Plaintext
Cover Page
Introduction to Programming Using Java
Version 3.1, February 2001
(Repackaged with minor corrections June 2004)
Author: David J. Eck
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, New York 14456
Email: eck@hws.edu
WWW: http://math.hws.edu/eck/
This PDF file or printout contains parts of a free textbook
that covers introductory programming with Java.
The entire text is available on the World-Wide Web,
for use on-line and for downloading,
at this Web address:
http://math.hws.edu/javanotes3/
A newer edition of this book is available at
http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/
The PDF file and printouts that are made from it do not show the Java applets that
are embedded throughout the text. In most places where an applet should appear, you will
see a message such as "Sorry, but your Web browser does not support Java." Also not
included are Java source code examples from Appendix 3 of the text and solutions to the
quizzes and programming exercises. The real version of the textbook is on-line, to be read
with a Web browser. Version 3.1 contains only minor corrections from Version 3.0, which
was released in May 2000. Version 3.1 was released in February 2001, and some additional
corrections were incorporated in June 2004.
Permission is hereby granted to duplicate, modify,
and distribute all or part of the following material,
under the terms of the Open Publication License.
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Java Programming, Main Index
Note: New Version Available...
A newer edition of Introduction to Programming Using Java
is available at http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/
(The new edition requires Java 1.3 or higher,
while this version uses Java 1.1.)
Introduction to Programming Using Java
Version 3.1, February 2001
(Repackaged with minor corrections June 2004)
Author: David J. Eck (eck@hws.edu)
WELCOME TO Introduction to Programming Using Java, an on-line textbook on introductory
programming, which uses Java as the language of instruction. This text has more than enough material for a
one-semester course, and it is also suitable for individuals who want to learn programming on their own.
This is the third edition of the text. (Version 3.1 is a minor upgrade of Version 3.0, which was released in
May, 2000. Version 3.1 was released in February 2001 and incorporated a few changes and corrections. A
final packaging of Version 3.1 was released in June 2004, incorporating corrections made since the release
of Version 3.1. This version is released under the Open Publication License.) The third edition covers more
material and has more examples than the second edition. It also adds end-of-chapter quizzes and solved
programming exercises. Previous editions have been used in a course, Computer Science 124: Introductory
Programming, at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. (The title of the previous editions included a
reference to this course.) This textbook covers Java 1.1. Most of the applets that are contained in the text
require Java 1.1 or higher.
Links for downloading copies of this text can be found at the bottom of this page. To learn more about this
on-line text, please read its preface.
Search this Text:
Although this book does not have a conventional index, you can search it for terms that interest you. Note
that this searches the version of the text book at its main site, at math.hws.edu.
Search Introdution to Programming Using Java for pages...
Containing all of these words: Search
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Java Programming, Main Index
Short Table of Contents:
● Full Table of Contents
● Preface
● Preface to the Second Edition
● Chapter 1: Overview: The Mental Landscape
● Chapter 2: Programming in the Small I: Names and Things
● Chapter 3: Programming in the Small II: Control
● Chapter 4: Programming in the Large I: Subroutines
● Chapter 5: Programming in the Large II: Objects and Classes
● Chapter 6: Applets, HTML, and GUI's
● Chapter 7: Advanced GUI Programming
● Chapter 8: Arrays
● Chapter 9: Correctness and Robustness
● Chapter 10: Advanced Input/Output
● Chapter 11: Linked Data Structures and Recursion
● Appendix 1: From Java to C++
● Appendix 2: Some Notes on Java Programming Environments
● Appendix 3: Source code for all examples in the text
● News and Errata
This is a free textbook. As of Version 3.1, it is published under the terms of the Open Publication License,
Version 1.0. The latest edition is always available, at no charge, for downloading and for on-line use at the
Web address http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/. This edition, the third, is also permanently archived at the
address http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes3/.
Downloading Links
Use one of the following direct links to download a compressed archive of this entire textbook. You can use
this material on your own computer. You can also re-post it on any Web server: See the preface for more
detailed information about downloading. In the preface, you will also find a link to a PDF file that can be
used for printing the textbook.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.zip (1.6 MB), for Windows. This can be used
directly in Windows XP. On any version of Windows, you can open it using WinZip from
www.winzip.com or Aladdin Expander for Windows from www.aladdinsys.com. (Note: The text
files in this archive are in Windows/DOS format.)
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.tar.bz2 (1.0 MB), for Linux/MaxOS. In Linux,
you should be able to expand this using the command "bunzip2 javanotes3.tar.bz2" followed by "tar
xf javanotes3.tar.bz2"; this will also work in UNIX, if you have the bunzip2 program. For MacOS,
your browser will probably expand it automatically when you download it,or it can be opened with
Stuffit Expander from www.aladdinsys.com.
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Java Programming, Main Index
The following archives in older formats do not include the final corrections of June 2004:
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.sit.hqx (2.1 MB), for Macintosh.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.tar.Z (1.8 MB), for Linux/UNIX.
David Eck (eck@hws.edu)
Version 3.0, May 2000
Version 3.1, with minor changes, February 2001
Final packaging, with further corrections, June 2004
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Java Programming: Contents
Introduction to Programming Using Java, Third Edition
Table of Contents
THIS IS THE FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS for an on-line introductory programming textbook that uses
Java as the language of instruction. For more information about the text, please see its front page. The text
is available on-line at http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/.
Preface
Preface to the Second Edition
Chapter 1: Overview: The Mental Landscape
● Section 1: The Fetch-and-Execute Cycle: Machine Language
● Section 2: Asynchronous Events: Polling Loops and Interrupts
● Section 3: The Java Virtual Machine
● Section 4: Fundamental Building Blocks of Programs
● Section 5: Objects and Object-oriented Programming
● Section 6: The Modern User Interface
● Section 7: The Internet and World-Wide Web
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 2: Programming in the Small I: Names and Things
● Section 1: The Basic Java Application
● Section 2: Variables and the Primitive Types
● Section 3: Strings, Objects, and Subroutines
● Section 4: Text Input and Output
● Section 5: Details of Expressions
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 3: Programming in the Small II: Control
● Section 1: Blocks, Loops, and Branches
● Section 2: Algorithm Development
● Section 3: The while and do..while Statements
● Section 4: The for Statement
● Section 5: The if Statement
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Java Programming: Contents
● Section 6: The switch Statement
● Section 7: Introduction to Applets and Graphics
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 4: Programming in the Large I: Subroutines
● Section 1: Black Boxes
● Section 2: Static Subroutines and Static Variables
● Section 3: Parameters
● Section 4: Return Values
● Section 5: Toolboxes, API's, and Packages
● Section 6: More on Program Design
● Section 7: The Truth about Declarations
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 5: Programming in the Large II: Objects and Classes
● Section 1: Objects, Instance Variables, and Instance Methods
● Section 2: Constructors and Object Initialization
● Section 3: Programming with Objects
● Section 4: Inheritance, Polymorphism, and Abstract Classes
● Section 5: More Details of Classes
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 6: Applets, HTML, and GUI's
● Section 1: The Basic Java Applet
● Section 2: HTML Basics and the Web
● Section 3: Graphics and the Paint Method
● Section 4: Mouse Events
● Section 5: Keyboard Events
● Section 6: Introduction to Layouts and Components
● Section 7: Looking Back: The Java 1.0 Event Model
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 7: Advanced GUI Programming
● Section 1: More about Graphics
● Section 2: More about Layouts and Components
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Java Programming: Contents
● Section 3: Standard Components and Their Events
● Section 4: Programming with Components
● Section 5: Threads, Synchronization, and Animation
● Section 6: Nested Classes and Adapter Classes
● Section 7: Frames and Dialogs
● Section 8: Looking Forward: Swing and Java 2.0
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 8: Arrays
● Section 1: Creating and Using Arrays
● Section 2: Programming with Arrays
● Section 3: Vectors and Dynamic Arrays
● Section 4: Searching and Sorting
● Section 5: Multi-Dimensional Arrays
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 9: Correctness and Robustness
● Section 1: Introduction to Correctness and Robustness
● Section 2: Writing Correct Programs
● Section 3: Exceptions and the try...catch Statement
● Section 4: Programming with Exceptions
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 10: Advanced Input/Output
● Section 1: Streams, Readers, and Writers
● Section 2: Files
● Section 3: Programming with Files
● Section 4: Networking
● Section 5: Programming Networked Applications
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Chapter 11: Linked Data Structures and Recursion
● Section 1: Recursion
● Section 2: Linking Objects
● Section 3: Stacks and Queues
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Java Programming: Contents
● Section 4: Binary Trees
● Section 5: A Simple Recursive-descent Parser
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
Appendix 1: From Java to C++
● Section 1: C++ Programming Fundamentals
● Section 2: Pointers and Arrays in C++
● Section 3: Classes and Objects in C++
Appendix 2: Some Notes on Java Programming Environments
Appendix 3: Source code for all examples in the text
News and Errata
David J. Eck (eck@hws.edu), May 2000
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Java Programming: Preface to the Third Edition
Introduction to Programming Using Java,
Third Edition (Version 3.1)
Preface
"INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING WITH JAVA" is a free, on-line textbook. It is suitable for use
in an introductory programming course and for people who are trying to learn programming on their own.
There are no prerequisites beyond a general familiarity with the ideas of computers and programs.
This text uses the Java programming language as the language of instruction. It requires Java version 1.1 or
higher. In style, this is a textbook rather than a tutorial. That is, it concentrates on explaining concepts rather
than giving step-by-step how-to-do-it guides. It is certainly not a Java reference book, and it is not even a
comprehensive survey of all the features of Java. It is not a quick introduction to Java for people who
already know another programming language. Instead, it is directed mainly towards people who are
learning programming for the first time, and it is as much about general programming concepts as it is
about Java in particular.
This is the third edition of Introduction to Programming with Java. The first two editions have been used
by the author and by another professor in the introductory programming class at Hobart and William Smith
Colleges (http://www.hws.edu/). The new edition is a major upgrade. It is more than twice the size of the
second edition. Changes include:
● Chapter 11, on linked data structures and recursion, is completely new. Chapter 9, on correctness
and robustness, is new except for the section on the try...catch statement.
● A single chapter on "programming in the small" from the previous edition has been expanded to two
chapters (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) in this edition.
● Every chapter, except the first, now includes a set of programming exercises. A solution is provided
for each exercise, along with a discussion of the programming involved.
● There is a sample quiz at the end of each chapter, with answers.
● Many sections from the previous edition have been rewritten, and many new examples have been
added. As in the previous editions, the source code for every example is included in an appendix.
● Based on experience with the previous editions, the exposition of some topics has been modified by
postponing certain details until later in the text. This is especially true in the two chapters on
graphical user interface programming (Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 in this edition). These chapters have
been completely reorganized.
With these changes, Introduction to Programming with Java is now fully competitive, in the author's
opinion, with the conventionally published, printed programming textbooks that are available on the
market. (Well, all right, I'll confess that I think it's better.)
This textbook differs from many other Java programming books in that it does not deal primarily with
applets. Early chapters concentrate on standalone applications that use text input and output. Applets are
introduced briefly in Section 3.7 and covered pretty thoroughly in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. In the
remaining chapters, applets are used in many but not all examples and exercises. "Swing," a new set of
interface components introduced in Java 1.2, is just barely mentioned (in Section 7.8). This approach allows
a gentler introduction to fundamental programming concepts, and it postpones the complexities of graphical
user interface programming until a time when students are ready to deal with them. The decision to do
things this way also reflects the fact that applets are only one aspect of Java, and probably not the most
important.
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Java Programming: Preface to the Third Edition
I do not plan any further major upgrades to this textbook, but I will probably release new versions in the
future with minor revisions and corrections. The current edition of Introduction to Programming with Java
will always be available at the following Web address:
http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/
Version 3.1 (February 2001) is a minor upgrade to Version 3.0 (May 2000). It incorporates corrections to a
few errors in Version 3.0. (See the Version 3.0 errata page for a list.) A final repackaging in June 2004
incorporats a few additional errors. No further changes will be made in the future. The major change is that
with Version 3.1, modification and republication is now covered by the terms of the Open Publication
License.
The first, second, and third editions are permanently archived at the following addresses:
First edition: http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes1/
Second edition: http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes2/
Third edition: http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes3/
Downloading the Text
The complete Introduction to Programming with Java is available for download as a compressed archive
for the Windows, Macintosh, or Linux/Unix platforms. (Text files have slightly different formats on the
three platforms. The text files in each archive are in the appropriate format for the platform. For many
purposes, though, the difference is unimportant. For example, Web browsers will accept files in any of the
formats.) The uncompressed archives contain 580 files and directories and take up over four megabytes of
space. You should be able to download an archive by clicking on one of the following links. If you have
problems with the downloading, please let me know!
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.zip (1.6 MB), for Windows.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.tar.bz2 (1.0 MB), for Linux/MaxOS
The following archives in older formats do not include the final corrections of June 2004:
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.sit.hqx (2.1 MB), for Macintosh.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.tar.Z (1.8 MB), for Linux/UNIX.
An archive must be uncompressed to be useful. To do this, you will need appropriate software (which might
already be on your computer). In Windows XP, you can just open the file javanotes3.zip by
double-clicking on it; then drag the folder javanotes3-final to another location and Windows will
uncompress it for you. Also, in any versino of Windows, you can use WinZip, available from
www.winzip.com, to uncompress the file. WinZip is shareware, but you can use it for a 30 day trial without
charge. Alternatively, you might want to get the free program, Aladdin Expander for Windows from
www.aladdinsys.com, which can also be used to uncompress the Windows archive.
The software for Linux/UNIX should already be included on your system. To decode the archive
javanotes3.tar.bz2, use the command "bunzip2 javanotes3.tar.bz2" followed by the command "tar xf
javanotes3.tar". If you do not have the bunzip2 program, try dowloading javanotes3.tar.Z instead and
decode it with the command "uncompress javanotes3.tar.Z" followed by the command "tar xf
javanotes3.tar".
For Macintosh, you need Stuffit Expander for Macintosh, which is already included with most Web
browsers. In fact, your Web browser will probably uncompress the archive automatically when you
download it. If you don't have it, Stuffit Expander can be downloaded from www.aladdinsys.com.
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Java Programming: Preface to the Third Edition
I recommend reading Introduction to Programming with Java with a Web browser, so that you can see and
use the applets that occur throughout the text. However, I know from experience that a lot of people will
want to print all or part of the text. To make this a little easier, I've made a large PDF file that contains the
entire textbook, except for the Java source code files from Appendix 3 and the solutions to the quizzes and
programming exercises. Of course, the PDF file does not display the applets in the text. Where they should
appear, you'll generally see a message such as "Sorry, but your browser does not support Java." A PDF file
can be viewed or printed using the free program, Adobe Acrobat Reader. (The file was created using the
"Web Capture" feature in Adobe Acrobat Pro 4.0. This is nothing fancy -- just all the Web pages
captured in a single file.) The PDF file is available through the following link. It is more than 1.8
megabytes in size, and it contains more than 500 pages of text.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes3.pdf (1.8 MB)
If there is a PDF viewer built into your browser, clicking on the above link will show the file in your Web
browser window. In that case, to download the file, try right-clicking or Control-clicking the link. This
should bring up a menu that contains a command such as "Save this link". Selecting that command will
allow you to download the file to your hard disk.
Usage Restrictions
Introduction to Programming with Java is free, but it is not in the public domain. As of Version 3.1, it is
published under the terms of the Open Publication License. (For the purpose of this license, I am both the
publisher and author of the work.) This license allows redistribution and modification under certain terms.
For example, you can:
● Post an unmodified copy of this textbook on your own Web site.
● Give away or sell printed, unmodified copies of this book, as long as they meet the requirements of
the license.
● Post on the web or otherwise distribute modified copies, provided that the modifications are clearly
noted in accordance with the license.
While it is not actually required by the license, I do appreciate hearing from people who are using or
distributing my work.
Professor David J. Eck
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, New York 14456, USA
Email: eck@hws.edu
WWW: http://math.hws.edu/eck/
May 23, 2000
Modified February 18, 2001
Final modifications June 8, 2004
[ Main Index ]
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Java Programming: Preface to Previous Edition
Introduction to Programming Using Java
Preface to the Previous Edition, Fall 1998
"INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING WITH JAVA" is the "second edition" of an on-line
introductory programming textbook that uses Java as the language of instruction. This book does not claim
to cover the Java language comprehensively, although it does cover enough of it to make it possible to write
interesting programs and applets. The main point of the text, however, is to teach the basics of
programming -- including object-oriented programming -- with no prerequisites except a general familiarity
with the ideas of computers and programs.
This text should be useful to anyone who wants to learn Java, but who is not already an expert in C and
C++. Unlike many introductions to Java programming, it does not assume any background in these
languages.
Many working applets are included on the Web pages that make up the text, and the full source code for all
these applets can be found in an appendix.
I used the "first edition" of the text in introductory programming courses taught at Hobart and William
Smith Colleges in Fall 1996 and Winter 1998. The second edition has been updated to cover Java 1.1
instead of Java 1.0 and was used in the Fall term of 1998. The course has a weekly lab. Lab worksheets
from Fall 1998 and from previous terms are available. (See the information page for CS124.)
Usage Restrictions
This on-line text can be freely used for non-commercial purposes, as long as its source and author are made
clear. For example, you can download a copy and use it on your own computer. You can post it in
unmodified form on your own Web server (provided that you do not charge for access). You can print it out
for your personal use. Professors who use it in a course can make printed copies and make them available to
students for the cost of reproduction.
The text can also be distributed in unmodified form as part of a CD-ROM collection of free and/or
shareware materials, provided that the cost of the CD is not more than $50.
Anyone who wants to use the text for any other purposes that might be considered "commercial" should
contact me for permission.
Downloading the Text
This entire text is available for downloading in several formats. The archives, which I haven't yet created as
I write this, will probably be between 600 KB and 1 MB in size. You can use the following links to
download the archives.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes2-fall98.zip, for Windows 95/98/NT and other
platforms.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes2-fall98.sit.hqx, for Macintosh.
● http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/downloads/javanotes2-fall98.tar.Z, for UNIX.
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Java Programming: Preface to Previous Edition
The "first edition" of the text, which covered Java 1.0 instead of Java 1.1, is also available for download.
See the bottom of its index page at http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/notes98.html.
Why a Free On-line Text?
You might ask, does this really qualify as a textbook? And if so, why is it available for free on-line, instead
of as an overpriced hardcover edition?
To answer the first question: Yes, this is meant as a serious textbook. Currently, it is not quite as long as
most programming textbooks, but it has plenty of material for a solid one-term course. I think that it is a
reasonable choice for a textbook in a college-level programming course -- or I wouldn't be using it in my
own courses.
When I started work on the text for the Fall term of 1996, there was really no suitable textbook for
introductory programming in Java. I decided to write my own class notes, and it seemed reasonable to put
them in HTML format so that I could include working Java applets right on the page. I felt that the result
was good enough to publish on the Web, and the response to it has been good. I suppose that I had some
idea that I might eventually convert the notes into a hard-copy textbook, but I know from experience that
it's a long, hard process to get a textbook into print -- and not a very profitable one unless a lot of people
buy the book.
Since then, I've decided that the book really works well in an on-line version. Sometimes, it would be
convenient to have a printed version as well, but if I ever do come out with a printed version, it will be a
companion to the on-line version, rather than vice versa.
Furthermore, in the meantime, I've become a fan of the Linux operating system and the whole free software
movement. (The "free" in this case means "freely distributable" rather than "free of charge.") If we can have
free software, why not free textbooks?
Java 1.0 vs. Java 1.1
Java 1.1 introduced a large number of changes to the Java language, and in this second edition of the text, I
have made correspondingly large changes. I do not try to cover both Java 1.0 and 1.1. That is, I almost
never say things like, in Java 1.1 you do this, but in Java 1.0 you do that. And I don't try to point out the
features that were unavailable in Java 1.0. It's time to let Java 1.0 fade away...
However, it is only fairly recently that Web browsers have become available that use Java 1.1. If you read
this text with an older browser, most of the applets will just show up as blank white areas. Netscape 4.0.6,
released in August 1998, is the first version of Netscape that will run the Java 1.1 applets in these notes.
(On the Macintosh, even Netscape 4.0.6 does not support Java 1.1.) Internet Explorer 4.0 also uses Java 1.1,
as does Sun Microsystem's browser, HotJava 1.1.4.
Changes from the First Edition
Chapter 1 is almost unchanged, except that I've removed Section 8, which was an explanation of why I
decided to use Java instead of C++ in my introductory programming class. I don't think this can any longer
be seen as a controversial decision.
In the fist edition, Chapters 2 and 3 used a "Console" class that I wrote for doing console-style I/O in
programs. I did this because I found standard input and output (System.in and System.out) to be
undependable. (The Macintoshes on which I first taught the course did not even implement standard input!)
In the second edition, I use a "TextIO" class that simply provides a reasonable interface to the standard
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Java Programming: Preface to Previous Edition
input and output streams. This makes for a smoother exposition, since using the Console class forced me to
start using objects prematurely.
I've added a new section in Chapter 2 on "the structure of Java programs," in which I try to deal with the
confusion that results from having both static and non-static members in classes.
I restructured the material in Chapter 4 extensively, without really adding any important new topics.
The largest changes in the text are in Chapters 5 and 6, which have been completely rewritten to use the
Java 1.1 event model. All the applets in the text (except for some of the decorative end-of-chapter applets)
have been rewritten to use this event model. I've added sections in Chapter 6 on nested classes and on
Frames, and I moved the section on threads and animation from Chapter 6 to Chapter 5. The number of
sample applets in Chapters 5 and 6 has been increased substantially.
Chapter 7 contains a new section that briefly introduces some of Java's standard data types, such as
StringBuffer and HashTable. The rest of the chapter is little changed
Chapter 8 has been revised to cover Reader and Writer streams. These were introduced in Java 1.1 as
the recommended way to do character input and output, in place of InputStream and OutputStream.
InputStream and OutputStream are still used for binary data.
Chapter 9 is essentially unchanged (and might be removed in future editions of this text).
The Future of This Text
I expect that there will be a "third edition" of this text, but not until the second half of the year 2000. I will
be on sabbatical for the academic year 1999--2000, so I won't be teaching any courses. However, I do plan
to work on this text as one of my sabbatical projects.
It looks like Java is here to stay as an important language. The next version of the language, Java 1.2, will
be out before the end of 1998. As far as I know, nothing in Java 1.2 will require major changes in this text.
One of the big changes in Java 1.2 will be the inclusion of a new set of GUI components, called "Swing," as
an alternative to the AWT components used in Java 1.0 and 1.1. If Swing becomes popular enough to
displace the AWT, then I will probably rewrite the text to use Swing instead of the AWT. Most of the other
forseeable changes in Java concern advanced API's that will probably never be more than mentioned in an
introductory text.
I would like to expand treatment of several topics in the text. In the next edition, Chapter 7 will be broken
into at least two chapters. The first chapter will cover arrays, probably with more examples than are now
included. The second chapter will include material on linked data structures such as trees, stacks, and
queues. It will also include an introduction to recursion. Chapter 8, which in this edition is pretty sketchy,
will also be expanded and possibly broken into separate chapters on writing correct and robust programs,
using files and streams, and networking. In the longer term, the text might eventually be expanded to
include enough material for a two-term introductory programming sequence.
[ Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Overview: The Mental Landscape
WHEN YOU BEGIN a journey, it's a good idea to have a mental map of the terrain you'll be passing
through. The same is true for an intellectual journey, such as learning to write computer programs. In this
case, you'll need to know the basics of what computers are and how they work. You'll want to have some
idea of what a computer program is and how one is created. Since you will be writing programs in the Java
programming language, you'll want to know something about that language in particular and about the
modern, "networked" computing environment for which Java is designed.
As you read this chapter, don't worry if you can't understand everything in detail. (In fact, it would be
impossible for you to learn all the details from the brief expositions in this chapter.) Concentrate on learning
enough about the big ideas to orient yourself, in preparation for the rest of the course. Most of what is
covered in this chapter will be covered in much greater detail later in the course.
Contents of Chapter 1:
● Section 1: The Fetch-and-Execute Cycle: Machine Language
● Section 2: Asynchronous Events: Polling Loops and Interrupts
● Section 3: The Java Virtual Machine
● Section 4: Fundamental Building Blocks of Programs
● Section 5: Objects and Object-oriented Programming
● Section 6: The Modern User Interface
● Section 7: The Internet and World-Wide Web
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 1.1
Section 1.1
The Fetch and Execute Cycle: Machine Language
A COMPUTER IS A COMPLEX SYSTEM consisting of many different components. But at the heart --
or the brain, if you want -- of the computer is a single component that does the actual computing. This is the
Central Processing Unit, or CPU. In a modern desktop computer, the CPU is a single "chip" on the order of
one square inch in size. The job of the CPU is to execute programs.
A program is simply a list of unambiguous instructions meant to be followed mechanically by a computer.
A computer is built to carry out instructions that are written in a very simple type of language called
machine language. Each type of computer has its own machine language, and it can directly execute a
program only if it is expressed in that language. (It can execute programs written in other languages if they
are first translated into machine language.)
When the CPU executes a program, that program is stored in the computer's main memory (also called the
RAM or random access memory). In addition to the program, memory can also hold data that is being used
or processed by the program. Main memory consists of a sequence of locations. These locations are
numbered, and the sequence number of a location is called its address. An address provides a way of
picking out one particular piece of information from among the millions stored in memory. When the CPU
needs to access the program instruction or data in a particular location, it sends the address of that
information as a signal to the memory; the memory responds by sending back the data contained in the
specified location. The CPU can also store information in memory by specifying the information to be
stored and the address of the location where it is to be stored.
On the level of machine language, the operation of the CPU is fairly straightforward (although it is very
complicated in detail). The CPU executes a program that is stored as a sequence of machine language
instructions in main memory. It does this by repeatedly reading, or fetching, an instruction from memory
and then carrying out, or executing, that instruction. This process -- fetch an instruction, execute it, fetch
another instruction, execute it, and so on forever -- is called the fetch-and-execute cycle. With one
exception, which will be covered in the next section, this is all that the CPU ever does.
The details of the fetch-and-execute cycle are not terribly important, but there are a few basic things you
should know. The CPU contains a few internal registers, which are small memory units capable of holding
a single number or machine language instruction. The CPU uses one of these registers -- the program
counter, or PC -- to keep track of where it is in the program it is executing. The PC stores the address of the
next instruction that the CPU should execute. At the beginning of each fetch-and-execute cycle, the CPU
checks the PC to see which instruction it should fetch. During the course of the fetch-and-execute cycle, the
number in the PC is updated to indicate the instruction that is to be executed in the next cycle. (Usually, but
not always, this is just the instruction that sequentially follows the current instruction in the program.)
A computer executes machine language programs mechanically -- that is without understanding them or
thinking about them -- simply because of the way it is physically put together. This is not an easy concept.
A computer is a machine built of millions of tiny switches called transistors, which have the property that
they can be wired together in such a way that an output from one switch can turn another switch on or off.
As a computer computes, these switches turn each other on or off in a pattern determined both by the way
they are wired together and by the program that the computer is executing.
Machine language instructions are expressed as binary numbers. A binary number is made up of just two
possible digits, zero and one. So, a machine language instruction is just a sequence of zeros and ones. Each
particular sequence encodes some particular instruction. The data that the computer manipulates is also
encoded as binary numbers. A computer can work directly with binary numbers because switches can
readily represent such numbers: Turn the switch on to represent a one; turn it off to represent a zero.
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Machine language instructions are stored in memory as patterns of switches turned on or off. When a
machine language instruction is loaded into the CPU, all that happens is that certain switches are turned on
or off in the pattern that encodes that particular instruction. The CPU is built to respond to this pattern by
executing the instruction it encodes; it does this simply because of the way all the other switches in the CPU
are wired together.
So, you should understand this much about how computers work: Main memory holds machine language
programs and data. These are encoded as binary numbers. The CPU fetches machine language instructions
from memory one after another and executes them. It does this mechanically, without thinking about or
understanding what it does -- and therefore the program it executes must be perfect, complete in all details,
and unambiguous because the CPU can do nothing but execute it exactly as written. Here is a schematic
view of this first-stage understanding of the computer:
This figure is taken from The Most Complex Machine: A Survey of Computers and Computing, a textbook
that serves as an introductory overview of the whole field of computer science. If you would like to know
more about the basic operation of computers, please see Chapters 1 to 3 of that text.
[ Next Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 1.2
Section 1.2
Asynchronous Events: Polling Loops and Interrupts
THE CPU SPENDS ALMOST ALL ITS TIME fetching instructions from memory and executing them.
However, the CPU and main memory are only two out of many components in a real computer system. A
complete system contains other devices such as:
● A hard disk for storing programs and data files. (Note that main memory holds only a comparatively
small amount of information, and holds it only as long as the power is turned on. A hard disk is
necessary for permanent storage of larger amounts of information, but programs have to be loaded
from disk into main memory before they can actually be executed.)
● A keyboard and mouse for user input.
● A monitor and printer which can be used to display the computer's output.
● A modem that allows the computer to communicate with other computers over telephone lines.
● A network interface that allows the computer to communicate with other computers that are
connected to it on a network.
● A scanner that converts images into coded binary numbers that can be stored and manipulated on the
computer.
The list of devices is entirely open ended, and computer systems are built so that they can easily be
expanded by adding new devices. Somehow the CPU has to communicate with and control all these
devices. The CPU can only do this by executing machine language instructions (which is all it can do,
period). The way this works is that for each device in a system, there is a device driver, which consists of
software that the CPU executes when it has to deal with the device. Installing a new device on a system
generally has two steps: plugging the device physically into the computer, and installing the device driver
software. Without the device driver, the actual physical device would be useless, since the CPU would not
be able to communicate with it.
A computer system consisting of many devices is typically organized by connecting those devices to one or
more busses. A bus is a set of wires that carry various sorts of information between the devices connected to
those wires. The wires carry data, addresses, and control signals. An address directs the data to a particular
device and perhaps to a particular register or location within that device. Control signals can be used, for
example, by one device to alert another that data is available for it on the data bus. A fairly simple computer
system might be organized like this:
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Java Programing: Section 1.2
(This illustration is taken from The Most Complex Machine.)
Now, devices such as keyboard, mouse, and network interface can produce input that needs to be processed
by the CPU. How does the CPU know that the data is there? One simple idea, which turns out to be not very
satisfactory, is for the CPU to keep checking for incoming data over and over. Whenever it finds data, it
processes it. This method is called polling, since the CPU polls the input devices continually to see whether
they have any input data to report. Unfortunately, although polling is very simple, it is also very inefficient.
The CPU can waste an awful lot of time just waiting for input.
To avoid this inefficiency, interrupts are often used instead of polling. An interrupt is a signal sent by
another device to the CPU. The CPU responds to an interrupt signal by putting aside whatever it is doing in
order to respond to the interrupt. Once it has handled the interrupt, it returns to what it was doing before the
interrupt occurred. For example, when you press a key on your computer keyboard, a keyboard interrupt is
sent to the CPU. The CPU responds to this signal by interrupting what it is doing, reading the key that you
pressed, processing it, and then returning to the task it was performing before you pressed the key.
Again, you should understand that this is purely mechanical process: A device signals an interrupt simply
by turning on a wire. The CPU is built so that when that wire is turned on, it saves enough information
about what it is currently doing so that it can return to the same state later. This information consists of the
contents of important internal registers such as the program counter. Then the CPU jumps to some
predetermined memory location and begins executing the instructions stored there. Those instructions make
up an interrupt handler that does the processing necessary to respond to the interrupt. (This interrupt handler
is part of the device driver software for the device that signalled the interrupt.) At the end of the interrupt
handler is an instruction that tells the CPU to jump back to what it was doing; it does that by restoring its
previously saved state.
Interrupts allow the CPU to deal with asynchronous events. In the regular fetch-and-execute cycle, things
happen in a predetermined order; everything that happens is "synchronized" with everything else. Interrupts
make it possible for the CPU to deal efficiently with events that happen "asynchronously", that is, at
unpredictable times.
As another example of how interrupts are used, consider what happens when the CPU needs to access data
that is stored on the hard disk. The CPU can only access data directly if it is in main memory. Data on the
disk has to be copied into memory before it can be accessed. Unfortunately, on the scale of speed at which
the CPU operates, the disk drive is extremely slow. When the CPU needs data from the disk, it sends a
signal to the disk drive telling it to locate the data and get it ready. (This signal is sent synchronously, under
the control of a regular program.) Then, instead of just waiting the long and unpredicatalble amount of time
the disk drive will take to do this, the CPU goes on with some other task. When the disk drive has the data
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ready, it sends an interrupt signal to the CPU. The interrupt handler can then read the requested data.
Now, you might have noticed that all this only makes sense if the CPU actually has several tasks to
perform. If it has nothing better to do, it might as well spend its time polling for input or waiting for disk
drive operations to complete. All modern computers use multitasking to perform several tasks at once.
Some computers can be used by several people at once. Since the CPU is so fast, it can quickly switch its
attention from one user to another, devoting a fraction of a second to each user in turn. This application of
multitasking is called timesharing. But even modern personal computers with a single user use multitasking.
For example, the user might be typing a paper while a clock is continuously displaying the time and a file is
being downloaded over the network.
Each of the individual tasks that the CPU is working on is called a thread. (Or a process; there are technical
differences between threads and processes, but they are not important here.) At any given time, only one
thread can actually be executed by a CPU. The CPU will continue running the same thread until one of
several things happens:
● The thread might voluntarily yield control, to give other threads a chance to run.
● The thread might have to wait for some asynchronous event to occur. For example, the thread might
request some data from the disk drive, or it might wait for the user to press a key. While it is
waiting, the thread is said to be blocked, and other threads have a chance to run. When the event
occurs, an interrupt will "wake up" the thread so that it can continue running.
● The thread might use up its alloted slice of time and be suspended to allow other threads to run. Not
all computers can "forcibly" suspend a thread in this way; those that can are said to use preemptive
multitasking. To do preemptive multitasking, a computer needs a special timer device that generates
an interrupt at regular intervals, such as 100 times per second. When a timer interrupt occurs, the
CPU has a chance to switch from one thread to another, whether the thread that is currently running
likes it or not.
Ordinary users, and indeed ordinary programmers, have no need to deal with interrupts and interrupt
handlers. They can concentrate on the different tasks or threads that they want the computer to perform; the
details of how the computer manages to get all those tasks done are not relevant to them. In fact, most users,
and many programmers, can ignore threads and multitasking altogether. However, threads have become
increasingly important as computers have become more powerful and as they have begun to make more use
of multitasking. Indeed, threads are built into the Java programming language as a fundamental
programming concept.
Just as important in Java and in modern programming in general is the basic concept of asynchronous
events. While programmers don't actually deal with interrupts directly, they do often find themselves
writing event handlers, which, like interrupt handlers, are called asynchronously when specified events
occur. Such "event-driven programming" has a very different feel from the more traditional straight-though,
synchronous programming. We will begin with the more traditional type of programming, which is still
used for programming individual tasks, but we will return to threads and events later in the text.
By the way, the software that does all the interrupt handling and the communication with the user and with
hardware devices is called the operating system. The operating system is the basic, essential software
without which a computer would not be able to function. Other programs, such as word processors and
World Wide Web browsers, are dependent upon the operating system. Common operating systems include
UNIX, Linux, DOS, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and the Macintosh OS.
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Java Programing: Section 1.3
Section 1.3
The Java Virtual Machine
MACHINE LANGUAGE CONSISTS of very simple instructions that can be executed directly by the
CPU of a computer. Almost all programs, though, are written in high-level programming languages such as
Java, Pascal, or C++. A program written in a high-level language cannot be run directly on any computer.
First, it has to be translated into machine language. This translation can be done by a program called a
compiler. A compiler takes a high-level-language program and translates it into an executable
machine-language program. Once the translation is done, the machine-language program can be run any
number of times, but of course it can only be run on one type of computer (since each type of computer has
its own individual machine language). If the program is to run on another type of computer it has to be
re-translated, using a different compiler, into the appropriate machine language.
There is an alternative to compiling a high-level language program. Instead of using a compiler, which
translates the program all at once, you can use an interpreter, which translates it instruction-by-instruction,
as necessary. An interpreter is a program that acts much like a CPU, with a kind of fetch-and-execute cycle.
In order to execute a program, the interpreter runs in a loop in which it repeatedly reads one instruction
from the program, decides what is necessary to carry out that instruction, and then performs the appropriate
machine-language commands to do so.
One use of interpreters is to execute high-level language programs. For example, the programming
language Lisp is usually executed by an interpreter rather than a compiler. However, interpreters have
another purpose: they can let you use a machine-language program meant for one type of computer on a
completely different type of computer. For example, there is a program called "Virtual PC" that runs on
Macintosh computers. Virtual PC is an interpreter that executes machine-language programs written for
IBM-PC-clone computers. If you run Virtual PC on your Macintosh, you can run any PC program,
including programs written for Windows 95 or 98. (Unfortunately, a PC program will run much more
slowly than it would on an actual IBM clone. The problem is that Virtual PC executes several Macintosh
machine-language instructions for each PC machine-language instruction in the program it is interpreting.
Compiled programs are inherently faster than interpreted programs.)
The designers of Java chose to use a combination of compilation and interpretation. Programs written in
Java are compiled into machine language, but it is a machine language for a computer that doesn't really
exist. This so-called "virtual" computer is known as the Java virtual machine. The machine language for the
Java virtual machine is called Java bytecode. There is no reason why Java bytecode could not be used as the
machine language of a real computer, rather than a virtual computer. In fact, Sun Microsystems -- the
originators of Java -- have developed CPU's that run Java bytecode as their machine language.
However, one of the main selling points of Java is that it can actually be used on any computer. All that the
computer needs is an interpreter for Java bytecode. Such an interpreter simulates the Java virtual machine in
the same way that Virtual PC simulates a PC computer.
Of course, a different Jave bytecode interpreter is needed for each type of computer, but once a computer
has a Java bytecode interpreter, it can run any Java bytecode program. And the same Java bytecode
program can be run on any computer that has such an interpreter. This is one of the essential features of
Java: the same compiled program can be run on many different types of computers.
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Why, you might wonder, use the intermediate Java bytecode at all? Why not just distribute the original Java
program and let each person compile it into the machine language of whatever computer they want to run it
on? There are many reasons. First of all, a compiler has to understand Java, a complex high-level language.
The compiler is itself a complex program. A Java bytecode interpreter, on the other hand, is a fairly small,
simple program. This makes it easy to write a bytecode interpreter for a new type of computer; once that is
done, that computer can run any compiled Java program. It would be much harder to write a Java compiler
for the same computer.
Furthermore, many Java programs are meant to be downloaded over a network. This leads to obvious
security concerns: you don't want to download and run a program that will damage your computer or your
files. The bytecode interpreter acts as a buffer between you and the program you download. You are really
running the interpreter, which runs the downloaded program indirectly. The interpreter can protect you from
potentially dangerous actions on the part of that program.
I should note that there is no necessary connection between Java and Java bytecode. A program written in
Java could certainly be compiled into the machine language of a real computer. And programs written in
other languages could be compiled into Java bytecode. However, it is the combination of Java and Java
bytecode that is platform-independent, secure, and network-compatible while allowing you to program in a
modern high-level object-oriented language.
I should also note that the really hard part of platform-independence is providing a "Graphical User
Interface" -- with windows, buttons, etc. -- that will work on all the platforms that support Java. You'll see
more about this problem in Section 6.
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Java Programing: Section 1.4
Section 1.4
Fundamental Building Blocks of Programs
THERE ARE TWO BASIC ASPECTS of programming: data and instructions. To work with data, you
need to understand variables and types; to work with instructions, you need to understand control structures
and subroutines. You'll spend a large part of the course becoming familiar with these concepts.
A variable is just a memory location (or several locations treated as a unit) that has been given a name so
that it can be easily referred to and used in a program. The programmer only has to worry about the name; it
is the compiler's responsibility to keep track of the memory location. The programmer does need to keep in
mind that the name refers to a kind of "box" in memory that can hold data, even if the programmer doesn't
have to know where in memory that box is located.
