Why int[] a = new int[1] instead of just int a?

Question

Is there some hidden meaning in this code which I don\'t see in java? How can it be useful?

int[] a = new int[1];

than just

int         


        

Answer 1

One difference is that you can write a method that changes its int argument by changing arg[0]. This trick is used quite a bit in some of the code I've seen. It allows you to, for instance, return a boolean indicate success or failure and an int value that serves some other purpose. Without that trick, you'd have to return some sort of object containing the two values.