi guys.........

public class Compile18 {
public static void main(String args[]){
String s = "super market";
System.out.println(args.length);
System.out.println(args[0]);
System.out.println(args);
System.out.println(s.length());
}
}

this is command line program, we must take input from command line.
So,
at line 4 when we read the length of args array, we just write (args.lenght), and it shows correct output, but if try to read the length of the args array by (args.length()), it shows error,
whereas at line 7 we must write (s.length()) to read the length of the string type variable.
So I can't understand what is the difference between these two -- length and length() ???

Thank u guys.............

[fakepics500]

length is the property of array

it tells the length of a given array

eg. int a[]=new int[5];

a.length will give 5;

length() is a methds defied in string libaray
it tell the length of given string;
String s="ram";
s.length() will give 3

String s[]={"one","two","three"};
s.length will be 3 as there are 3 elements in s(String type array)
but
s[2].length() will be 5 as the length of string at postion 2 is 5 i.e "three"

[sunde887]

length is an instance variable of type array. Array is an object, just like string, Object, JFrame, etc. The array class has an instance variable called length, when you say arrayName.length, you are getting the length of an array. You can picture it as looking like this

public class MyArray{
  public int length;
  public MyArray(int length){ this.length = length; }
}

This is similar(but not the same) to how an array would be made.

When finding the length of a string, you use a method call which gets the length of the string. It can be seen to look like this

public class MyString{
  private int length;
  private char[] chars;
  public int length(){ return length; }
}

Notice that in the first example I made the length variable public, it can be accessed anywhere. In the second example it is private and cannot be accessed directly, so we provide a method which allows us to view the length variable.

[mitra]

Thanks a lot............
now it clear to me.
Thanks

[sunde887]

You are welcome, I'm glad you understand it now.

[mitra]

Thank u very much.........

[RichersooN]

We can say that length is a public variable and length() is a public method.

[Junky]

You would need a copy of the API for that class.