In Java and most other languages, a variable has a type that indicates what sort of data it can hold. One type
of variable might hold integers -- whole numbers such as 3, -7, and 0 -- while another holds floating point
numbers -- numbers with decimal points such as 3.14, -2.7, or 17.0. (Yes, the computer does make a
distinction between the integer 17 and the floating-point number 17.0; they actually look quite different
inside the computer.) There could also be types for individual characters ('A', ';', etc.), strings ("Hello", "A
string can include many characters", etc.), and less common types such as dates, colors, sounds, or any
other type of data that a program might need to store.
Programming languages always have commands for getting data into and out of variables and for doing
computations with data. For example, the following "assignment statement," which might appear in a Java
program, tells the computer to take the number stored in the variable named "principal", multiply that
number by 0.07, and then store the result in the variable named "interest":
interest = principal * 0.07;
There are also "input commands" for getting data from the user or from files on the computer's disks and
"output commands" for sending data in the other direction.
These basic commands -- for moving data from place to place and for performing computations -- are the
building blocks for all programs. These building blocks are combined into complex programs using control
structures and subroutines.
A program is a sequence of instructions. In the ordinary "flow of control," the computer executes the
instructions in the sequence in which they appear, one after the other. However, this is obviously very
limited: the computer would soon run out of instructions to execute. Control structures are special
instructions that can change the flow of control. There are two basic types of control structure: loops, which
allow a sequence of instructions to be repeated over and over, and branches, which allow the computer to
decide between two or more different courses of action by testing conditions that occur as the program is
running.
For example, it might be that if the value of the variable "principal" is greater than 10000, then the
"interest" should be computed by multiplying the principal by 0.05; if not, then the interest should be
computed by multiplying the principal by 0.04. A program needs some way of expressing this type of
decision. In Java, it could be expressed using the following "if statement":
if (principal > 10000)
interest = principal * 0.05;
else
interest = principal * 0.04;
(Don't worry about the details for now. Just remember that the computer can test a condition and decide
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what to do next on the basis of that test.)
Loops are used when the same task has to be performed more than once. For example, if you want to print
out a mailing label for each name on a mailing list, you might say, "Get the first name and address and print
the label; get the second name and address and print the label; get the third name and address and print the
label..." But this quickly becomes ridiculous -- and might not work at all if you don't know in advance how
many names there are. What you would like to say is something like "While there are more names to
process, get the next name and address, and print the label." A loop can be used in a program to express
such repetition.
Large programs are so complex that it would be almost impossible to write them if there were not some
way to break them up into manageable "chunks." Subroutines provide one way to do this. A subroutine
consists of the instructions for performing some task, grouped together as a unit and given a name. That
name can then be used as a substitute for the whole set of instructions. For example, suppose that one of the
tasks that your program needs to perform is to draw a house on the screen. You can take the necessary
instructions, make them into a subroutine, and give that subroutine some appropriate name -- say,
"drawHouse()". Then anyplace in your program where you need to draw a house, you can do so with the
single command:
drawHouse();
This will have the same effect as repeating all the house-drawing instructions in each place.
The advantage here is not just that you save typing. Organizing your program into subroutines also helps
you organize your thinking and your program design effort. While writing the house-drawing subroutine,
you can concentrate on the problem of drawing a house without worrying for the moment about the rest of
the program. And once the subroutine is written, you can forget about the details of drawing houses -- that
problem is solved, since you have a subroutine to do it for you. A subroutine becomes just like a built-in
part of the language which you can use without thinking about the details of what goes on "inside" the
subroutine.
Variables, types, loops, branches, and subroutines are the basis of what might be called "traditional
programming." However, as programs become larger, additional structure is needed to help deal with their
complexity. One of the most effective tools that has been found is object-oriented programming, which is
discussed in the next section.
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Java Programing: Section 1.5
Section 1.5
Objects and Object-oriented Programming
PROGRAMS MUST BE DESIGNED. No one can just sit down at the computer and compose a program
of any complexity. The discipline called software engineering is concerned with the construction of correct,
working, well-written programs. The software engineer tends to use accepted and proven methods for
analyzing the problem to be solved and for designing a program to solve that problem.
During the 1970s and into the 80s, the primary software engineering methodology was structured
programming. The structured programming approach to program design was based on the following advice:
To solve a large problem, break the problem into several pieces and work on each piece separately; to solve
each piece, treat it as a new problem which can itself be broken down into smaller problems; eventually,
you will work your way down to problems that can be solved directly, without further decomposition. This
approach is called top-down programming.
There is nothing wrong with top-down programming. It is a valuable and often-used approach to
problem-solving. However, it is incomplete. For one thing, it deals almost entirely with producing the
instructions necessary to solve a problem. But as time went on, people realized that the design of the data
structures for a program was as least as important as the design of subroutines and control structures.
Top-down programming doesn't give adequate consideration to the data that the program manipulates.
Another problem with strict top-down programming is that is makes it difficult to reuse work done for other
projects. By starting with a particular problem and subdividing it into convenient pieces, top-down
programming tends to produce a design that is unique to that problem. It is unlikely that you will be able to
take a large chunk of programming from another program and fit it into your project, at least not without
extensive modification. Producing high-quality programs is difficult and expensive, so programmers and
the people who employ them are always eager to reuse past work.
So, in practice, top-down design is often combined with bottom-up design. In bottom-up design, the
approach is to start "at the bottom," with problems that you already know how to solve (and for which you
might already have a reusable software component at hand). From there, you can work upwards towards a
solution to the overall problem.
The reusable components should be as "modular" as possible. A module is a component of a larger system
that interacts with the rest of the system in a simple, well-defined, straightforward manner. The idea is that
a module can be "plugged into" a system. The details of what goes on inside the module are not important
to the system as a whole, as long as the module fulfills its assigned role correctly. This is called information
hiding, and it is one of the most important principles of software engineering.
One common format for software modules is to contain some data, along with some subroutines for
manipulating that data. For example, a mailing-list module might contain a list of names and addresses
along with a subroutine for adding a new name, a subroutine for printing mailing labels, and so forth. In
such modules, the data itself is often hidden inside the module; a program that uses the module can then
manipulate the data only indirectly, by calling the subroutines provided by the module. This protects the
data, since it can only be manipulated in known, well-defined ways. And it makes it easier for programs to
use the module, since they don't have to worry about the details of how the data is represented. Information
about the representation of the data is hidden.
Modules that could support this kind of information-hiding became common in programming languages in
the early 1980s. Since then, a more advanced form of the same idea has more or less taken over software
engineering. This latest approach is called object-oriented programming, often abbreviated as OOP.
The central concept of object-oriented programming is the object, which is a kind of module containing
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Java Programing: Section 1.5
data and subroutines. The point-of-view in OOP is that an object is a kind of self-sufficient entity that has
an internal state (the data it contains) and that can respond to messages (calls to its subroutines). A mailing
list object, for example, has a state consisting of a list of names and addresses. If you send it a message
telling it to add a name, it will respond by modifying its state to reflect the change. If you send it a message
telling it to print itself, it will respond by printing out its list of names and addresses.
The OOP approach to software engineering is to start by identifying the objects involved in a problem and
the messages that those objects should respond to. The program that results is a collection of objects, each
with its own data and its own set of responsibilities. The objects interact by sending messages to each other.
There is not much "top-down" in such a program, and people used to more traditional programs can have a
hard time getting used to OOP. However, people who use OOP would claim that object-oriented programs
tend to be better models of the way the world itself works, and that they are therefore easier to write, easier
to understand, and more likely to be correct.
You should think of objects as "knowing" how to respond to certain messages. Different objects might
respond to the same message in different ways. For example, a "print" message would produce very
different results, depending on the object it is sent to. This property of objects -- that different objects can
respond to the same message in different ways -- is called polymorphism.
It is common for objects to bear a kind of "family relationship" to one another. Objects that contain the
same type of data and that respond to the same messages in the same way belong to the same class. (In
actual programming, the class is primary; that is, a class is created and then one or more objects are created
using that class as a template.) But objects can be similar without being in exactly the same class.
For example, consider a drawing program that lets the user draw lines, rectangles, ovals, polygons, and
curves on the screen. In the program, each visible object on the screen could be represented by a software
object in the program. There would be five classes of objects in the program, one for each type of visible
object that can be drawn. All the lines would belong to one class, all the rectangles to another class, and so
on. These classes are obviously related; all of them represent "drawable objects." They would, for example,
all presumably be able to respond to a "draw yourself" message. Another level of grouping, based on the
data needed to represent each type of object, is less obvious, but would be very useful in a program: We can
group polygons and curves together as "multipoint objects," while lines, rectangles, and ovals are
"two-point objects." (A line is determined by its endpoints, a rectangle by two of its corners, and an oval by
two corners of the rectangle that contains it.) We could diagram these relationships as follows:
DrawableObject, MultipointObject, and TwoPointObject would be classes in the program.
MultipointObject and TwoPointObject would be subclasses of DrawableObject. The class Line would be a
subclass of TwoPointObject and (indirectly) of DrawableObject. A subclass of a class is said to inherit the
properties of that class. The subclass can add to its inheritance and it can even "override" part of that
inheritance (by defining a different response to some method). Nevertheless, lines, rectangles, and so on are
drawable objects, and the class DrawableObject expresses this relationship.
Inheritance is a powerful means for organizing a program. It is also related to the problem of reusing
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Java Programing: Section 1.5
software components. A class is the ultimate reusable component. Not only can it be reused directly if it fits
exactly into a program you are trying to write, but if it just almost fits, you can still reuse it by defining a
subclass and making only the small changes necessary to adapt it exactly to your needs.
So, OOP is meant to be both a superior program-development tool and a partial solution to the software
reuse problem. Objects, classes, and object-oriented programming will be important themes throughout the
rest of this text.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 1.6
Section 1.6
The Modern User Interface
WHEN COMPUTERS WERE FIRST INTRODUCED, ordinary people -- including most programmers --
couldn't get near them. They were locked up in rooms with white-coated attendants who would take your
programs and data, feed them to the computer, and return the computer's response some time later. When
timesharing -- where the computer switches its attention rapidly from one person to another -- was invented
in the 1960s, it became possible for several people to interact directly with the computer at the same time.
On a timesharing system, users sit at "terminals" where they type commands to the computer, and the
computer types back its response. Early personal computers also used typed commands and responses,
except that there was only one person involved at a time. This type of interaction between a user and a
computer is called a command-line interface.
Today, of course, most people interact with computers in a completely different way. They use a Graphical
User Interface, or GUI. The computer draws interface components on the screen. The components include
things like windows, scroll bars, menus, buttons, and icons. Usually, a mouse is used to manipulate such
components. Assuming that you are reading these notes on a computer, you are no doubt familiar with the
basics of graphical user interfaces.
A lot of GUI interface components have become fairly standard. That is, they have similar appearance and
behavior on many different computer platforms including Macintosh, Windows 3.1, Windows 98, and
various UNIX window systems. Java programs, which are supposed to run on many different platforms
without modification to the program, can use all the standard GUI components. They might vary in
appearance from platform to platform, but their functionality should be identical on any computer on which
the program runs.
Below is a very simple Java program -- actually an "applet," since it is running right here in the middle of a
page -- that shows a few standard GUI interface components. There are four components that you can
interact with: a button, a checkbox, a text field, and a pop-up menu. These components are labeled. There
are a few other components in the applet. The labels themselves are components (even though you can't
interact with them). The lower half of the applet is a text area component, that can display multiple lines of
text. In fact, in Java terminology, the whole applet is itself considered to be a "component." Try clicking on
the button and on the checkbox, and try selecting an item from the pop-up menu. You can type in the text
field, but you might have to click on it first to activate it:
Sorry, your browser doesn't do Java.
Here is what the applet looked like
on my computer:
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Java Programing: Section 1.6
As you experiment with the other components, you'll find that messages are displayed in the text area. What
happens is that when you perform certain actions, such as clicking on a button, you generate "events." For
each event, a message is sent to the applet telling it that the event has occurred, and the applet responds
according to its program. In fact, the program consists mainly of "event handlers" that tell the applet how to
respond to various types of events. In this example, the applet has been programmed to respond to each
event by displaying a message in the text area.
The use of the term "message" here is deliberate. Messages, as you saw in the previous section, are sent to
objects. In fact, Java GUI components are implemented as objects. Java includes many predefined classes
that represent various types of GUI components. Some of these classes are subclasses of others. Here is a
diagram showing some of these classes and their relationships:
Don't worry about the details for now, but try to get some feel about how object-oriented programming and
inheritance are used here. Note that all the GUI classes are subclasses, directly or indirectly, of a class
called Component. Two of the direct subclasses of Component themselves have subclasses. The classes
TextArea and TextField, which have certain behaviors in common, are grouped together as
subclasses of TextComponent. The class named Container refers to components that can contain
other components. The Applet class is, indirectly, a subclass of Container since applets can contain
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components such as buttons and text fields.
Just from this brief discussion, perhaps you can see how GUI programming can make effective use of
object-oriented design. In fact, GUI's, with their "visible objects," are probably a major factor contributing
to the popularity of OOP.
Programming with GUI components and events is one of the most interesting aspects of Java. However, we
will spend several chapters on the basics before returning to this topic in Chapter 6.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 1.7
Section 1.7
The Internet and the World-Wide Web
COMPUTERS CAN BE CONNECTED together on networks. A computer on a network can
communicate with other computers on the same network by exchanging data and files or by sending and
receiving messages. Computers on a network can even work together on a large computation.
Today, millions of computers throughout the world are connected to a single huge network called the
Internet. New computers are being connected to the Internet every day. In fact, a computer can join the
Internet temporarily by using a modem to establish a connection through telephone lines.
There are elaborate protocols for communication over the Internet. A protocol is simply a detailed
specification of how communication is to proceed. For two computers to communicate at all, they must
both be using the same protocols. The most basic protocols on the Internet are the Internet Protocol (IP),
which specifies how data is to be physically transmitted from one computer to another, and the
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which ensures that data sent using IP is received in its entirety and
without error. These two protocols, which are referred to collectively as TCP/IP, provide a foundation for
communication. Other protocols use TCP/IP to send specific types of information such as files and
electronic mail.
All communication over the Internet is in the form of packets. A packet consists of some data being sent
from one computer to another, along with addressing information that indicates where on the Internet that
data is supposed to go. Think of a packet as an envelope with an address on the outside and a message on
the inside. (The message is the data.) The packet also includes a "return address," that is, the address of the
sender. A packet can hold only a limited amount of data; longer messages must be divided among several
packets, which are then sent individually over the net and reassembled at their destination.
Every computer on the Internet has an IP address, a number that identifies it uniquely among all the
computers on the net. The IP address is used for addressing packets. A computer can only send data to
another computer on the Internet if it knows that computer's IP address. Since people prefer to use names
rather than numbers, many computers are also identified by names, called domain names. For example, the
main computer at Hobart and William Smith Colleges has the domain name hws3.hws.edu. (Domain names
are just for convenience; your computer still needs to know IP addresses before it can communicate. There
are computers on the Internet whose job it is to translate domain names to IP addresses. When you use a
domain name, your computer sends a message to a domain name server to find out the corresponding IP
address. Then, your computer uses the IP address, rather than the domain name, to communicate with the
other computer.)
The Internet provides a number of services to the computers connected to it (and, of course, to the users of
those computers). These services use TCP/IP to send various types of data over the net. Among the most
popular services are Telnet, electronic mail, FTP, and the World-Wide Web.
Telnet allows a person using one computer to log on to another computer. (Of course, that person needs to
know a user name and password for an account on the other computer.) Telnet provides only a
command-line interface. Essentially, the first computer acts as a terminal for the second. Telnet is often
used by people who are away from home to access their computer accounts back home -- and they can do
so from any computer on the Internet, anywhere in the world.
Electronic mail, or email, provides person-to-person communication over the Internet. An email message is
sent by a particular user of one computer to a particular user of another computer. Each person is identified
by a unique email address, which consists of the domain name of the computer where they receive their
mail together with their user name or personal name. The email address has the form
"username@domain.name". For example, my own email address is: eck@hws.edu. Email is actually
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Java Programing: Section 1.7
transferred from one computer to another using a protocol called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
Email might still be the most common and important use of the Internet, although it has certainly been
challenged in popularity by the World-Wide Web.
FTP (File Transport Protocol) is designed to copy files from one computer to another. As with Telnet, an
FTP user needs a user name and password to get access to a computer. However, many computers have
been set up with special accounts that can be accessed through FTP with the user name "anonymous" and
any password. This so-called anonymous FTP can be used to make files on one computer publically
available to anyone with Internet access.
The World-Wide Web (WWW) is based on pages which can contain information of many different kinds as
well as links to other pages. These pages are viewed with a Web browser program such as Netscape or
Internet Explorer. Many people seem to think that the World-Wide Web is the Internet, but it's really just a
graphical user interface to the Internet. The pages that you view with a Web browser are just files that are
stored on computers connected to the Internet. When you tell your Web browser to load a page, it contacts
the computer on which the page is stored and transfers it to your computer using a protocol known as HTTP
(HyperText Transfer Protocol). Any computer on the Internet can publish pages on the World-Wide Web.
When you use a Web browser, you have access to a huge sea of interlinked information that can be
navigated with no special computer expertise. The Web is the most exciting part of the Internet and is
driving the Internet to a truly phenomenal rate of growth. If it fulfills its promise, the Web might become a
universal and fundamental part of everyday life.
I should note that a typical Web browser can use other protocols besides HTTP. For example, it can also
use FTP to transfer files. The traditional user interface for FTP was a command-line interface, so among all
the other things it does, a Web browser provides a modern graphical user interface for FTP. (This fact
should help you understand that FTP is not a program. It is a set of standards for a certain type of
communication between computers. To use FTP, you need a program that implements those standards.
Different FTP programs can present you with very different user interfaces. Similarly, different Web
browser programs can present very different interfaces to the user, but they must all use HTTP to get
information from the Web.)
Now just what, you might be thinking, does all this have to do with Java? In fact, Java is intimately
associated with the Internet and the World-Wide Web. As you have seen in the previous section, special
Java programs called applets are meant to be transmitted over the Internet and displayed on Web pages. A
Web server transmits a Java applet just as it would transmit any other type of information. A Web browser
that understands Java -- that is, that includes an interpreter for the Java virtual machine -- can then run the
applet right on the Web page. Since applets are programs, they can do almost anything, including complex
interaction with the user. With Java, a Web page becomes more than just a passive display of information.
It becomes anything that programmers can imagine and implement.
Its association with the Web is not Java's only advantage. But many good programming languages have
been invented only to be soon forgotten. Java has had the good luck to ride on the coattails of the Web's
immense and increasing popularity.
End of Chapter 1
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 1 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 1
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 1 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: One of the components of a computer is its CPU. What is a CPU and what role does it play in
a computer?
Question 2: Explain what is meant by an "asynchronous event." Give some examples.
Question 3: What is the difference between a "compiler" and an "interpreter"?
Question 4: Explain the difference between high-level languages and machine language.
Question 5: If you have the source code for a Java program, and you want to run that program, you will
need both a compiler and an interpreter. What does the Java compiler do, and what does the Java interpreter
do?
Question 6: What is a subroutine?
Question 7: Java is an object-oriented programming language. What is an object?
Question 8: What is a variable? (There are four different ideas associated with variables in Java. Try to
mention all four aspects in your answer. Hint: One of the aspects is the variable's name.)
Question 9: Java is a "platform-independent language." What does this mean?
Question 10: What is the "Internet"? Give some examples of how it is used. (What kind of services does it
provide?)
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 2 Index
Chapter 2
Programming in the Small I
Names and Things
ON A BASIC LEVEL (the level of machine language), a computer can perform only very simple
operations. A computer performs complex tasks by stringing together large numbers of such operations.
Such tasks must be "scripted" in complete and perfect detail by programs. Creating complex programs will
never be really easy, but the difficulty can be handled to some extent by giving the program a clear overall
structure. The design of the overall structure of a program is what I call "programming in the large."
Programming in the small, which is sometimes called coding, would then refer to filling in the details of
that design. The details are the explicit, step-by-step instructions for performing fairly small-scale tasks.
When you do coding, you are working fairly "close to the machine," with some of the same concepts that
you might use in machine language: memory locations, arithmetic operations, loops and decisions. In a
high-level language such as Java, you get to work with these concepts on a level several steps above
machine language. However, you still have to worry about getting all the details exactly right.
This chapter and the next examine the facilities for programming in the small in the Java programming
language. Don't be misled by the term "programming in the small" into thinking that this material is easy or
unimportant. This material is an essential foundation for all types of programming. If you don't understand
it, you can't write programs, no matter how good you get at designing their large-scale structure.
Contents of Chapter 2:
● Section 1: The Basic Java Application
● Section 2: Variables and the Primitive Types
● Section 3: Strings, Objects, and Subroutines
● Section 4: Text Input and Output
● Section 5: Details of Expressions
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 2.1
Section 2.1
The Basic Java Application
A PROGRAM IS A SEQUENCE OF INSTRUCTIONS that a computer can execute to perform some
task. A simple enough idea, but for the computer to make any use of the instructions, they must be written
in a form that the computer can use. This means that programs have to be written in programming
languages. Programming languages differ from ordinary human languages in being completely
unambiguous and very strict about what is and is not allowed in a program. The rules that determine what is
allowed are called the syntax of the language. Syntax rules specify the basic vocabulary of the language and
how programs can be constructed using things like loops, branches, and subroutines. A syntactically correct
program is one that can be successfully compiled or interpreted; programs that have syntax errors will be
rejected (hopefully with a useful error message that will help you fix the problem).
So, to be a successful programmer, you have to develop a detailed knowledge of the syntax of the
programming language that you are using. However, syntax is only part of the story. It's not enough to write
a program that will run. You want a program that will run and produce the correct result! That is, the
meaning of the program has to be right. The meaning of a program is referred to as its semantics. A
semantically correct program is one that does what you want it to.
When I introduce a new language feature in these notes, I will explain both the syntax and the semantics of
that feature. You should memorize the syntax; that's the easy part. Then you should try to get a feeling for
the semantics by following the examples given, making sure that you understand how they work, and
maybe writing short programs of your own to test your understanding.
Of course, even when you've become familiar with all the individual features of the language, that doesn't
make you a programmer. You still have to learn how to construct complex programs to solve particular
problems. For that, you'll need both experience and taste. You'll find hints about software development
throughout this textbook.
We begin our exploration of Java with the problem that has become traditional for such beginnings: to write
a program that displays the message "Hello World!". This might seem like a trivial problem, but getting a
computer to do this is really a big first step in learning a new programming language (especially if it's your
first programming language). It means that you understand the basic process of:
1. getting the program text into the computer,
2. compiling the program, and
3. running the compiled program.
The first time through, each of these steps will probably take you a few tries to get right. I can't tell you the
details here of how you do each of these steps; it depends on the particular computer and Java programming
environment that you are using. (See Appendix 2 for information on some common Java programming
environments.) But in general, you will type the program using some sort of text editor and save the
program in a file. Then, you will use some command to try to compile the file. You'll either get a message
that the program contains syntax errors, or you'll get a compiled version of the program. In the case of Java,
the program is compiled into Java bytecode, not into machine language. Finally, you can run the compiled
program by giving some appropriate command. For Java, you will actually use an interpreter to execute the
Java bytecode. Your programming environment might automate some of the steps for you, but you can be
sure that the same three steps are being done in the background.
Here is a Java program to display the message "Hello World!". Don't expect to understand what's going on
here just yet -- some of it you won't really understand until a few chapters from now:
public class HelloWorld {
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Java Programing: Section 2.1
// A program to display the message
// "Hello World!" on standard output
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World!");
}
} // end of class HelloWorld
The command that actually displays the message is:
System.out.println("Hello World!");
This command is an example of a subroutine call statement. It uses a "built-in subroutine" named
System.out.println to do the actual work. Recall that a subroutine consists of the instructions for
performing some task, chunked together and given a name. That name can be used to "call" the subroutine
whenever that task needs to be performed. A built-in subroutine is one that is already defined as part of the
language and therefore automatically available for use in any program.
When you run this program, the message "Hello World!" (without the quotes) will be displayed on standard
output. Unfortunately, I can't say exactly what that means! Java is meant to run on many different
platforms, and standard output will mean different things on different platforms. However, you can expect
the message to show up in some convenient place. (If you use a command-line interface, like that in Sun
Microsystem's Java Development Kit, you type in a command to tell the computer to run the program. The
computer will type the output from the program, Hello World!, on the next line.)
You must be curious about all the other stuff in the above program. Part of it consists of comments.
Comments in a program are entirely ignored by the computer; they are there for human readers only. This
doesn't mean that they are unimportant. Programs are meant to be read by people as well as by computers,
and without comments, a program can be very difficult to understand. Java has two types of comments. The
first type, used in the above program, begins with // and extends to the end of a line. The computer ignores
the // and everything that follows it on the same line. Java has another style of comment that can extend
over many lines. That type of comment begins with /* and ends with */.
Everything else in the program is required by the rules of Java syntax. All programming in Java is done
inside "classes." The first line in the above program says that this is a class named HelloWorld.
"HelloWorld," the name of the class, also serves as the name of the program. Not every class is a program.
In order to define a program, a class must include a subroutine called main, with a definition that takes the
form:
public static void main(String[] args) {
statements
}
When you tell the Java interpreter to run the program, the interpreter calls the main() subroutine, and the
statements that it contains are executed. These statements make up the script that tells the computer exactly
what to do when the program is executed. The main() routine can call subroutines that are defined in the
same class or even in other classes, but it is the main() routine that determines how and in what order the
other subroutines are used.
The word "public" in the first line of main() means that this routine can be called from outside the
program. This is essential because the main() routine is called by the Java interpreter. The remainder of
the first line of the routine is harder to explain at the moment; for now, just think of it as part of the required
syntax. The definition of the subroutine -- that is, the instructions that say what it does -- consists of the
sequence of "statements" enclosed between braces, { and }. Here, I've used statements as a placeholder for
the actual statements that make up the program. Throughout this textbook, I will always use a similar
format: anything that you see in this style of text (which is green if your browser supports colored text) is a
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Java Programing: Section 2.1
placeholder that describes something you need to type when you write an actual program.
As noted above, a subroutine can't exist by itself. It has to be part of a "class". A program is defined by a
public class that takes the form:
public class program-name {
optional-variable-declarations-and-subroutines
public static void main(String[] args) {
statements
}
optional-variable-declarations-and-subroutines
}
The name on the first line is the name of the program, as well as the name of the class. If the name of the
class is HelloWorld, then the class should be saved in a file called HelloWorld.java. When this file is
compiled, another file named HelloWorld.class will be produced. This class file,
HelloWorld.class, contains the Java bytecode that is executed by a Java interpreter.
HelloWorld.java is called the source code for the program. To execute the program, you only need the
compiled class file, not the source code.
Also note that according to the above syntax specification, a program can contain other subroutines besides
main(), as well as things called "variable declarations." You'll learn more about these later (starting with
variables, in the next section).
By the way, recall that one of the neat features of Java is that it can be used to write applets that can run on
pages in a Web browser. Applets are very different things from stand-alone programs such as the
HelloWorld program, and they are not written in the same way. For one thing, an applet doesn't have a
main() routine. Applets will be covered in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. In the meantime, you will see applets
in this text that simulate stand-alone programs. The applets you see are not really the same as the
stand-alone programs that they simulate, since they run right on a Web page, but they will have the same
behavior as the programs I describe. Here, just for fun, is an applet simulating the HelloWorld program.
To run the program, click on the button:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 2.2
Section 2.2
Variables and the Primitive Types
N AMES ARE FUNDAMENTAL TO PROGRAMMING. In programs, names are used to refer to many different
sorts of things. In order to use those things, a programmer must understand the rules for giving names to things and
the rules for using the names to work with those things. That is, the programmer must understand the syntax and the
semantics of names.
According to the syntax rules of Java, a name is a sequences of one or more characters. It must begin with a letter and
must consist entirely of letters, digits, and the underscore character '_'. For example, here are some legal names:
N n rate x15 quite_a_long_name HelloWorld
Uppercase and lowercase letters are considered to be different, so that HelloWorld, helloworld,
HELLOWORLD, and hElloWorLD are all distinct names. Certain names are reserved for special uses in Java, and
cannot be used by the programmer for other purposes. These reserved words include: class, public, static,
if, else, while, and several dozen other words.
Java is actually pretty liberal about what counts as a letter or a digit. Java uses the Unicode character set, which
includes thousands of characters from many different languages and different alphabets, and many of these characters
count as letters or digits. However, I will be sticking to what can be typed on a regular English keyboard.
Finally, I'll note that often things are referred to by "compound names" which consist of several ordinary names
separated by periods. You've already seen an example: System.out.println. The idea here is that things in Java
can contain other things. A compound name is a kind of path to an item through one or more levels of containment.
The name System.out.println indicates that something called "System" contains something called "out" which
in turn contains something called "println". I'll use the term identifier to refer to any name -- single or compound --
that can be used to refer to something in Java. (Note that the reserved words are not identifiers, since they can't be
used as names for things.)
Programs manipulate data that are stored in memory. In machine language, data can only be referred to by giving the
numerical address of the location in memory where it is stored. In a high-level language such as Java, names are used
instead of numbers to refer to data. It is the job of the computer to keep track of where in memory the data is actually
stored; the programmer only has to remember the name. A name used in this way -- to refer to data stored in memory
-- is called a variable.
Variables are actually rather subtle. Properly speaking, a variable is not a name for the data itself but for a location in
memory that can hold data. You should think of a variable as a container or box where you can store data that you
will need to use later. The variable refers directly to the box and only indirectly to the data in the box. Since the data
in the box can change, a variable can refer to different data values at different times during the execution of the
program, but it always refers to the same box. Confusion can arise, especially for beginning programmers, because
when a variable is used in a program in certain ways, it refers to the container, but when it is used in other ways, it
refers to the data in the container. You'll see examples of both cases below.
(In this way, a variable is something like the title, "The President of the United States." This title can refer to different
people at different time, but it always refers to the same office. If I say "the President went fishing," I mean that Bill
Clinton went fishing. But if I say "Donald Trump wants to be President" I mean that he wants to fill the office, not
that he wants to be Bill Clinton.)
In Java, the only way to get data into a variable -- that is, into the box that the variable names -- is with an assignment
statement. An assignment statement takes the form:
variable = expression;
where expression represents anything that refers to or computes a data value. When the computer comes to an
assignment statement in the course of executing a program, it evaluates the expression and puts the resulting data
value into the variable. For example, consider the simple assignment statement
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rate = 0.07;
The variable in this assignment statement is rate, and the expression is the number 0.07. The computer executes
this assignment statement by putting the number 0.07 in the variable rate, replacing whatever was there before.
Now, consider the following more complicated assignment statement, which might come later in the same program:
interest = rate * principal;
Here, the value of the expression "rate * principal" is being assigned to the variable interest. In the
expression, the * is a "multiplication operator" that tells the computer to multiply rate times principal. The
names rate and principal are themselves variables, and it is really the values stored in those variables that are to
be multiplied. We see that when a variable is used in an expression, it is the value stored in the variable that matters;
in this case, the variable seems to refer to the data in the box, rather than to the box itself. When the computer
executes this assignment statement, it takes the value of rate, multiplies it by the value of principal, and stores
the answer in the box referred to by interest.
(Note, by the way, that an assignment statement is a command that is executed by the computer at a certain time. It is
not a statement of fact. For example, suppose a program includes the statement "rate = 0.07;". If the statement
"interest = rate * principal;" is executed later in the program, can we say that the principal is
multiplied by 0.07? No! The value of rate might have been changed in the meantime by another statement. The
meaning of an assignment statement is completely different from the meaning of an equation in mathematics, even
though both use the symbol "=".)
A variable in Java is designed to hold only one particular type of data; it can legally hold that type of data and no
other. The compiler will consider it to be a syntax error if you try to violate this rule. We say that Java is a strongly
typed language because it enforces this rule.
There are eight so-called primitive types built into Java. The primitive types are named byte, short, int, long,
float, double, char, and boolean. The first four types hold integers (whole numbers such as 17, -38477, and
0). The four integer types are distinguished by the ranges of integers they can hold. The float and double types
hold real numbers (such as 3.6 and -145.99). Again, the two real types are distinguished by their range and accuracy.
A variable of type char holds a single character from the Unicode character set. And a variable of type boolean
holds one of the two logical values true or false.
Any data value stored in the computer's memory must be represented as a binary number, that is as a string of zeros
and ones. A single zero or one is called a bit. A string of eight bits is called a byte. Memory is usually measured in
terms of bytes. Not surprisingly, the byte data type refers to a single byte of memory. A variable of type byte holds
a string of eight bits, which can represent any of the integers between -128 and 127, inclusive. (There are 256 integers
in that range; eight bits can represent 256 -- two raised to the power eight -- different values.) As for the other integer
types,
● short corresponds to two bytes (16 bits). Variables of type short have values in the range -32768 to
32767.
● int corresponds to four bytes (32 bits). Variables of type int have values in the range -2147483648 to
2147483647.
● long corresponds to eight bytes (64 bits). Variables of type long have values in the range
-9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807.
You don't have to remember these numbers, but they do give you some idea of the size of integers that you can work
with. Usually, you should just stick to the int data type, which is good enough for most purposes.
The float data type is represented in four bytes of memory, using a standard method for encoding real numbers.
The maximum value for a float is about 10 raised to the power 38. A float can have about 7 significant digits.
(So that 32.3989231134 and 32.3989234399 would both have to be rounded off to about 32.398923 in order to be
stored in a variable of type float.) A double takes up 8 bytes, can range up to about 10 to the power 308, and has
about 15 significant digits. Ordinarily, you should stick to the double type for real values.
A variable of type char occupies two bytes in memory. The value of a char variable is a single character such as A,
*, x, or a space character. The value can also be a special character such a tab or a carriage return or one of the many
Unicode characters that come from different languages. When a character is typed into a program, it must be
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surrounded by single quotes; for example: 'A', '*', or 'x'. Without the quotes, A would be an identifier and * would be
a multiplication operator. The quotes are not part of the value and are not stored in the variable; they are just a
convention for naming a particular character constant in a program.
A name for a constant value is called a literal. A literal is what you have to type in a program to represent a value. 'A'
and '*' are literals of type char, representing the character values A and *. Certain special characters have special
literals that use a backslash, \, as an "escape character". In particular, a tab is represented as '\t', a carriage return as
'\r', a linefeed as '\n', the single quote character as '\'', and the backslash itself as '\\'. Note that even
though you type two characters between the quotes in '\t', the value represented by this literal is a single tab
character.
Numeric literals are a little more complicated than you might expect. Of course, there are the obvious literals such as
317 and 17.42. But there are other possibilities for expressing numbers in a Java program. First of all, real numbers
can be represented in an exponential form such as 1.3e12 or 12.3737e-108. The "e12" and "e-108" represent powers
of 10, so that 1.3e12 means 1.3 times 1012 and 12.3737e-108 means 12.3737 times 10-108. This format is used for
very large and very small numbers. Any numerical literal that contains a decimal point or exponential is a literal of
type double. To make a literal of type float, you have to append an "F" or "f" to the end of the number. For
example, "1.2F" stands for 1.2 considered as a value of type float. (Occasionally, you need to know this because
the rules of Java say that you can't assign a value of type double to a variable of type float, so you might be
confronted with a ridiculous-seeming error message if you try to do something like "float x = 1.2;". You have
to say "float x = 1.2F;". This is one reason why I advise sticking to type double for real numbers.)
Even for integer literals, there are some complications. Ordinary integers such as 177777 and -32 are literals of type
byte, short, or int, depending on their size. You can make a literal of type long by adding "L" as a suffix. For
example: 17L or 728476874368L. As another complication, Java allows octal (base-8) and hexadecimal (base-16)
literals. (I don't want to cover base-8 and base-16 in these notes, but in case you run into them in other people's
programs, it's worth knowing that a zero at the beginning of an integer makes it an octal literal, as in 045 or 077. A
hexadecimal literal begins with 0x or 0X, as in 0x45 or 0xFF7A. By the way, the octal literal 045 represents the
number 37, not the number 45.)
For the type boolean, there are precisely two literals: true and false. These literals are typed just as I've written
them here, without quotes, but they represent values, not variables. Boolean values occur most often as the values of
conditional expressions. For example,
rate > 0.05
is a boolean-valued expression that evaluates to true if the value of the variable rate is greater than 0.05, and to
false if the value of rate is not greater than 0.05. As you'll see in Chapter 3, boolean-valued expressions are used
extensively in control structures. Of course, boolean values can also be assigned to variables of type boolean.
Java has other types in addition to the primitive types, but all the other types represent objects rather than "primitive"
data values. For the most part, we are not concerned with objects for the time being. However, there is one predefined
object type that is very important: the type String. A String is a sequence of characters. You've already seen a
string literal: "Hello World!". The double quotes are part of the literal; they have to be typed in the program.
However, they are not part of the actual string value, which consists of just the characters between the quotes. Within
a string, special characters can be represented using the backslash notation. Within this context, the double quote is
itself a special character. For example, to represent the string value
I said, "Are you listening!"
with a linefeed at the end, you would have to type the literal:
"I said, \"Are you listening!\"\n"
Because strings are objects, their behavior in programs is peculiar in some respects (to someone who is not used to
objects). I'll have more to say about them in the next section.
A variable can be used in a program only if it has first been declared. A variable declaration statement is used to
declare one or more variables and to give them names. When the computer executes a variable declaration, it sets
aside memory for the variable and associates the variable's name with that memory. A simple variable declaration
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takes the form:
type-name variable-name-or-names;
The variable-name-or-names can be a single variable name or a list of variable names separated by commas. (We'll
see later that variable declaration statements can actually be somewhat more complicated than this.) Good
programming style is to declare only one variable in a declaration statement, unless the variables are closely related in
some way. For example:
int numberOfStudents;
String name;
double x, y;
boolean isFinished;
char firstInitial, middleInitial, lastInitial;
In this chapter, we will only use variables declared inside the main() subroutine of a program. Variables declared
inside a subroutine are called local variables for that subroutine. They exist only inside the subroutine, while it is
running, and are completely inaccessible from outside. Variable declarations can occur anywhere inside the
subroutine, as long as each variable is declared before it is used in any expression. Some people like to declare all the
variables at the beginning of the subroutine. Others like to wait to declare a variable until it is needed. My preference:
Declare important variables at the beginning of the subroutine, and use a comment to explain the purpose of each
variable. Declare "utility variables" which are not important to the overall logic of the subroutine at the point in the
subroutine where they are first used. Here is a simple program using some variables and assignment statements:
public class Interest {
/*
This class implements a simple program that
will compute the amount of interest that is
earned on $17,000 invested at an interest
rate of 0.07 for one year. The interest and
the value of the investment after one year are
printed to standard output.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
/* Declare the variables. */
double principal; // The value of the investment.
double rate; // The annual interest rate.
double interest; // Interest earned in one year.
/* Do the computations. */
principal = 17000;
rate = 0.07;
interest = principal * rate; // Compute the interest.
principal = principal + interest;
// Compute value of investment after one year, with interest.
// (Note: The new value replaces the old value of principal.)
/* Output the results. */
System.out.print("The interest earned is $");
System.out.println(interest);
System.out.print("The value of the investment after one year is $");
System.out.println(principal);
} // end of main()
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} // end of class Interest
And here is an applet that simulates this program:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
This program uses several subroutine call statements to display information to the user of the program. Two different
subroutines are used: System.out.print and System.out.println. The difference between these is that
System.out.println adds a carriage return after the end of the information that it displays, while
System.out.print does not. Thus, the value of interest, which is displayed by the subroutine call
"System.out.println(interest);", follows on the same line after the string displayed by the previous
statement. Note that the value to be displayed by System.out.print or System.out.println is provided in
parentheses after the subroutine name. This value is called a parameter to the subroutine. A parameter provides a
subroutine with information it needs to perform its task. In a subroutine call statement, any parameters are listed in
parentheses after the subroutine name. Not all subroutines have parameters. If there are no parameters in a subroutine
call statement, the subroutine name must be followed by an empty pair of parentheses.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 2.3
Strings, Objects, and Subroutines
THE PREVIOUS SECTION introduced the eight primitive data types and the type String. There is a
fundamental difference between the primitive types and the String type: Values of type String are objects.
