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What is String args[] in Java main method

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What is String args[] in Java main method

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What is String args is used for or Why we use String arg[] in main method is a common doubt among Java beginners. First thing newbies exposed while learning Java programming language is writing HelloWorld program in Java, Though H e l l o W o r l dis smallest sort of program, it contains lot of useful information and concept for newbies Java programmers, one of them is main method and it's different attribute. Though I covered bit of S t r i n g a r g s [ ] , while discussing Why main is public static in Java, I thought to write this article to explain String args array in more detail. Let's see a simple Java HelloWorld again to understand more about String args in Java.
p u b l i cc l a s sH e l l o J a v a { p u b l i cs t a t i cv o i dm a i n ( S t r i n ga r g s [ ] ) { S y s t e m . o u t . p r i n t l n ( " H e l l o w o r l di nJ a v a " ) ; } }

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S t r i n ga r g s [ ] ,which is actually an array of j a v a . l a n g . S t r i n gtype, and it's name is a r g shere. It's not necessary to name it a r g salways, you can name it s t r A r r a yor whatever you like, but most programmer prefer to name it a r g s ,because that's what everyone else do. When we run a Java program from command prompt, we can pass some input to our Java program. Those inputs are stored in this String args array. For example if we modify our program to print content of S t r i n ga r g s [ ] ,as shown below:
p u b l i cc l a s sS t r i n g A r g s T e s t{ p u b l i cs t a t i cv o i dm a i n ( S t r i n ga r g s [ ] ){ S y s t e m . o u t . p r i n t l n ( " S t r i n ga r g u m e n t sp a s s e dw h i l er u n n i n gt h i sJ a v aP r o g r a m:" ) ; f o r ( S t r i n ga r g u m e n t:a r g s ) { S y s t e m . o u t . p r i n t l n ( a r g u m e n t ) ; } } }

and after compiling, we run this Java program as j a v aS t r i n g A r g s T e s tJ a v aJ 2 E EA n d r o i d , then this program will print following output : String arguments passed while running this Java Program : Java J2EE Android because, we have passed three arguments separated by white space. If you want to combine multiple words, which has some white space in between, then you can enclose them in double quotes. If we run our program again with following command : j a v aS t r i n g A r g s T e s t" T h i si so n ea r g u m e n t "" T h i si sa n o t h e ra r g u m e n t " it will print: String arguments passed while running this Java Program : This is one argument This is another argument By the way, if you are using Eclipse to run Java Program, then you can provide String argument to your Java program using " R u nC o n f i g u r a t i o n " .When you run Java program, by right click on Java class with main method, it creates a Run Argument for that class. you can access them as R i g h tc l i c k > R u nA s > R u nC o n f i g u r a t i o n . In second tab, you can see two section Program Arguments and VM Arguments. You can pass all your String arguments from this program arguments section. As shown in this image By the way, you can write your S t r i n ga r g s [ ]as S t r i n g [ ]a r g sas well, because both are valid way to declare String array in Java. Another interesting thing to note is that, from Java 5 onwards, you can varargs or variable arguments in main method instead of S t r i n ga r g s [ ] . Which means following declaration of main method is also valid : p u b l i c s t a t i cv o i dm a i n ( S t r i n g . . .a r g s ) , and you can access this variable argument as normal array in Java. E.g. if we

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What is String args[] in Java main method

use this syntax of main, in your earlier program we don't need to change anything else, it would work, just like it is working

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What is String args[] in Java main method

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