Understanding Java Statements

Java operators allow you to create a lot of complex expressions, but they're limited in the manner in which they can control program flow. For example, imagine you want a section of code to only be executed under certain conditions that cannot be evaluated until runtime. Or suppose you want a particular segment of code to repeat once for every item in some list.

As you may recall from Chapter 1, a Java statement is a complete unit of execution in Java, terminated with a semicolon (;). For the remainder of the chapter, we'll be introducing you to various Java control flow statements. Control flow statements break up the flow of execution by using decision making, looping, and branching, allowing the application to selectively execute particular segments of code.

These statements can be applied to single expressions as well as a block of Java code. As described in the previous chapter, a block of code in Java is a group of zero or more statements...