While we will not study objects in detail until Chapter 5, it will be useful for you to know a little about them
and about a closely related topic: classes. This is not just because strings are useful but because objects and
classes are essential to understanding another important programming concept, subroutines.
Recall that a subroutine is a set of program instructions that have been chunked together and given a name. In
Chapter 4, you'll learn how to write your own subroutines, but you can get a lot done in a program just by
calling subroutines that have already been written for you. In Java, every subroutine is contained in a class or in
an object. Some classes that are standard parts of the Java language contain predefined subroutines that you can
use. A value of type String, which is an object, contains subroutines that can be used to manipulate that
string. You can call all these subroutines without understanding how they were written or how they work.
Indeed, that's the whole point of subroutines: A subroutine is a "black box" which can be used without knowing
what goes on inside.
Classes in Java have two very different functions. First of all, a class can group together variables and
subroutines that are contained in that class. These variables and subroutines are called static members of the
class. You've seen one example: In a class that defines a program, the main() routine is a static member of the
class. The parts of a class definition that define static members are marked with the reserved word "static",
just like the main() routine of a program. However, classes have a second function. They are used to describe
objects. In this role, the class of an object specifies what subroutines and variables are contained in that object.
The class is a type -- in the technical sense of a specification of a certain type of data value -- and the object is a
value of that type. For example, String is actually the name of a class that is included as a standard part of the
Java language. It is also a type, and actual strings such as "Hello World" are values of type String.
So, every subroutine is contained either in a class or in an object. Classes contain subroutines called static
member subroutines. Classes also describe objects and the subroutines that are contained in those objects.
This dual use can be confusing, and in practice most classes are designed to perform primarily or exclusively in
only one of the two possible roles. For example, although the String class does contain a few rarely-used
static member subroutines, it exists mainly to specify a large number of subroutines that are contained in objects
of type String. Another standard class, named Math, exists entirely to group together a number of static
member subroutines that compute various common mathematical functions.
To begin to get a handle on all of this complexity, let's look at the subroutine System.out.print as an
example. As you have seen earlier in this chapter, this subroutine is used to display information to the user. For
example, System.out.print("Hello World") displays the message, Hello World.
System is one of Java's standard classes. One of the static member variables in this class is named out. Since
this variable is contained in the class System, its full name -- which you have to use to refer to it in your
programs -- is System.out. The variable System.out refers to an object, and that object in turn contains a
subroutine named print. The compound identifier System.out.print refers to the subroutine print in
the object out in the class System.
(As an aside, I will note that the object referred to by System.out is an object of the class PrintStream.
PrintStream is another class that is a standard part of Java. Any object of type PrintStream is a
destination to which information can be printed; any object of type PrintStream has a print subroutine
that can be used to send information to that destination. The object System.out is just one possible
destination, and System.out.print is the subroutine that sends information to that destination. Other
objects of type PrintStream might send information to other destinations such as files or across a network to
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other computers. This is object-oriented programming: Many different things which have something in common
-- they can all be used as destinations for information -- can all be used in the same way -- through a print
subroutine. The PrintStream class expresses the commonalities among all these objects.)
Since class names and variable names are used in similar ways, it might be hard to tell which is which. All the
built-in, predefined names in Java follow the rule that class names begin with an upper case letter while variable
names begin with a lower case letter. While this is not a formal syntax rule, I recommend that you follow it in
your own programming. Subroutine names should also begin with lower case letters. There is no possibility of
confusing a variable with a subroutine, since a subroutine name in a program is always followed by a left
parenthesis.
Classes can contain static member subroutines, as well as static member variables. For example, the System
class contains a subroutine named exit. In a program, of course, this subroutine must be referred to as
System.exit. Calling this subroutine will terminate the program. You could use it if you had some reason to
terminate the program before the end of the main routine. (For historical reasons, this subroutine takes an
integer as a parameter, so the subroutine call statement might look like "System.exit(0);" or
"System.exit(1);". The parameter tells the computer why the program is being terminated. A parameter
value of 0 indicates that the program is ending normally. Any other value indicates that the program is being
terminated because an error has been detected.)
Every subroutine performs some specific task. For some subroutines, that task is to compute or retrieve some
data value. Subroutines of this type are called functions. We say that a function returns a value. The returned
value must then be used somehow in the program.
You are familiar with the mathematical function that computes the square root of a number. Java has a
corresponding function called Math.sqrt. This function is a static member subroutine of the class named
Math. If x is any numerical value, then Math.sqrt(x) computes and returns the square root of that value.
Since Math.sqrt(x) represents a value, it doesn't make sense to put it on a line by itself in a subroutine call
statement such as
Math.sqrt(x); // This doesn't make sense!
What, after all, would the computer do with the value computed by the function in this case? You have to tell
the computer to do something with the value. You might tell the computer to display it:
System.out.print( Math.sqrt(x) ); // Display the square root of x.
or you might use an assignment statement to tell the computer to store that value in a variable:
lengthOfSide = Math.sqrt(x);
The function call Math.sqrt(x) represents a value of type double, and it can be used anyplace where a
numerical value of type double could be used.
The Math class contains many static member functions. Here is a list of some of the more important of them:
● Math.abs(x), which computes the absolute value of x.
● The usual trigonometric functions, Math.sin(x), Math.cos(x), and Math.tan(x). (For all the
trigonometric functions, angles are measured in radians, not degrees.)
● The inverse trigonometric functions arcsin, arccos, and arctan, which are written as: Math.asin(x),
Math.acos(x), and Math.atan(x).
● The exponential function Math.exp(x) for computing the number e raised to the power x, and the
natural logarithm function Math.log(x) for computing the logarithm of x in the base e.
● Math.pow(x,y) for computing x raised to the power y.
● Math.floor(x), which rounds x down to the nearest integer value that is less than or equal to x.
(For example, Math.floor(3.76) is 3.0.)
● Math.random(), which returns a randomly chosen double in the range 0.0 <=
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Math.random() < 1.0. (The computer actually calculates so-called "pseudorandom" numbers,
which are not truly random but are random enough for most purposes.)
For these functions, the type of the parameter -- the value inside parentheses -- can be of any numeric type. For
most of the functions, the value returned by the function is of type double no matter what the type of the
parameter. However, for Math.abs(x), the value returned will be the same type as x. If x is of type int,
then so is Math.abs(x). (So, for example, while Math.sqrt(9) is the double value 3.0,
Math.abs(9) is the int value 9.)
Note that Math.random() does not have any parameter. You still need the parentheses, even though there's
nothing between them. The parentheses let the computer know that this is a subroutine rather than a variable.
Another example of a subroutine that has no parameters is the function System.currentTimeMillis(),
from the System class. When this function is executed, it retrieves the current time, expressed as the number
of milliseconds that have passed since a standardized base time (the start of the year 1970 in Greenwich Mean
Time, if you care). One millisecond is one thousandth second. The value of
System.currentTimeMillis() is of type long. This function can be used to measure the time that it
takes the computer to perform a task. Just record the time at which the task is begun and the time at which it is
finished and take the difference.
Here is a sample program that performs a few mathematical tasks and reports the time that it takes for the
program to run. On some computers, the time reported might be zero, because it is too small to measure in
milliseconds. Even if it's not zero, you can be sure that most of the time reported by the computer was spent
doing output or working on tasks other than the program, since the calculations performed in this program
occupy only a tiny fraction of a second of a computer's time.
public class TimedComputation {
/* This program performs some mathematical computations and displays
the results. It then reports the number of seconds that the
computer spent on this task.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
long startTime; // Starting time of program, in milliseconds.
long endTime; // Time when computations are done, in milliseconds.
double time; // Time difference, in seconds.
startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
double width, height, hypotenuse; // sides of a triangle
width = 42.0;
height = 17.0;
hypotenuse = Math.sqrt( width*width + height*height );
System.out.print("A triangle with sides 42 and 17 has hypotenuse ");
System.out.println(hypotenuse);
System.out.println("\nMathematically, sin(x)*sin(x) + "
+ "cos(x)*cos(x) - 1 should be 0.");
System.out.println("Let's check this for x = 1:");
System.out.print(" sin(1)*sin(1) + cos(1)*cos(1) - 1 is ");
System.out.println( Math.sin(1)*Math.sin(1)
+ Math.cos(1)*Math.cos(1) - 1 );
System.out.println("(There can be round-off errors when "
+ " computing with real numbers!)");
System.out.print("\nHere is a random number: ");
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System.out.println( Math.random() );
endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
time = (endTime - startTime) / 1000.0;
System.out.print("\nRun time in seconds was: ");
System.out.println(time);
} // end main()
} // end class TimedComputation
Here is a simulated version of this program. If you run it several times, you should see a different random
number in the output each time.
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
A value of type String is an object. That object contains data, namely the sequence of characters that make
up the string. It also contains subroutines. All of these subroutines are in fact functions. For example, length
is a subroutine that computes the length of a string. Suppose that str is a variable that refers to a String. For
example, str might have been declared and assigned a value as follows:
String str;
str = "Seize the day!";
Then str.length() is a function call that represents the number of characters in the string. The value of
str.length() is an int. Note that this function has no parameter; the string whose length is being
computed is str. The length subroutine is defined by the class String, and it can be used with any value
of type String. It can even be used with String literals, which are, after all, just constant values of type
String. For example, you could have a program count the characters in "Hello World" for you by saying
System.out.print("The number of characters in ");
System.out.println("the string \"Hello World\" is ");
System.out.println( "Hello World".length() );
The String class defines a lot of functions. Here are some that you might find useful. Assume that s1 and s2
refer to values of type String:
● s1.equals(s2) is a function that returns a boolean value. It returns true if s1 consists of
exactly the same sequence of characters as s2, and returns false otherwise.
● s1.equalsIgnoreCase(s2) is another boolean-valued function that checks whether s1 is the
same string as s2, but this function considers upper and lower case letters to be equivalent. Thus, if s1
is "cat", then s1.equals("Cat") is false, while s1.equalsIgnoreCase("Cat") is true.
● s1.length(), as mentioned above, is an integer-valued function that gives the number of characters
in s1.
● s1.charAt(N), where N is an integer, returns a value of type char. It returns the N-th character in
the string. Positions are numbered starting with 0, so s1.charAt(0) is the actually the first character,
s1.charAt(1) is the second, and so on. The final position is s1.length() - 1. For example, the
value of "cat".charAt(1) is 'a'. An error occurs if the value of the parameter is less than zero or
greater than s1.length() - 1.
● s1.substring(N,M), where N and M are integers, returns a value of type String. The returned
value consists of the characters in s1 in positions N, N+1,..., M-1. Note that the character in position M
is not included. The returned value is called a substring of s1.
● s1.indexOf(s2) returns an integer. If s2 occurs as a substring of s1, then the returned value is the
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starting position of that substring. Otherwise, the returned value is -1. You can also use
s1.indexOf(ch) to search for a particular character, ch, in s1. To find the first occurrence of x at
or after position N, you can use s1.indexOf(x,N).
● s1.compareTo(s2) is an integer-valued function that compares the two strings. If the strings are
equal, the value returned is zero. If s1 is less than s2, the value returned is a number less than zero, and
if s1 is greater than s2, the value returned is some number greater than zero. (If both of the strings
consist entirely of lowercase letters, then "less than" and "greater than" refer to alphabetical order.
Otherwise, the ordering is more complicated.)
● s1.toUpperCase() is a String-valued function that returns a new string that is equal to s1,
except that any lower case letters in s1 have been converted to upper case. For example,
"Cat".toUpperCase() is the string "CAT". There is also a method s1.toLowerCase().
● s1.trim() is a String-valued function that returns a new string that is equal to s1 except that any
non-printing characters such as spaces and tabs have been trimmed from the beginning and from the end
of the string. Thus, if s1 has the value "fred ", then s1.trim() is the string "fred".
For the methods s1.toUpperCase(), s1.toLowerCase(), and s1.trim(), note that the value of s1
is not changed. Instead a new string is created and returned as the value of the function. The returned value
could be used, for example, in an assignment statement such as "s2 = s1.toLowerCase();".
Here is another extremely useful fact about strings: You can use the plus operator, +, to concatenate two strings.
The concatenation of two strings is a new string consisting of all the characters of the first string followed by all
the characters of the second string. For example, "Hello" + "World" evaluates to "HelloWorld". (Gotta watch
those spaces, of course.) Let's suppose that name is a variable of type String and that it already refers to the
name of the person using the program. Then, the program could greet the user by executing the statement:
System.out.println("Hello, " + name + ". Pleased to meet you!");
Even more surprising is that you can concatenate values belonging to one of the primitive types onto a String
using the + operator. The value of primitive type is converted to a string, just as it would be if you printed it to
the standard output, and then it is concatenated onto the string. For example, the expression "Number" + 42
evaluates to the string "Number42". And the statements
System.out.print("After ");
System.out.print(years);
System.out.print(" years, the value is ");
System.out.print(principal);
can be replaced by the single statement:
System.out.print("After " + years +
" years, the value is " + principal);
Obviously, this is very convenient. It would have shortened several of the examples used earlier in this chapter.
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Java Programing: Section 2.4
Section 2.4
Text Input and Output
FOR SOME UNFATHOMABLE REASON, Java seems to lack any reasonable built-in subroutines for
reading data typed in by the user. You've already seen that output can be displayed to the user using the
subroutine System.out.print. This subroutine is part of a pre-defined object called System.out.
The purpose of this object is precisely to display output to the user. There is a corresponding object called
System.in that exists to read data input by the user, but it provides only very primitive input facilities, and
it requires some advanced Java programming skills to use it effectively.
There is some excuse for this, since Java is meant mainly to write programs for Graphical User Interfaces,
and those programs have their own style of input/output, which is implemented in Java. However, basic
support is needed for input/output in old-fashioned non-GUI programs. Fortunately, it is possible to extend
Java by creating new classes that provide subroutines that are not available in the classes which are a
standard part of the language. As soon as a new class is available, the subroutines that it contains can be used
in exactly the same way as built-in routines.
For example, I've written a class called TextIO that defines subroutines for reading values typed by the
user. The subroutines in this class make it possible to get input from the standard input object, System.in,
without knowing about the advanced aspects of Java that you would need to know to use System.in
directly. TextIO also contains a set of output subroutines. The output subroutines are similar to those
provided in System.out, but they provide a few additional features. You can use whichever set of output
subroutines you prefer, and you can even mix them in the same program.
To use the TextIO class, you must make sure that the class is available to your program. What this means
depends on the Java programming environment that you are using. See Appendix 2 for information about
programming environments. In general, you just have to add the compiled file, TextIO.class, to the
directory that contains your main program. You can obtain the compiled class file by compiling the source
code, TextIO.java.
The input routines in the TextIO class are static member functions. (Static member functions were
introduced in the previous section.) Let's suppose that you want your program to read an integer typed in by
the user. The TextIO class contains a static member function named getInt that you can use for this
purpose. Since this function is contained in the TextIO class, you have to refer to it in your program as
TextIO.getInt. The function has no parameters, so a call to the function takes the form
"TextIO.getInt()". This function call represents the int value typed by the user, and you have to do
something with the returned value, such as assign it to a variable. For example, if userInput is a variable
of type int (created with a declaration statement "int userInput;"), then you could use the
assignment statement
userInput = TextIO.getInt();
When the computer executes this statement, it will wait for the user to type in an integer value. The value
typed will be returned by the function, and it will be stored in the variable, userInput. Here is a complete
program that uses TextIO.getInt to read a number typed by the user and then prints out the square of
the number that the user types:
public class PrintSquare {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// A program that computes and prints the square
// of a number input by the user.
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int userInput; // the number input by the user
int square; // the userInput, multiplied by itself
System.out.print("Please type a number: ");
userInput = TextIO.getInt();
square = userInput * userInput;
System.out.print("The square of that number is ");
System.out.println(square);
} // end of main()
} //end of class PrintSquare
Here's an applet that simulates this program. When you run the program, it will display the message "Please
type a number: " and will pause until you type a response. (If the applet does not respond to your typing, you
might have to click on it to activate it.)
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
The TextIO class contains static member subroutines TextIO.put and TextIO.putln that can be
used in the same way as System.out.print and System.out.println. For example, although
there is no particular advantage in doing so in this case, you could replace the two lines
System.out.print("The square of that number is ");
System.out.println(square);
with
TextIO.put("The square of that number is ");
TextIO.putln(square);
For the next few chapters, I will use TextIO for input in all my examples, and I will often use it for output.
Keep in mind that TextIO can only be used in a program if TextIO.class is available to that program.
It is not built into Java, as the System class is.
Let's look a little more closely at the built-in output subroutines System.out.print and
System.out.println. Each of these subroutines can be used with one parameter, where the parameter
can be any value of type byte, short, int, long, float, double, char, boolean, or String.
(These are the eight primitive types plus the type String.) That is, you can say
"System.out.print(x);" or "System.out.println(x);", where x is any expression whose
value is of one of these types. The expression can be a constant, a variable, or even something more
complicated such as 2*distance*time. In fact, there are actually several different subroutines to handle
the different parameter types. There is one System.out.print for printing values of type double, one
for values of type int, another for values of type String, and so on. These subroutines can have the same
name since the computer can tell which one you mean in a given subroutine call statement, depending on the
type of parameter that you supply. Having several subroutines of the same name that differ in the types of
their parameters is called overloading. Many programming languages do not permit overloading, but it is
common in Java programs.
The difference between System.out.print and System.out.println is that
System.out.println outputs a carriage return after it outputs the specified parameter value. There is a
version of System.out.println that has no parameters. This version simply outputs a carriage return,
and nothing else. Of course, a subroutine call statement for this version of the program looks like
"System.out.println();", with empty parentheses. Note that "System.out.println(x);" is
exactly equivalent to "System.out.print(x); System.out.println();". (There is no version
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Java Programing: Section 2.4
of System.out.print without parameters. Do you see why?)
As mentioned above, the TextIO subroutines TextIO.put and TextIO.putln can be used as
replacements for System.out.print and System.out.println. However, TextIO goes beyond
System.out by providing additional, two-parameter versions of put and putln. You can use subroutine
call statements of the form "TextIO.put(x,n);" and "TextIO.putln(x,n);", where the second
parameter, n, is an integer-valued expression. The idea is that n is the number of characters that you want to
output. If x takes up fewer than n characters, then the computer will add some spaces at the beginning to
bring the total up to n. (If x already takes up more than n characters, the computer will just print out more
characters than you ask for.) This feature is useful, for example, when you are trying to output neat columns
of numbers, and you know just how many characters you need in each column.
The TextIO class is a little more versatile at doing output than is System.out. However, it's input for
which we really need it.
With TextIO, input is done using functions. For example, TextIO.getInt(), which was discussed
above, makes the user type in a value of type int and returns that input value so that you can use it in your
program. TextIO includes several functions for reading different types of input values. Here are examples
of using each of them:
b = TextIO.getByte(); // value read is a byte
i = TextIO.getShort(); // value read is a short
j = TextIO.getInt(); // value read is an int
k = TextIO.getLong(); // value read is a long
x = TextIO.getFloat(); // value read is a float
y = TextIO.getDouble(); // value read is a double
a = TextIO.getBoolean(); // value read is a boolean
c = TextIO.getChar(); // value read is a char
w = TextIO.getWord(); // value read is a String
s = TextIO.getln(); // value read is a String
For these statements to be legal, the variables on the left side of each assignment statement must be of the
same type as that returned by the function on the right side.
When you call one of these functions, you are guaranteed that it will return a legal value of the correct type.
If the user types in an illegal value as input -- for example, if you ask for a byte and the user types in a
number that is outside the legal range of -128 to 127 -- then the computer will ask the user to re-enter the
value, and your program never sees the first, illegal value that the user entered.
You'll notice that there are two input functions that return Strings. The first, getWord(), returns a string
consisting of non-blank characters only. When it is called, it skips over any spaces and carriage returns typed
in by the user. Then it reads non-blank characters until it gets to the next space or carriage return. It returns a
String consisting of all the non-blank characters that it has read. The second input function, getln(),
simply returns a string consisting of all the characters typed in by the user, including spaces, up to the next
carriage return. It gets an entire line of input text. The carriage return itself is not returned as part of the input
string, but it is read and discarded by the computer. Note that the String returned by this function might be
the empty string, "", which contains no characters at all.
All the other input functions listed -- getByte(), getShort(), getInt(), getLong(),
getFloat(), getDouble(), getBoolean(), and getChar() -- behave like getWord(). That is,
they will skip past any blanks and carriage returns in the input before reading a value. However, they will
not skip past other characters. If you try to read two ints and the user types "2,3", the computer will read
the first number correctly, but when it tries to read the second number, it will see the comma. It will regard
this as an error and will force the user to retype the number. If you want to input several numbers from one
line, you should make sure that the user knows to separate them with spaces, not commas. Alternatively, if
you want to require a comma between the numbers, use getChar() to read the comma before reading the
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second number.
(There is another character input function, TextIO.getAnyChar(), which does not skip past blanks or
carriage returns. It simply reads and returns the next character typed by the user. This could be any character,
including a space or a carriage return. If the user typed a carriage return, then the char returned by
getChar() is the special linefeed character '\n'. There is also a function, TextIO.peek(), that let's you
look ahead at the next character in the input without actually reading it. After you "peek" at the next
character, it will still be there when you read the next item from input. This allows you to look ahead and see
what's coming up in the input, so that you can take different actions depending on what's there.)
The semantics of input is much more complicated than the semantics of output. The first time the program
tries to read input from the user, the computer will wait while the user types in an entire line of input.
TextIO stores that line in a chunk of internal memory called the input buffer. Input is actually read from the
buffer, not directly from the user's typing. The user only gets to type when the buffer is empty. This lets you
read several numbers from one line of input. However, if you only want to read in one number and the user
types in extra stuff on the line, then you could be in trouble. The extra stuff will still be there the next time
you try to read something from input. (The symptom of this trouble is that the computer doesn't pause where
you think it should to let the user type something in. The computer had stuff left over in the input buffer from
the previous line that the user typed.) To help you avoid this, there are versions of the TextIO input
functions that read a data value and then discard any leftover stuff on the same line:
b = TextIO.getlnByte(); // value read is a byte
i = TextIO.getlnShort(); // value read is a short
j = TextIO.getlnInt(); // value read is an int
k = TextIO.getlnLong(); // value read is a long
x = TextIO.getlnFloat(); // value read is a float
y = TextIO.getlnDouble(); // value read is a double
a = TextIO.getlnBoolean(); // value read is a boolean
c = TextIO.getlnChar(); // value read is a char
w = TextIO.getlnWord(); // value read is a String
Note that calling getlnDouble(), for example, is equivalent to first calling getDouble() and then
calling getln() to read any remaining data on the same line, including the end-of-line character itself. I
strongly advise you to use the "getln" versions of the input routines, rather than the "get" versions, unless
you really want to read several items from the same line of input.
You might be wondering why there are only two output routines, put and putln, which can output data
values of any type, while there is a separate input routine for each data value. As noted above, in reality there
are many put and putln routines. The computer can tell them apart based on the type of the parameter that
you provide. However, the input routines don't have parameters, so the different input routines can only be
distinguished by having different names.
Using TextIO for input and output, we can now improve the program from Section 2 for computing the
value of an investment. We can have the user type in the initial value of the investment and the interest rate.
The result is a much more useful program -- for one thing, it makes sense to run more than once!
public class Interest2 {
/*
This class implements a simple program that
will compute the amount of interest that is
earned on an investment over a period of
one year. The initial amount of the investment
and the interest rate are input by the user.
The value of the investment at the end of the
year is output. The rate must be input as a
decimal, not a percentage (for example, 0.05,
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rather than 5).
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
double principal; // the value of the investment
double rate; // the annual interest rate
double interest; // the interest earned during the year
TextIO.put("Enter the initial investment: ");
principal = TextIO.getlnDouble();
TextIO.put("Enter the annual interest rate: ");
rate = TextIO.getlnDouble();
interest = principal * rate; // compute this year's interest
principal = principal + interest; // add it to principal
TextIO.put("The value of the investment after one year is $");
TextIO.putln(principal);
} // end of main()
} // end of class Interest2
Try out an equivalent applet here. (If the applet does not respond to your typing, you might have to click on
it to activate it.)
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
By the way, the applets on this page don't actually use TextIO. The TextIO class is only for use in
programs, not applets. For applets, I have written a separate class that provides similar input/output
capabilities in a Graphical User Interface program.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 2.5
Section 2.5
Details of Expressions
THIS SECTION TAKES A CLOSER LOOK at expressions. Recall that an expression is a piece of
program code that represents or computes a value. An expression can be a literal, a variable, a function call,
or several of these things combined with operators such as + and >. The value of an expression can be
assigned to a variable, used as the output value in an output routine, or combined with other values into a
more complicated expression. (The value can even, in some cases, be ignored, if that's what you want to do;
this is more common than you might think.) Expressions are an essential part of programming. So far, these
notes have dealt only informally with expressions. This section tells you the more-or-less complete story.
The basic building blocks of expressions are literals (such as 674, 3.14, true, and 'X'), variables, and
function calls. Recall that a function is a subroutine that returns a value. You've already seen some
examples of functions: the input routines from the TextIO class and the mathematical functions from the
Math class.
Literals, variables, and function calls are simple expressions. More complex expressions can be built up by
using operators to combine simpler expressions. Operators include + for adding two numbers, > for
comparing two values, and so on. When several operators appear in an expression, there is a question of
precedence, which determines how the operators are grouped for evaluation. For example, in the expression
"A + B * C", B*C is computed first and then the result is added to A. We say that multiplication (*) has
higher precedence than addition (+). If the default precedence is not what you want, you can use
parentheses to explicitly specify the grouping you want. For example, you could use "(A + B) * C" if
you want to add A to B first and then multiply the result by C.
The rest of this section gives details of operators in Java. The number of operators in Java is quite large, and
I will not cover them all here. Most of the important ones are here; a few will be covered in later chapters as
they become relevant.
Arithmetic Operators
Arithmetic operators include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They are indicated by +, -,
*, and /. These operations can be used on values of any numeric type: byte, short, int, long, float,
or double. When the computer actually calculates one of these operations, the two values that it combines
must be of the same type. If your program tells the computer to combine two values of different types, the
computer will convert one of the values from one type to another. For example, to compute 37.4 + 10, the
computer will convert the integer 10 to a real number 10.0 and will then compute 37.4 + 10.0. (The
computer's internal representations for 10 and 10.0 are very different, even though people think of them as
representing the same number.) Ordinarily, you don't have to worry about type conversion, because the
computer does it automatically.
When two numerical values are combined (after doing type conversion on one of them, if necessary), the
answer will be of the same type. If you multiply two ints, you get an int; if you multiply two doubles,
you get a double. This is what you would expect, but you have to be very careful when you use the
division operator /. When you divide two integers, the answer will always be an integer; if the quotient has
a fractional part, it is discarded. For example, the value of 7/2 is 3, not 3.5. If N is an integer variable,
then N/100 is an integer, and 1/N is equal to zero for any N greater than one! This fact is a common
source of programming errors. You can force the computer to compute a real number as the answer by
making one of the operands real: For example, when the computer evaluates 1.0/N, it first converts N to a
real number in order to match the type of 1.0, so you get a real number as the answer.
Java also has an operator for computing the remainder when one integer is divided by another. This
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operator is indicated by %. If A and B are integers, then A % B represents the remainder when A is divided
by B. For example, 7 % 2 is 1, while 34577 % 100 is 77, and 50 % 8 is 2. A common use of % is to
test whether a given integer is even or odd. N is even if N % 2 is zero, and it is odd if N % 2 is 1. More
generally, you can check whether an integer N is evenly divisible by an integer M by checking whether N %
M is zero.
Finally, you might need the unary minus operator, which takes the negative of a number. For example, -X
has the same value as (-1)*X. For completeness, Java also has a unary plus operator, as in +X, even
though it doesn't really do anything.
Increment and Decrement
You'll find that adding 1 to a variable is an extremely common operation in programming. Subtracting 1
from a variable is also pretty common. You might perform the operation of adding 1 to a variable with
assignment statements such as:
counter = counter + 1;
goalsScored = goalsScored + 1;
The effect of the assignment statement x = x + 1 is to take the old value of the variable x, compute the
result of adding 1 to that value, and store the answer as the new value of x. The same operation can be
accomplished by writing x++ (or, if you prefer, ++x). This actually changes the value of x, so that it has
the same effect as writing "x = x + 1". The two statements above could be written
counter++;
goalsScored++;
Similarly, you could write x-- (or --x) to subtract 1 from x. That is, x-- performs the same computation
as x = x - 1. Adding 1 to a variable is called incrementing that variable, and subtracting 1 is called
decrementing. The operators ++ and -- are called the increment operator and the decrement operator,
respectively. These operators can be used on variables belonging to any of the numerical types and also on
variables of type char.
Usually, the operators ++ or --, are used in statements like "x++;" or "x--;". These statements are
commands to change the value of x. However, it is also legal to use x++, ++x, x--, or --x as
expressions, or as parts of larger expressions. That is, you can write things like:
y = x++;
y = ++x;
TextIO.putln(--x);
z = (++x) * (y--);
The statement "y = x++;" has the effects of adding 1 to the value of x and, in addition, assigning some
value to y. The value assigned to y is the value of the expression x++, which is defined to be the old value
of x, before the 1 is added. Thus, if the value of x is 6, the statement "y = x++;" will change the value of
x to 7 and will change the value of y to 6. On the other hand, the value of ++x is defined to be the new
value of x, after the 1 is added. So if x is 6, then the statement "y = ++x;" changes the values of both x
and y to 7. The decrement operator, --, works in a similar way.
This can be confusing. My advice is: Don't be confused. Use ++ and -- only in stand-alone statements, not
in expressions. I will follow this advice in all the examples in these notes.
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Java Programing: Section 2.5
Relational Operators
Java has boolean variables and boolean-valued expressions that can be used to express conditions that can
be either true or false. One way to form a boolean-valued expression is to compare two values using a
relational operator. Relational operators are used to test whether two values are equal, whether one value is
greater than another, and so forth. The relation operators in Java are: ==, !=, <, >, <=, and >=. The
meanings of these operators are:
A == B Is A "equal to" B?
A != B Is A "not equal to" B?
A < B Is A "less than" B?
A > B Is A "greater than" B?
A <= B Is A "less than or equal to" B?
A >= B Is A "greater than or equal to" B?
These operators can be used to compare values of any of the numeric types. They can also be used to
compare values of type char. For characters, < and > are defined according the numeric Unicode values of
the characters. (This might not always be what you want. It is not the same as alphabetical order because all
the upper case letters come before all the lower case letters.)
When using boolean expressions, you should remember that as far as the computer is concerned, there is
nothing special about boolean values. In the next chapter, you will see how to use them in loop and branch
statements. But you can also assign boolean-valued expressions to boolean variables, just as you can assign
numeric values to numeric variables.
By the way, the operators == and != can be used to compare boolean values. This is occasionally useful.
For example, can you figure out what this does:
boolean sameSign;
sameSign = ((x > 0) == (y > 0));
One thing that you cannot do with the relational operators <, >, <=, and <= is to use them to compare
values of type String. You can legally use == and != to compare Strings, but because of peculiarities
in the way objects behave, they might not give the results you want. (The == operator checks whether two
objects are stored in the same memory location, rather than whether they contain the same value.
Occasionally, for some objects, you do want to make such a check -- but rarely for strings. I'll get back to
this in a later chapter.) Instead, you should use the subroutines equals(), equalsIgnoreCase(), and
compareTo(), which were described in Section 3, to compare two Strings.
Boolean Operators
In English, complicated conditions can be formed using the words "and", "or", and "not." For example, "If
there is a test and you did not study for it...". "And", "or", and "not" are boolean operators, and they exist in
Java as well as in English.
In Java, the boolean operator "and" is represented by &&. The && operator is used to combine two boolean
values. The result is also a boolean value. The result is true if both of the combined values are true, and
the result is false if either of the combined values is false. For example, "(x == 0) && (y ==
0)" is true if and only if both x is equal to 0 and y is equal to 0.
The boolean operator "or" is represented by ||. (That's supposed to be two of the vertical line characters,
|.) "A || B" is true if either A is true or B is true, or if both are true. "A || B" is false only if
both A and B are false.
The operators && and || are said to be short-circuited versions of the boolean operators. This means that
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the second operand of && or || is not necessarily evaluated. Consider the test
(x != 0) && (y/x > 1)
Suppose that the value of x is in fact zero. In that case, the division x/y is illegal, since division by zero is
not allowed. However, the computer will never perform the division, since when the computer evaluates (x
!= 0), it finds that the result is false, and so it knows that ((x != 0) && anything) has to be false.
Therefore, it doesn't bother to evaluate the second operand, (x/y > 1). The evaluation has been
short-circuited and the division by zero is avoided. Without the short-circuiting, there would have been a
division-by-zero error. (This may seem like a technicality, and it is. But at times, it will make your
programming life a little easier. To be even more technical: There are actually non-short-circuited versions
of && and ||, which are written as & and |. Don't use them unless you have a particular reason to do so.)
The boolean operator "not" is a unary operator. In Java, it is indicated by ! and is written in front of its
single operand. For example, if test is a boolean variable, then
test = ! test;
will reverse the value of test, changing it from true to false, or from false to true.
Conditional Operator
Any good programming language has some nifty little features that aren't really necessary but that let you
feel cool when you use them. Java has the conditional operator. It's a ternary operator -- that is, it has three
operands -- and it comes in two pieces, ? and :, that have to be used together. It takes the form
boolean-expression ? expression-1 : expression-2
The computer tests the value of boolean-expression. If the value is true, it evaluates expression-1;
otherwise, it evaluates expression-2. For example:
next = (N % 2 == 0) ? (N/2) : (3*N+1);
will assign the value N/2 to next if N is even (that is, if N % 2 == 0 is true), and it will assign the
value (3*N+1) to next if N is odd.
Assignment Operators
You are already familiar with the assignment statement, which uses the symbol "=" to assign the value of an
expression to a variable. In fact, = is really an operator in the sense that an assignment can itself be used as
an expression or as part of a more complex expression. The value of an assignment such as A=B is the same
as the value that is assigned to A. So, if you want to assign the value of B to A and test at the same time
whether that value is zero, you could say:
if ( (A=B) == 0 )
Usually, I would say, don't do things like that!
In general, the type of the expression on the right-hand side of an assignment statement must be the same as
the type of the variable on the left-hand side. However, in some cases, the computer will automatically
convert the value computed by the expression to match the type of the variable. Consider the list of numeric
types: byte, short, int, long, float, double. A value of a type that occurs earlier in this list can be
converted automatically to a value that occurs later. For example:
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Java Programing: Section 2.5
int A;
double X;
short B;
A = 17;
X = A; // OK; A is converted to a double
B = A; // illegal; no automatic conversion
// from int to short
The idea is that conversion should only be done automatically when it can be done without changing the
semantics of the value. Any int can be converted to a double with the same numeric value. However,
there are int values that lie outside the legal range of shorts. There is simply no way to represent the
int 100000 as a short, for example, since the largest value of type short is 32767.
In some cases, you might want to force a conversion that wouldn't be done automatically. For this, you
could use what is called a type cast. A type cast is indicated by putting a type name, in parentheses, in front
of the value you want to convert. For example,
int A;
short B;
A = 17;
B = (short)A; // OK; A is explicitly type cast
// to a value of type short
You can do type casts from any numeric type to any other numeric type. However, you should note that you
might change the numeric value of a number by type-casting it. For example, (short)100000 is 34464.
(The 34464 is obtained by taking the 4-byte int 100000 and throwing away two of those bytes to obtain a
short -- you've lost the real information that was in those two bytes.)
As another example of type casts, consider the problem of getting a random integer between 1 and 6. The
function Math.random() gives a real number between 0.0 and 0.9999..., and so 6*Math.random() is
between 0.0 and 5.999.... The type-cast operator, (int), can be used to convert this to an integer:
(int)(6*Math.random()). A real number is cast to an integer by discarding the fractional part. Thus,
(int)(6*Math.random()) is one of the integers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. To get a number between 1 and
6, we can add 1: "(int)(6*Math.random()) + 1".
You can also type-cast between the type char and the numeric types. The numeric value of a char is its
Unicode code number. For example, (char)97 is 'a', and (int)'+' is 43.
Java has several variations on the assignment operator, which exist to save typing. For example, "A += B"
is defined to be the same as "A = A + B". Every operator in Java that applies to two operands gives rise
to a similar assignment operator. For example:
x -= y; // same as: x = x - y;
x *= y; // same as: x = x * y;
x /= y; // same as: x = x / y;
x %= y; // same as: x = x % y; (for integers x and y)
q &&= p; // same as: q = q && p; (for booleans q and p)
The combined assignment operator += even works with strings. You will recall from Section 3 that when
the + operator is used with a string as the first operand, it represents concatenation. Since str += x is
equivalent to str = str + x, when += is used with a string on the left-hand side, it appends the value
on the right-hand side onto the string. For example, if str has the value "tire", then the statement str +=
'd'; changes the value of str to "tired".
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Java Programing: Section 2.5
Precedence Rules
If you use several operators in one expression, and if you don't use parentheses to explicitly indicate the
order of evaluation, then you have to worry about the precedence rules that determine the order of
evaluation. (Advice: don't confuse yourself or the reader of your program; use parentheses liberally.)
Here is a listing of the operators discussed in this section, listed in order from highest precedence (evaluated
first) to lowest precedence (evaluated last):
Unary operators: ++, --, !, unary - and +, type-cast
Multiplication and division: *, /, %
Addition and subtraction: +, -
Relational operators: <, >, <=, >=
Equality and inequality: ==, !=
Boolean and: &&
Boolean or: ||
Conditional operator: ?:
Assignment operators: =, +=, -=, *=, /=, %=
Operators on the same line have the same precedence. When they occur together, unary operators and
assignment operators are evaluated right-to-left, and the remaining operators are evaluated left-to-right. For
example, A*B/C means (A*B)/C, while A=B=C means A=(B=C). (Can you see how the expression
A=B=C might be useful, given that the value of B=C as an expression is the same as the value that is
assigned to B?)
End of Chapter 2
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 2 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 2
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 2 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 2.1: Write a program that will print your initials to standard output in letters that are nine lines
tall. Each big letter should be made up of a bunch of *'s. For example, if your initials were "DJE", then the
output would look something like:
****** ************* **********
** ** ** **
** ** ** **
** ** ** **
** ** ** ********
** ** ** ** **
** ** ** ** **
** ** ** ** **
***** **** **********
See the solution!
Exercise 2.2: Write a program that simulates rolling a pair of dice. You can simulate rolling one die by
choosing one of the integers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 at random. The number you pick represents the number on the
die after it is rolled. As pointed out in Section 5, The expression
(int)(Math.random()*6) + 1
does the computation you need to select a random integer between 1 and 6. You can assign this value to a
variable to represent one of the dice that is being rolled. Do this twice and add the results together to get the
total roll. Your program should report the number showing on each die as well as the total roll. For
example:
The first die comes up 3
The second die comes up 5
Your total roll is 8
(Note: The word "dice" is a plural, as in "two dice." The singular is "die.")
See the solution!
Exercise 2.3: Write a program that asks the user's name, and then greets the user by name. Before
outputting the user's name, convert it to upper case letters. For example, if the user's name is Fred, then the
program should respond "Hello, FRED, nice to meet you!".
See the solution!
Exercise 2.4: Write a program that helps the user count his change. The program should ask how many
quarters the user has, then how many dimes, then how many nickels, then how many pennies. Then the
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Java Programing: Chapter 2 Exercises
program should tell the user how much money he has, expressed in dollars.
