Enhanced for loop and Immutability?

There I find a twist in the enhanced for loop and immutable nature. Where it does not change the data in an array of primitives, here I can see a clear variation.

Here is a Person class.

package test;

public class Person {
      private int pId;
      private String name;

      public Person(int pId, String name) {
          this.pId = pId;
          this.name = name;
     }
    public String toString(){
            return "Id : "+pId+" Name : "+name;
    }
    public int getpId() {
           return pId;
    }

    public void setpId(int pId) {
         this.pId = pId;
   }

   public String getName() {
         return name;
   }

   public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
}

And here is a tester class with enhanced for loop.

package test;

import static java.lang.Math.random;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class PersonList {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
           List<Person> pList = new ArrayList<>();
           pList.add( new Person(101,"John"));
           pList.add( new Person(102,"James"));
           pList.add( new Person(103,"Dan"));
           pList.add( new Person(104,"Mathew"));
           pList.add( new Person(105,"Sam"));

          System.out.println("Added List elements : "+pList);
         /* To perfomr element wise operation */
          for(Person p : pList){
                System.out.println(p);
          }
         /* you try to modify the data in pList through enhanced for loop */
                System.out.println("List elements now : ");
                for(Person p : pList){
                     if(p.getName().equals("Sam"))
                          p.setName("Samuel");
                 }

/* OOPs... it has not changed...But let us conform it once again by using enhanced for loop */

          System.out.println("After Updation : view element in the list : ");
          for(Person p : pList){
                 System.out.println(p);
          }
  }
}

When I run this I see something different.

Added List elements : [Id : 101 Name : John, Id : 102 Name : James, Id : 103 Name : Dan, Id : 104 Name : Mathew, Id : 105 Name : Sam]
Id : 101 Name : John
Id : 102 Name : James
Id : 103 Name : Dan
Id : 104 Name : Mathew
Id : 105 Name : Sam
List elements now : 
After Updation : view element in the list : 
Id : 101 Name : John
Id : 102 Name : James
Id : 103 Name : Dan
Id : 104 Name : Mathew
Id : 105 Name : Samuel

Now the question is why the name gets changed from within the enhanced for loop. Now in previous post x reads data from ArrayList, and value change in x does not reflect in ArrayList. But in current example, p holds the reference to an object and using reference, it change the value. Rest is left to your imagination... :) !!!

Enhanced for Loop : Collections and Immutability

Enhanced for loop was added in Java SE 1.5. It can be used with Arrays and collections to iterate item-wise/element-wise. It works like read data of very ancient programming language called BASIC... atleast to me it looks like that... You can define read element of the collection element type and do operations on data. The amazing part is whatever you do to the read element, it does not disturb the original collection, that is data in for loop is immutable...

package test;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import static java.lang.Math.random;
/**
*
* @author nkan
*/
public class EnhancedForLoop {
public static void main(String[] args) {
List<Integer> intList = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i=0;i<5;i++){
intList.add((int) (random() * 100));
}

System.out.println("Added List elements : "+intList);
/* To perfomr element wise operation */
for(int x : intList){
x++;
System.out.println("x = "+x);
}
/* you have incremented x, may be you are thinking that ArrayList : intList has be modified */
System.out.println("List elements now : "+intList);
/* OOPs... it has not changed...But let us conform it once again by using enhanced for loop */
System.out.println("After Updation : incremented element list is : ");
for(int x : intList){
System.out.println("x = "+x);
}
}
}

When I executed this program :

Added List elements : [98, 14, 30, 34, 43]
x = 99
x = 15
x = 31
x = 35
x = 44
List elements now : [98, 14, 30, 34, 43]
After Updation : incremented element list is : 
x = 98
x = 14
x = 30
x = 34
x = 43

Created and posted by Nancy @ 12/17/2015 2:25 am