How is colon : used in for{} loop?

[Joncamp]

Taking a Java test I found a for{} loop which had a : character in it?... like this...
for { : }
I was supposed to fill in some objects, but I have no idea how a : character does in a for loop?
Any comments?
JON

[Dani]

Are you *sure* it wasn't a semi-colon ; ?

[jwenting]

no, the new syntax for loop introduced in 5.0 allows an alternative syntax.

for (SomeObject o: someCollection) {
  // do something with o
}

someCollection MUST be of type Collection<SomeObject> OR an array of SomeObject (so of type SomeObject[]).

It is shorthand for creating an Iterator over the Collection and assigning each value returned from the Iterator in turn.

[TylerSBreton]

It is similar to the foreach loop in C#, i believe they call it an "advanced for loop" or something.

[Dani]

Us PHP programmers have a foreach ($array AS $value) and foreach ($array AS $key => $value) as well.