See the solution!
Exercise 2.5: If you have N eggs, then you have N/12 dozen eggs, with N%12 eggs left over. (This is
essentially the definition of the / and % operators for integers.) Write a program that asks the user how
many eggs she has and then tells the user how many dozen eggs she has and how many extra eggs are left
over.
A gross of eggs is equal to 144 eggs. Extend your program so that it will tell the user how many gross, how
many dozen, and how many left over eggs she has. For example, if the user says that she has 1342 eggs,
then your program would respond with
Your number of eggs is 9 gross, 3 dozen, and 10
since 1342 is equal to 9*144 + 3*12 + 10.
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 2 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 2
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 2 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: Briefly explain what is meant by the syntax and the semantics of a programming language.
Give an example to illustrate the difference between a syntax error and a semantics error.
Question 2: What does the computer do when it executes a variable declaration statement. Give an
example.
Question 3: What is a type, as this term relates to programming?
Question 4: One of the primitive types in Java is boolean. What is the boolean type? Where are boolean
values used? What are its possible values?
Question 5: Give the meaning of each of the following Java operators:
a) ++
b) &&
c) !=
Question 6: Explain what is meant by an assignment statement, and give an example. What are assignment
statements used for?
Question 7: What is meant by precedence of operators?
Question 8: What is a literal?
Question 9: In Java, classes have two fundamentally different purposes. What are they?
Question 10: What is the difference between the statement "x = TextIO.getDouble();" and the
statement "x = TextIO.getlnDouble();"
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 3 Index
Chapter 3
Programming in the Small II
Control
THE BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS of programs -- variables, expressions, assignment statements, and
subroutine call statements -- were covered in the previous chapter. Starting with this chapter, we look at
how these building blocks can be put together to build complex programs with more interesting behavior.
Since we are still working on the level of "programming in the small" in this chapter, we are interested in
the kind of complexity that can occur within a single subroutine. On this level, complexity is provided by
control structures. The two types of control structures, loop and branches, can be used to repeat a sequence
of statements over and over or to choose among two or more possible courses of action. Java includes
several control structures of each type, and we will look at each of them in some detail.
This chapter will also begin the study of program design. Given a problem, how can you come up with a
program to solve that problem? We'll look at a partial answer to this question in Section 2. In the following
sections, we'll apply the techniques from Section 2 to a variety of examples.
Contents of Chapter 3:
● Section 1:Blocks, Loops, and Branches
● Section 2:Algorithm Development
● Section 3:The while and do..while Statements
● Section 4:The for Statement
● Section 5:The if Statement
● Section 6:The switch Statement
● Section 7:Introduction to Applets and Graphics
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.1
Section 3.1
Blocks, Loops, and Branches
THE ABILITY OF A COMPUTER TO PERFORM complex tasks is built on just a few ways of combining
simple commands into control structures. In Java, there are just six such structures -- and, in fact, just three
of them would be enough to write programs to perform any task. The six control structures are: the block, the
while loop, the do..while loop, the for loop, the if statement, and the switch statement. Each of these
structures is considered to be a single "statement," but each is in fact a structured statement that can contain
one or more other statements inside itself.
The block is the simplest type of structured statement. Its purpose is simply to group a sequence of
statements into a single statement. The format of a block is:
{
statements
}
That is, it consists of a sequence of statements enclosed between a pair of braces, "{" and "}". (In fact, it is
possible for a block to contain no statements at all; such a block is called an empty block, and can actually be
useful at times. An empty block consists of nothing but an empty pair of braces.) Block statements usually
occur inside other statements, where their purpose is to group together several statements into a unit.
However, a block can be legally used wherever a statement can occur. There is one place where a block is
required: As you might have already noticed in the case of the main subroutine of a program, the definition
of a subroutine is a block, since it is a sequence of statements enclosed inside a pair of braces.
I should probably note at this point that Java is what is called a free-format language. There are no syntax
rules about how the language has to be arranged on a page. So, for example, you could write an entire block
on one line if you want. But as a matter of good programming style, you should lay out your program on the
page in a way that will make its structure as clear as possible. In general, this means putting one statement
per line and using indentation to indicate statements that are contained inside control structures. This is the
format that I will generally use in my examples.
Here are two examples of blocks:
{
System.out.print("The answer is ");
System.out.println(ans);
}
{ // This block exchanges the values of x and y
int temp; // A temporary variable for use in this block.
temp = x; // Save a copy of the value of x in temp.
x = y; // Copy the value of y into x.
y = temp; // Copy the value of temp into y.
}
In the second example, a variable, temp, is declared inside the block. This is perfectly legal, and it is good
style to declare a variable inside a block if that variable is used nowhere else but inside the block. A variable
declared inside a block is completely inaccessible and invisible from outside that block. When the computer
executes the variable declaration statement, it allocates memory to hold the value of the variable. When the
block ends, that memory is discarded (that is, made available for reuse). The variable is said to be local to the
block. There is a general concept called the "scope" of an identifier. The scope of an identifier is the part of
the program in which that identifier is valid. The scope of a variable defined inside a block is limited to that
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Java Programing: Section 3.1
block, and more specifically to the part of the block that comes after the declaration of the variable.
The block statement by itself really doesn't affect the flow of control in a program. The five remaining
control structures do. They can be divided into two classes: loop statements and branching statements. You
really just need one control structure from each category in order to have a completely general-purpose
programming language. More than that is just convenience. In this section, I'll introduce the while loop and
the if statement. I'll give the full details of these statements and of the other three control structures in later
sections.
A while loop is used to repeat a given statement over and over. Of course, its not likely that you would want
to keep repeating it forever. That would be an infinite loop, which is generally a bad thing. (There is an old
story about computer pioneer Grace Murray Hopper, who read instructions on a bottle of shampoo telling her
to "lather, rinse, repeat." As the story goes, she claims that she tried to follow the directions, but she ran out
of shampoo. (In case you don't get it, this is a joke about the way that computers mindlessly follow
instructions.))
To be more specific, a while loop will repeat a statement over and over, but only so long as a specified
condition remains true. A while loop has the form:
while (boolean-expression)
statement
Since the statement can be, and usually is, a block, many while loops have the form:
while (boolean-expression) {
statements
}
The semantics of this statement go like this: When the computer comes to a while statement, it evaluates
the boolean-expression, which yields either true or false as the value. If the value is false, the
computer skips over the rest of the while loop and proceeds to the next command in the program. If the
value of the expression is true, the computer executes the statement or block of statements inside the
loop. Then it returns to the beginning of the while loop and repeats the process. That is, it re-evaluates the
boolean-expression, ends the loop if the value is false, and continues it if the value is true. This will
continue over and over until the value of the expression is false; if that never happens, then there will be
an infinite loop.
Here is an example of a while loop that simply prints out the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5:
int number; // The number to be printed.
number = 1; // Start with 1.
while ( number < 6 ) { // Keep going as long as number is < 6.
System.out.println(number);
number = number + 1; // Go on to the next number.
}
System.out.println("Done!");
The variable number is initialized with the value 1. So the first time through the while loop, when the
computer evaluates the expression "number < 6", it is asking whether 1 is less than 6, which is true. The
computer therefor proceeds to execute the two statements inside the loop. The first statement prints out "1".
The second statement adds 1 to number and stores the result back into the variable number; the value of
number has been changed to 2. The computer has reached the end of the loop, so it returns to the beginning
and asks again whether number is less than 6. Once again this is true, so the computer executes the loop
again, this time printing out 2 as the value of number and then changing the value of number to 3. It
continues in this way until eventually number becomes equal to 6. At that point, the expression "number <
6" evaluates to false. So, the computer jumps past the end of the loop to the next statement and prints out
the message "Done!". Note that when the loop ends, the value of number is 6, but the last value that was
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Java Programing: Section 3.1
printed was 5.
By the way, you should remember that you'll never see a while loop standing by itself in a real program. It
will always be inside a subroutine which is itself defined inside some class. As an example of a while loop
used inside a complete program, here is a little program that computes the interest on an investment over
several years. This is an improvement over examples from the previous chapter that just reported the results
for one year:
public class Interest3 {
/*
This class implements a simple program that
will compute the amount of interest that is
earned on an investment over a period of
5 years. The initial amount of the investment
and the interest rate are input by the user.
The value of the investment at the end of each
year is output.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
double principal; // The value of the investment.
double rate; // The annual interest rate.
/* Get the initial investment and interest rate from the user. */
TextIO.put("Enter the initial investment: ");
principal = TextIO.getlnDouble();
TextIO.put("Enter the annual interest rate: ");
rate = TextIO.getlnDouble();
/* Simulate the investment for 5 years. */
int years; // Counts the number of years that have passed.
years = 0;
while (years < 5) {
double interest; // Interest for this year.
interest = principal * rate;
principal = principal + interest; // Add it to principal.
years = years + 1; // Count the current year.
System.out.print("The value of the investment after ");
System.out.print(years);
System.out.print(" years is $");
System.out.println(principal);
} // end of while loop
} // end of main()
} // end of class Interest3
And here is the applet which simulates this program:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
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Java Programing: Section 3.1
support Java.
You should study this program, and make sure that you understand what the computer does step-by-step as it
executes the while loop.
An if statement tells the computer to take one of two alternative courses of action, depending on whether the
value of a given boolean-valued expression is true or false. It is an example of a "branching" or "decision"
statement. An if statement has the form:
if ( boolean-expression )
statement
else
statement
When the computer executes an if statement, it evaluates the boolean expression. If the value is true, the
computer executes the first statement and skips the statement that follows the "else". If the value of the
expression is false, then the computer skips the first statement and executes the second one. Note that in
any case, one and only one of the two statements inside the if statement is executed. The two statements
represent alternative courses of action; the computer decides between these courses of action based on the
value of the boolean expression.
In many cases, you want the computer to choose between doing something and not doing it. You can do this
with an if statement that omits the else part:
if ( boolean-expression )
statement
To execute this statement, the computer evaluates the expression. If the value is true, the computer
executes the statement that is contained inside the if statement; if the value is false, the computer skips
that statement.
Of course, either or both of the statement's in an if statement can be a block, so that an if statement often
looks like:
if ( boolean-expression ) {
statements
}
else {
statements
}
or:
if ( boolean-expression ) {
statements
}
As an example, here is an if statement that exchanges the value of two variables, x and y, but only if x is
greater than y to begin with. After this if statement has been executed, we can be sure that the value of x is
definitely less than or equal to the value of y:
if ( x > y ) {
int temp; // A temporary variable for use in this block.
temp = x; // Save a copy of the value of x in temp.
x = y; // Copy the value of y into x.
y = temp; // Copy the value of temp into y.
}
Finally, here is an example of an if statement that includes an else part. See if you can figure out what it
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Java Programing: Section 3.1
does, and why it would be used:
if ( years > 1 ) { // handle case for 2 or more years
System.out.print("The value of the investment after ");
System.out.print(years);
System.out.print(" years is $");
}
else { // handle case for 1 year
System.out.print("The value of the investment after 1 year is $");
} // end of if statement
System.out.println(principal); // this is done in any case
I'll have more to say about control structures later in this chapter. But you already know the essentials. If you
never learned anything more about control structures, you would already know enough to perform any
possible computing task. Simple looping and branching are all you really need!
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
Section 3.2
Algorithm Development
PROGRAMMING IS DIFFICULT (like many activities that are useful and worthwhile -- and like most of
those activities, it can also be rewarding and a lot of fun). When you write a program, you have to tell the
computer every small detail of what to do. And you have to get everything exactly right, since the computer
will blindly follow your program exactly as written. How, then, do people write any but the most simple
programs? It's not a big mystery, actually. It's a matter of learning to think in the right way.
A program is an expression of an idea. A programmer starts with a general idea of a task for the computer
to perform. Presumably, the programmer has some idea of how to perform the task by hand, at least in
general outline. The problem is to flesh out that outline into a complete, unambiguous, step-by-step
procedure for carrying out the task. Such a procedure is called an "algorithm." (Technically, an algorithm is
an unambiguous, step-by-step procedure that terminates after a finite number of steps; we don't want to
count procedures that go on forever.) An algorithm is not the same as a program. A program is written in
some particular programming language. An algorithm is more like the idea behind the program, but it's the
idea of the steps the program will take to perform its task, not just the idea of the task itself. The steps of
the algorithm don't have to be filled in in complete detail, as long as the steps are unambiguous and it's clear
that carrying out the steps will accomplish the assigned task. An algorithm can be expressed in any
language, including English. Of course, an algorithm can only be expressed as a program if all the details
have been filled in.
So, where do algorithms come from? Usually, they have to be developed, often with a lot of thought and
hard work. Skill at algorithm development is something that comes with practice, but there are techniques
and guidelines that can help. I'll talk here about some techniques and guidelines that are relevant to
"programming in the small," and I will return to the subject several times in later chapters.
When programming in the small, you have a few basics to work with: variables, assignment statements, and
input-output routines. You might also have some subroutines, objects, or other building blocks that have
already been written by you or someone else. (Input/output routines fall into this class, actually.) You can
build sequences of these basic instructions, and you can also combine them into more complex control
structures such as while loops and if statements.
Suppose you have a task in mind that you want the computer to perform. One way to proceed is to write a
description of the task, and take that description as an outline of the algorithm you want to develop. Then
you can refine and elaborate that description, gradually adding steps and detail, until you have a complete
algorithm that can be translated directly into programming language. This method is called stepwise
refinement, and it is a type of top-down design. As you proceed through the stages of stepwise refinement,
you can write out descriptions of your algorithm in pseudocode -- informal instructions that imitate the
structure of programming languages without the complete detail and perfect syntax of actual program code.
As an example, let's see how one might develop the program from the previous section, which computes the
value of an investment over five years. The task that you want the program to perform is: "Compute and
display the value of an investment for each of the next five years, where the initial investment and interest
rate are to be specified by the user." You might then write -- or at least think -- that this can be expanded as:
Get the user's input
Compute the value of the investment after 1 year
Display the value
Compute the value after 2 years
Display the value
Compute the value after 3 years
Display the value
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
Compute the value after 4 years
Display the value
Compute the value after 5 years
Display the value
This is correct, but rather repetitive. And seeing that repetition, you might notice an opportunity to use a
loop. A loop would take less typing. More important, it would be more general: Essentially the same loop
will work no matter how many years you want to process. So, you might rewrite the above sequence of
steps as:
Get the user's input
while there are more years to process:
Compute the value after the next year
Display the value
Now, for a computer, we'll have to be more explicit about how to "Get the user's input," how to "Compute
the value after the next year," and what it means to say "there are more years to process." We can expand
the step, "Get the user's input" into
Ask the user for the initial investment
Read the user's response
Ask the user for the interest rate
Read the user's response
To fill in the details of the step "Compute the value after the next year," you have to know how to do the
computation yourself. (Maybe you need to ask your boss or professor for clarification?) Let's say you know
that the value is computed by adding some interest to the previous value. Then we can refine the while
loop to:
while there are more years to process:
Compute the interest
Add the interest to the value
Display the value
As for testing whether there are more years to process, the only way that we can do that is by counting the
years ourselves. This displays a very common pattern, and you should expect to use something similar in a
lot of programs: We have to start with zero years, add one each time we process a year, and stop when we
reach the desired number of years. So the while loop becomes:
years = 0
while years < 5:
years = years + 1
Compute the interest
Add the interest to the value
Display the value
We still have to know how to compute the interest. Let's say that the interest is to be computed by
multiplying the interest rate by the current value of the investment. Putting this together with the part of the
algorithm that get's the user's inputs, we have the complete algorithm:
Ask the user for the initial investment
Read the user's response
Ask the user for the interest rate
Read the user's response
years = 0
while years < 5:
years = years + 1
Compute interest = value * interest rate
Add the interest to the value
Display the value
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
Finally, we are at the point where we can translate pretty directly into proper programming-language
syntax. We still have to choose names for the variables, decide exactly what we want to say to the user, and
so forth. Having done this, we could express our algorithm in Java as:
double principal, rate, interest; // declare the variables
int years;
System.out.print("Type initial investment: ");
principal = TextIO.getlnDouble();
System.out.print("Type interest rate: ");
rate = TextIO.getlnDouble();
years = 0;
while (years < 5) {
years = years + 1;
interest = principal * rate;
principal = principal + interest;
System.out.println(principal);
}
This still needs to be wrapped inside a complete program, it still needs to be commented, and it really needs
to print out more information for the user. But it's essentially the same program as the one in the previous
section. (Note that the pseudocode algorithm uses indentation to show which statements are inside the loop.
In Java, indentation is completely ignored by the computer, so you need a pair of braces to tell the computer
which statements are in the loop. If you leave out the braces, the only statement inside the loop would be
"years = years + 1;". The other statements would only be executed once, after the loop ends. The
nasty thing is that the computer won't notice this error for you, like it would if you left out the parentheses
around "(years < 5)". The parentheses are required by the syntax of the while statement. The braces
are only required semantically. The computer can recognize syntax errors but not semantic errors.)
One thing you should have noticed here is that my original specification of the problem -- "Compute and
display the value of an investment for each of the next five years" -- was far from being complete. Before
you start writing a program, you should make sure you have a complete specification of exactly what the
program is supposed to do. In particular, you need to know what information the program is going to input
and output and what computation it is going to perform. Here is what a reasonably complete specification of
the problem might look like in this example:
"Write a program that will compute and display the value of an investment for each of the
next five years. Each year, interest is added to the value. The interest is computed by
multiplying the current value by a fixed interest rate. Assume that the initial value and the
rate of interest are to be input by the user when the program is run."
Let's do another example, working this time with a program that you haven't already seen. The assignment
here is an abstract mathematical problem that is one of my favorite programming exercises. This time, we'll
start with a more complete specification of the task to be performed:
"Given a positive integer, N, define the '3N+1' sequence starting from N as follows: If N is
an even number, then divide N by two; but if N is odd, then multiply N by 3 and add 1.
Continue to generate numbers in this way until N becomes equal to 1. For example, starting
from N = 3, which is odd, we multiply by 3 and add 1, giving N = 3*3+1 = 10. Then, since
N is even, we divide by 2, giving N = 10/2 = 5. We continue in this way, stopping when we
reach 1, giving the complete sequence: 3, 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.
"Write a program that will read a positive integer from the user and will print out the 3N+1
sequence starting from that integer. The program should also count and print out the number
of terms in the sequence."
A general outline of the algorithm for the program we want is:
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
Get a positive integer N from the user;
Compute, print, and count each number in the sequence;
Output the number of terms;
The bulk of the program is in the second step. We'll need a loop, since we want to keep computing numbers
until we get 1. To put this in terms appropriate for a while loop, we want to continue as long as the
number is not 1. So, we can expand our pseudocode algorithm to:
Get a positive integer N from the user;
while N is not 1:
Compute N = next term;
Output N;
Count this term;
Output the number of terms;
In order to compute the next term, the computer must take different actions depending on whether N is even
or odd. We need an if statement to decide between the two cases:
Get a positive integer N from the user;
while N is not 1:
if N is even:
Compute N = N/2;
else
Compute N = 3 * N + 1;
Output N;
Count this term;
Output the number of terms;
We are almost there. The one problem that remains is counting. Counting means that you start with zero,
and every time you have something to count, you add one. We need a variable to do the counting. (Again,
this is a common pattern that you should expect to see over and over.) With the counter added, we get:
Get a positive integer N from the user;
Let counter = 0;
while N is not 1:
if N is even:
Compute N = N/2;
else
Compute N = 3 * N + 1;
Output N;
Add 1 to counter;
Output the counter;
We still have to worry about the very first step. How can we get a positive integer from the user? If we just
read in a number, it's possible that the user might type in a negative number or zero. If you follow what
happens when the value of N is negative or zero, you'll see that the program will go on forever, since the
value of N will never become equal to 1. This is bad. In this case, the problem is probably no big deal, but
in general you should try to write programs that are foolproof. One way to fix this is to keep reading in
numbers until the user types in a positive number:
Ask user to input a positive number;
Let N be the user's response;
while N is not positive:
Print an error message;
Read another value for N;
Let counter = 0;
while N is not 1:
if N is even:
Compute N = N/2;
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
else
Compute N = 3 * N + 1;
Output N;
Add 1 to counter;
Output the counter;
The first while loop will end only when N is a positive number, as required. (A common beginning
programmer's error is to use an if statement instead of a while statement here: "If N is not positive, ask
the user to input another value." The problem arises if the second number input by the user is also
non-positive. The if statement is only executed once, so the second input number is never tested. With the
while loop, after the second number is input, the computer jumps back to the beginning of the loop and
tests whether the second number is positive. If not, it asks the user for a third number, and it will continue
asking for numbers until the user enters an acceptable input.)
Here is a Java program implementing this algorithm. It uses the operators <= to mean "is less than or equal
to" and != to mean "is not equal to." To test whether N is even, it uses "N % 2 == 0". All the operators
used here were discussed in Section 2.5.
public class ThreeN {
/* This program prints out a 3N+1 sequence
starting from a positive integer specified
by the user. It also counts the number
of terms in the sequence, and prints out
that number. */
public static void main(String[] args) {
int N; // for computing terms in the sequence
int counter; // for counting the terms
TextIO.put("Starting point for sequence: ");
N = TextIO.getlnInt();
while (N <= 0) {
TextIO.put("The starting point must be positive. "
+ " Please try again: ");
N = TextIO.getlnInt();
}
// At this point, we know that N > 0
counter = 0;
while (N != 1) {
if (N % 2 == 0)
N = N / 2;
else
N = 3 * N + 1;
TextIO.putln(N);
counter = counter + 1;
}
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.put("There were ");
TextIO.put(counter);
TextIO.putln(" terms in the sequence.");
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
} // end of main()
} // end of class ThreeN
As usual, you can try this out in an applet that simulates the program. Try different starting values for N,
including some negative values:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
Two final notes on this program: First, you might have noticed that the first term of the sequence -- the
value of N input by the user -- is not printed or counted by this program. Is this an error? It's hard to say.
Was the specification of the program careful enough to decide? This is the type of thing that might send you
back to the boss/professor for clarification. The problem (if it is one!) can be fixed easily enough. Just
replace the line "counter = 0" before the while loop with the two lines:
TextIO.putln(N); // print out initial term
counter = 1; // and count it
Second, there is the question of why this problem is at all interesting. Well, it's interesting to
mathematicians and computer scientists because of a simple question about the problem that they haven't
been able to answer: Will the process of computing the 3N+1 sequence finish after a finite number of steps
for all possible starting values of N? Although individual sequences are easy to compute, no one has been
able to answer the general question. (To put this another way, no one knows whether the process of
computing 3N+1 sequences can properly be called an algorithm, since an algorithm is required to terminate
after a finite number of steps!)
Coding, Testing, Debugging
It would be nice if, having developed an algorithm for your program, you could relax, press a button, and
get a perfectly working program. Unfortunately, the process of turning an algorithm into Java source code
doesn't always go smoothly. And when you do get to the stage of a working program, it's often only
working in the sense that it does something. Unfortunately not what you want it to do.
After program design comes coding: translating the design into a program written in Java or some other
language. Usually, no matter how careful you are, a few syntax errors will creep in from somewhere, and
the Java compiler will reject your program with some kind of error message. Unfortunately, while a
compiler will always detect syntax errors, it's not very good about telling you exactly what's wrong.
Sometimes, it's not even good about telling you where the real error is. A spelling error or missing "{" on
line 45 might cause the compiler to choke on line 105. You can avoid lots of errors by making sure that you
really understand the syntax rules of the language and by following some basic programming guidelines.
For example, I never type a "{" without typing the matching "}". Then I go back and fill in the statements
between the braces. A missing or extra brace can be one of the hardest errors to find in a large program.
Always, always indent your program nicely. If you change the program, change the indentation to match.
It's worth the trouble. Use a consistent naming scheme, so you don't have to struggle to remember whether
you called that variable interestrate or interestRate. In general, when the compiler gives
multiple error messages, don't try to fix the second error message from the compiler until you've fixed the
first one. Once the compiler hits an error in your program, it can get confused, and the rest of the error
messages might just be guesses. Maybe the best advice is: Take the time to understand the error before you
try to fix it. Programming is not an experimental science.
When your program compiles without error, you are still not done. You have to test the program to make
sure it works correctly. Remember that the goal is not to get the right output for the two sample inputs that
the professor gave in class. The goal is a program that will work correctly for all reasonable inputs. Ideally,
when faced with an unreasonable input, it will respond by gently chiding the user rather than by crashing.
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Java Programing: Section 3.2
Test your program on a wide variety of inputs. Try to find a set of inputs that will test the full range of
functionality that you've coded into your program. As you begin writing larger programs, write them in
stages and test each stage along the way. You might even have to write some extra code to do the testing --
for example to call a subroutine that you've just written. You don't want to be faced, if you can avoid it,
with 500 newly written lines of code that have an error in there somewhere.
The point of testing is to find bugs -- semantic errors that show up as incorrect behavior rather than as
compilation errors. And the sad fact is that you will probably find them. Again, you can minimize bugs by
careful design and careful coding, but no one has found a way to avoid them altogether. Once you've
detected a bug, it's time for debugging. You have to track down the cause of the bug in the program's source
code and eliminate it. Debugging is a skill that, like other aspects of programming, requires practice to
master. So don't be afraid of bugs. Learn from them. One essential debugging skill is the ability to read
source code -- the ability to put aside preconceptions about what you think it does and to follow it the way
the computer does -- mechanically, step-by-step -- to see what it really does. This is hard. I can still
remember the time I spent hours looking for a bug only to find that a line of code that I had looked at ten
times had a "1" where it should have had an "i", or the time when I wrote a subroutine named
WindowClosing which would have done exactly what I wanted except that the computer was looking for
windowClosing (with a lower case "w"). Sometimes it can help to have someone who doesn't share your
preconceptions look at your code.
Often, it's a problem just to find the part of the program that contains the error. Most programming
environments come with a debugger, which is a program that can help you find bugs. Typically, your
program can be run under the control of the debugger. The debugger allows you to set "breakpoints" in your
program. A breakpoint is a point in the program where the debugger will pause the program so you can look
at the values of the program's variables. The idea is to track down exactly when things start to go wrong
during the program's execution. The debugger will also let you execute your program one line at a time, so
that you can watch what happens in detail once you know the general area in the program where the bug is
lurking.
I will confess that I only rarely use debuggers myself. A more traditional approach to debugging is to insert
debugging statements into your program. These are output statements that print out information about the
state of the program. Typically, a debugging statement would say something like
System.out.println("At start of while loop, N = " + N). You need to be able to
tell where in your program the output is coming from, and you want to know the value of important
variables. Sometimes, you will find that the computer isn't even getting to a part of the program that you
think it should be executing. Remember that the goal is to find the first point in the program where the state
is not what you expect it to be. That's where the bug is.
And finally, remember the golden rule of debugging: If you are absolutely sure that everything in your
program is right, and if it still doesn't work, then one of the things that you are absolutely sure of is wrong.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.3
Section 3.3
The while and do..while Statements
STATEMENTS IN JAVA CAN BE either simple statements or compound statements. Simple statements,
such as assignments statements and subroutine call statements, are the basic building blocks of a program.
Compound statements, such as while loops and if statements, are used to organize simple statements
into complex structures, which are called control structures because they control the order in which the
statements are executed. The next four sections explore the details of all the control structures that are
available in Java, starting with the while statement and the do..while statement in this section. At the
same time, we'll look at examples of programming with each control structure and apply the techniques for
designing algorithms that were introduced in the previous section.
The while Statement
The while statement was already introduced in Section 1. A while loop has the form
while ( boolean-expression )
statement
The statement can, of course, be a block statement consisting of several statements grouped together
between a pair of braces. This statement is called the body of the loop. The body of the loop is repeated as
long as the boolean-expression is true. This boolean expression is called the continuation condition, or
more simply the test, of the loop. There are a few points that might need some clarification. What happens
if the condition is false in the first place, before the body of the loop is executed even once? In that case, the
body of the loop is never executed at all. The body of a while loop can be executed any number of times,
including zero. What happens if the condition is true, but it becomes false somewhere in the middle of the
loop body? Does the loop end as soon as this happens? It does not, because the computer continues
executing the body of the loop until it gets to the end. Only then does it jump back to the beginning of the
loop and test the condition, and only then can the loop end.
Let's look at a typical problem that can be solved using a while loop: finding the average of a set of
positive integers entered by the user. The average is the sum of the integers, divided by the number of
integers. The program will ask the user to enter one integer at a time. It will keep count of the number of
integers entered, and it will keep a running total of all the numbers it has read so far. Here is a pseudocode
algorithm for the program:
Let sum = 0
Let count = 0
while there are more integers to process:
Read an integer
Add it to the sum
Count it
Divide sum by count to get the average
Print out the average
But how can we test whether there are more integers to process? A typical solution is to tell the user to type
in zero after all the data have been entered. This will work because we are assuming that all the data are
positive numbers, so zero is not a legal data value. The zero is not itself part of the data to be averaged. It's
just there to mark the end of the real data. A data value used in this way is sometimes called a sentinel
value. So now the test in the while loop becomes "while the input integer is not zero". But there is another
problem! The first time the test is evaluated, before the body of the loop has ever been executed, no integer
has yet been read. There is no "input integer" yet, so testing whether the input integer is zero doesn't make
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Java Programing: Section 3.3
sense. So, we have to do something before the while loop to make sure that the test makes sense. Setting
things up so that the test in a while loop makes sense the first time it is executed is called priming the
loop. In this case, we can simply read the first integer before the beginning of the loop. Here is a revised
algorithm:
Let sum = 0
Let count = 0
Read an integer
while the integer is not zero:
Add the integer to the sum
Count it
Read an integer
Divide sum by count to get the average
Print out the average
Notice that I've rearranged the body of the loop. Since an integer is read before the loop, the loop has to
begin by processing that integer. At the end of the loop, the computer reads a new integer. The computer
then jumps back to the beginning of the loop and tests the integer that it has just read. Note that when the
computer finally reads the sentinel value, the loop ends before the sentinel value is processed. It is not
added to the sum, and it is not counted. This is the way it's supposed to work. The sentinel is not part of the
data. The original algorithm, even if it could have been made to work without priming, was incorrect since
it would have summed and counted all the integers, including the sentinel. (Since the sentinel is zero, the
sum would still be correct, but the count would be off by one. Such so-called off-by-one errors are very
common. Counting turns out to be harder than it looks!)
We can easily turn the algorithm into a complete program. Note that the program cannot use the statement
"average = sum/count;" to compute the average. Since sum and count are both variables of type
int, the value of sum/count is an integer. The average should be a real number. We've seen this
problem before: we have to convert one of the int values to a double to force the computer to compute
the quotient as a real number. This can be done by type-casting one of the variables to type double. The
type cast "(double)sum" converts the value of sum to a real number, so in the program the average is
computed as "average = ((double)sum) / count;". Another solution in this case would have
been to declare sum to be a variable of type double in the first place.
One other issue is addressed by the program: If the user enters zero as the first input value, there are no data
to process. We can test for this case by checking whether count is still equal to zero after the while loop.
This might seem like a minor point, but a careful programmer should cover all the bases.
Here is the program and an applet that simulates it:
public class ComputeAverage {
/* This program reads a sequence of positive integers input
by the user, and it will print out the average of those
integers. The user is prompted to enter one integer at a
time. The user must enter a 0 to mark the end of the
data. (The zero is not counted as part of the data to
be averaged.) The program does not check whether the
user's input is positive, so it will actually work for
both positive and negative input values.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
int inputNumber; // One of the integers input by the user.
int sum; // The sum of the positive integers.
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Java Programing: Section 3.3
int count; // The number of positive integers.
double average; // The average of the positive integers.
/* Initialize the summation and counting variables. */
sum = 0;
count = 0;
/* Read and process the user's input. */
TextIO.put("Enter your first positive integer: ");
inputNumber = TextIO.getlnInt();
while (inputNumber != 0) {
sum += inputNumber; // Add inputNumber to running sum.
count++; // Count the input by adding 1 to count.
TextIO.put("Enter your next positive integer, or 0 to end: ");
inputNumber = TextIO.getlnInt();
}
/* Display the result. */
if (count == 0) {
TextIO.putln("You didn't enter any data!");
}
else {
average = ((double)sum) / count;
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("You entered " + count + " positive integers.");
TextIO.putln("Their average is " + average + ".");
}
} // end main()
} // end class ComputeAverage
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
The do..while Statement
Sometimes it is more convenient to test the continuation condition at the end of a loop, instead of at the
beginning, as is done in the while loop. The do..while statement is very similar to the while
statement, except that the word "while," along with the condition that it tests, has been moved to the end.
The word "do" is added to mark the beginning of the loop. A do..while statement has the form
do
statement
while ( boolean-expression );
or, since, as usual, the statement can be a block,
do {
statements
} while ( boolean-expression );
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Java Programing: Section 3.3
Note the semicolon, ';', at the end. This semicolon is part of the statement, just as the semicolon at the end
of an assignment statement or declaration is part of the statement. Omitting it is a syntax error. (More
generally, every statement in Java ends either with a semicolon or a right brace, '}'.)
To execute a do loop, the computer first executes the body of the loop -- that is, the statement or statements
inside the loop -- and then it evaluates the boolean expression. If the value of the expression is true, the
computer returns to the beginning of the do loop and repeats the process; if the value is false, it ends the
loop and continues with the next part of the program. Since the condition is not tested until the end of the
loop, the body of a do loop is executed at least once.
For example, consider the following pseudocode for a game-playing program. The do loop makes sense
here instead of a while loop because with the do loop, you know there will be at least one game. Also, the
test that is used at the end of the loop wouldn't even make sense at the beginning:
do {
Play a Game
Ask user if he wants to play another game
Read the user's response
} while ( the user's response is yes );
Let's convert this into proper Java code. Since I don't want to talk about game playing at the moment, let's
say that we have a class named Checkers, and that the Checkers class contains a static member
subroutine named playGame() that plays one game of checkers against the user. Then, the pseudocode
"Play a game" can be expressed as the subroutine call statement "Checkers.playGame();". We need a
variable to store the user's response. The TextIO class makes it convenient to use a boolean variable to
store the answer to a yes/no question. The input function TextIO.getlnBoolean() allows the user to
enter the value as "yes" or "no". "Yes" is considered to be true, and "no" is considered to be false. So,
the algorithm can be coded as
boolean wantsToContinue; // True if user wants to play again.
do {
Checkers.playGame();
TextIO.put("Do you want to play again? ");
wantsToContinue = TextIO.getlnBoolean();
} while (wantsToContinue == true);
When the value of the boolean variable is set to true, it is a signal that the loop should end. When a
boolean variable is used in this way -- as a signal that is set in one part of the program and tested in
another part -- it is sometimes called a flag or flag variable (in the sense of a signal flag).
By the way, a more-than-usually-pedantic programmer would sneer at the test "while
(wantsToContinue == true)". This test is exactly equivalent to "while
(wantsToContinue)". Testing whether "wantsToContinue == true" is true amounts to the
same thing as testing whether "wantsToContinue" is true. A little less offensive is an expression of the
form "flag == false", where flag is a boolean variable. The value of "flag == false" is
exactly the same as the value of "!flag", where ! is the boolean negation operator. So you can write
"while (!flag)" instead of "while (flag == false)", and you can write "if (!flag)"
instead of "if (flag == false)".
Although a do..while statement is sometimes more convenient than a while statement, having two
kinds of loops does not make the language more powerful. Any problem that can be solved using
do..while loops can also be solved using only while statements, and vice versa. In fact, if
doSomething represents any block of program code, then
do {
doSomething
} while ( boolean-expression );
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Java Programing: Section 3.3
has exactly the same effect as
doSomething
while ( boolean-expression ) {
doSomething
}
Similarly,
while ( boolean-expression ) {
doSomething
}
can be replaced by
if ( boolean-expression ) {
do {
doSomething
} while ( boolean-expression );
}
without changing the meaning of the program in any way.
The break and continue Statements
The syntax of the while and do..while loops allows you to test the continuation condition at either the
beginning of a loop or at the end. Sometimes, it is more natural to have the test in the middle of the loop, or
to have several tests at different places in the same loop. Java provides a general method for breaking out of
the middle of any loop. It's called the break statement, which takes the form
break;
When the computer executes a break statement in a loop, it will immediately jump out of the loop. It then
continues on to whatever follows the loop in the program. Consider for example:
while (true) { // looks like it will run forever!
TextIO.put("Enter a positive number: ");
N = TextIO.getlnlnt();
if (N > 0) // input is OK; jump out of loop
break;
TextIO.putln("Your answer must be > 0.");
}
// continue here after break
If the number entered by the user is greater than zero, the break statement will be executed and the
computer will jump out of the loop. Otherwise, the computer will print out "Your answer must be > 0." and
will jump back to the start of the loop to read another input value.
(The first line of the loop, "while (true)" might look a bit strange, but it's perfectly legitimate. The
condition in a while loop can be any boolean-valued expression. The computer evaluates this expression
and checks whether the value is true or false. The boolean literal "true" is just a boolean expression
that always evaluates to true. So "while (true)" can be used to write an infinite loop, or one that can
be terminated only by a break statement.)
A break statement terminates the loop that immediately encloses the break statement. It is possible to
have nested loops, where one loop statement is contained inside another. If you use a break statement
inside a nested loop, it will only break out of that loop, not out of the loop that contains the nested loop.
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Java Programing: Section 3.3
There is something called a "labeled break" statement that allows you to specify which loop you want to
break. I won't give the details here; you can look them up if you ever need them.
The continue statement is related to break, but less commonly used. A continue statement tells the
computer to skip the rest of the current iteration of the loop. However, instead of jumping out of the loop
altogether, it jumps back to the beginning of the loop and continues with the next iteration (after evaluating
the loop's continuation condition to see whether any further iterations are required).
break and continue can be used in while loops and do..while loops. They can also be used in
for loops, which are covered in the next section. In Section 6, we'll see that break can also be used to
break out of a switch statement. Note that when a break occurs inside an if statement, it breaks out of
the loop or switch statement that contains the if statement. If the if statement is not contained inside a
loop or switch, then the if statement cannot legally contain a break statement. A similar consideration
applies to continue statements.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.4
Section 3.4
The for Statement
WE TURN IN THIS SECTION to another type of loop, the for statement. Any for loop is equivalent to
some while loop, so the language doesn't get any additional power by having for statements. But for a
certain type of problem, a for loop can be easier to construct and easier to read than the corresponding
while loop. It's quite possible that in real programs, for loops actually outnumber while loops.
The for statement makes a common type of while loop easier to write. Many while loops have the general
form:
initialization
while ( continuation-condition ) {
statements
update
}
For example, consider this example, copied from an example in Section 2:
years = 0; // initialize the variable years
while ( years < 5 ) { // condition for continuing loop
interest = principal * rate; //
principal += interest; // do three statements
System.out.println(principal); //
years++; // update the value of the variable, years
}
This loop can be written as the following equivalent for statement:
for ( years = 0; years < 5; years++ ) {
interest = principal * rate;
principal += interest;
System.out.println(principal);
}
The initialization, continuation condition, and updating have all been combined in the first line of the for
loop. This keeps everything involved in the "control" of the loop in one place, which helps makes the loop
easier to read and understand. The for loop is executed in exactly the same way as the original code: The
initialization part is executed once, before the loop begins. The continuation condition is executed before
each execution of the loop, and the loop ends when this condition is false. The update part is executed at
the end of each execution of the loop, just before jumping back to check the condition.
The formal syntax of the for statement is as follows:
for ( initialization; continuation-condition; update )
statement
or, using a block statement:
for ( initialization; continuation-condition; update ) {
statements
}
The continuation-condition must be a boolean-valued expression. The initialization can be any expression,
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Java Programing: Section 3.4
as can the update. Any of the three can be empty. If the continuation condition is empty, it is treated as if it
were "true," so the loop will be repeated forever or until it ends for some other reason, such as a break
statement. (Some people like to begin an infinite loop with "for (;;)" instead of "while (true)".)
