Literal Syntax For byte[] arrays using Hex notation..?

Question

The compiler seems to be ok with this (single digit hex values only):

byte[] rawbytes={0xa, 0x2, 0xf};

But not this:

byte[]         


        

Answer 1

"0xFF" is an int literal for the decimal value 255, which isn't representable as a byte.

For now, you'll need to cast it to a byte to tell the compiler you really mean -1, like this:

byte[] rawbytes = { 0xA, 0x2, (byte) 0xFF };

It was proposed to add a new byte literal syntax (y or Y suffix) to Java 7. Then you would have been able to write:

byte[] rawbytes = { 0xA, 0x2, 0xFFy };

However, this proposal was not included in the "omnibus proposal for improved integral literals," so we be stuck with the cast forever.