Java Syntax: byte f()[] vs. byte[] f()

Question

Just noticed in ByteArrayOutputStream, the toByteArray() is declared as,

public synchronized byte toByteArray()[];

What's the difference between this declaration and the following one?

public synchronized byte[] toByteArray();

Answer 1

In this case, none.

If you had declarations:

byte[] a, b;
byte c[], d;

then a, b, and c are byte[], and d is byte.

Answer 2

There is no difference, though convention amongst programmers strongly prefers the latter.

Answer 3

Java coding conventions document recommends the second variant (byte[] b). See example.