Usually, the initialization part of a for statement assigns a value to some variable, and the update changes
the value of that variable with an assignment statement or with an increment or decrement operation. The
value of the variable is tested in the continuation condition, and the loop ends when this condition evaluates
to false. A variable used in this way is called a loop control variable. In the for statement given above,
the loop control variable is years.
Certainly, the most common type of for loop is the counting loop, where a loop control variable takes on all
integer values between some minimum and some maximum value. A counting loop has the form
for ( variable = min; variable <= max; variable++ ) {
statements
}
where min and max are integer-valued expressions (usually constants). The variable takes on the values
min, min+1, min+2, ...,max. The value of the loop control variable is often used in the body of the loop. The
for loop at the beginning of this section is a counting loop in which the loop control variable, years, takes
on the values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Here is an even simpler example, in which the numbers 1, 2, ..., 10 are displayed
on standard output:
for ( N = 1 ; N <= 10 ; N++ )
System.out.println( N );
For various reasons, Java programmers like to start counting at 0 instead of 1, and they tend to use a "<" in
the condition, rather than a "<=". The following variation of the above loop prints out the ten numbers 0, 1,
2, ..., 9:
for ( N = 0 ; N < 10 ; N++ )
System.out.println( N );
Using < instead of <= in the test, or vice versa, is a common source of off-by-one errors in programs. You
should always stop and think, do I want the final value to be processed or not?
It's easy to count down from 10 to 1 instead of counting up. Just start with 10, decrement the loop control
variable instead of incrementing it, and continue as long as the variable is greater than or equal to one.
for ( N = 10 ; N >= 1 ; N-- )
System.out.println( N );
Now, in fact, the official syntax of a for statemenent actually allows both the initialization part and the
update part to consist of several expressions, separated by commas. So we can even count up from 1 to 10
and count down from 10 to 1 at the same time!
for ( i=1, j=10; i <= 10; i++, j-- ) {
TextIO.put(i,5); // Output i in a 5-character wide column.
TextIO.putln(j,5); // Output j in a 5-character column
// and end the line.
}
As a final example, let's say that we want to use a for loop print out just the even numbers between 2 and
20, that is: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20. There are several ways to do this. Just to show how even a very
simple problem can be solved in many ways, here are four different solutions (three of which would get full
credit):
(1) // There are 10 numbers to print.
// Use a for loop to count 1, 2,
// ..., 10. The numbers we want
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// to print are 2*1, 2*2, ... 2*10.
for (N = 1; N <= 10; N++) {
System.out.println( 2*N );
}
(2) // Use a for loop that counts
// 2, 4, ..., 20 directly by
// adding 2 to N each time through
// the loop.
for (N = 2; N <= 20; N = N + 2) {
System.out.println( N );
}
(3) // Count off all the numbers
// 2, 3, 4, ..., 19, 20, but
// only print out the numbers
// that are even.
for (N = 2; N <= 20; N++) {
if ( N % 2 == 0 ) // is N even?
System.out.println( N );
}
(4) // Irritate the professor with
// a solution that follows the
// letter of this silly assignment
// while making fun of it.
for (N = 1; N <= 1; N++) {
System.out.print("2 4 6 8 10 12 ");
System.out.println("14 16 18 20");
}
Perhaps it is worth stressing one more time that a for statement, like any statement, never occurs on its own
in a real program. A statement must be inside the main routine of a program or inside some other
subroutine. And that subroutine must be defined inside a class. I should also remind you that every variable
must be declared before it can be used, and that includes the loop control variable in a for statement. In all
the examples that you have seen so far in this section, the loop control variables should be declared to be of
type int. It is not required that a loop control variable be an integer. Here, for example, is a for loop in
which the variable, ch, is of type char:
// Print out the alphabet on one line of output.
char ch; // The loop control variable;
// one of the letters to be printed.
for ( char ch = 'A'; ch <= 'Z'; ch++ )
System.out.print(ch);
System.out.println();
Let's look at a less trivial problem that can be solved with a for loop. If N and D are positive integers, we
say that D is a divisor of N if the remainder when D is divided into N is zero. (Equivalently, we could say that
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N is an even multiple of D.) In terms of Java programming, D is a divisor of N if N % D is zero.
Let's write a program that inputs a positive integer, N, from the user and computes how many different
divisors N has. The numbers that could possibly be divisors of N are 1, 2, ...,N. To compute the number of
divisors of N, we can just test each possible divisor of N and count the ones that actually do divide N evenly.
In pseudocode, the algorithm takes the form
Get a positive integer, N, from the user
Let divisorCount = 0
for each number, testDivisor, in the range from 1 to N:
if testDivisor is a divisor of N:
Count it by adding 1 to divisorCount
Output the count
This algorithm displays a common programming pattern that is used when some, but not all, of a sequence of
items are to be processed. The general pattern is
for each item in the sequence:
if the item passes the test:
process it
The for loop in our divisor-counting algorithm can be translated into Java code as
for (testDivisor = 1; testDivisor <= N; testDivisor++) {
if ( N % testDivisor == 0 )
divisorCount++;
}
On a modern computer, this loop can be executed very quickly. It is not impossible to run it even for the
largest legal int value, 2147483647. (If you wanted to run it for even larger values, you could use variables
of type long rather than int.) However, it does take a noticeable amount of time for very large numbers.
So when I implemented this algorithm, I decided to output a period every time the computer has tested one
million possible divisors. In the improved version of the program, there are two types of counting going on.
We have to count the number of divisors and we also have to count the number of possible divisors that have
been tested. So the program needs two counters. When the second counter reaches 1000000, we output a '.'
and reset the counter to zero so that we can start counting the next group of one million. Reverting to
pseudocode, the algorithm now looks like
Get a positive integer, N, from the user
Let divisorCount = 0 // Number of divisors found.
Let numberTested = 0 // Number of possible divisors tested
// since the last period was output.
for each number, testDivisor, in the range from 1 to N:
if testDivisor is a divisor of N:
Count it by adding 1 to divisorCount
Add 1 to numberTested
if numberTested is 1000000:
print out a '.'
Let numberTested = 0
Output the count
Finally, we can translate the algorithm into a complete Java program. Here it is, followed by an applet that
simulates it:
public class CountDivisors {
/* This program reads a positive integer from the user.
It counts how many divisors that number has, and
then it prints the result.
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*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
int N; // A positive integer entered by the user.
// Divisors of this number will be counted.
int testDivisor; // A number between 1 and N that is a
// possible divisor of N.
int divisorCount; // Number of divisors of N that have been found.
int numberTested; // Used to count how many possible divisors
// of N have been tested. When the number
// reaches 1000000, a period is output and
// the value of numberTested is reset to zero.
/* Get a positive integer from the user. */
while (true) {
TextIO.put("Enter a positive integer: ");
N = TextIO.getlnInt();
if (N > 0)
break;
TextIO.putln("That number is not positive. Please try again.");
}
/* Count the divisors, printing a "." after every 1000000 tests. */
divisorCount = 0;
numberTested = 0;
for (testDivisor = 1; testDivisor <= N; testDivisor++) {
if ( N % testDivisor == 0 )
divisorCount++;
numberTested++;
if (numberTested == 1000000) {
TextIO.put('.');
numberTested = 0;
}
}
/* Display the result. */
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("The number of divisors of " + N
+ " is " + divisorCount);
} // end main()
} // end class CountDivisors
Sorry, your browser doesn't
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Java Programing: Section 3.4
Nested Loops
Control structures in Java are statements that contain statements. In particular, control structures can contain
control structures. You've already seen several examples of if statements inside loops, but any combination
of one control structure inside another is possible. We say that one structure is nested inside another. You
can even have multiple levels of nesting, such as a while loop inside an if statement inside another
while loop. The syntax of Java does not set a limit on the number of levels of nesting. As a practical
matter, though, it's difficult to understand a program that has more than a few levels of nesting.
Nested for loops arise naturally in many algorithms, and it is important to understand how they work. Let's
look at a couple of examples. First, consider the problem of printing out a multiplication table like this one:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36
4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60 66 72
7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70 77 84
8 16 24 32 40 48 56 64 72 80 88 96
9 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90 99 108
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 110 121 132
12 24 36 48 60 72 84 96 108 120 132 144
The data in the table are arranged into 12 rows and 12 columns. The process of printing them out can be
expressed in a pseudocode algorithm as
for each rowNumber = 1, 2, 3, ..., 12:
Print the first twelve multiples of rowNumber on one line
Output a carriage return
The first step in the for loop can itself be expressed as a for loop:
for N = 1, 2, 3, ..., 12:
Print N * rowNumber
so a refined algorithm for printing the table has one for loop nested inside another:
for each rowNumber = 1, 2, 3, ..., 12:
for N = 1, 2, 3, ..., 12:
Print N * rowNumber
Output a carriage return
Assuming that rowNumber and N have been declared to be variables of type int, this can be expressed in
Java as
for ( rowNumber = 1; rowNumber <= 12; rowNumber++ ) {
for ( N = 1; N <= 12; N++ ) {
// print in 4-character columns
TextIO.put( N * rowNumber, 4 );
}
TextIO.putln();
}
This section has been weighed down with lots of examples of numerical processing. For our final example,
let's do some text processing. Consider the problem of finding which of the 26 letters of the alphabet occur in
a given string. For example, the letters that occur in "Hello World" are D, E, H, L, O, R, and W. More
specifically, we will write a program that will list all the letters contained in a string and will also count the
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Java Programing: Section 3.4
number of different letters. The string will be input by the user. Let's start with a pseudocode algorithm for
the program.
Ask the user to input a string
Read the response into a variable, str
Let count = 0 (for counting the number of different letters)
for each letter of the alphabet:
if the letter occurs in str:
Print the letter
Add 1 to count
Output the count
Since we want to process the entire line of text that is entered by the user, we'll use TextIO.getln() to
read it. The line that reads "for each letter of the alphabet" can be expressed as "for (letter='A';
letter<='Z'; letter++)". But the body of this for loop needs more thought. How do we check
whether the given letter, letter, occurs in str? One idea is to look at each letter in the string in turn, and
check whether that letter is equal to letter. We can get the i-th character of str with the function call
str.charAt(i), where i ranges from 0 to str.length() - 1. One more difficulty: A letter such as
'A' can occur in str in either upper or lower case, 'A' or 'a'. We have to check for both of these. But we can
avoid this difficulty by converting str to upper case before processing it. Then, we only have to check for
the upper case letter. We can now flesh out the algorithm fully. Note the use of break in the nested for
loop. It is required to avoid printing or counting a given letter more than once. The break statement breaks
out of the inner for loop, but not the outer for loop. Upon executing the break, the computer continues
the outer loop with the next value of letter.
Ask the user to input a string
Read the response into a variable, str
Convert str to upper case
Let count = 0
for letter = 'A', 'B', ..., 'Z':
for i = 0, 1, ..., str.length()-1:
if letter == str.charAt(i):
Print letter
Add 1 to count
break // jump out of the loop
Output the count
Here is the complete program and an applet to simulate it:
public class ListLetters {
/* This program reads a line of text entered by the user.
It prints a list of the letters that occur in the text,
and it reports how many different letters were found.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
String str; // Line of text entered by the user.
int count; // Number of different letters found in str.
char letter; // A letter of the alphabet.
TextIO.putln("Please type in a line of text.");
str = TextIO.getln();
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Java Programing: Section 3.4
str = str.toUpperCase();
count = 0;
TextIO.putln("Your input contains the following letters:");
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.put(" ");
for ( letter = 'A'; letter <= 'Z'; letter++ ) {
int i; // Position of a character in str.
for ( i = 0; i < str.length(); i++ ) {
if ( letter == str.charAt(i) ) {
TextIO.put(letter);
TextIO.put(' ');
count++;
break;
}
}
}
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("There were " + count + " different letters.");
} // end main()
} // end class ListLetters
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
In fact, there is an easier way to determine whether a given letter occurs in a string, str. The built-in
function str.indexOf(letter) will return -1 if letter does not occur in the string. It returns a
number greater than or equal to zero if it does occur. So, we could check whether letter occurs in str
simply by checking "if (str.indexOf(letter) >= 0)". If we used this technique in the above
program, we wouldn't need a nested for loop. This gives you preview of how subroutines can be used to
deal with complexity.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.5
Section 3.5
The if Statement
THE FIRST OF THE TWO BRANCHING STATEMENTS in Java is the if statement, which you have
already seen in Section 1. It takes the form
if (boolean-expression)
statement-1
else
statement-2
As usual, the statements inside an if statements can be blocks. The if statement represents a two-way
branch. The else part of an if statement -- consisting of the word "else" and the statement that follows it --
can be omitted.
Now, an if statement is, in particular, a statement. This means that either statement-1 or statement-2 in the
above if statement can itself be an if statement. A problem arises, however, if statement-1 is an if
statement that has no else part. This special case is effectively forbidden by the syntax of Java. Suppose,
for example, that you type
if ( x > 0 )
if (y > 0)
System.out.println("First case");
else
System.out.println("Second case");
Now, remember that the way you've indented this doesn't mean anything at all to the computer. You might
think that the else part is the second half of your "if (x > 0)" statement, but the rule that the computer
follows attaches the else to "if (y > 0)", which is closer. That is, the computer reads your statement as
if it were formatted:
if ( x > 0 )
if (y > 0)
System.out.println("First case");
else
System.out.println("Second case");
You can force the computer to use the other interpretation by enclosing the nested if in a block:
if ( x > 0 ) {
if (y > 0)
System.out.println("First case");
}
else
System.out.println("Second case");
You can check that these two statements have different meanings. If x <= 0, the first statement doesn't
print anything, but the second statement prints "Second case.".
Much more interesting than this technicality is the case where statement-2, the else part of the if
statement, is itself an if statement. The statement would look like this (perhaps without the final else part):
if (boolean-expression-1)
statement-1
else
if (boolean-expression-2)
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Java Programing: Section 3.5
statement-2
else
statement-3
However, since the computer doesn't care how a program is laid out on the page, this is almost always
written in the format:
if (boolean-expression-1)
statement-1
else if (boolean-expression-2)
statement-2
else
statement-3
You should think of this as a single statement representing a three-way branch. When the computer executes
this, one and only one of the three statements -- statement-1, statement-2, or statement-3 -- will be
executed. The computer starts by evaluating boolean-expression-1. If it is true, the computer executes
statement-1 and then jumps all the way to the end of the outer if statement, skipping the other two
statements. If boolean-expression-1 is false, the computer skips statement-1 and executes the second,
nested if statement. To do this, it tests the value of boolean-expression-2 and uses it to decide between
statement-2 and statement-3.
Here is an example that will print out one of three different messages, depending on the value of a variable
named temperature:
if (temperature < 50)
System.out.println("It's cold.");
else if (temperature < 80)
System.out.println("It's nice.");
else
System.out.println("It's hot.");
If temperature is, say, 42, the first test is true. The computer prints out the message "It's cold", and
skips the rest -- without even evaluating the second condition. For a temperature of 75, the first test is
false, so the computer goes on to the second test. This test is true, so the computer prints "It's nice" and
skips the rest. If the temperature is 173, both of the tests evaluate to false, so the computer says "It's hot"
(unless its circuits have been fried by the heat, that is).
You can go on stringing together "else-if's" to make multi-way branches with any number of cases:
if (boolean-expression-1)
statement-1
else if (boolean-expression-2)
statement-2
else if (boolean-expression-3)
statement-3
.
. // (more cases)
.
else if (boolean-expression-N)
statement-N
else
statement-(N+1)
The computer evaluates boolean expressions one after the other until it comes to one that is true. It
executes the associated statement and skips the rest. If none of the boolean expressions evaluate to true,
then the statement in the else part is executed. This statement is called a multi-way branch because only
one of the statements will be executed. The final else part can be omitted. In that case, if all the boolean
expressions are false, none of the statements is executed. Of course, each of the statements can be a block,
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consisting of a number of statements enclosed between { and }. (Admittedly, there is lot of syntax here; as
you study and practice, you'll become comfortable with it.)
As an example of using if statements, lets suppose that x, y, and z are variables of type int, and that each
variable has already been assigned a value. Consider the problem of printing out the values of the three
variables in increasing order. For examples, if the values are 42, 17, and 20, then the output should be in the
order 17, 20, 42.
One way to approach this is to ask, where does x belong in the list? It comes first if it's less than both y and
z. It comes last if it's greater than both y and z. Otherwise, it comes in the middle. We can express this with
a 3-way if statement, but we still have to worry about the order in which y and z should be printed. In
pseudocode,
if (x < y && x < z) {
output x, followed by y and z in their correct order
}
else if (x > y && x > z) {
output y and z in their correct order, followed by x
}
else {
output x in between y and z in their correct order
}
Determining the relative order of y and z requires another if statement, so this becomes
if (x < y && x < z) { // x comes first
if (y < z)
System.out.println( x + " " + y + " " + z );
else
System.out.println( x + " " + z + " " + y );
}
else if (x > y && x > z) { // x comes last
if (y < z)
System.out.println( y + " " + z + " " + x );
else
System.out.println( z + " " + y + " " + x );
}
else { // x in the middle
if (y < z)
System.out.println( y + " " + x + " " + z);
else
System.out.println( z + " " + x + " " + y);
}
You might check that this code will work correctly even if some of the values are the same. If the values of
two variables are the same, it doesn't matter which order you print them in.
Note, by the way, that even though you can say in English "if x is less than y and z,", you can't say in Java
"if (x < y && z)". The && operator can only be used between boolean values, so you have to make
separate tests, x<y and x<z, and then combine the two tests with &&.
There is an alternative approach to this problem that begins by asking, "which order should x and y be
printed in?" Once that's known, you only have to decide where to stick in z. This line of thought leads to
different Java code:
if ( x < y ) { // x comes before y
if ( z < x )
System.out.println( z + " " + x + " " + y);
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else if ( z > y )
System.out.println( x + " " + y + " " + z);
else
System.out.println( x + " " + z + " " + y);
}
else { // y comes before x
if ( z < y )
System.out.println( z + " " + y + " " + x);
else if ( z > x )
System.out.println( y + " " + x + " " + z);
else
System.out.println( y + " " + z + " " + x);
}
Once again, we see how the same problem can be solved in many different ways. The two approaches to this
problem have not exhausted all the possibilities. For example, you might start by testing whether x is greater
than y. If so, you could swap their values. Once you've done that, you know that x should be printed before
y.
Finally, let's write a complete program that uses an if statement in an interesting way. I want a program that
will convert measurements of length from one unit of measurement to another, such as miles to yards or
inches to feet. So far, the problem is extremely under-specified. Let's say that the program will only deal
with measurements in inches, feet, yards, and miles. It would be easy to extend it later to deal with other
units. The user will type in a measurement in one of these units, such as "17 feet" or "2.73 miles". The output
will show the length in terms of each of the four units of measure. (This is easier than asking the user which
units to use in the output.) An outline of the process is
Read the user's input measurement and units of measure
Express the measurement in inches, feet, yards, and miles
Display the four results
The program can read both parts of the user's input from the same line by using TextIO.getDouble()
to read the numerical measurement and TextIO.getlnWord() to read the units of measure. The
conversion into different units of measure can be simplified by first converting the user's input into inches.
From there, it can be converted into feet, yards, and miles. We still have to test the input to determine which
unit of measure the user has specified:
Let measurement = TextIO.getDouble()
Let units = TextIO.getlnWord()
if the units are inches
Let inches = measurement
else if the units are feet
Let inches = measurement * 12 // 12 inches per foot
else if the units are yards
Let inches = measurement * 36 // 36 inches per yard
else if the units are miles
Let inches = measurement * 12 * 5280 // 5280 feet per mile
else
The units are illegal!
Print an error message and stop processing
Let feet = inches / 12.0
Let yards = inches / 36.0
Let miles = inches / (12.0 * 5280.0)
Display the results
Since units is a String, we can use units.equals("inches") to check whether the specified unit
of measure is "inches". However, it would be nice to allow the units to be specified as "inch" or abbreviated
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Java Programing: Section 3.5
to "in". To allow these three possibilities, we can check if (units.equals("inches") ||
units.equals("inch") || units.equals("in")). It would also be nice to allow upper case
letters, as in "Inches" or "IN". We can do this by converting units to lower case before testing it or by
substituting the function units.equalsIgnoreCase for units.equals.
In my final program, I decided to make things more interesting by allowing the user to enter a whole
sequence of measurements. The program will end only when the user inputs 0. To do this, I just have to wrap
the above algorithm inside a while loop, and make sure that the loop ends when the user inputs a 0. Here's
the complete program, followed by an applet that simulates it.
public class LengthConverter {
/* This program will convert measurements expressed in inches,
feet, yards, or miles into each of the possible units of
measure. The measurement is input by the user, followed by
the unit of measure. For example: "17 feet", "1 inch",
"2.73 mi". Abbreviations in, ft, yd, and mi are accepted.
The program will continue to read and convert measurements
until the user enters an input of 0.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
double measurement; // Numerical measurement, input by user.
String units; // The unit of measure for the input, also
// specified by the user.
double inches, feet, yards, miles; // Measurement expressed in
// each possible unit of
// measure.
TextIO.putln("Enter measurements in inches, feet, yards, or miles.");
TextIO.putln("For example: 1 inch 17 feet 2.73 miles");
TextIO.putln("You can use abbreviations: in ft yd mi");
TextIO.putln("I will convert your input into the other units");
TextIO.putln("of measure.");
TextIO.putln();
while (true) {
/* Get the user's input, and convert units to lower case. */
TextIO.put("Enter your measurement, or 0 to end: ");
measurement = TextIO.getDouble();
if (measurement == 0)
break; // terminate the while loop
units = TextIO.getlnWord();
units = units.toLowerCase();
/* Convert the input measurement to inches. */
if (units.equals("inch") || units.equals("inches")
|| units.equals("in")) {
inches = measurement;
}
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else if (units.equals("foot") || units.equals("feet")
|| units.equals("ft")) {
inches = measurement * 12;
}
else if (units.equals("yard") || units.equals("yards")
|| units.equals("yd")) {
inches = measurement * 36;
}
else if (units.equals("mile") || units.equals("miles")
|| units.equals("mi")) {
inches = measurement * 12 * 5280;
}
else {
TextIO.putln("Sorry, but I don't understand \""
+ units + "\".");
continue; // back to start of while loop
}
/* Convert measurement in inches to feet, yards, and miles. */
feet = inches / 12;
yards = inches / 36;
miles = inches / (12*5280);
/* Output measurement in terms of each unit of measure. */
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("That's equivalent to:");
TextIO.put(inches, 15);
TextIO.putln(" inches");
TextIO.put(feet, 15);
TextIO.putln(" feet");
TextIO.put(yards, 15);
TextIO.putln(" yards");
TextIO.put(miles, 15);
TextIO.putln(" miles");
TextIO.putln();
} // end while
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("OK! Bye for now.");
} // end main()
} // end class LengthConverter
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.6
Section 3.6
The switch Statement
THE SECOND BRANCHING STATEMENT in Java is the switch statement, which is introduced in
this section. The switch is used far less often than the if statement, but it is sometimes useful for
expressing a certain type of multi-way branch. Since this section wraps up coverage of all of Java's control
statements, I've included a complete list of Java's statement types at the end of the section.
A switch statement allows you to test the value of an expression and, depending on that value, to jump to
some location within the switch statement. The expression must be either integer-valued or
character-valued. It cannot be a String or a real number. The positions that you can jump to are marked
with "case labels" that take the form: "case constant:". This marks the position the computer jumps to when
the expression evaluates to the given constant. As the final case in a switch statement you can, optionally,
use the label "default:", which provides a default jump point that is used when the value of the expression is
not listed in any case label.
A switch statement has the form:
switch (expression) {
case constant-1:
statements-1
break;
case constant-2:
statements-2
break;
.
. // (more cases)
.
case constant-N:
statements-N
break;
default: // optional default case
statements-(N+1)
} // end of switch statement
The break statements are technically optional. The effect of a break is to make the computer jump to the
end of the switch statement. If you leave out the break statement, the computer will just forge ahead after
completing one case and will execute the statements associated with the next case label. This is rarely what
you want, but it is legal. (I will note here -- although you won't understand it until you get to the next
chapter -- that inside a subroutine, the break statement is sometimes replaced by a return statement.)
Note that you can leave out one of the groups of statements entirely (including the break). You then have
two case labels in a row, containing two different constants. This just means that the computer will jump to
the same place and perform the same action for each of the two constants.
Here is an example of a switch statement. This is not a useful example, but it should be easy for you to
follow. Note, by the way, that the constants in the case labels don't have to be in any particular order, as
long as they are all different:
switch (N) { // assume N is an integer variable
case 1:
System.out.println("The number is 1.");
break;
case 2:
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case 4:
case 8:
System.out.println("The number is 2, 4, or 8.");
System.out.println("(That's a power of 2!)");
break;
case 3:
case 6:
case 9:
System.out.println("The number is 3, 6, or 9.");
System.out.println("(That's a multiple of 3!)");
break;
case 5:
System.out.println("The number is 5.");
break;
default:
System.out.println("The number is 7,");
System.out.println(" or is outside the range 1 to 9.");
}
The switch statement is pretty primitive as control structures go, and it's easy to make mistakes when you
use it. Java takes all its control structures directly from the older programming languages C and C++. The
switch statement is certainly one place where the designers of Java should have introduced some
improvements.
One application of switch statements is in processing menus. A menu is a list of options. The user selects
one of the options. The computer has to respond to each possible choice in a different way. If the options
are numbered 1, 2, ..., then the number of the chosen option can be used in a switch statement to select
the proper response.
In a TextIO-based program, the menu can be presented as a numbered list of options, and the user can
choose an option by typing in its number. Here is an example that could be used in a variation of the
LengthConverter example from the previous section:
int optionNumber; // Option number from menu, selected by user.
double measurement; // A numerical measurement, input by the user.
// The unit of measurement depends on which
// option the user has selected.
double inches; // The same measurement, converted into inches.
/* Display menu and get user's selected option number. */
TextIO.putln("What unit of measurement does your input use?");
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln(" 1. inches");
TextIO.putln(" 2. feet");
TextIO.putln(" 3. yards");
TextIO.putln(" 4. miles");
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("Enter the number of your choice: ");
optionNumber = TextIO.getlnInt();
/* Read user's measurement and convert to inches. */
switch ( optionNumber ) {
case 1:
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TextIO.putln("Enter the number of inches: );
measurement = TextIO.getlnDouble();
inches = measurement;
break;
case 2:
TextIO.putln("Enter the number of feet: );
measurement = TextIO.getlnDouble();
inches = measurement * 12;
break;
case 3:
TextIO.putln("Enter the number of yards: );
measurement = TextIO.getlnDouble();
inches = measurement * 36;
break;
case 4:
TextIO.putln("Enter the number of miles: );
measurement = TextIO.getlnDouble();
inches = measurement * 12 * 5280;
break;
default:
TextIO.putln("Error! Illegal option number! I quit!");
System.exit(1);
} // end switch
/* Now go on to convert inches to feet, yards, and miles... */
The Empty Statement
As a final note in this section, I will mention one more type of statement in Java: the empty statement. This
is a statement that consists simply of a semicolon. The existence of the empty statement makes the
following legal, even though you would not ordinarily see a semicolon after a }.
if (x < 0) {
x = -x;
};
The semicolon is legal after the }, but the computer considers it to be an empty statement, not part of the if
statement. Occasionally, you might find yourself using the empty statement when what you mean is, in fact,
"do nothing". I prefer, though, to use an empty block, consisting of { and } with nothing between, for such
cases.
Occasionally, stray empty statements can cause annoying, hard-to-find errors in a program. For example,
the following program segment prints out "Hello" just once, not ten times:
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++);
System.out.println("Hello");
Why? Because the ";" at the end of the first line is a statement, and it is this statement that is executed ten
times. The System.out.println statement is not really inside the for statement at all, so it is
executed just once, after the for loop has completed.
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Java Programing: Section 3.6
A List of Java Statement Types
I mention the empty statement here mainly for completeness. You've now seen just about every type of Java
statement. A complete list is given below for reference. The only new items in the list are the
try..catch, throw, and synchronized statements, which are related to advanced aspects of Java
known as exception-handling and multi-threading, and the return statement, which is used in
subroutines. These will be covered in later sections.
Another possible surprise is what I've listed as "other expression statement," which reflects the fact that any
expression followed by a semicolon can be used as a statement. To execute such a statement, the computer
simply evaluates the expression, and then ignores the value. Of course, this only makes sense when the
evaluation has a side effect that makes some change in the state of the computer. An example of this is the
expression statement "x++;", which has the side effect of adding 1 to the value of x. Similarly, the function
call "TextIO.getln()", which reads a line of input, can be used as a stand-alone statement if you want
to read a line of input and discard it. Note that, technically, assignment statements and subroutine call
statements are also considered to be expression statements.
Java statement types:
● declaration statement (for declaring variables)
● assignment statement
● subroutine call statement (including input/output routines)
● other expression statement (such as "x++;")
● empty statement
● block statement
● while statement
● do..while statement
● if statement
● for statement
● switch statement
● break statement (found in loops and switch statements only)
● continue statement (found in loops only)
● return statement (found in subroutine definitions only)
● try..catch statement
● throw statement
● synchronized statement
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 3.7
Section 3.7
Introduction to Applets and Graphics
FOR THE PAST TWO CHAPTERS, you've been learning the sort of programming that is done inside a
single subroutine. In the rest of the text, we'll be more concerned with the larger scale structure of
programs, but the material that you've already learned will be an important foundation for everything to
come.
In this section, before moving on to programming-in-the-large, we'll take a look at how
programming-in-the-small can be used in other contexts besides text-based, command-line-style programs.
We'll do this by taking a short, introductory look at applets and graphical programming.
An applet is a Java program that runs on a Web page. An applet is not a stand-alone application, and it does
not have a main() routine. In fact, an applet is an object rather than a class. When an applet is placed on a
Web page, it is assigned a rectangular area on the page. It is the job of the applet to draw the contents of
that rectangle. When the region needs to be drawn, the Web page calls a subroutine in the applet to do so.
This is not so different from what happens with stand-alone programs. When a program needs to be run, the
system calls the main() routine of the program. Similarly, when an applet needs to be drawn, the Web
page calls the paint() routine of the applet. The programmer specifies what happens when these routines
are called by filling in the bodies of the routines. Programming in the small! Applets can do other things
besides draw themselves, such as responding when the user clicks the mouse on the applet. Each of the
applet's behaviors is defined by a subroutine in the applet object. The programmer specifies how the applet
behaves by filling in the bodies of the appropriate subroutines.
A very simple applet, which does nothing but draw itself, can be defined by a class that contains nothing
but a paint() routine. The source code for the class would have the form:
import java.awt.*;
import java.applet.*;
public class name-of-applet extends Applet {
public void paint(Graphics g) {
statements
}
}
where name-of-applet is an identifier that names the class, and the statements are the code that actually
draws the applet. This looks similar to the definition of a stand-alone program, but there are a few things
here that need to be explained, starting with the first two lines.
When you write a program, there are certain built-in classes that are available for you to use. These built-in
classes include System and Math. If you want to use one of these classes, you don't have to do anything
special. You just go ahead and use it. But Java also has a large number of standard classes that are there if
you want them but that are not automatically available to your program. (There are just too many of them.)
If you want to use these classes in your program, you have to ask for them first. The standard classes are
grouped into so-called "packages." Two of these packages are called "java.awt" and "java.applet". The
directive "import java.awt.*;" makes all the classes from the package java.awt available for use in your
program. The java.awt package contains classes related to graphical user interface programming, including
a class called Graphics. The Graphics class is referred to in the paint() routine above. The
java.applet package contains classes specifically related to applets, including the class named Applet.
The first line of the class definition above says that the class "extends Applet." Applet is the standard
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class from the java.applet package. It defines all the basic properties and behaviors of applet objects. By
extending the Applet class, the new class we are defining inherits all those properties and behaviors. We
only have to define the ways in which our class differs from the basic Applet class. In our case, the only
difference is that our applet will draw itself differently, so we only have to define the paint() routine.
This is one of the main advantages of object-oriented programming.
One more thing needs to be mentioned -- and this is a point where Java's syntax gets unfortunately
confusing. Applets are objects, not classes. Instead of being static members of a class, the subroutines that
define the applet's behavior are part of the applet object. We say that they are "non-static" subroutines. Of
course, objects are related to classes because every object is described by a class. Now here is the part that
can get confusing: Even though a non-static subroutine is not actually part of a class (in the sense of being
part of the behavior of the class), it is nevertheless defined in a class (in the sense that the Java code that
defines the subroutine is part of the Java code that defines the class). Many objects can be described by the
same class. Each object has its own non-static subroutine. But the common definition of those subroutines
-- the actual Java source code -- is physically part of the class that describes all the objects. To put it briefly:
static subroutines in a class definition say what the class does; non-static subroutines say what all the
objects described by the class do. An applet's paint() routine is a an example non-static subroutine. A
stand-alone program's main() routine is an example of a static subroutine. The distinction doesn't really
matter too much at this point: When working with stand-alone programs, mark everything with the reserved
word, "static"; leave it out when working with applets. However, the distinction between static and
non-static will become more important later in the course.
Let's write an applet that draws something. In order to write an applet that draws something, you need to
know what subroutines are available for drawing, just as in writing text-oriented programs you need to
know what subroutines are available for reading and writing text. In Java, the built-in drawing subroutines
are found in objects of the class Graphics, one of the classes in the java.awt package. In an applet's
paint() routine, you can use the Graphics object g for drawing. (This object is provided as a
parameter to the paint() routine when that routine is called.) Graphics objects contain many
subroutines. I'll mention just three of them here. You'll find more listed in Section 6.3.
g.setColor(c), is called to set the color that is used for drawing. The parameter, c is an
object belonging to a class named Color, another one of the classes in the java.awt
package. About a dozen standard colors are available as static member variables in the
Color class. These standard colors include Color.black, Color.white,
Color.red, Color.green, and Color.blue. For example, if you want to draw in
red, you would say "g.setColor(Color.red);". The specified color is used for all
drawing operations up until the next time setColor is called.
g.drawRect(x,y,w,h) draws the outline of a rectangle. The parameters x, y, w, and h
must be integers. This draws the outline of the rectangle whose top-left corner is x pixels
from the left edge of the applet and y pixels down from the top of the applet. The width of
the rectangle is w pixels, and the height is h pixels.
g.fillRect(x,y,w,h) is similar to drawRect except that it fills in the inside of the
rectangle instead of just drawing an outline.
This is enough information to write the applet shown here:
Sorry, your browser doesn't support Java.
But here's the picture that the applet draws:
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Java Programing: Section 3.7
This applet first fills its entire rectangular area with red. Then it changes the drawing color to black and
draws a sequence of rectangles where each rectangle is nested inside the previous one. The rectangles can
be drawn with a while loop. Each time through the loop, the rectangle gets smaller and it moves down and
over a bit. We'll need variables to hold the width and height of the rectangle and a variable to record how
far the top-left corner of the rectangle is inset from the edges of the applet. The while loop ends when the
rectangle shrinks to nothing. In general outline, the algorithm for drawing the applet is
Set the drawing color to red (using the g.setColor subroutine)
Fill in the entire applet (using the g.fillRect subroutine)
Set the drawing color to black
Set the top-left corner inset to be 0
Set the rectangle width and height to be as big as the applet
while the width and height are greater than zero:
draw a rectangle (using the g.drawRect subroutine)
increase the inset
decrease the width and the height
In my applet, each rectangle is 15 pixels away from the rectangle that surrounds it, so the inset is
increased by 15 each time through the while loop. The rectangle shrinks by 15 pixels on the left and by
15 pixels on the right, so the width of the rectangle shrinks by 30 each time through the loop. The height
also shrinks by 30 pixels each time through the loop.
It is not hard to code this algorithm into Java and use it to define the paint() method of an applet. I've
assumed that the applet has a height of 160 pixels and a width of 300 pixels. The size is actually set in the
source code of the Web page where the applet appears. In order for an applet to appear on a page, the
source code for the page must include a command that specifies which applet to run and how big it should
be. (The commands that can be used on a Web page are discussed in Section 6.2.) It's not a great idea to
assume that we know how big the applet is going to be. On the other hand, it's also not a great idea to write
an applet that does nothing but draw a static picture. I'll address both these issues before the end of this
section. But for now, here is the source code for the applet:
import java.awt.*;
import java.applet.Applet;
public class StaticRects extends Applet {
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// Draw a set of nested black rectangles on a red background.
// Each nested rectangle is separated by 15 pixels on
// all sides from the rectangle that encloses it.
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int inset; // Gap between borders of applet
// and one of the rectangles.
int rectWidth, rectHeight; // The size of one of the rectangles.
g.setColor(Color.red);
g.fillRect(0,0,300,160); // Fill the entire applet with red.
g.setColor(Color.black); // Draw the rectangles in black.
inset = 0;
rectWidth = 299; // Set size of first rect to size of applet.
rectHeight = 159;
while (rectWidth >= 0 && rectHeight >= 0) {
g.drawRect(inset, inset, rectWidth, rectHeight);
inset += 15; // Rects are 15 pixels apart.
rectWidth -= 30; // Width decreases by 15 pixels
// on left and 15 on right.
rectHeight -= 30; // Height decreases by 15 pixels
// on top and 15 on bottom.
}
} // end paint()
} // end class StaticRects
(You might wonder why the initial rectWidth is set to 299, instead of to 300, since the width of the
applet is 300 pixels. It's because rectangles are drawn as if with a pen whose nib hangs below and to the
right of the point where the pen is placed. If you run the pen exactly along the right edge of the applet, the
line it draws is actually outside the applet and therefore is not seen. So instead, we run the pen along a line
one pixel to the left of the edge of the applet. The same reasoning applies to rectHeight. Careful
graphics programming demands attention to details like these.)
When you write an applet, you get to build on the work of the people who wrote the Applet class. The
Applet class provides a framework on which you can hang your own work. Any programmer can create
additional frameworks that can be used by other programmers as a basis for writing specific types of applets
or stand-alone programs. One example is the applets in previous sections that simulate text-based programs.
All these applets are based on a class called ConsoleApplet, which itself is based on the standard
Applet class. You can write your own console applet by filling in this simple framework (which leaves
out just a couple of bells and whistles):
public class name-of-applet extends ConsoleApplet {
public void program() {
statements
}
}
The statements in the program() subroutine are executed when the user of the applet clicks the applet's
"Run Program" button. This "program" can't use TextIO or System.out to do input and output.
However, the ConsoleApplet framework provides an object named console for doing text
input/output. This object contains exactly the same set of subroutines as the TextIO class. For example,
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where you would say TextIO.putln("Hello World") in a stand-alone program, you could say
console.putln("Hello World") in a console applet. The console object just displays the output
on the applet instead of on standard output. Similarly, you can substitute x = console.getInt() for x
= TextIO.getInt(), and so on. As a simple example, here's a console applet that gets two numbers
from the user and prints their product:
public class PrintProduct extends ConsoleApplet {
public void program() {
double x,y; // Numbers input by the user.
double prod; // The product, x*y.
console.put("What is your first number? ");
x = console.getlnDouble();
console.put("What is your second number? ");
y = console.getlnDouble();
prod = x * y;
console.putln();
console.put("The product is ");
console.putln(prod);
} // end program()
} // end class PrintProduct
And here's what this applet looks like on a Web page:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
Now, any console-style applet that you write depends on the ConsoleApplet class, which is not a
standard part of Java. This means that the compiled class file, ConsoleApplet.class must be
available to your applet when it is run. As a matter of fact, ConsoleApplet uses two other non-standard
classes, ConsolePanel and ConsoleCanvas, so the compiled class files ConsolePanel.class
and ConsoleCanvas.class must also be available to your applet. This just means that all four class
files -- your own class and the three classes it depends on -- must be in the same directory with the source
code for the Web page on which your applet appears.
I've written another framework that makes it possible to write applets that display simple animations. An
example is given by the applet at the bottom of this page, which is an animated version of the nested
squares applet from earlier in this section.
