Difference between int[] array and int array[]

Question

I have recently been thinking about the difference between the two ways of defining an array:

1. int[] array
2. int array[]
<

Answer 1

From section 10.2 of the Java Language Specification:

The [] may appear as part of the type at the beginning of the declaration, or as part of the declarator for a particular variable, or both, as in this example:

 byte[] rowvector, colvector, matrix[];

This declaration is equivalent to:

byte rowvector[], colvector[], matrix[][];

Personally almost all the Java code I've ever seen uses the first form, which makes more sense by keeping all the type information about the variable in one place. I wish the second form were disallowed, to be honest... but such is life...

Fortunately I don't think I've ever seen this (valid) code:

String[] rectangular[] = new String[10][10];