Java Control Statements and Iteration Vocabulary

A collection of core vocabulary terms regarding Java control flow, selection statements, iteration loops, and jump statements based on the lecture material.

Control Statement

A way to change or break the flow of execution by implementing decision-making, looping, and branching to execute a particular block of code based on a condition.

Selection Statement

Java statements that allow control of the flow of a program's execution based upon conditions known only during run-time.

Iteration Statement

Statements that enable repeated execution of a part of a program until a certain termination condition is satisfied.

Jump Statement

Java statements that enable the transfer of control to another part of the program, including $\text{break}$, $\text{continue}$, and $\text{return}$.

Short-circuit ($\&\&$)

A logical operator where the second condition is not checked or evaluated if the first condition is false.

Switch (Java $1.4$)

In this version of Java, the $\text{switch}$ statement accepted only four data types: $\text{int}$, $\text{byte}$, $\text{short}$, and $\text{char}$.

Switch (Java $5$)

In this version of Java, the $\text{switch}$ statement began accepting wrapper classes such as $\text{Integer}$, $\text{Byte}$, $\text{Short}$, and $\text{Character}$.

Switch (Java $1.7$)

In this version of Java, the $\text{switch}$ statement started accepting $\text{String}$ data types.

Break Statement

A statement that, when encountered by the compiler, causes the program to come out from the current block without terminating the entire program.

Default Case

A case that gets executed only if no case label matches the key value, regardless of its position inside the $\text{switch}$ statement.

Compile time constant

The required nature for every case label value inside a $\text{switch-case}$ block.

Array

A structure that collects multiple elements of similar datatype in a continuous block.

For loop statements

A loop consisting of $3$ statements: Initialisation, Test-condition, and Increment or Decrement Operator.

For-each loop

An alternative to the $\text{for}$ loop introduced in Java $1.5$ for retrieving elements from an array or collection, which works on streaming data rather than index values.

ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException

An exception generated when attempting to access an array position that exceeds its defined length (e.g., accessing index $5$ in an array with $5$ elements).