A computer animation is really just a sequence of still images. The computer displays the images one after
the other. Each image differs a bit from the preceding image in the sequence. If the differences are not too
big and if the sequence is displayed quickly enough, the eye is tricked into perceiving continuous motion.
In the example, rectangles shrink continually towards the center of the applet, while new rectangles appear
at the edge. The perpetual motion is, of course, an illusion. If you think about it, you'll see that the applet
loops through the same set of images over and over. In each image, there is a gap between the borders of
the applet and the outermost rectangle. This gap gets wider and wider until a new rectangle appears at the
border. Only it's not a new rectangle. What has really happened is that the applet has started over again with
the first image in the sequence.
The problem of creating an animation is really just the problem of drawing each of the still images that
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Java Programing: Section 3.7
make up the animation. Each still image is called a frame. In my framework for animation, which is based
on a non-standard class called SimpleAnimationApplet, all you have to do is fill in the code that says
how to draw one frame. The basic format is as follows:
import java.awt.*;
public class name-of-class extends SimpleAnimationApplet {
public void drawFrame(Graphics g) {
statements // to draw one frame of the animation
}
}
The "import java.awt.*;" is required to get access to graphics-related classes such as Graphics
and Color. You get to fill in any name you want for the class, and you get to fill in the statements inside
the subroutine. The drawFrame() subroutine will be called by the system each time a frame needs to be
drawn. All you have to do is say what happens when this subroutine is called. Of course, you have to draw a
different picture for each frame, and to do that you need to know which frame you are drawing. The
SimpleAnimationApplet provides a function named getFrameNumber() that you can call to find
out which frame to draw. This function returns an integer value that represents the frame number. If the
value returned is 0, you are supposed to draw the first frame; if the value is 1, you are supposed to draw the
second frame, and so on.
In the sample applet, the thing that differs from one frame to another is the distance between the edges of
the applet and the outermost rectangle. Since the rectangles are 15 pixels apart, this distance increases from
0 to 14 and then jumps back to 0 when a "new" rectangle appears. The appropriate value can be computed
very simply from the frame number, with the statement "inset = getFrameNumber() % 15;". The
value of the expression getFrameNumber() % 15 is between 0 and 14. When the frame number
reaches 15, the value of getFrameNumber() % 15 jumps back to 0.
Drawing one frame in the sample animated applet is very similar to drawing the single image of the
StaticRects applet, as given above. The paint() method in the StaticRects applet becomes,
with only minor modification, the drawFrame() method of my MovingRects animation applet. I've
chosen to make one improvement: The StaticRects applet assumes that the applet is 300 by 160 pixels.
The MovingRects applet will work for any applet size. To implement this, the drawFrame routine has
to know how big the applet is. My animation framework provides two functions that can be called to get
this information. The function getWidth() returns an integer value representing the width of the applet,
and the function getHeight() returns the height. The width and height, together with the frame number,
are used to compute the size of the first rectangle that is drawn. Here is the complete source code:
import java.awt.*;
public class MovingRects extends SimpleAnimationApplet {
public void drawFrame(Graphics g) {
// Draw one frame in the animation by filling in the background
// with a solid red and then drawing a set of nested black
// rectangles. The frame number tells how much the first
// rectangle is to be inset from the borders of the applet.
int width; // Width of the applet, in pixels.
int height; // Height of the applet, in pixels.
int inset; // Gap between borders of applet and a rectangle.
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Java Programing: Section 3.7
// The inset for the outermost rectangle goes
// from 0 to 14 then back to 0, and so on,
// as the frameNumber varies.
int rectWidth, rectHeight; // The size of one of the rectangles.
width = getWidth(); // Find out the size of the drawing area.
height = getHeight();
g.setColor(Color.red); // Fill the frame with red.
g.fillRect(0,0,width,height);
g.setColor(Color.black); // Switch color to black.
inset = getFrameNumber() % 15; // Get the inset for the
// outermost rect.
rectWidth = width - 2*inset - 1; // Set size of outermost rect.
rectHeight = height - 2*inset - 1;
while (rectWidth >= 0 && rectHeight >= 0) {
g.drawRect(inset,inset,rectWidth,rectHeight);
inset += 15; // Rects are 15 pixels apart.
rectWidth -= 30; // Width decreases by 15 pixels
// on left and 15 on right.
rectHeight -= 30; // Height decreases by 15 pixels
// on top and 15 on bottom.
}
} // end drawFrame()
} // end class MovingRects
The point here is that by building on an existing framework, you can do interesting things using the type of
local, inside-a-subroutine programming that was covered in Chapters 2 and 3. As you learn more about
programming and more about Java, you'll be able to do more on your own -- but no matter how much you
learn, you'll always be dependent on other people's work to some extent.
End of Chapter 3
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 3 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 3
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 3 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 3.1: How many times do you have to roll a pair of dice before they come up snake eyes? You
could do the experiment by rolling the dice by hand. Write a computer program that simulates the
experiment. The program should report the number of rolls that it makes before the dice come up snake
eyes. (Note: "Snake eyes" means that both dice show a value of 1.) Exercise 2.2 explained how to simulate
rolling a pair of dice.
See the solution!
Exercise 3.2: Which integer between 1 and 10000 has the largest number of divisors, and how many
divisors does it have? Write a program to find the answers and print out the results. It is possible that
several integers in this range have the same, maximum number of divisors. Your program only has to print
out one of them. One of the examples from Section 3.4 discussed divisors. The source code for that
example is CountDivisors.java.
You might need some hints about how to find a maximum value. The basic idea is to go through all the
integers, keeping track of the largest number of divisors that you've seen so far. Also, keep track of the
integer that had that number of divisors.
See the solution!
Exercise 3.3: Write a program that will evaluate simple expressions such as 17 + 3 and 3.14159 * 4.7. The
expressions are to be typed in by the user. The input always consist of a number, followed by an operator,
followed by another number. The operators that are allowed are +, -, *, and /. You can read the numbers
with TextIO.getDouble() and the operator with TextIO.getChar(). Your program should read
an expression, print its value, read another expression, print its value, and so on. The program should end
when the user enters 0 as the first number on the line.
See the solution!
Exercise 3.4: Write a program that reads one line of input text and breaks it up into words. The words
should be output one per line. A word is defined to be a sequence of letters. Any characters in the input that
are not letters should be discarded. For example, if the user inputs the line
He said, "That's not a good idea."
then the output of the program should be
He
said
that
s
not
a
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Java Programing: Chapter 3 Exercises
good
idea
(An improved version of the program would list "that's" as a word. An apostrophe can be considered to be
part of a word if there is a letter on each side of the apostrophe. But that's not part of the assignment.)
To test whether a character is a letter, you might use (ch >= 'a' && ch <= 'z') || (ch >=
'A' && ch <= 'Z'). However, this only works in English and similar languages. A better choice is to
call the standard function Character.isLetter(ch), which returns a boolean value of true if ch is
a letter and false if it is not. This works for any Unicode character. For example, it counts an accented e,
é, as a letter.
See the solution!
Exercise 3.5: Write an applet that draws a checkerboard. Assume that the size of the applet is 160 by 160
pixels. Each square in the checkerboard is 20 by 20 pixels. The checkerboard contains 8 rows of squares
and 8 columns. The squares are red and black. Here is a tricky way to determine whether a given square is
red or black: If the row number and the column number are either both even or both odd, then the square is
red. Otherwise, it is black. Note that a square is just a rectangle in which the height is equal to the width, so
you can use the subroutine g.fillRect() to draw the squares. Here is an image of the checkerboard:
(To run an applet, you need a Web page to display it. A very simple page will do. Assume that your applet
class is called Checkerboard, so that when you compile it you get a class file named
Checkerboard.class Make a file that contains only the lines:
<applet code="Checkerboard.class" width=160 height=160>
</applet>
Call this file Checkerboard.html. This is the source code for a simple Web page that shows nothing
but your applet. You can open the file in a Web browser or with Sun's appletviewer program. The compiled
class file, Checkerboard.class, must be in the same directory with the Web-page file,
Checkerboard.html.)
See the solution!
Exercise 3.6: Write an animation applet that shows a checkerboard pattern in which the even numbered
rows slide to the left while the odd numbered rows slide to the right. You can assume that the applet is 160
by 160 pixels. Each row should be offset from its usual position by the amount getFrameNumber() %
40. Hints: Anything you draw outside the boundaries of the applet will be invisible, so you can draw more
than 8 squares in a row. You can use negative values of x in g.fillRect(x,y,w,h). Here is a working
solution to this exercise:
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Java Programing: Chapter 3 Exercises
Your applet will extend the non-standard class, SimpleAnimationApplet, which was introduced in
Section 7. When you run your applet, the compiled class file, SimpleAnimationApplet.class,
must be in the same directory as your Web-page source file and the compiled class file for your own class.
Assuming that the name of your class is SlidingCheckerboard, then the source file for the Web page
should contain the lines:
<applet code="SlidingCheckerboard.class" width=160 height=160>
</applet>
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 3 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 3
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 3 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: Explain briefly what is meant by "pseudocode" and how is it useful in the development of
algorithms.
Question 2: What is a block statement? How are block statements used in Java programs.
Question 3: What is the main difference between a while loop and a do..while loop?
Question 4: What does it mean to prime a loop?
Question 5: Explain what is meant by an animation and how a computer displays an animation.
Question 6: Write a for loop that will print out all the multiples of 3 from 3 to 36, that is: 3 6 9 12 15 18
21 24 27 30 33 36.
Question 7: Fill in the following main() routine so that it will ask the user to enter an integer, read the
user's response, and tell the user whether the number entered is even or odd. (You can use
TextIO.getInt() to read the integer. Recall that an integer n is even if n % 2 == 0.)
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Fill in the body of this subroutine!
}
Question 8: Show the exact output that would be produced by the following main() routine:
public static void main(String[] args) {
int N;
N = 1;
while (N <= 32) {
N = 2 * N;
System.out.println(N);
}
}
Question 9: Show the exact output produced by the following main() routine:
public static void main(String[] args) {
int x,y;
x = 5;
y = 1;
while (x > 0) {
x = x - 1;
y = y * x;
System.out.println(y);
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Java Programing: Chapter 3 Quiz
}
}
Question 10: What output is produced by the following program segment? Why? (Recall that
name.charAt(i) is the i-th character in the string, name.)
String name;
int i;
boolean startWord;
name = "Richard M. Nixon";
startword = true;
for (i = 0; i < name.length(); i++) {
if (startWord)
System.out.println(name.charAt(i));
if (name.charAt(i) == ' ')
startWord = true;
else
startWord = false;
}
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 4 Index
Chapter 4
Programming in the Large I
Subroutines
ONE WAY TO BREAK UP A COMPLEX PROGRAM into manageable pieces is to use subroutines. A
subroutine consists of the instructions for carrying out a certain task, grouped together and given a name.
Elsewhere in the program, that name can be used as a stand-in for the whole set of instructions. As a
computer executes a program, whenever it encounters a subroutine name, it executes all the instructions
necessary to carry out the task associated with that subroutine.
Subroutines can be used over and over, at different places in the program. A subroutine can even be used
inside another subroutine. This allows you to write simple subroutines and then use them to help write more
complex subroutines, which can then be used in turn in other subroutines. In this way, very complex
programs can be built up step-by-step, where each step in the construction is reasonably simple.
As mentioned in Section 3.7, subroutines in Java can be either static or non-static. This chapter covers static
subroutines only. Non-static subroutines, which are used in true object-oriented programming, will be
covered in the next chapter.
Contents of Chapter 4:
● Section 1: Black Boxes
● Section 2: Static Subroutines and Static Variables
● Section 3: Parameters
● Section 4: Return Values
● Section 5: Toolboxes, API's, and Packages
● Section 6: More on Program Design
● Section 7: The Truth about Declarations
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 4.1
Section 4.1
Black Boxes
A SUBROUTINE CONSISTS OF INSTRUCTIONS for performing some task, chunked together and
given a name. "Chunking" allows you to deal with a potentially very complicated task as a single concept.
Instead of worrying about the many, many steps that the computer might have to go though to perform that
task, you just need to remember the name of the subroutine. Whenever you want your program to perform
the task, you just call the subroutine. Subroutines are a major tool for dealing with complexity.
A subroutine is sometimes said to be a "black box" because you can't see what's "inside" it (or, to be more
precise, you usually don't want to see inside it, because then you would have to deal with all the complexity
that the subroutine is meant to hide). Of course, a black box that has no way of interacting with the rest of
the world would be pretty useless. A black box needs some kind of interface with the rest of the world,
which allows some interaction between what's inside the box and what's outside. A physical black box
might have buttons on the outside that you can push, dials that you can set, and slots that can be used for
passing information back and forth. Since we are trying to hide complexity, not create it, we have the first
rule of black boxes:
The interface of a black box should be fairly straightforward, well-defined, and easy to
understand.
Are there any examples of black boxes in the real world? Yes; in fact, you are surrounded by them. Your
television, your car, your VCR, your refrigerator... You can turn your television on and off, change
channels, and set the volume by using elements of the television's interface -- dials, remote control, don't
forget to plug in the power -- without understand anything about how the thing actually works. The same
goes for a VCR, although if stories about how hard people find it to set the time on a VCR are true, maybe
the VCR violates the simple interface rule.
Now, a black box does have an inside -- the code in a subroutine that actually performs the task, all the
electronics inside your television set. The inside of a black box is called its implementation. The second
rule of black boxes is that
To use a black box, you shouldn't need to know anything about its implementation; all
you need to know is its interface.
In fact, it should be possible to change the implementation, as long as the behavior of the box, as seen from
the outside, remains unchanged. For example, when the insides of TV sets went from using vacuum tubes to
using transistors, the users of the sets didn't even need to know about it -- or even know what it means.
Similarly, it should be possible to rewrite the inside of a subroutine, to use more efficient code, for example,
without affecting the programs that use that subroutine.
Of course, to have a black box, someone must have designed and built the implementation in the first place.
The black box idea works to the advantage of the implementor as well as of the user of the black box. After
all, the black box might be used in an unlimited number of different situations. The implementor of the
black box doesn't need to know about any of that. The implementor just needs to make sure that the box
performs its assigned task and interfaces correctly with the rest of the world. This is the third rule of black
boxes:
The implementor of a black box should not need to know anything about the larger
systems in which the box will be used.
In a way, a black box divides the world into two parts: the inside (implementation) and the outside. The
interface is at the boundary, connecting those two parts.
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Java Programing: Section 4.1
By the way, you should not think of an interface as just the physical connection between the box and the
rest of the world. The interface also includes a specification of what the box does and how it can be
controlled by using the elements of the physical interface. It's not enough to say that a TV set has a power
switch; you need to specify that the power switch is used to turn the TV on and off!
To put this in computer science terms, the interface of a subroutine has a semantic as well as a syntactic
component. The syntactic part of the interface tells you just what you have to type in order to call the
subroutine. The semantic component specifies exactly what task the subroutine will accomplish. To write a
legal program, you need to know the syntactic specification of the subroutine. To understand the purpose of
the subroutine and to use it effectively, you need to know the subroutine's semantic specification. I will
refer to both parts of the interface -- syntactic and semantic -- collectively as the contract of the subroutine.
The contract of a subroutine says, essentially, "Here is what you have to do to use me, and here is what I
will do for you, guaranteed." When you write a subroutine, the comments that you write for the subroutine
should make the contract very clear. (I should admit that in practice, subroutines' contracts are often
inadequately specified, much to the regret and annoyance of the programmers who have to use them.)
For the rest of this chapter, I turn from general ideas about black boxes and subroutines in general to the
specifics of writing and using subroutines in Java. But keep the general ideas and principles in mind. They
are the reasons that subroutines exist in the first place, and they are your guidelines for using them. This
should be especially clear in Section 6, where I will discuss subroutines as a tool in program development.
You should keep in mind that subroutines are not the only example of black boxes in programming. For
example, a class is also a black box. We'll see that a class can have a "public" part, representing its
interface, and a "private" part that is entirely inside its hidden implementation. All the principles of black
boxes apply to classes as well as to subroutines.
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
Section 4.2
Static Subroutines and Static Variables
EVERY SUBROUTINE IN JAVA MUST BE DEFINED inside some class. This makes Java rather
unusual among programming languages, since most languages allow free-floating, independent subroutines.
One purpose of a class is to group together related subroutines and variables. Perhaps the designers of Java
felt that everything must be related to something. As a less philosophical motivation, Java's designers wanted
to place firm controls on the ways things are named, since a Java program potentially has access to a huge
number of subroutines scattered all over the Internet. The fact that those subroutines are grouped into named
classes (and classes are grouped into named "packages") helps control the confusion that might result from
so many different names.
A subroutine that is a member of a class is often called a method, and "method" is the term that most people
prefer for subroutines in Java. I will start using the term "method" occasionally; however, I will continue to
prefer the term "subroutine" for static subroutines. I will use the term "method" most often to refer to
non-static subroutines, which belong to objects rather than to classes. This chapter will deal with static
subroutines almost exclusively. We'll turn to non-static methods and object-oriented programming in the
next chapter.
A subroutine definition in Java takes the form:
modifiers return-type subroutine-name ( parameter-list ) {
statements
}
It will take us a while -- most of the chapter -- to get through what all this means in detail. Of course, you've
already seen examples of subroutines in previous chapters, such as the main() routine of a program and the
paint() routine of an applet. So you are familiar with the general format.
The statements between the braces, { and }, make up the body of the subroutine. These statements are the
inside, or implementation part, of the "black box", as discussed in the previous section. They are the
instructions that the computer executes when the method is called. Subroutines can contain any of the
statements discussed in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
The modifiers that can occur at the beginning of a subroutine definition are words that set certain
characteristics of the method, such as whether it is static or not. The modifiers that you've seen so far are
"static" and "public". There are only about a half-dozen possible modifiers altogether.
If the subroutine is a function, whose job is to compute some value, then the return-type is used to specify
the type of value that is returned by the function. We'll be looking at functions and return types in some
detail in Section 4. If the subroutine is not a function, then the return-type is replaced by the special value
void, which indicates that no value is returned. The term "void" is meant to indicate that the return value is
empty or non-existent.
Finally, we come to the parameter-list of the method. Parameters are part of the interface of a subroutine.
They represent information that is passed into the subroutine from outside, to be used by the subroutine's
internal computations. For a concrete example, imagine a class named Television that includes a method
named changeChannel(). The immediate question is: What channel should it change to? A parameter
can be used to answer this question. Since the channel number is an integer, the type of the parameter would
be int, and the declaration of the changeChannel() method might look like
public void changeChannel(int channelNum) {...}
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
This declaration specifies that changeChannel() has a parameter named channelNum of type int.
However, channelNum does not yet have any particular value. A value for channelNum is provided
when the subroutine is called; for example: changeChannel(17);
The parameter list in a subroutine can be empty, or it can consist of one or more parameter declarations of
the form type parameter-name. If there are several declarations, they are separated by commas. Note that
each declaration can name only one parameter. For example, if you want two parameters of type double,
you have to say "double x, double y", rather than "double x, y".
Parameters are covered in more detail in the next section.
Here are a few examples of subroutine definitions, leaving out the statements that define what the
subroutines do:
public static void playGame() {
// "public" and "static" are modifiers; "void" is the
// return-type; "playGame" is the subroutine-name;
// the parameter-list is empty
. . . // statements that define what playGame does go here
}
int getNextN(int N) {
// there are no modifiers; "int" in the return-type
// "getNextN" is the subroutine-name; the parameter-list
// includes one parameter whose name is "N" and whose
// type is "int"
. . . // statements that define what getNextN does go here
}
static boolean lessThan(double x, double y) {
// "static" is a modifier; "boolean" is the
// return-type; "lessThan" is the subroutine-name; the
// parameter-list includes two parameters whose names are
// "x" and "y", and the type of each of these parameters
// is "double"
. . . // statements that define what lessThan does go here
}
In the second example given here, getNextN, is a non-static method, since its definition does not include
the modifier "static" -- and so it's not an example that we should be looking at in this chapter! The other
modifier shown in the examples is "public". This modifier indicates that the method can be called from
anywhere in a program, even from outside the class where the method is defined. There is another modifier,
"private", which indicates that the method can be called only from inside the same class. The modifiers
public and private are called access specifiers. If no access specifier is given for a method, then by
default, that method can be called from anywhere in the "package" that contains the class, but not from
outside that package. (Packages were mentioned in Section 3.7, and you'll learn more about packages in this
chapter, in Section 5.) There is one other access modifier, protected, which will only become relevant
when we turn to object-oriented programming in Chapter 5.
Note, by the way, that the main() routine of a program follows the usual syntax rules for a subroutine. In
public static void main(String[] args) { .... }
the modifiers are public and static, the return type is void, the subroutine name is main, and the
parameter list is "String[] args". The only question might be about "String[]", which has to be a
type if it is to match the format of a parameter list. In fact, String[] represents a so-called "array type", so
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
the syntax is valid. We will cover arrays in Chapter 8. (The parameter, args, represents information
provided to the program when the main() routine is called by the system. In case you know the term, the
information consists of any "command-line arguments" specified in the command that the user typed to run
the program.)
You've already had some experience with filling in the statements of a subroutine. In this chapter, you'll
learn all about writing your own complete subroutine definitions, including the interface part.
When you define a subroutine, all you are doing is telling the computer that the subroutine exists and what it
does. The subroutine doesn't actually get executed until it is called. (This is true even for the main()
routine in a class -- even though you don't call it, it is called by the system when the system runs your
program.) For example, the playGame() method defined above could be called using the following
subroutine call statement:
playGame();
This statement could occur anywhere in the same class that includes the definition of playGame(),
whether in a main() method or in some other subroutine. Since playGame() is a public method, it can
also be called from other classes, but in that case, you have to tell the computer which class it comes from.
Let's say, for example, that playGame() is defined in a class named Poker. Then to call playGame()
from outside the Poker class, you would have to say
Poker.playGame();
The use of the class name here tells the computer which class to look in to find the method. It also lets you
distinguish between Poker.playGame() and other potential playGame() methods defined in other
classes, such as Roulette.playGame() or Blackjack.playGame().
More generally, a subroutine call statement takes the form
subroutine-name(parameters);
if the subroutine that is being called is in the same class, or
class-name.subroutine-name(parameters);
if the subroutine is a static subroutine defined elsewhere, in a different class. (Non-static methods belong to
objects rather than classes, and they are called using object names instead of class names. More on that later.)
Note that the parameter list can be empty, as in the playGame() example, but the parentheses must be
there even if there is nothing between them.
It's time to give an example of what a complete program looks like, when it includes other subroutines in
addition to the main() routine. Let's write a program that plays a guessing game with the user. The
computer will choose a random number between 1 and 100, and the user will try to guess it. The computer
tells the user whether the guess is high or low or correct. If the user gets the number after six guesses or
fewer, the user wins the game. After each game, the user has the option of continuing with another game.
Since playing one game can be thought of as a single, coherent task, it makes sense to write a subroutine that
will play one guessing game with the user. The main() routine will use a loop to call the playGame()
subroutine over and over, as many times as the user wants to play. We approach the problem of designing the
playGame() subroutine the same way we write a main() routine: Start with an outline of the algorithm
and apply stepwise refinement. Here is a short pseudocode algorithm for a guessing game program:
Pick a random number
while the game is not over:
Get the user's guess
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
Tell the user whether the guess is high, low, or correct.
The test for whether the game is over is complicated, since the game ends if either the user makes a correct
guess or the number of guesses is six. As in many cases, the easiest thing to do is to use a "while
(true)" loop and use break to end the loop whenever we find a reason to do so. Also, if we are going to
end the game after six guesses, we'll have to keep track of the number of guesses that the user has made.
Filling out the algorithm gives:
Let computersNumber be a random number between 1 and 100
Let guessCount = 0
while (true):
Get the user's guess
Count the guess by adding 1 to guess count
if the user's guess equals computersNumber:
Tell the user he won
break out of the loop
if the number of guesses is 6:
Tell the user he lost
break out of the loop
if the user's guess is less than computersNumber:
Tell the user the guess was low
else if the user's guess is higher than computersNumber:
Tell the user the guess was high
With variable declarations added and translated into Java, this becomes the definition of the playGame()
routine. A random integer between 1 and 100 can be computed as (int)(100 * Math.random()) +
1. I've cleaned up the interaction with the user to make it flow better.
static void playGame() {
int computersNumber; // A random number picked by the computer.
int usersGuess; // A number entered by user as a guess.
int guessCount; // Number of guesses the user has made.
computersNumber = (int)(100 * Math.random()) + 1;
// The value assigned to computersNumber is a randomly
// chosen integer between 1 and 100, inclusive.
guessCount = 0;
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.put("What is your first guess? ");
while (true) {
usersGuess = TextIO.getInt(); // get the user's guess
guessCount++;
if (usersGuess == computersNumber) {
TextIO.putln("You got it in " + guessCount
+ " guesses! My number was " + computersNumber);
break; // the game is over; the user has won
}
if (guessCount == 6) {
TextIO.putln("You didn't get the number in 6 guesses.");
TextIO.putln("You lose. My number was " + computersNumber);
break; // the game is over; the user has lost
}
// If we get to this point, the game continues.
// Tell the user if the guess was too high or too low.
if (usersGuess < computersNumber)
TextIO.put("That's too low. Try again: ");
else if (usersGuess > computersNumber)
TextIO.put("That's too high. Try again: ");
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
}
TextIO.putln();
} // end of playGame()
Now, where exactly should you put this? It should be part of the same class as the main() routine, but not
inside the main routine. It is not legal to have one subroutine physically nested inside another. The main()
routine will call playGame(), but not contain it physically. You can put the definition of playGame()
either before or after the main() routine. Java is not very picky about having the members of a class in any
particular order.
It's pretty easy to write the main routine. You've done things like this before. Here's what the complete
program looks like (except that a serious program needs more comments than I've included here).
public class GuessingGame {
public static void main(String[] args) {
TextIO.putln("Let's play a game. I'll pick a number between");
TextIO.putln("1 and 100, and you try to guess it.");
boolean playAgain;
do {
playGame(); // call subroutine to play one game
TextIO.put("Would you like to play again? ");
playAgain = TextIO.getlnBoolean();
} while (playAgain);
TextIO.putln("Thanks for playing. Goodbye.");
} // end of main()
static void playGame() {
int computersNumber; // A random number picked by the computer.
int usersGuess; // A number entered by user as a guess.
int guessCount; // Number of guesses the user has made.
computersNumber = (int)(100 * Math.random()) + 1;
// The value assigned to computersNumber is a randomly
// chosen integer between 1 and 100, inclusive.
guessCount = 0;
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.put("What is your first guess? ");
while (true) {
usersGuess = TextIO.getInt(); // get the user's guess
guessCount++;
if (usersGuess == computersNumber) {
TextIO.putln("You got it in " + guessCount
+ " guesses! My number was " + computersNumber);
break; // the game is over; the user has won
}
if (guessCount == 6) {
TextIO.putln("You didn't get the number in 6 guesses.");
TextIO.putln("You lose. My number was " + computersNumber);
break; // the game is over; the user has lost
}
// If we get to this point, the game continues.
// Tell the user if the guess was too high or too low.
if (usersGuess < computersNumber)
TextIO.put("That's too low. Try again: ");
else if (usersGuess > computersNumber)
TextIO.put("That's too high. Try again: ");
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
}
TextIO.putln();
} // end of playGame()
} // end of class GuessingGame
Take some time to read the program carefully and figure out how it works. And try to convince yourself that
even in this relatively simple case, breaking up the program into two methods makes the program easier to
understand and probably made it easier to write each piece.
You can try out a simulation of this program here:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
A class can include other things besides subroutines. In particular, it can also include variable declarations.
Of course, you can have variable declarations inside subroutines. Those are called local variables. However,
you can also have variables that are not part of any subroutine. To distinguish such variables from local
variables, we call them member variables, since they are members of a class.
Just as with subroutines, member variables can be either static or non-static. In this chapter, we'll stick to
static variables. A static member variable belongs to the class itself, and it exists as long as the class exists.
Memory is allocated for the variable when the class is first loaded by the Java interpreter. Any assignment
statement that assigns a value to the variable changes the content of that memory, no matter where that
assignment statement is located in the program. Any time the variable is used in an expression, the value is
fetched from that same memory, no matter where the expression is located in the program. This means that
the value of a static member variable can be set in one subroutine and used in another subroutine. Static
member variables are "shared" by all the static subroutines in the class. A local variable in a subroutine, on
the other hand, exists only while that subroutine is being executed, and is completely inaccessible from
outside that one subroutine.
The declaration of a member variable looks just like the declaration of a local variable except for two things:
The member variable is declared outside any subroutine (although it still has to be inside a class), and the
declaration can be marked with modifiers such as static, public, and private. Since we are only
working with static member variables for now, every declaration of a member variable in this chapter will
include the modifier static. For example:
static int numberOfPlayers;
static String usersName;
static double velocity, time;
A static member variable that is not declared to be private can be accessed from outside the class where it
is defined, as well as inside. When it is used in some other class, it must be referred to with a compound
identifier of the form class-name.variable-name. For example, the System class contains the public static
member variable named out, and you use this variable in your own classes by referring to System.out. If
numberOfPlayers is a public static member variable in a class named Poker, subroutines in the Poker
class would refer to it simply as numberOfPlayers. Subroutines in another class would refer to it as
Poker.numberOfPlayers.
As an example, let's add a static member variable to the GuessingGame class that we wrote earlier in this
section. This variable will be used to keep track of how many games the user wins. We'll call the variable
gamesWon and declare it with the statement "static int gamesWon;" In the playGame() routine,
we add 1 to gamesWon if the user wins the game. At the end of the main() routine, we print out the value
of gamesWon. It would be impossible to do the same thing with a local variable, since we need access to the
same variable from both subroutines.
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
When you declare a local variable in a subroutine, you have to assign a value to that variable before you can
do anything with it. Member variables, on the other hand are automatically initialized with a default value.
For numeric variables, the default value is zero. For boolean variables, the default is false. And for
char variables, it's the unprintable character that has Unicode code number zero. (For objects, such as
Strings, the default initial value is a special value called null, which we won't encounter officially until
later.)
Since it is of type int, the static member variable gamesWon automatically gets assigned an initial value of
zero. This happens to be the correct initial value for a variable that is being used as a counter. You can, of
course, assign a different value to the variable at the beginning of the main() routine if you are not satisfied
with the default initial value.
Here's a revised version of GuessingGame.java that includes the gamesWon variable. The changes
from the above version are shown in red:
public class GuessingGame2 {
static int gamesWon; // The number of games won by
// the user.
public static void main(String[] args) {
gamesWon = 0; // This is actually redundant, since 0 is
// the default initial value.
TextIO.putln("Let's play a game. I'll pick a number between");
TextIO.putln("1 and 100, and you try to guess it.");
boolean playAgain;
do {
playGame(); // call subroutine to play one game
TextIO.put("Would you like to play again? ");
playAgain = TextIO.getlnBoolean();
} while (playAgain);
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("You won " + gamesWon + " games.");
TextIO.putln("Thanks for playing. Goodbye.");
} // end of main()
static void playGame() {
int computersNumber; // A random number picked by the computer.
int usersGuess; // A number entered by user as a guess.
int guessCount; // Number of guesses the user has made.
computersNumber = (int)(100 * Math.random()) + 1;
// The value assigned to computersNumber is a randomly
// chosen integer between 1 and 100, inclusive.
guessCount = 0;
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.put("What is your first guess? ");
while (true) {
usersGuess = TextIO.getInt(); // get the user's guess
guessCount++;
if (usersGuess == computersNumber) {
TextIO.putln("You got it in " + guessCount
+ " guesses! My number was " + computersNumber);
gamesWon++; // Count this game by incrementing gamesWon.
break; // the game is over; the user has won
}
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Java Programing: Section 4.2
if (guessCount == 6) {
TextIO.putln("You didn't get the number in 6 guesses.");
TextIO.putln("You lose. My number was " + computersNumber);
break; // the game is over; the user has lost
}
// If we get to this point, the game continues.
// Tell the user if the guess was too high or too low.
if (usersGuess < computersNumber)
TextIO.put("That's too low. Try again: ");
else if (usersGuess > computersNumber)
TextIO.put("That's too high. Try again: ");
}
TextIO.putln();
} // end of playGame()
} // end of class GuessingGame2
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 4.3
Section 4.3
Parameters
IF A SUBROUTINE IS A BLACK BOX, then a parameter provides a mechanism for passing information
from the outside world into the box. Parameters are part of the interface of a subroutine. They allow you to
customize the behavior of a subroutine to adapt it to a particular situation.
As an analogy, consider a thermostat -- a black box whose task it is to keep your house at a certain
temperature. The thermostat has a parameter, namely the dial that is used to set the desired temperature. The
thermostat always performs the same task: maintaining a constant temperature. However, the exact task that
it performs -- that is, which temperature it maintains -- is customized by the setting on its dial.
As an example, let's go back to the "3N+1" problem that was discussed in Section 3.2. (Recall that a 3N+1
sequence is computed according to the rule, "if N is odd, multiply by 3 and add 1; if N is even, divide by 2;
continue until N is equal to 1." For example, starting from N=3 we get the sequence: 3, 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.)
Suppose that we want to write a subroutine to print out such sequences. The subroutine will always perform
the same task: Print out a 3N+1 sequence. But the exact sequence it prints out depends on the starting value
of N. So, the starting value of N would be a parameter to the subroutine. The subroutine could be written
like this:
static void Print3NSequence(int startingValue) {
// Prints a 3N+1 sequence to standard output, using
// startingValue as the initial value of N. It also
// prints the number of terms in the sequence.
// The value of the parameter, startingValue, must
// be a positive integer.
int N; // One of the terms in the sequence.
int count; // The number of terms.
N = startingValue; // The first term is whatever value
// is passed to the subroutine as
// a parameter.
int count = 1; // We have one term, the starting value, so far.
TextIO.putln("The 3N+1 sequence starting from " + N);
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln(N); // print initial term of sequence
while (N > 1) {
if (N % 2 == 1) // is N odd?
N = 3 * N + 1;
else
N = N / 2;
count++; // count this term
TextIO.putln(N); // print this term
}
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("There were " + count + " terms in the sequence.");
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Java Programing: Section 4.3
} // end of Print3NSequence()
The parameter list of this subroutine, "(int startingValue)", specifies that the subroutine has one
parameter, of type int. When the subroutine is called, a value must be provided for this parameter. This
value is assigned to the parameter, startingValue, before the body of the subroutine is executed. For
example, the subroutine could be called using the subroutine call statement
"Print3NSequence(17);". When the computer executes this statement, the computer assigns the
value 17 to startingValue and then executes the statements in the subroutine. This prints the 3N+1
sequence starting from 17. If K is a variable of type int, then when the computer executes the subroutine
call statement "Print3NSequence(K);", it will take the value of the variable K, assign that value to
startingValue, and execute the body of the subroutine.
The class that contains Print3NSequence can contain a main() routine (or other subroutines) that call
Print3NSequence. For example, here is a main() program that prints out 3N+1 sequences for various
starting values specified by the user:
public static void main(String[] args) {
TextIO.putln("This program will print out 3N+1 sequences");
TextIO.putln("for starting values that you specify.");
TextIO.putln();
int K; // Input from user; loop ends when K < 0.
do {
TextIO.putln("Enter a starting value;")
TextIO.put("To end the program, enter 0: ");
K = TextIO.getInt(); // get starting value from user
if (K > 0) // print sequence, but only if K is > 0
Print3NSequence(K);
} while (K > 0); // continue only if K > 0
} // end main()
Note that the term "parameter" is used to refer to two different, but related, concepts. There are parameters
that are used in the definitions of subroutines, such as startingValue in the above example. And there
are parameters that are used in subroutine call statements, such as the K in the statement
"Print3NSequence(K);". Parameters in a subroutine definition are called formal parameters or
dummy parameters. The parameters that are passed to a subroutine when it is called are called actual
parameters. When a subroutine is called, the actual parameters in the subroutine call statement are evaluated
and the values are assigned to the formal parameters in the subroutine's definition. Then the body of the
subroutine is executed.
A formal parameter must be an identifier, that is, a name. A formal parameter is very much like a variable,
and -- like a variable -- it has a specified type such as int, boolean, or String. An actual parameter is
a value, and so it can be specified by any expression, provided that the expression computes a value of the
correct type. (The type of the actual parameter must be one that could legally be assigned to the formal
parameter with an assignment statement. For example, if the formal parameter is of type double, then it
would be legal to pass an int as the actual parameter since ints can legally be assigned to doubles.)
When you call a subroutine, you must provide one actual parameter for each formal parameter in the
subroutine's definition. Consider, for example, a subroutine
static void doTask(int N, double x, boolean test) {
// statements to perform the task go here
}
This subroutine might be called with the statement
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Java Programing: Section 4.3
doTask(17, Math.sqrt(z+1), z >= 10);
When the computer executes this statement, it has essentially the same effect as the block of statements:
{
int N; // Allocate memory locations for the formal parameters.
double x;
boolean test;
N = 17; // Assign 17 to the first formal parameter, N.
x = Math.sqrt(z+1); // Compute Math.sqrt(z+1), and assign it to
// the second formal parameter, x.
test = (z >= 10); // Evaluate "z >= 10" and assign the resulting
// true/false value to the third formal
// parameter, test.
// statements to perform the task go here
}
(There are a few technical differences between this and "doTask(17,Math.sqrt(z+1),z>=10);" --
besides the amount of typing -- because of questions about scope of variables and what happens when
several variables or parameters have the same name.)
Beginning programming students often find parameters to be surprisingly confusing. Calling a subroutine
that already exists is not a problem -- the idea of providing information to the subroutine in a parameter is
clear enough. Writing the subroutine definition is another matter. A common mistake is to assign values to
the formal parameters in the subroutine, or to ask the user to input their values. This represents a
fundamental misunderstanding. When the statements in the subroutine are executed, the formal parameters
will already have values. The values come from the subroutine call statement. Remember that a subroutine
is not independent. It is called by some other routine, and it is the calling routine's responsibility to provide
appropriate values for the parameters.
In order to call a subroutine legally, you need to know its name, you need to know how many formal
parameters it has, and you need to know the type of each parameter. This information is called the
subroutine's signature. We could write the signature of the subroutine doTask as:
doTask(int,double,boolean). Note that the signature does not include the names of the parameters; in fact, if
you just want to use the subroutine, you don't even need to know what the formal parameter names are, so
the names are not part of the interface.
Java is somewhat unusual in that it allows two different subroutines in the same class to have the same
name, provided that their signatures are different. (The language C++ on which Java is based also has this
feature.) We say that the name of the subroutine is overloaded because it has several different meanings.
The computer doesn't get the subroutines mixed up. It can tell which one you want to call by the number
and types of the actual parameters that you provide in the subroutine call statement. You have already seen
overloading used in the TextIO class. This class includes many different methods named putln, for
example. These methods all have different signatures, such as:
putln(int) putln(int,int) putln(double)
putln(String) putln(String,int) putln(char)
putln(boolean) putln(boolean,int) putln()
Of course all these different subroutines are semantically related, which is why it is acceptable
programming style to use the same name for them all. But as far as the computer is concerned, printing out
an int is very different from printing out a String, which is different from printing out a boolean, and
so forth -- so that each of these operations requires a different method.
Note, by the way, that the signature does not include the subroutine's return type. It is illegal to have two
subroutines in the same class that have the same signature but that have different return types. For example,
it would be a syntax error for a class to contain two methods defined as:
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Java Programing: Section 4.3
int getln() { ... }
double getln() { ... }
So it should be no surprise that in the TextIO class, the methods for reading different types are not all
named getln(). In a given class, there can only be one routine that has the name getln and has no
parameters. The input routines in TextIO are distinguished by having different names, such as
getlnInt() and getlnDouble().
Let's do a few examples of writing small subroutines to perform assigned tasks. Of course, this is only one
side of programming with subroutines. The task performed by a subroutine is always a subtask in a larger
program. The art of designing those programs -- of deciding how to break them up into subtasks -- is the
other side of programming with subroutines. We'll return to the question of program design in Section 6.
