The Java Language Specification, Third Edition

BLOCKS AND STATEMENTS The enhanced for statement 14.14.2
◆ If the for statement does not have label L, the for statement completes
abruptly because of a continue with label L.
• If execution of the Statement completes abruptly for any other reason, the for
statement completes abruptly for the same reason. Note that the case of abrupt
completion because of a break with a label is handled by the general rule for
labeled statements (§14.7).
14.14.2 The enhanced for statement
The enhanced for statement has the form:
EnhancedForStatement:
for ( VariableModifiersopt Type Identifier: Expression) Statement
The Expression must either have type Iterable or else it must be of an array
type (§10.1), or a compile-time error occurs.
The scope of a local variable declared in the FormalParameter part of an
enhanced for statement (§14.14) is the contained Statement
The meaning of the enhanced for statement is given by translation into a
basic for statement.
If the type of Expression is a subtype of Iterable, then let I be the type of the
expression Expression.iterator(). The enhanced for statement is equivalent to
a basic for statement of the form:
for (I #i = Expression.iterator(); #i.hasNext(); ) {
VariableModifiersopt Type Identifier = #i.next();
Statement
}
Where #i is a compiler-generated identifier that is distinct from any other identifiers
(compiler-generated or otherwise) that are in scope (§6.3) at the point where
the enhanced for statement occurs.
Otherwise, the Expression necessarily has an array type, T[]. Let L1 ... Lm
be the (possibly empty) sequence of labels immediately preceding the enhanced
for statement. Then the meaning of the enhanced for statement is given by the
following basic for statement:
DRAFT
T[] a = Expression;
L1: L2: ... Lm: for (int i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
VariableModifiersopt Type Identifier = a[i];
Statement
}
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