ARRAYS - Java Programming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design - page 575

the array nameList , which is an array of references. At this point, no String object has been
created. We will create String objects and assign them to array elements next.)
Next, consider the statement:

nameList[0] = "Amanda Green"; //Line 2
This statement creates a String object with the value "Amanda Green" and stores the
address of the object into nameList[0] . Similarly, the following statements assign
String objects, with the given values, to the other elements of nameList :

nameList[1] = "Vijay Arora"; //Line 3

nameList[2] = "Sheila Mann"; //Line 4

nameList[3] = "Rohit Sharma"; //Line 5

nameList[4] = "Mandy Johnson"; //Line 6

After the statements in Lines 2 through 6 execute, each element of nameList is a
reference to a String object, as shown in Figure 9-11.

nameList

nameList[0]
nameList[1]
nameList[2]
nameList[3]
nameList[4]

Amanda Green

Vijay Arora
Sheila Mann

Rohit Sharma

9 Mandy Johnson

FIGURE 9-11 Array nameList

To output the names, you can use a for loop as follows:

for ( int index = 0; index < nameList.length; index++)
System.out.println(nameList[index]);

You can use String methods to work with the objects of nameList . For example, the
expression:

nameList[0].equals("Amanda Green")

evaluates to true , while the expression:
nameList[3].equals("Randy Blair")

evaluates to false .
Similarly, the expression:

nameList[4].substring(0, 5)
returns a reference to the String object with the string "Mandy" .