As a first example, let's write a subroutine to compute and print out all the divisors of a given positive
integer. The integer will be a parameter to the subroutine.
Remember that the format of any subroutine is
modifiers return-type subroutine-name ( parameter-list ) {
statements
}
Writing a subroutine always means filling out this format. The assignment tells us that there is one
parameter, of type int, and it tells us what the statements in the body of the subroutine should do. Since
we are only working with static subroutines for now, we'll need to use static as a modifier. We could
add an access modifier (public or private), but in the absence of any instructions, I'll leave it out.
Since we are not told to return a value, the return type is void. Since no names are specified, we'll have to
make up names for the formal parameter and for the subroutine itself. I'll use N for the parameter and
printDivisors for the subroutine name. The subroutine will look like
static void printDivisors( int N ) {
statements
}
and all we have left to do is to write the statements that make up the body of the routine. This is not
difficult. Just remember that you have to write the body assuming that N already has a value! The algorithm
is: "For each possible divisor D in the range from 1 to N, if D evenly divides N, then print D." Written in
Java, this becomes:
static void printDivisors( int N ) {
// Print all the divisors of N.
// We assume that N is a positive integer.
int D; // One of the possible divisors of N.
System.out.println("The divisors of " + N + " are:");
for ( D = 1; D <= N; D++ ) {
if ( N % D == 0 )
System.out.println(D);
}
}
I've added comments indicating the contract of the subroutine -- that is, what it does and what assumptions
it makes. The contract includes the assumption that N is a positive integer. It is up to the caller of the
subroutine to make sure that this assumption is satisfied.
As a second short example, consider the assignment: Write a subroutine named printRow. It should have
a parameter ch of type char and a parameter N of type int. The subroutine should print out a line of text
containing N copies of the character ch.
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Java Programing: Section 4.3
Here, we are told the name of the subroutine and the names of the two parameters, so we don't have much
choice about the first line of the subroutine definition. The task in this case is pretty simple, so the body of
the subroutine is easy to write. The complete subroutine is given by
static void printRow( char ch, int N ) {
// Write one line of output containing N copies of the
// character ch. If N <= 0, an empty line is output.
int i; // Loop-control variable for counting off the copies.
for ( i = 1; i <= N; i++ ) {
System.out.print( ch );
}
System.out.println();
}
Note that in this case, the contract makes no assumption about N, but it makes it clear what will happen in
all cases, including the unexpected case that N < 0.
Finally, let's do an example that shows how one subroutine can build on another. Let's write a subroutine
that takes a String as a parameter. For each character in the string, it will print a line of output containing
25 copies of that character. It should use the printRow() subroutine to produce the output.
Again, we get to choose a name for the subroutine and a name for the parameter. I'll call the subroutine
printRowsFromString and the parameter str. The algorithm is pretty clear: For each position i in
the string str, call printRow(str.charAt(i),25) to print one line of the output. So, we get:
static void printRowsFromString( String str ) {
// For each character in str, write a line of output
// containing 25 copies of that character.
int i; // Loop-control variable for counting off the chars.
for ( i = 0; i < str.length(); i++ ) {
printRow( str.charAt(i), 25 );
}
}
We could use printRowsFromString in a main() routine such as
public static void main(String[] args) {
String inputLine; // Line of text input by user.
TextIO.put("Enter a line of text: ");
inputLine = TextIO.getln();
TextIO.putln();
printRowsFromString( inputLine );
}
Of course, the three routines, main(), printRowsFromString(), and printRow(), would have to
be collected together inside the same class.The program is rather useless, but it does demonstrate the use of
subroutines. You'll find the program in the file RowsOfChars.java, if you want to take a look. Here's an
applet that simulates the program:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
I'll finish this section on parameters by noting that we now have three different sorts of variables that can be
used inside a subroutine: local variables defined in the subroutine, formal parameter names, and static
member variables that are defined outside the subroutine but inside the same class as the subroutine.
Local variables have no connection to the outside world; they are purely part of the internal working of the
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Java Programing: Section 4.3
subroutine. Parameters are used to "drop" values into the subroutine when it is called, but once the
subroutine starts executing, parameters act much like local variables. Changes made inside a subroutine to a
formal parameter have no effect on the rest of the program (at least if the type of the parameter is one of the
primitive types -- things are more complicated in the case of objects, as we'll see later).
Things are different when a subroutine uses a variable that is defined outside the subroutine. That variable
exists independently of the subroutine, and it is accessible to other parts of the program, as well as to the
subroutine. Such a variable is said to be global to the subroutine, as opposed to the "local" variables defined
inside the subroutine. The scope of a global variable includes the entire class in which it is defined. Changes
made to a global variable can have effects that extend outside the subroutine where the changes are made.
You've seen how this works in the last example in the previous section, where the value of the global
variable, gamesWon, is computed inside a subroutine and is used in the main() routine.
It's not always bad to use global variables in subroutines, but you should realize that the global variable then
has to be considered part of the subroutine's interface. The subroutine uses the global variable to
communicate with the rest of the program. This is a kind of sneaky, back-door communication that is less
visible than communication done through parameters, and it risks violating the rule that the interface of a
black box should be straightforward and easy to understand. So before you use a global variable in a
subroutine, you should consider whether it's really necessary.
I don't advise you to take an absolute stand against using global variables inside subroutines. There is at
least one good reason to do it: If you think of the class as a whole as being a kind of black box, it can be
very reasonable to let the subroutines inside that box be a little sneaky about communicating with each
other, if that will make the class as a whole look simpler from the outside.
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Java Programing: Section 4.4
Section 4.4
Return Values
A SUBROUTINE THAT RETURNS A VALUE is called a function. A given function can only return a
value of a specified type, called the return type of the function. A function call generally occurs in a
position where the computer is expecting to find a value, such as the right side of an assignment statement,
as an actual parameter in a subroutine call, or in the middle of some larger expression. A boolean-valued
function can even be used as the test condition in an if, while, or do..while statement.
(It is also legal to use a function call as a stand-alone statement, just as if it were a regular subroutine. In
this case, the computer ignores the value computed by the subroutine. Sometimes this makes sense. For
example, the function TextIO.getln(), with a return type of String, reads and returns a line of input
typed in by the user. Usually, the line that is returned is assigned to a variable to be used later in the
program, as in the statement "name = TextIO.getln();". However, this function is also useful as a
subroutine call statement "TextIO.getln();", which still reads all input up to and including the next
carriage return. Since this input is not assigned to a variable or used in an expression, it is simply discarded.
Sometimes, discarding unwanted input is exactly what you need to do.)
You've already seen how functions such as Math.sqrt() and TextIO.getInt() can be used. What
you haven't seen is how to write functions of your own. A function takes the same form as a regular
subroutine, except that you have to specify the value that is to be returned by the subroutine. This is done
with a return statement, which takes the form:
return expression;
Such a return statement can only occur inside the definition of a function, and the type of the expression
must match the return type that was specified for the function. (More exactly, it must be legal to assign the
expression to a variable whose type is specified by the return type.) When the computer executes this
return statement, it evaluates the expression, terminates execution of the function, and uses the value of
the expression as the returned value of the function.
For example, consider the function definition
static double pythagorus(double x, double y) {
// Computes the length of the hypotenuse of a right
// triangle, where the sides of the triangle are x and y.
return Math.sqrt(x*x + y*y);
}
Suppose the computer executes the statement "totalLength = 17 + pythagorus(12,5);".
When it gets to the term pythagorus(12,5), it assigns the actual parameters 12 and 5 to the formal
parameters x and y in the function. In the body of the function, it evaluates Math.sqrt(12.0*12.0 +
5.0*5.0), which works out to 13.0. This value is returned, so it replaces the function call in the
statement "totalLength = 17 + pythagorus(12,5);". The return value is added to 17, and the
result, 30.0, is stored in the variable, totalLength. The effect is the same as if the statement had been
"totalLength = 17 + 13.0;".
(Inside an ordinary subroutine -- with declared return type "void" -- you can use a return statement with
no expression to immediately terminate execution of the subroutine and return control back to the point in
the program from which the subroutine was called. This can be convenient if you want to terminate
execution somewhere in the middle of the subroutine, but return statements are fairly rare in
non-function subroutines. In a function, on the other hand, a return statement, with expression, is always
required.)
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Java Programing: Section 4.4
Here is a very simple function that could be used in a program to compute 3N+1 sequences. (The 3N+1
sequence problem is one we've looked at several times already.) Given one term in a 3N+1 sequence, this
function computes the next term of the sequence:
static int nextN(int currentN) {
if (currentN % 2 == 1) // test if current N is odd
return 3*currentN + 1; // if so, return this value
else
return currentN / 2; // if not, return this instead
}
Exactly one of the two return statements is executed to give the value of the function. A return
statement can occur anywhere in a function. Some people, however, prefer to use a single return
statement at the very end of the function. This allows the reader to find the return statement easily. You
might choose to write nextN() like this, for example:
static int nextN(int currentN) {
int answer; // answer will be the value returned
if (currentN % 2 == 1) // test if current N is odd
answer = 3*currentN+1; // if so, this is the answer
else
answer = currentN / 2; // if not, this is the answer
return answer; // (Don't forget to return the answer!)
}
Here is a subroutine that uses this nextN function. In this case, the improvement from the version in
Section 3 is not great, but if nextN() were a long function that performed a complex computation, then it
would make a lot of sense to hide that complexity inside a function:
static void Print3NSequence(int startingValue) {
// Prints a 3N+1 sequence to standard output, using
// startingValue as the initial value of N. It also
// prints the number of terms in the sequence.
// The value of startingValue must be a positive integer.
int N; // One of the terms in the sequence.
int count; // The number of terms found.
N = startingValue; // Start the sequence with startingValue;
count = 1;
TextIO.putln("The 3N+1 sequence starting from " + N);
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln(N); // print initial term of sequence
while (N > 1) {
N = nextN( N ); // Compute next term,
// using the function nextN.
count++; // Count this term.
TextIO.putln(N); // Print this term.
}
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("There were " + count + " terms in the sequence.");
} // end of Print3NSequence()
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Java Programing: Section 4.4
Here are a few more examples of functions. The first one computes a letter grade corresponding to a given
numerical grade, on a typical grading scale:
static char letterGrade(int numGrade) {
// Returns the letter grade corresponding to
// the numerical grade, numGrade.
if (numGrade >= 90)
return 'A'; // 90 or above gets an A
else if (numGrade >= 80)
return 'B'; // 80 to 89 gets a B
else if (numGrade >= 65)
return 'C'; // 65 to 79 gets a C
else if (numGrade >= 50)
return 'D'; // 50 to 64 gets a D
else
return 'F'; // anything else gets an F
} // end of function letterGrade()
The type of the return value of letterGrade() is char. Functions can return values of any type at all.
Here's a function whose return value is of type boolean. It demonstrates some interesting programming
points, so you should read the comments:
static boolean isPrime(int N) {
// Returns true if N is a prime number. A prime number
// is an integer greater than 1 that is not divisible
// by any positive integer, except itself and 1. If N has
// any divisor, D, in the range 1 < D < N, then it
// has a divisor in the range 2 to Math.sqrt(N), namely
// either D itself or N/D. So we only test possible
// divisors from 2 to Math.sqrt(N).
int divisor; // A number we will testing to see whether it
// evenly divides N.
if (N <= 1)
return false; // No number <= 1 is a prime.
int maxToTry = (int)Math.sqrt(N);
// We will try to divide N by numbers between
// 2 and maxToTry; If N is not evenly divisible
// by any of these numbers, then N is prime.
// (Note that since Math.sqrt(N) is defined to
// return a value of type double, the value
// must be typecast to type int before it can
// be assigned to maxToTry.)
for (divisor = 2; divisor <= maxToTry; divisor++) {
if ( N % divisor == 0 ) // Test if divisor evenly divides N.
return false; // If so, we know N is not prime.
// No need to continue testing.
}
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Java Programing: Section 4.4
// If we get to this point, N must be prime. Otherwise,
// the function would already have been terminated by
// a return statement in the previous for loop.
return true; // Yes, N is prime.
} // end of function isPrime()
Finally, here is a function with return type String. This function has a String as parameter. The
returned value is a reversed copy of the parameter. For example, the reverse of "Hello World" is "dlroW
olleH". The algorithm for computing the reverse of a string, str, is to start with an empty string and then
to append each character from str, starting from the last character of str and working backwards to the
first.
static String reverse(String str) {
// Returns a reversed copy of str.
String copy; // The reversed copy.
int i; // One of the positions in str,
// from str.length() - 1 down to 0.
copy = ""; // Start with an empty string.
for ( i = str.length() - 1; i >= 0; i-- ) {
// Append i-th char of str to copy.
copy = copy + str.charAt(i);
}
return copy;
}
A palindrome is a string that reads the same backwards and forwards, such as "radar". The reverse()
function could be used to check whether a string, word, is a palindrome by testing
"if (word.equals(reverse(word))".
By the way, a typical beginner's error in writing functions is to print out the answer, instead of returning it.
This represents a fundamental misunderstanding. The task of a function is to compute a value and return it
to the point in the program where the function was called. That's where the value is used. Maybe it will be
printed out. Maybe it will be assigned to a variable. Maybe it will be used in an expression. But it's not for
the function to decide.
I'll finish this section with a complete new version of the 3N+1 program. This will give me a chance to
show the function nextN(), which was defined above, used in a complete program. I'll also take the
opportunity to improve the program by getting it to print the terms of the sequence in columns, with five
terms on each line. This will make the output more presentable. This idea is this: Keep track of how many
terms have been printed on the current line; when that number gets up to 5, start a new line of output. To
make the terms line up into columns, I will use the version of TextIO.put() with signature put(int,int).
The second int parameter tells how wide the columns should be.
public class ThreeN2 {
/*
A program that computes and displays several 3N+1
sequences. Starting values for the sequences are
input by the user. Terms in a sequence are printed
in columns, with five terms on each line of output.
After a sequence has been displayed, the number of
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terms in that sequence is reported to the user.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
TextIO.putln("This program will print out 3N+1 sequences");
TextIO.putln("for starting values that you specify.");
TextIO.putln();
int K; // Starting point for sequence, specified by the user.
do {
TextIO.putln("Enter a starting value;");
TextIO.put("To end the program, enter 0: ");
K = TextIO.getInt(); // get starting value from user
if (K > 0) // print sequence, but only if K is > 0
Print3NSequence(K);
} while (K > 0); // continue only if K > 0
} // end main()
static void Print3NSequence(int startingValue) {
// Prints a 3N+1 sequence to standard output, using
// startingValue as the initial value of N. Terms are
// printed five to a line. The subroutine also
// prints the number of terms in the sequence.
// The value of startingValue must be a positive integer.
int N; // One of the terms in the sequence.
int count; // The number of terms found.
int onLine; // The number of terms that have been output
// so far on the current line.
N = startingValue; // Start the sequence with startingValue;
count = 1; // We have one term so far.
TextIO.putln("The 3N+1 sequence starting from " + N);
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.put(N, 8); // Print initial term, using 8 characters.
onLine = 1; // There's now 1 term on current output line.
while (N > 1) {
N = nextN(N); // compute next term
count++; // count this term
if (onLine == 5) { // If current output line is full
TextIO.putln(); // ...then output a carriage return
onLine = 0; // ...and note that there are no terms
// on the new line.
}
TextIO.put(N, 8); // Print this term in an 8-char column.
onLine++; // Add 1 to the number of terms on this line.
}
TextIO.putln(); // end current line of output
TextIO.putln(); // and then add a blank line
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Java Programing: Section 4.4
TextIO.putln("There were " + count + " terms in the sequence.");
} // end of Print3NSequence()
static int nextN(int currentN) {
// Computes and returns the next term in a 3N+1 sequence,
// given that the current term is currentN.
if (currentN % 2 == 1)
return 3 * currentN + 1;
else
return currentN / 2;
} // end of nextN()
} // end of class ThreeN2
You should read this program carefully and try to understand how it works. Here is an applet version for
you to try:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
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Java Programing: Section 4.5
Section 4.5
Toolboxes, API's, and Packages
AS COMPUTERS AND THEIR USER INTERFACES have become easier to use, they have also become
more complex for programmers to deal with. You can write programs for a simple console-style user
interface using just a few subroutines that write output to the console and read the user's typed replies. A
modern graphical user interface, with windows, buttons, scroll bars, menus, text-input boxes, and so on,
might make things easier for the user. But it forces the programmer to cope with a hugely expanded array of
possibilities. The programmer sees this increased complexity in the form of great numbers of subroutines
that are provided for managing the user interface, as well as for other purposes.
Someone who wants to program for Macintosh computers -- and to produce programs that look and behave
the way users expect them to -- must deal with the Macintosh Toolbox, a collection of well over a thousand
different subroutines. There are routines for opening and closing windows, for drawing geometric figures
and text to windows, for adding buttons to windows, and for responding to mouse clicks on the window.
There are other routines for creating menus and for reacting to user selections from menus. Aside from the
user interface, there are routines for opening files and reading data from them, for communicating over a
network, for sending output to a printer, for handling communication between programs, and in general for
doing all the standard things that a computer has to do. Windows 98 and Windows 3.1 provide their own
sets of subroutines for programmers to use, and they are quite a bit different from the subroutines used on
the Mac.
The analogy of a "toolbox" is a good one to keep in mind. Every programming project involves a mixture of
innovation and reuse of existing tools. A programmer is given a set of tools to work with, starting with the
set of basic tools that are built into the language: things like variables, assignment statements, if statements,
and loops. To these, the programmer can add existing toolboxes full of routines that have already been
written for performing certain tasks. These tools, if they are well-designed, can be used as true black boxes:
They can be called to perform their assigned tasks without worrying about the particular steps they go
through to accomplish those tasks. The innovative part of programming is to take all these tools and apply
them to some particular project or problem (word-processing, keeping track of bank accounts, processing
image data from a space probe, Web browsing, computer games,...). This is called applications
programming.
A software toolbox is a kind of black box, and it presents a certain interface to the programmer. This
interface is a specification of what routines are in the toolbox, what parameters they use, and what tasks
they perform. This information constitutes the API, or Applications Programming Interface, associated with
the toolbox. The Macintosh API is a specification of all the routines available in the Macintosh Toolbox. A
company that makes some hardware device -- say a card for connecting a computer to a network -- might
publish an API for that device consisting of a list of routines that programmers can call in order to
communicate with and control the device. Scientists who write a set of routines for doing some kind of
complex computation -- such as solving "differential equations", say -- would provide an API to allow
others to use those routines without understanding the details of the computations they perform.
The Java programming language is supplemented by a large, standard API. You've seen part of this API
already, in the form of mathematical subroutines such as Math.sqrt(), the String data type and its
associated routines, and the System.out.print() routines. The standard Java API includes routines
for working with graphical user interfaces, for network communication, for reading and writing files, and
more. It's tempting to think of these routines as being built into the Java language, but they are technically
subroutines that have been written and made available for use in Java programs.
Java is platform-independent. That is, the same program can run on platforms as diverse as Macintosh,
Windows, UNIX, and others. The same Java API must work on all these platforms. But notice that it is the
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interface that is platform-independent; the implementation varies from one platform to another. A Java
system on a particular computer includes implementations of all the standard API routines. A Java program
includes only calls to those routines. When the Java interpreter executes a program and encounters a call to
one of the standard routines, it will pull up and execute the implementation of that routine which is
appropriate for the particular platform on which it is running. This is a very powerful idea. It means that
you only need to learn one API to program for a wide variety of platforms.
Like all subroutines in Java, the routines in the standard API are grouped into classes. To provide
larger-scale organization, classes in Java can be grouped into packages. You can have even higher levels of
grouping, since packages can also contain other packages. In fact, the entire standard Java API is
implemented as one large package, which is named "java". The java package, in turn, is made up of
several other packages, and each of those packages contains a number of classes.
One of the sub-packages of java, for example, is called "awt". Since awt is contained within java, its
full name is actually java.awt. This is the package that contains classes related to graphical user
interfaces, such as the Button class which represents push-buttons on the screen, and the Graphics
class which provides routines for drawing on the screen. Since these classes are contained in the package
java.awt, their full names are actually java.awt.Button and java.awt.Graphics. (I hope that
by now you've gotten the hang of how this naming thing works in Java.)
The java package includes several other sub-packages, such as java.io, which provides facilities for
input/output, java.net, which deals with network communication, and java.applet, which
implements the basic functionality of applets. The most basic package is called java.lang, which
includes fundamental classes such as String and Math.
It might be helpful to look at a graphical representation of the levels of nesting in the java package, its
sub-packages, the classes in those sub-packages, and the subroutines in those classes. This is not a complete
picture, since it shows only a few of the many items in each element:
Let's say that you want to use the class java.awt.Button in a program that you are writing. One way to
do this is to use the full name of the class. For example, you could say
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java.awt.Button stopBttn;
to declare a variable named stopBttn whose type is java.awt.Button. Of course, this can get
tiresome, so Java makes it possible to avoid using the full names of classes. If you put
import java.awt.Button;
at the beginning of your program, before you start writing any class, then you can abbreviate the full
name java.awt.Button to just the name of the class, Button. This would allow you to say just
Button stopBttn;
to declare the variable stopBttn. (The only effect of the import statement is to allow you to use simple
class names instead of full "package.class" names; you aren't really importing anything substantial. If you
leave out the import statement, you can still access the class -- you just have to use its full name.) There
is a shortcut for importing all the classes from a given package. You can import all the classes from
java.awt by saying
import java.awt.*;
In fact, any Java program that uses a graphical user interface is likely to begin with this line. A program
might also include lines such as "import java.net.*;" or "import java.io.*;" to get easy
access to networking and input/output classes.
Because the package java.lang is so fundamental, all the classes in java.lang are automatically
imported into every program. It's as if every program began with the statement "import
java.lang.*;". This is why we have been able to use the class name String instead of
java.lang.String, and Math.sqrt() instead of java.lang.Math.sqrt(). It would still,
however, be perfectly legal to use the longer forms of the names.
Programmers can create new packages. Suppose that you want some classes that you are writing to be in a
package named utilities. Then the source code file that defines those classes must begin with the line
"package utilities;". Any program that uses the classes should include the directive "import
utilities.*;" to obtain access to all the classes in the utilities package. Unfortunately, things are
a little more complicated than this. Remember that if a program uses a class, then the class must be
"available" when the program is compiled and when it is executed. Exactly what this means depends on
which Java environment you are using. Most commonly, classes in a package named utilities should
be in a directory with the name utilities, and that directory should be located in the same place as the
program that uses the classes.
In projects that define large numbers of classes, it makes sense to organize those classes into one or more
packages. It also makes sense for programmers to create new packages as toolboxes that provide
functionality and API's for dealing with areas not covered in the standard Java API. (And in fact such
"toolmaking" programmers often have more prestige than the applications programmers who use their
tools.)
However, I will not be creating any packages in this textbook. You need to know about packages mainly so
that you will be able to import the standard packages. These packages are always available to the programs
that you write. You might wonder where the standard classes are actually located. Again, that depends to
some extent on the version of Java that you are using. But they are likely to be collected together into a
large file named classes.zip, which is located in some place where the Java compiler and the Java
interpreter will know to look for it.
Although we won't be creating packages explicitly, every class is actually part of a package. If a class is not
specifically placed in a package, then it is put in something called the default package, which has no name.
All the examples that you see in these notes are in the default package.
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Java Programing: Section 4.6
Section 4.6
More on Program Design
UNDERSTANDING HOW PROGRAMS WORK IS ONE THING. Designing a program to perform
some particular task is another thing altogether. In Section 3.2, I discussed how stepwise refinement can be
used to methodically develop an algorithm. We can now see how subroutines can fit into the process.
Stepwise refinement is inherently a top-down process, but the process does have a "bottom," that is, a point
at which you stop refining the pseudocode algorithm and translate what you have directly into proper
programming language. In the absence of subroutines, the process would not bottom out until you get down
to the level of assignment statements and very primitive input/output operations. But if you have
subroutines lying around to perform certain useful tasks, you can stop refining as soon as you've managed
to express your algorithm in terms of those tasks.
This allows you to add a bottom-up element to the top-down approach of stepwise refinement. Given a
problem, you might start by writing some subroutines that perform tasks relevant to the problem domain.
The subroutines become a toolbox of ready-made tools that you can integrate into your algorithm as you
develop it. (Alternatively, you might be able to buy or find a software toolbox written by someone else,
containing subroutines that you can use in your project as black boxes.)
Subroutines can also be helpful even in a strict top-down approach. As you refine your algorithm, you are
free at any point to take any sub-task in the algorithm and make it into a subroutine. Developing that
subroutine then becomes a separate problem, which you can work on separately. Your main algorithm will
merely call the subroutine. This, of course, is just a way of breaking your problem down into separate,
smaller problems. It is still a top-down approach because the top-down analysis of the problem tells you
what subroutines to write. In the bottom-up approach, you start by writing or obtaining subroutines that are
relevant to the problem domain, and you build your solution to the problem on top of that foundation of
subroutines.
Let's work through an example. Suppose that I have found an already-written class called Mosaic. This
class allows a program to work with a window that displays little colored rectangles arranged in rows and
columns. The window can be opened, closed, and otherwise manipulated with static member subroutines
defined in the Mosaic class. Here are some of the available routines:
Mosaic.open(rows,cols,w,h); where rows, cols, w, and h are of type int.
This will open the window with rows rows and cols columns of rectangles. The size of
each little rectangle will be w pixels wide by h pixels high. Initially, all the rectangles are
black. Note that for purposes of referring to a specific rectangle, rows are numbered from 0
to rows-1, and columns are numbered from 0 to cols-1.
Mosaic.setColor(row,col,r,g,b); where all the parameters are of type int.
This will set the color of the rectangle in row number row and column number col. Any
color can be considered to be a combination of the primary colors red, blue, and green. The
parameters r, g, and b are integers in the range from 0 to 255 that specify the red, green, and
blue components of the color. The larger the value of r, the more red there is in the color.
Black has all three color components equal to 0. White has all three color components equal
to 255.
Mosaic.getRed(row,col); where row and col are integers specifying one of the
rectangles. This is a function that returns a value of type int. The returned value is an
integer in the range from 0 to 255 that specifies the red component of the color of the
specified square. There are also functions Mosaic.getBlue(row,col); and
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Mosaic.getGreen(row,col); for retrieving the other two color components.
Mosaic.delay(millis); where millis is of type int. This can be used to insert a
time delay in the program (to regulate the speed at which the colors are changed, for
example). The parameter millis is an integer that gives the number of milliseconds to
delay. One thousand milliseconds equal one second.
Mosaic.isOpen(); is a function that returns a boolean value. If the mosaic window
is open, the value is true; otherwise it is false. The user can close the window by
clicking its closebox. A program can close the window by calling Mosaic.close(). If
you call Mosaic.setColor() when there is no window open, it will have no effect. If
you call Mosaic.getRed() when there is no window, a value of 0 is returned.
My idea is to use the Mosaic class as the basis for a neat animation. I want to fill the window with
randomly colored squares, and then randomly change the colors in a loop that continues as long as the
window is open. "Randomly change the colors" could mean a lot of different things, but after thinking for a
while, I decide it would be interesting to have a "disturbance" that wanders randomly around the window,
changing the color of each square that it encounters. Here's an applet that shows what the program will do:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
With basic routines for manipulating the window as a foundation, I can turn to the specific problem at hand.
A basic outline for my program is
Open a Mosaic window
Fill window with random colors;
Move around, changing squares at random.
Filling the window with random colors seems like a nice coherent task that I can work on separately, so let's
decide that I'll write a separate subroutine to do it. The third step can be expanded a bit more, into the steps:
Start in the middle of the window, then keep moving to a new square and changing the color of that square.
This should continue as long as the mosaic window is still open. Thus we can refine the algorithm to:
Open a Mosaic window
Fill window with random colors;
Set the current position to the middle square in the window;
As long as the mosaic window is open:
Randomly change color of current square;
Move current position up, down, left, or right, at random;
I need to represent the current position in some way. That can be done with two int variables named
currentRow and currentColumn. I'll use 10 rows and 20 columns of squares in my mosaic, so setting
the current position to be in the center means setting currentRow to 5 and currentColumn to 10. I
already have a subroutine, Mosaic.open(), to open the window, and I have a function,
Mosaic.isOpen(), to test whether the window is open. To keep the main routine simple, I decide that I
will write two more subroutines of my own to carry out the two tasks in the while loop. The algorithm can
then be written in Java as:
Mosaic.open(10,20,10,10)
fillWithRandomColors();
currentRow = 5; // Middle row, halfway down the window.
currentColumn = 10; // Middle column.
while ( Mosaic.isOpen() ) {
changeToRandomColor(currentRow, currentColumn);
randomMove();
}
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Java Programing: Section 4.6
With the proper wrapper, this is essentially the main() routine of my program. It turns out I have to make
one small modification: To prevent the animation from running too fast, the line
"Mosaic.delay(20);" is added to the while loop.
The main() routine is taken care of, but to complete the program, I still have to write the subroutines
fillWithRandomColors(), changeToRandomColor(int,int), and randomMove().
Writing each of these subroutines is a separate, small task. Pseudocode for fillWithRandomColors()
could be given as:
For each row:
For each column:
set square in that row and column to a random color
"For each row" and "for each column" can be implemented as for loops. We've already planned to write a
subroutine changeToRandomColor that can be used to set the color. (The possibility of reusing
subroutines in several places is one of the big payoffs of using them!) So, fillWithRandomColors()
can be written in proper Java as:
static void fillWithRandomColors() {
for (int row = 0; row < 10; row++)
for (int column = 0; column < 20; column++)
changeToRandomColor(row,column);
}
Turning to the changeToRandomColor subroutine, we already have a method,
mosaic.setColor(row,col,r,g,b), that can be used to change the color of a square. If we want a
random color, we just have to choose random values for r, g, and b. The random values must be integers in
the range from 0 to 255. A formula for selecting such an integer is "(int)(256*Math.random())".
So the random color subroutine becomes:
static void changeToRandomColor(int rowNum, int colNum) {
int red = (int)(256*Math.random());
int green = (int)(256*Math.random());
int blue = (int)(256*Math.random());
mosaic.setColor(rowNum,colNum,red,green,blue);
}
Finally, consider the randomMove subroutine, which is supposed to randomly move the disturbance up,
down, left, or right. To make a random choice among four directions, we can choose a random integer in
the range 0 to 3. If the integer is 0, move in one direction; if it is 1, move in another direction; and so on.
The position of the disturbance is given by the variables currentRow and currentColumn. To "move
up" means to subtract 1 from currentRow. This leaves open the question of what to do if currentRow
becomes -1, which would put the disturbance above the window. Rather than let this happen, I decide to
move the disturbance to the opposite edge of the applet by setting currentRow to 9. (Remember that the
10 rows are numbered from 0 to 9.) Moving the disturbance down, left, or right is handled similarly. If we
use a switch statement to decide which direction to move, the code for randomMove becomes:
int directionNum;
directoinNum = (int)(4*Math.random());
switch (directionNum) {
case 0: // move up
currentRow--;
if (currentRow < 0) // CurrentRow is outside the mosaic;
currentRow = 9; // move it to the opposite edge.
break;
case 1: // move right
currentColumn++;
if (currentColumn >= 20)
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Java Programing: Section 4.6
currentColumn = 0;
break;
case 2: // move down
currentRow++;
if (currentRow >= 10)
currentRow = 0;
break;
case 3: // move left
currentColumn--;
if (currentColumn < 0)
currentColumn = 19;
break;
}
Putting this all together, we get the following complete program. The variables currentRow and
currentColumn are defined as static members of the class, rather than local variables, because each of
them is used in several different subroutines. This program actually depends on two other classes, Mosaic
and another class called MosaicCanvas that is used by Mosaic. If you want to compile and run this
program, both of these classes must be available to the program.
public class RandomMosaicWalk {
/*
This program shows a window full of randomly colored
squares. A "disturbance" moves randomly around
in the window, randomly changing the color of
each square that it visits. The program runs
until the user closes the window.
*/
static int currentRow; // Row currently containing the disturbance
static int currentColumn; // Column currently containing disturbance
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Main program creates the window, fills it with
// random colors, then moves the disturbance in
// a random walk around the window.
Mosaic.open(10,20,10,10);
fillWithRandomColors();
currentRow = 5; // start at center of window
currentColumn = 10;
while (Mosaic.isOpen()) {
changeToRandomColor(currentRow, currentColumn);
randomMove();
Mosaic.delay(20);
}
} // end of main()
static void fillWithRandomColors() {
// fill every square, in each row and column,
// with a random color
for (int row=0; row < 10; row++) {
for (int column=0; column < 20; column++) {
changeToRandomColor(row, column);
}
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Java Programing: Section 4.6
}
} // end of fillWithRandomColors()
static void changeToRandomColor(int rowNum, int colNum) {
// Change the square in row number rowNum and
// column number colNum to a random color.
// Random colors in the range 0 to 255 are
// chosen for the red, green, and blue components
// of the color.
int red = (int)(256*Math.random());
int green = (int)(256*Math.random());
int blue = (int)(256*Math.random());
Mosaic.setColor(rowNum,colNum,red,green,blue);
} // end of changeToRandomColor()
static void randomMove() {
// Randomly move the disturbance in one of
// four possible directions: up, down, left, or right;
// if this moves the disturbance outside the window,
// then move it to the opposite edge of the window.
int directionNum; // Randomly set to 0, 1, 2, or 3
// to choose the direction.
directionNum = (int)(4*Math.random());
switch (directionNum) {
case 0: // move up
currentRow--;
if (currentRow < 0)
currentRow = 9;
break;
case 1: // move right
currentColumn++;
if (currentColumn >= 20)
currentColumn = 0;
break;
case 2: // move down
currentRow++;
if (currentRow >= 10)
currentRow = 0;
break;
case 3:
currentColumn--;
if (currentColumn < 0)
currentColumn = 19;
break;
}
} // end of randomMove()
} // end of class RandomMosaicWalk
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
Section 4.7
The Truth about Declarations
NAMES ARE FUNDAMENTAL TO PROGRAMMING, as I said a few chapters ago. There are a lot of
details involved in declaring and using names. I have been avoiding some of those details. In this section,
I'll reveal most of the truth (although still not the full truth) about declaring and using variables in Java. The
material under the headings "Combining Initialization with Declaration" and "Named Constants and the
final Modifier" is particularly important, since I will be using it regularly in future chapters.
Combining Initialization with Declaration
When a variable declaration is executed, memory is allocated for the variable. This memory must be
initialized to contain some definite value before the variable can be used in an expression. In the case of a
local variable, the declaration is often followed closely by an assignment statement that does the
initialization. For example,
int count; // Declare a variable named count.
count = 0; // Give count its initial value.
However, the truth about declaration statements is that it is legal to include the initialization of the variable
in the declaration statement. The two statements above can therefor be abbreviated as
int count = 0; // Declare count and give it an initial value.
The computer still executes this statement in two steps: Declare the variable count, then assign the value 0
to the newly created variable. The initial value does not have to be a constant. It can be any expression. It is
legal to initialize several variables in one declaration statement. For example,
char firstInitial = 'D', secondInitial = 'E';
int x, y = 1; // OK, but only y has been initialized!
int N = 3, M = N+2; // OK, N is initialized
// before its value is used.
This feature is especially common in for loops, since it makes it possible to declare a loop control variable
at the same point in the loop where it is initialized. Since the loop control variable generally has nothing to
do with the rest of the program outside the loop, it's reasonable to have its declaration in the part of the
program where it's actually used. For example:
for ( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) {
System.out.println(i);
}
Again, you should remember that this is simply an abbreviation for the following, where I've added an extra
pair of braces to show that i is considered to be local to the for statement and no longer exists after the
for loop ends:
{
int i;
for ( i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) {
System.out.println(i);
}
}
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
A member variable can also be initialized at the point where it is declared. For example:
public class Bank {
static double interestRate = 0.05;
static int maxWithdrawal = 200;
.
. // More variables and subroutines.
.
}
A static member variable is created as soon as the class is loaded by the Java interpreter, and the
initialization is also done at that time. In the case of member variables, this is not simply an abbreviation for
a declaration followed by an assignment statement. Declaration statements are the only type of statement
that can occur outside of a subroutine. Assignment statements cannot, so the following is illegal:
public class Bank {
static double interestRate;
interestRate = 0.05; // ILLEGAL:
. // Can't be outside a subroutine!
.
.
Because of this, declarations of member variables often include initial values. As mentioned in Section 2, if
no initial value is provided for a member variable, then a default initial value is used. For example,
"static int count;" is equivalent to "static int count = 0;".
Named Constants and the final Modifier
Sometimes, the value of a variable is not supposed to change after it is initialized. For example, in the above
example where interestRate is initialized to the value 0.05, it's quite possible that that is meant to be
the value throughout the entire program. In this case, the programmer is probably defining the variable,
interestRate, to give a meaningful name to the otherwise meaningless number, 0.05. It's easier to
understand what's going on when a program says "principal += principal*interestRate;"
rather than "principal += principal*0.05;".
In Java, the modifier "final" can be applied to a variable declaration to ensure that the value of the
variable cannot be changed after the variable has been initialized. For example, if the member variable
interestRate is declared with
final static double interestRate = 0.05;
then it would be impossible for the value of interestRate to change anywhere else in the program. Any
assignment statement that tries to assign a value to interestRate will be rejected by the computer as a
syntax error when the program is compiled.
It is legal to apply the final modifier to local variables and even to formal parameters, but it is most
useful for member variables. I will often refer to a static member variable that is declared to be final as a
named constant, since its value remains constant for the whole time that the program is running. The
readability of a program can be greatly enhanced by using named constants to give meaningful names to
important quantities in the program. A recommended style rule for named constants is to give them names
that consist entirely of upper case letters, with underscore characters to separate words if necessary. For
example, the preferred style for the interest rate constant would be
final static double INTEREST_RATE = 0.05;
This is the style that is generally used in Java's standard classes, which define many named constants. For
example, the Math class defines a named constant PI to represent the mathematical constant of that name.
Since it is a member of the Math class, you would have to refer to it as Math.PI in your own programs.
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
Many constants are provided to give meaningful names to be used in parameters in subroutine calls. For
example, a standard class named Font contains named constants Font.PLAIN, Font.BOLD, and
Font.ITALIC. These constants are used when calling various subroutines in the Font class for specifying
different styles of text.
Curiously enough, one of the major reasons to use named constants is that it's easy to change the value of a
named constant. Of course, the value can't change while the program is running. But between runs of the
program, it's easy to change the value in the source code and recompile the program. Consider the interest
rate example. It's quite possible that the value of the interest rate is used many times throughout the
program. Suppose that the bank changes the interest rate and the program has to be modified. If the literal
number 0.05 were used throughout the program, the programmer would have to track down each place
where the interest rate is used in the program and change the rate to the new value. (This is made even
harder by the fact that the number 0.05 might occur in the program with other meanings besides the interest
rate, as well as by the fact that someone might have used 0.025 to represent half the interest rate.) On the
other hand, if the named constant INTEREST_RATE is declared and used consistently throughout the
program, then only the single line where the constant is initialized needs to be changed.
As an extended example, I will give a new version of the RandomMosaicWalk program from the
previous section. This version uses named constants to represent the number of rows in the mosaic, the
number of columns, and the size of each little square. The three constants are declared as final static
member variables with the lines:
final static int ROWS = 30; // Number of rows in mosaic.
final static int COLUMNS = 30; // Number of columns in mosaic.
final static int SQUARE_SIZE = 15; // Size of each square in mosaic.
The rest of the program is carefully modified to use the named constants. For example, in the new version
of the program, the Mosaic window is opened with the statement
Mosaic.open(ROWS, COLUMNS, SQUARE_SIZE, SQUARE_SIZE);
Sometimes, it's not easy to find all the places where a named constants needs to be used. It's always a good
idea to run a program using several different values for any named constants, to test that it works properly
in all cases.
