Why for each loop is not applicable for JSON array

Question

When I was trying to parse a json array, the studio gave me a compilation error stating foreach is not applicable for json array. Although I know how to get all objects and parse; I just wanted to know why foreach is not applicable even though the json array is an array

Answer 1

For each loop works like this -

For example for and Integer type ArrayList<Integer> list;

for (int x : list)
    // process x here

But a JSONArray can have any type of value inside it.

For example -

[{"name" : John}, {"name" : Joe}, 1, false]

This is a valid JSONArray but it contains all kinds of objects namely - JSONObject, Integer, Boolean. So we would get a different type of value each time in for each loop.

So to apply a for each loop on this array we'll have to cast everything to Object class first -

for (Object o : myJsonArray)

Which doesn't makes much sense and would require a lot of useless effort.