Here is the complete new program, RandomMosaicWalk2, with all modifications from the previous
version shown in red.
public class RandomMosaicWalk2 {
/*
This program shows a window full of randomly colored
squares. A "disturbance" moves randomly around
in the window, randomly changing the color of
each square that it visits. The program runs
until the user closes the window.
*/
final static int ROWS = 30; // Number of rows in mosaic.
final static int COLUMNS = 30; // Number of columns in mosaic.
final static int SQUARE_SIZE = 15; // Size of each square in mosaic.
static int currentRow; // row currently containing the disturbance
static int currentColumn; // column currently containing disturbance
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Main program creates the window, fills it with
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
// random colors, then moves the disturbance in
// a random walk around the window.
Mosaic.open(ROWS, COLUMNS, SQUARE_SIZE, SQUARE_SIZE);
fillWithRandomColors();
currentRow = ROWS / 2; // start at center of window
currentColumn = COLUMNS / 2;
while (Mosaic.isOpen()) {
changeToRandomColor(currentRow, currentColumn);
randomMove();
Mosaic.delay(20);
}
} // end of main()
static void fillWithRandomColors() {
// Fill every square, in each row and column,
// with a random color.
for (int row=0; row < ROWS; row++) {
for (int column=0; column < COLUMNS; column++) {
changeToRandomColor(row, column);
}
}
} // end of fillWithRandomColors()
static void changeToRandomColor(int rowNum, int colNum) {
// Change the square in row number rowNum and
// column number colNum to a random color.
// Random colors in the range 0 to 255 are
// chosen for the red, green, and blue components
// of the color.
int red = (int)(256*Math.random());
int green = (int)(256*Math.random());
int blue = (int)(256*Math.random());
Mosaic.setColor(rowNum,colNum,red,green,blue);
} // end of changeToRandomColor()
static void randomMove() {
// Randomly move the disturbance in one of
// four possible directions: up, down, left, or right;
// if this moves the disturbance outside the window,
// then move it to the opposite edge of the window.
int directionNum; // Randomly set to 0, 1, 2, or 3
// to choose direction.
directionNum = (int)(4*Math.random());
switch (directionNum) {
case 0: // move up
currentRow--;
if (currentRow < 0)
currentRow = ROWS - 1;
break;
case 1: // move right
currentColumn++;
if (currentColumn >= COLUMNS)
currentColumn = 0;
break;
case 2: // move down
currentRow ++;
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
if (currentRow >= ROWS)
currentRow = 0;
break;
case 3:
currentColumn--;
if (currentColumn < 0)
currentColumn = COLUMNS - 1;
break;
}
} // end of randomMove()
} // end of class RandomMosaicWalk2
Naming and Scope Rules
When a variable declaration is executed, memory is allocated for that variable. The variable name can be
used in at least some part of the program source code to refer to that memory or to the data that is stored in
the memory. The portion of the program source code where the variable name is valid is called the scope of
the variable. Similarly, we can refer to the scope of subroutine names and formal parameter names.
For static member subroutines, scope is straightforward. The scope of a static subroutine is the entire source
code of the class in which it is defined. That is, it is possible to call the subroutine from any point in the
class. It is even possible to call a subroutine from within itself. This is an example of something called
"recursion," a fairly advanced topic that we will return to later.
For a variable that is declared as a static member variable in a class, the situation is similar, but with one
complication. It is legal to have a local variable or a formal parameter that has the same name as a member
variable. In that case, within the scope of the local variable or parameter, the member variable is hidden.
Consider, for example, a class named Game that has the form:
public class Game {
static int count; // member variable
static void playGame() {
int count; // local variable
.
. // Some statements to define playGame()
.
}
.
. // More variables and subroutines.
.
} // end Game
In the statements that make up the body of the playGame() subroutine, the name "count" refers to the
local variable. In the rest of the Game class, "count" refers to the member variable, unless hidden by other
local variables or parameters named count. However, there is one further complication. The member
variable named count can also be referred to by the full name Game.count. Usually, the full name is
only used outside the class where count is defined. However, there is no rule against using it inside the
class. The full name, Game.count, can be used inside the playGame() subroutine to refer to the
member variable. So, the full scope rule for static member variables is that the scope of a member variable
includes the entire class in which it is defined, but where the simple name of the member variable is hidden
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
by a local variable or formal parameter name, the member variable must be referred to by its full name of
the form className.variableName. (Scope rules for non-static members are similar to those for static
members, except that, as we shall see, non-static members cannot be used in static subroutines.)
The scope of a formal parameter of a subroutine is the block that makes up the body of the subroutine. The
scope of a local variable extends from the declaration statement that defines the variable to the end of the
block in which the declaration occurs. As noted above, it is possible to declare a loop control variable of a
for loop in the for statement, as in "for (int i=0; i < 10; i++)". The scope of such a
declaration is considered as a special case: It is valid only within the for statement and does not extend to
the remainder of the block that contains the for statement.
It is not legal to redefine the name of a formal parameter or local variable within its scope, even in a nested
block. For example, this is not allowed:
void badSub(int y) {
int x;
while (y > 0) {
int x; // ERROR: x is already defined.
.
.
.
}
}
(In many languages, this would be legal. The declaration of x in the while loop would hide the original
declaration.) However, once the block in which a variable is declared ends, its name does become available
for reuse. For example:
void goodSub(int y) {
while (y > 10) {
int x;
.
.
.
// The scope of x ends here.
}
while (y > 0) {
int x; // OK: Previous declaration of x has expired.
.
.
.
}
}
You might wonder whether local variable names can hide subroutine names. This can't happen, for a reason
that might be surprising. There is no rule that variables and subroutines have to have different names. The
computer can always tell whether a name refers to a variable or to a subroutine, because a subroutine name
is always followed by a left parenthesis. It's perfectly legal to have a variable called count and a
subroutine called count in the same class. (This is one reason why I often write subroutine names with
parentheses, as when I talk about the main() routine. It's a good idea to think of the parentheses as part of
the name.) Even more is true: It's legal to reuse class names to name variables and subroutines. The syntax
rules of Java guarantee that the computer can always tell when a name is being used as a class name. A
class name is a type, and so it can be used to declare variables and to specify the return type of a function.
This means that you could legally have a class called Insanity in which you declare a function
static Insanity Insanity( Insanity Insanity ) { ... }
The first Insanity is the return type of the function. The second is the function name, the third is the type
of the formal parameter, and the fourth is a formal parameter name. However, please remember that not
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Java Programing: Section 4.7
everything that is possible is a good idea!
End of Chapter 4
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 4 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 4
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 4 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 4.1: To "capitalize" a string means to change the first letter of each word in the string to upper
case (if it is not already upper case). For example, a capitalized version of "Now is the time to act!" is "Now
Is The Time To Act!". Write a subroutine named printCapitalized that will print a capitalized
version of a string to standard output. The string to be printed should be a parameter to the subroutine. Test
your subroutine with a main() routine that gets a line of input from the user and applies the subroutine to
it.
Note that a letter is the first letter of a word if it is not immediately preceded in the string by another letter.
Recall that there is a standard boolean-valued function Character.isLetter(char) that can be
used to test whether its parameter is a letter. There is another standard char-valued function,
Character.toUpperCase(char), that returns a capitalized version of the single character passed to
it as a parameter. That is, if the parameter is a letter, it returns the upper-case version. If the parameter is not
a letter, it just returns a copy of the parameter.
See the solution!
Exercise 4.2: The hexadecimal digits are the ordinary, base-10 digits '0' through '9' plus the letters 'A'
through 'F'. In the hexadecimal system, these digits represent the values 0 through 15, respectively. Write a
function named hexValue that uses a switch statement to find the hexadecimal value of a given
character. The character is a parameter to the function, and its hexadecimal value is the return value of the
function. You should count lower case letters 'a' through 'f' as having the same value as the corresponding
upper case letters. If the parameter is not one of the legal hexadecimal digits, return -1 as the value of the
function.
A hexadecimal integer is a sequence of hexadecimal digits, such as 34A7, FF8, 174204, or FADE. If str is
a string containing a hexadecimal integer, then the corresponding base-10 integer can be computed as
follows:
value = 0;
for ( i = 0; i < str.length(); i++ )
value = value*16 + hexValue( str.charAt(i) );
Of course, this is not valid if str contains any characters that are not hexadecimal digits. Write a program
that reads a string from the user. If all the characters in the string are hexadecimal digits, print out the
corresponding base-10 value. If not, print out an error message.
See the solution!
Exercise 4.3: Write a function that simulates rolling a pair of dice until the total on the dice comes up to be
a given number. The number that you are rolling for is a parameter to the function. The number of times
you have to roll the dice is the return value of the function. You can assume that the parameter is one of the
possible totals: 2, 3, ..., 12. Use your function in a program that computes and prints the number of rolls it
takes to get snake eyes. (Snake eyes means that the total showing on the dice is 2.)
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Java Programing: Chapter 4 Exercises
See the solution!
Exercise 4.4: This exercise builds on Exercise 4.3. Every time you roll a pair of dice over and over, trying
to get a given total, the number of rolls it takes can be different. The question naturally arises, what's the
average number of rolls? Write a function that performs the experiment of rolling to get a given total 10000
times. The desired total is a parameter to the subroutine. The average number of rolls is the return value.
Each individual experiment should be done by calling the function you wrote for exercise 4.3. Now, write a
main program that will call your function once for each of the possible totals (2, 3, ..., 12). It should make a
table of the results, something like:
Total On Dice Average Number of Rolls
------------- -----------------------
2 35.8382
3 18.0607
. .
. .
See the solution!
Exercise 5: The sample program RandomMosaicWalk.java from Section 4.6 shows a "disturbance" that
wanders around a grid of colored squares. When the disturbance visits a square, the color of that square is
changed. The applet at the bottom of Section 4.7 shows a variation on this idea. In this applet, all the
squares start out with the default color, black. Every time the disturbance visits a square, a small amount is
added to the red component of the color of that square. Write a subroutine that will add 25 to the red
component of one of the squares in the mosaic. The row and column numbers of the square should be
passed as parameters to the subroutine. Recall that you can discover the current red component of the
square in row r and column c with the function call Mosaic.getRed(r,c). Use your subroutine as a
substitute for the changeToRandomColor() subroutine in the program RandomMosaicWalk2.java.
(This is the improved version of the program from Section 4.7 that uses named constants for the number of
rows, number of columns, and square size.) Set the number of rows and the number of columns to 80. Set
the square size to 5.
See the solution!
Exercise 6: For this exercise, you will write a program that has the same behavior as the following applet.
Your program will be based on the non-standard Mosaic class, which was described in Section 4.6.
(Unfortunately, the applet doesn't look too good on slow machines.)
The applet shows a rectangle that grows from the center of the applet to the edges, getting brighter as it
grows. The rectangle is made up of the little squares of the mosaic. You should first write a subroutine that
draws a rectangle on a Mosaic window. More specifically, write a subroutine named rectangle such
that the subroutine call statement
rectangle(top,left,height,width,r,g,b);
will call Mosaic.setColor(row,col,r,g,b) for each little square that lies on the outline of a
rectangle. The topmost row of the rectangle is specified by top. The number of rows in the rectangle is
specified by height (so the bottommost row is top+height-1). The leftmost column of the rectangle
is specifed by left. The number of columns in the rectangle is specified by width (so the rightmost
column is left+width-1.)
The animation loops through the same sequence of steps over and over. In one step, a rectangle is drawn in
gray (that is, with all three color components having the same value). There is a pause of 50 milliseconds so
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Java Programing: Chapter 4 Exercises
the user can see the rectangle. Then the very same rectangle is drawn in black, effectively erasing the gray
rectangle. Finally, the variables giving the top row, left column, size, and color level of the rectangle are
adjusted to get ready for the next step. In the applet, the color level starts at 50 and increases by 10 after
each step. You might want to make a subroutine that does one loop through all the steps of the animation.
The main() routine simply opens a Mosaic window and then does the animation loop over and over until
the user closes the window. There is a 500 millisecond delay between one animation loop and the next. Use
a Mosaic window that has 41 rows and 41 columns. (I advise you not to used named constants for the
numbers of rows and columns, since the problem is complicated enough already.)
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 4 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 4
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 4 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: A "black box" has an interface and an implementation. Explain what is meant by the terms
interface and implementation.
Question 2: A subroutine is said to have a contract What is meant by the contract of a subroutine? When
you want to use a subroutine, why is it important to understand its contract? The contract has both
"syntactic" and "semantic" aspects. What is the syntactic aspect? What is the semantic aspect?
Question 3: Briefly explain how subroutines can be a useful tool in the top-down design of programs.
Question 4: Discuss the concept of parameters. What are parameters for? What is the difference between
formal parameters and actual parameters?
Question 5: Give two different reasons for using named constants (declared with the final modifier).
Question 6: What is an API? Give an example.
Question 7: Write a subroutine named "stars" that will output a line of stars to a console. (A star is the
character "*".) The number of stars should be given as a parameter to the subroutine. Use a for loop. For
example, the command "stars(20)" would output
********************
Question 8: Write a main() routine that uses the subroutine that you wrote for Question 7 to output 10
lines of stars with 1 star in the first line, 2 stars in the second line, and so on, as shown below.
*
**
***
****
*****
******
*******
********
*********
**********
Question 9: Write a function named countChars that has a String and a char as parameters. The
function should count the number of times the character occurs in the string, and it should return the result
as the value of the function.
Question 10: Write a subroutine with three parameters of type int. The subroutine should determine which
of its parameters is smallest. The value of the smallest parameter should be returned as the value of the
subroutine.
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 5 Index
Chapter 5
Programming in the Large II
Objects and Classes
WHEREAS A SUBROUTINE represents a single task, an object can encapsulate both data (in the form
of instance variables) and a number of different tasks or "behaviors" related to that data (in the form of
instance methods). Therefore objects provide another, more sophisticated type of structure that can be used
to help manage the complexity of large programs.
This chapter covers the creation and use of objects in Java. It also discusses the object-oriented approach to
program design.
Contents of Chapter 5:
● Section 1: Objects, Instance Methods, and Instance Variables
● Section 2: Constructors and Object Initialization
● Section 3: Programming with Objects
● Section 4: Inheritance, Polymorphism, and Abstract Classes
● Section 5: More Details of Classes
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 5.1
Section 5.1
Objects, Instance Methods, and Instance Variables
OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING (OOP) represents an attempt to make programs more closely
model the way people think about and deal with the world. In the older styles of programming, a
programmer who is faced with some problem must identify a computing task that needs to be performed in
order to solve the problem. Programming then consists of finding a sequence of instructions that will
accomplish that task. But at the heart of object-oriented programming, instead of tasks we find objects --
entities that have behaviors, that hold information, and that can interact with one another. Programming
consists of designing a set of objects that somehow model the problem at hand. Software objects in the
program can represent real or abstract entities in the problem domain. This is supposed to make the design
of the program more natural and hence easier to get right and easier to understand.
To some extent, OOP is just a change in point of view. We can think of an object in standard programming
terms as nothing more than a set of variables together with some subroutines for manipulating those
variables. In fact, it is possible to use object-oriented techniques in any programming language. However,
there is a big difference between a language that makes OOP possible and one that actively supports it. An
object-oriented programming language such as Java includes a number of features that make it very
different from a standard language. In order to make effective use of those features, you have to "orient"
your thinking correctly.
Objects are closely related to classes. We have already been working with classes for several chapters, and
we have seen that a class can contain variables and subroutines. If an object is also a collection of variables
and subroutines, how do they differ from classes? And why does it require a different type of thinking to
understand and use them effectively? In the one section where we worked with objects rather than classes,
Section 3.7, it didn't seem to make much difference: We just left the word "static" out of the subroutine
definitions!
I have said that classes "describe" objects, or more exactly that the non-static portions of classes describe
objects. But it's probably not very clear what this means. The more usual terminology is to say that objects
belong to classes, but this might not be much clearer. (There is a real shortage of English words to properly
distinguish all the concepts involved. An object certainly doesn't "belong" to a class in the same way that a
member variable "belongs" to a class.) From the point of view of programming, it is more exact to say that
classes are used to create objects. A class is a kind of factory for constructing objects. The non-static parts
of the class specify, or describe, what variables and subroutines the objects will contain. This is part of the
explanation of how objects differ from classes: Objects are created and destroyed as the program runs, and
there can be many objects with the same structure, if they are created using the same class.
Consider a simple class whose job is to group together a few static member variables. For example, the
following class could be used to store information about the person who is using the program:
class UserData {
static String name;
static int age;
}
In a program that uses this class, there is only one copy of each variable in the class, UserData.name
and UserData.age. The class, UserData, and the variables it contains exist as long as the program
runs. Now, consider a similar class that includes non-static variables:
class PlayerData {
String name;
int age;
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Java Programing: Section 5.1
}
In this case, there is no such variable as PlayerData.name or PlayerData.age, since name and
age are not static members of PlayerData. So, there is nothing much in the class at all -- except the
potential to create objects. But, it's a lot of potential, since it can be used to create any number of objects!
Each of those objects will have its own variables called name and age. A program might use this class to
store information about multiple players in a game. Each player has a name and an age. When a player joins
the game, a new PlayerData object can be created to represent that player. If a player leaves the game,
the PlayerData object that represents that player can be destroyed. A system of objects in the program is
being used to dynamically model what is happening in the game. You can't do this with "static" variables!
In Section 3.7, we worked with applets, which are objects. The reason they didn't seem to be any different
from classes is because we were only working with one applet in each class that we looked at. But one class
can be used to make many applets. Think of an applet that scrolls a message across a Web page. There
could be several such applets on the same page, all created from the same class. If the scrolling message in
the applet is stored in a non-static variable, then each applet will have its own variable, and each applet can
show a different message. The situation is even clearer if you think about windows, which, like applets, are
objects. As a program runs, many windows might be opened and closed, but all those windows can belong
to the same class. Here again, we have a dynamic situation where multiple objects are created and destroyed
as a program runs.
An object that belongs to a class is said to be an instance of that class. The variables that the object contains
are called instance variables. The subroutines that the object contains are called instance methods. (Recall
that in the context of object-oriented programming, "method" is a synonym for "subroutine". From now on,
for subroutines in objects, I will prefer the term "method.") For example, if the PlayerData class, as
defined above, is used to create an object, then that object is an instance of the PlayerData class, and
name and age are instance variables in the object. It is important to remember that the class of an object
determines the types of the instance variables; however, the actual data is contained inside the individual
objects, not the class. Thus, each object has its own set of data.
An applet that scrolls a message across a Web page might include a subroutine named scroll(). Since
the applet is an object, this subroutine is an instance method of the applet. The source code for the method
is in the class that is used to create the applet. Still, it's better to think of the instance method as belonging to
the object, not to the class. The non-static subroutines in the class merely specify what instance methods
objects created from the class will contain. The scroll() methods in two different applets do the same
thing in the sense that they both scroll messages across the screen. But there is a real difference between the
two scroll() methods. The messages that they scroll can be different. (You might say that the
subroutine definition in the class specifies what type of behavior the objects will have, but the specific
behavior can vary from object to object, depending on the values of their instance variables.)
As you can see, the static and the non-static portions of a class are very different things and serve very
different purposes. Many classes contain only static members, or only non-static. However, it is possible to
mix static and non-static members in a single class, and we'll see a few examples later in this chapter where
it is reasonable to do so. By the way, static member variables and static member subroutines in a class are
sometimes called class variables and class methods, since they belong to the class itself, rather than to
instances of that class. This terminology is most useful when the class contains both static and non-static
members.
So far, I've been talking mostly in generalities, and I haven't given you much idea what you have to put in a
program if you want to work with objects. Let's look at a specific example to see how it works. Consider
this extremely simplified version of a Student class, which could be used to store information about
students taking a course:
class Student {
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Java Programing: Section 5.1
String name; // Student's name.
double test1, test2, test3; // Grades on three tests.
double getAverage() { // compute average test grade
return (test1 + test2 + test3) / 3;
}
} // end of class Student
None of the members of this class are declared to be static, so the class exists only for creating objects.
This class definition says that any object that is an instance of the Student class will include instance
variables named name, test1, test2, and test3, and it will include an instance method named
getAverage(). The names and tests in different objects will generally have different values. When
called for a particular student, the method getAverage() will compute an average using that student's
test grades. Different students can have different averages. (Again, this is what it means to say that an
instance method belongs to an individual object, not to the class.)
In Java, a class is a type, similar to the built-in types such as int and boolean. So, a class name can be
used to specify the type of a variable in a declaration statement, the type of a formal parameter, or the return
type of a function. For example, a program could define a variable named std of type Student with the
statement
Student std;
However, declaring a variable does not create an object! This is an important point, which is related to this
Very Important Fact:
In Java, no variable can ever hold an object.
A variable can only hold a reference to an object.
You should think of objects as floating around independently in the computer's memory. In fact, there is a
portion of memory called the heap where objects live. Instead of holding an object itself, a variable holds
the information necessary to find the object in memory. This information is called a reference or pointer to
the object. In effect, a reference to an object is the address of the memory location where the object is
stored. When you use a variable of class type, the computer uses the reference in the variable to find the
actual object.
Objects are actually created by an operator called new, which creates an object and returns a reference to
that object. For example, assuming that std is a variable of type Student, declared as above, the
assignment statement
std = new Student();
would create a new object which is an instance of the class Student, and it would store a reference to that
object in the variable std. The value of the variable is a reference to the object, not the object itself. It is
not quite true, then, to say that the object is the "value of the variable std" (though sometimes it is hard to
avoid using this terminology). It is certainly not at all true to say that the object is "stored in the variable
std." The proper terminology is that "the variable std refers to the object," and I will try to stick to that
terminology as much as possible.
So, suppose that the variable std refers to an object belonging to the class Student. That object has
instance variables name, test1, test2, and test3. These instance variables can be referred to as
std.name, std.test1, std.test2, and std.test3. For example, a program might include the
lines
System.out.println("Hello, " + std.name
+ ". Your test grades are:");
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System.out.println(std.test1);
System.out.println(std.test2);
System.out.println(std.test3);
This would output the name and test grades from the object to which std refers. Similarly, std can be
used to call the getAverage() instance method in the object by saying std.getAverage(). To print
out the student's average, you could say:
System.out.println( "Your average is " + std.getAverage() );
More generally, you could use std.name any place where a variable of type String is legal. You can
use it in expressions. You can assign a value to it. You can even use it to call subroutines from the String
class. For example, std.name.length() is the number of characters in the student's name.
It is possible for a variable like std, whose type is given by a class, to refer to no object at all. We say in
this case that std holds a null reference. The null reference can be written in Java as "null". You could
assign a null reference to the variable std by saying
std = null;
and you could test whether the value of std is null by testing
if (std == null) . . .
If the value of a variable is null, then it is, of course, illegal to refer to instance variables or instance
methods through that variable -- since there is no object, and hence no instance variables to refer to. For
example, if the value of the variable std is null, then it would be illegal to refer to std.test1. If your
program attempts to use a null reference illegally like this, the result is an error called a null pointer
exception.
Let's look at a sequence of statements that work with objects:
Student std, std1, // Declare four variables of
std2, std3; // type Student.
std = new Student(); // Create a new object belonging
// to the class Student, and
// store a reference to that
// object in the variable std.
std1 = new Student(); // Create a second Student object
// and store a reference to
// it in the variable std1.
std2 = std1; // Copy the reference value in std1
// into the variable std2.
std3 = null; // Store a null reference in the
// variable std3.
std.name = "John Smith"; // Set values of some instance variables.
std1.name = "Mary Jones";
// (Other instance variables have default
// initial values of zero.)
After the computer executes these statements, the situation in the computer's memory looks like this:
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Java Programing: Section 5.1
This picture shows variables as little boxes, labeled with the names of the variables. Objects are shown as
boxes with round corners. When a variable contains a reference to an object, the value of that variable is
shown as an arrow pointing to the object. The variable std3, with a value of null, doesn't point
anywhere. The arrows from std1 and std2 both point to the same object. This illustrates a Very
Important Point:
When one object variable is assigned
to another, only a reference is copied.
The object referred to is not copied.
When the assignment "std2 = std1;" was executed, no new object was created. Instead, std2 is set to
refer to the same object that std1 refers to. This has some consequences that might be surprising. For
example, std1.name and std2.name refer to exactly the same variable, namely the instance variable in
the object that both std1 and std2 refer to. After the string "Mary Jones" is assigned to the variable
std1.name, it is also be true that the value of std2.name is "Mary Jones". There is a potential for a
lot of confusion here, but you can help protect yourself from it if you keep telling yourself, "The object is
not in the variable. The variable just holds a pointer to the object."
You can test objects for equality and inequality using the operators == and !=, but here again, the semantics
are different from what you are used to. When you make a test "if (std1 == std2)", you are testing
whether the values stored in std1 and std2 are the same. But the values are references to objects, not
objects. So, you are testing whether std1 and std2 refer to the same object, that is, whether they point to
the same location in memory. This is fine, if its what you want to do. But sometimes, what you want to
check is whether the instance variables in the objects have the same values. To do that, you would need to
ask whether "std1.test1 == std2.test1 && std1.test2 == std2.test2 &&
std1.test3 == std3.test1 && std1.name.equals(std2.name)"
I've remarked previously that Strings are objects, and I've shown the strings "Mary Jones" and
"John Smith" as objects in the above illustration. A variable of type String can only hold a reference
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Java Programing: Section 5.1
to a string, not the string itself. It could also hold the value null, meaning that it does not refer to any
string at all. This explains why using the == operator to test strings for equality is not a good idea. Suppose
that greeting is a variable of type String, and that the string it refers to is "Hello". Then would the
test greeting == "Hello" be true? Well, maybe, maybe not. The variable greeting and the
String literal "Hello" each refer to a string that contains the characters H-e-l-l-o. But the strings could
still be different objects, that just happen to contain the same characters. The function
greeting.equals("Hello") tests whether greeting and "Hello" contain the same characters,
which is almost certainly the question you want to ask. The expression greeting == "Hello" tests
whether greeting and "Hello" contain the same characters stored in the same memory location.
The fact that variables hold references to objects, not objects themselves, has a couple of other
consequences that you should be aware of. They follow logically, if you just keep in mind the basic fact that
the object is not stored in the variable. The object is somewhere else; the variable points to it.
Suppose that a variable that refers to an object is declared to be final. This means that the value stored in
the variable can never be changed, once the variable has been initialized. The value stored in the variable is
a reference to the object. So the variable will continue to refer to the same object as long as the variable
exists. However, this does not prevent the data in the object from changing. The variable is final, not the
object. It's perfectly legal to say
final Student stu = new Student();
stu.name = "John Doe"; // Change data in the object;
// The value stored in stu is not changed.
Next, suppose that obj is a variable that refers to an object. Let's consider at what happens when obj is
passed as an actual parameter to a subroutine. The value of obj is assigned to a formal parameter in the
subroutine, and the subroutine is executed. The subroutine has no power to change the value stored in the
variable, obj. It only has a copy of that value. However, that value is a reference to an object. Since the
subroutine has a reference to the object, it can change the data stored in the object. After the subroutine
ends, obj still points to the same object, but the data stored in the object might have changed. Suppose x
is a variable of type int and stu is a variable of type Student. Compare:
void dontChange(int z) { void change(Student s) {
z = 42; s.name = "Fred";
} }
The lines: The lines:
x = 17; stu.name = "Jane";
dontChange(x); change(stu);
System.out.println(x); System.out.println(stu.name);
output the value 17. output the value "Fred".
The value of x is not The value of stu is not
changed by the subroutine, changed, but stu.name is.
which is equivalent to This is equivalent to
z = x; s = stu;
z = 42; s.name = "Fred";
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 5.2
Section 5.2
Constructors and Object Initialization
OBJECT TYPES IN JAVA ARE VERY DIFFERENT from the primitive types. Simply declaring a
variable whose type is given as a class does not automatically create an object of that class. Objects must be
explicitly constructed. For the computer, the process of constructing an object means, first, finding some
unused memory in the heap that can be used to hold the object and, second, filling in the object's instance
variables. As a programmer, you don't care where in memory the object is stored, but you will usually want
to exercise some control over what initial values are stored in a new object's instance variables. In many
cases, you will also want to do more complicated initialization or bookkeeping every time an object is
created.
An instance variable can be assigned an initial value in its declaration, just like any other variable. For
example, consider a class named PairOfDice. An object of this class will represent a pair of dice. It will
contain two instance variables to represent the numbers showing on the dice and an instance method for
rolling the dice:
public class PairOfDice {
public int die1 = 3; // Number showing on the first die.
public int die2 = 4; // Number showing on the second die.
public void roll() {
// Roll the dice by setting each of the dice to be
// a random number between 1 and 6.
die1 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
die2 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
}
} // end class PairOfDice
The instance variables die1 and die2 are initialized to the values 3 and 4 respectively. These
initializations are executed whenever a PairOfDice object is constructed. It's important to understand
when and how this happens. There can be many PairOfDice objects. Each time one is created, it gets its
own instance variables, and the assignments "die1 = 3" and "die2 = 4" are executed to fill in the
values of those variables. To make this clearer, consider a variation of the PairOfDice class:
public class PairOfDice {
public int die1 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
public int die2 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
public void roll() {
die1 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
die2 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
}
} // end class PairOfDice
Here, the dice are initialized to random values, as if a new pair of dice were being thrown onto the gaming
table. Since the initialization is executed for each new object, a set of random initial values will be
computed for each new pair of dice. Different pairs of dice can have different initial values. For
initialization of static member variables, of course, the situation is quite different. There is only one copy of
a static variable, and initialization of that variable is executed just once, when the class is first loaded.
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Java Programing: Section 5.2
If you don't provide any initial value for an instance variable, a default initial value is provided
automatically. Instance variables of numerical type (int, double, etc.) are automatically initialized to
zero if you provide no other values; boolean variables are initialized to false; and char variables, to
the Unicode character with code number zero. An instance variable can also be a variable of object type.
For such variables, the default initial value is null. (In particular, since Strings are objects, the default
initial value for String variables is null.)
Objects are created with the operator, new. For example, a program that wants to use a PairOfDice
object could say:
PairOfDice dice; // Declare a variable of type PairOfDice.
dice = new PairOfDice(); // Construct a new object and store a
// reference to it in the variable.
In this example, "new PairOfDice()" is an expression that allocates memory for the object, initializes
the object's instance variables, and then returns a reference to the object. This reference is the value of the
expression, and that value is stored by the assignment statement in the variable, dice. Part of this
expression, "PairOfDice()", looks like a subroutine call, and that is no accident. It is, in fact, a call to a
special type of subroutine called a constructor. This might puzzle you, since there is no such subroutine in
the class definition. However, every class has a constructor. If the programmer doesn't provide one, then the
system will provide a default constructor. This default constructor does nothing beyond the basics: allocate
memory and initialize instance variables. If you want more than that to happen when an object is created,
you can include one or more constructors in the class definition.
The definition of a constructor looks much like the definition of any other subroutine, with three exceptions.
A constructor does not have any return type (not even void). The name of the constructor must be the
same as the name of the class in which it is defined. The only modifiers that can be used on a constructor
definition are the access modifiers public, private, and protected. (In particular, a constructor
can't be declared static.)
However, a constructor does have a subroutine body of the usual form, a block of statements. There are no
restrictions on what statements can be used. And it can have a list of formal parameters. In fact, the ability
to include parameters is one of the main reasons for using constructors. The parameters can provide data to
be used in the construction of the object. For example, a constructor for the PairOfDice class could
provide the values that are initially showing on the dice. Here is what the class would look like in that case:
public class PairOfDice {
public int die1; // Number showing on the first die.
public int die2; // Number showing on the second die.
public PairOfDice(int val1, int val2) {
// Constructor. Creates a pair of dice that
// are initially showing the values val1 and val2.
die1 = val1; // Assign specified values
die2 = val2; // to the instance variables.
}
public void roll() {
// Roll the dice by setting each of the dice to be
// a random number between 1 and 6.
die1 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
die2 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
}
} // end class PairOfDice
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The constructor is declared as "public PairOfDice(int val1, int val2)...", with no return
type and with the same name as the name of the class. This is how the Java compiler recognizes a
constructor. The constructor has two parameters, and values for these parameters must be provided when
the constructor is called. For example, the expression "new PairOfDice(3,4)" would create a
PairOfDice object in which the values of the instance variables die1 and die2 are initially 3 and 4. Of
course, in a program, the value returned by the constructor should be used in some way, as in
PairOfDice dice; // Declare a variable of type PairOfDice.
dice = new PairOfDice(1,1); // Let dice refer to a new PairOfDice
// object that initially shows 1, 1.
Now that we've added a constructor to the PairOfDice class, we can no longer create an object by saying
"new PairOfDice()"! The system provides a default constructor for a class only if the class definition
does not already include a constructor. However, this is not a big problem, since we can add a second
constructor to the class, one that has no parameters. In fact, you can have as many different constructors as
you want, as long as their signatures are different, that is, as long as they have different numbers or types of
formal parameters. In the PairOfDice class, we might have a constructor with no parameters which
produces a pair of dice showing random numbers:
public class PairOfDice {
public int die1; // Number showing on the first die.
public int die2; // Number showing on the second die.
public PairOfDice() {
// Constructor. Rolls the dice, so that they initially
// show some random values.
roll(); // Call the roll() method to roll the dice.
}
public PairOfDice(int val1, int val2) {
// Constructor. Creates a pair of dice that
// are initially showing the values val1 and val2.
die1 = val1; // Assign specified values
die2 = val2; // to the instance variables.
}
public void roll() {
// Roll the dice by setting each of the dice to be
// a random number between 1 and 6.
die1 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
die2 = (int)(Math.random()*6) + 1;
}
} // end class PairOfDice
Now we have the option of constructing a PairOfDice object either with "new PairOfDice()" or
with "new PairOfDice(x,y)", where x and y are int-valued expressions.
This class, once it is written, can be used in any program that needs to work with one or more pairs of dice.
None of those programs will ever have to use the obscure incantation
"(int)(Math.random()*6)+1", because it's done inside the PairOfDice class. And the
programmer, having once gotten the dice-rolling thing straight will never have to worry about it again.
Here, for example, is a main program that uses the PairOfDice class to count how many times two pairs
of dice are rolled before the two pairs come up showing the same value:
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public class RollTwoPairs {
public static void main(String[] args) {
PairOfDice firstDice; // Refers to the first pair of dice.
firstDice = new PairOfDice();
PairOfDice secondDice; // Refers to the second pair of dice.
secondDice = new PairOfDice();
int countRolls; // Counts how many times the two pairs of
// dice have been rolled.
int total1; // Total showing on first pair of dice.
int total2; // Total showing on second pair of dice.
countRolls = 0;
do { // Roll the two pairs of dice until totals are the same.
firstDice.roll(); // Roll the first pair of dice.
total1 = firstDice.die1 + firstDice.die2; // Get total.
System.out.println("First pair comes up " + total1);
secondDice.roll(); // Roll the second pair of dice.
total2 = secondDice.die1 + secondDice.die2; // Get total.
System.out.println("Second pair comes up " + total2);
countRolls++; // Count this roll.
System.out.println(); // Blank line.
} while (total1 != total2);
System.out.println("It took " + countRolls
+ " rolls until the totals were the same.");
} // end main()
} // end class RollTwoPairs
This applet simulates this program:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
Constructors are subroutines, but they are subroutines of a special type. They are certainly not instance
methods, since they don't belong to objects. Since they are responsible for creating objects, they exist before
any objects have been created. They are more like static member subroutines, but they are not and
cannot be declared to be static. In fact, according to the Java language specification, they are technically
not members of the class at all!
Unlike other subroutines, a constructor can only be called using the new operator, in an expression that has
the form
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new class-name ( parameter-list )
where the parameter-list is possibly empty. I call this an expression because it computes and returns a
value, namely a reference to the object that is constructed. Most often, you will store the returned reference
in a variable, but it is also legal to use a constructor call in other ways, for example as a parameter in a
subroutine call or as part of a more complex expression. Of course, if you don't save the reference in a
variable, you won't have any way of referring to the object that was just created.
A constructor call is more complicated than an ordinary subroutine or function call. It is helpful to
understand the exact steps that the computer goes through to execute a constructor call:
1. First, the computer gets a block of unused memory in the heap, large enough to hold an object of the
specified type.
2. It initializes the instance variables of the object. If the declaration of an instance variable specifies
an initial value, then that value is computed and stored in the instance variable. Otherwise, the
default initial value is used.
3. The actual parameters in the constructor, if any, are evaluated, and the values are assigned to the
formal parameters of the constructor.
4. The statements in the body of the constructor, if any, are executed.
5. A reference to the object is returned as the value of the constructor call.
The end result of this is that you have a reference to a newly constructed object. You can use this reference
to get at the instance variables in that object or to call its instance methods.
For another example, let's rewrite the Student class that was used in Section 1. I'll add a constructor, and
I'll also take the opportunity to make the instance variable, name, private.
public class Student {
private String name; // Student's name.
public double test1, test2, test3; // Grades on three tests.
Student(String theName) {
// Constructor for Student objects;
// provides a name for the Student.
name = theName;
}
public String getName() {
// Accessor method for reading value of private
// instance variable, name.
return name;
}
public double getAverage() {
// Compute average test grade.
return (test1 + test2 + test3) / 3;
}
} // end of class Student
An object of type Student contains information about some particular student. The constructor in this
class has a parameter of type String, which specifies the name of that student. Objects of type Student
can be created with statements such as:
std = new Student("John Smith");
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std1 = new Student("Mary Jones");
In the original version of this class, the value of name had to be assigned by a program after it created the
object of type Student. There was no guarantee that the programmer would always remember to set the
name properly. In the new version of the class, there is no way to create a Student object except by
calling the constructor, and that constructor automatically sets the name. The programmer's life is made
easier, and whole hordes of frustrating bugs are squashed before they even have a chance to be born.
Another type of guarantee is provided by the private modifier. Since the instance variable, name, is
private, there is no way for any part of the program outside the Student class to get at the name
directly. The program sets the value of name, indirectly, when it calls the constructor. I've provided a
function, getName(), that can be used from outside the class to find out the name of the student. But I
haven't provided any way to change the name. Once a student object is created, it keeps the same name as
long as it exists.
Garbage Collection
So far, this section has been about creating objects. What about destroying them? In Java, the destruction of
objects takes place automatically.
An object exists in the heap, and it can be accessed only through variables that hold references to the object.
What should be done with an object if there are no variables that refer to it? Such things can happen.
Consider the following two statements (though in reality, you'd never do anything like this):
Student std = new Student("John Smith");
std = null;
In the first line, a reference to a newly created Student object is stored in the variable std. But in the
next line, the value of std is changed, and the reference to the Student object is gone. In fact, there are
now no references whatsoever to that object stored in any variable. So there is no way for the program ever
to use the object again. It might as well not exist. In fact, the memory occupied by the object should be
reclaimed to be used for another purpose.
Java uses a procedure called garbage collection to reclaim memory occupied by objects that are no longer
accessible to a program. It is the responsibility of the system, not the programmer, to keep track of which
objects are "garbage". In the above example, it was very easy to see that the Student object had become
garbage. Usually, it's much harder. If an object has been used for a while, there might be several references
to the object stored in several variables. The object doesn't become garbage until all those references have
been dropped.
In many other programing languages, it's the programmer's responsibility to delete the garbage.
Unfortunately, keeping track of memory usage is very error-prone, and many serious program bugs are
caused by such errors. A programmer might accidently delete an object even though there are still
references to that object. This is called a dangling pointer error, and it leads to problems when the program
tries to access an object that is no longer there. Another type of error is a memory leak, where a
programmer neglects to delete objects that are no longer in use. This can lead to filling memory with
objects that are completely inaccessible, and the program might run out of memory even though, in fact,
large amounts of memory are being wasted.
Because Java uses garbage collection, such errors are simply impossible. You might wonder why all
languages don't use garbage collection. In the past, it was considered too slow and wasteful. However,
research into garbage collection techniques combined with the incredible speed of modern computers have
combined to make garbage collection feasible. Programmers should rejoice.
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[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 5.3
Programming with Objects
THERE ARE SEVERAL WAYS in which object-oriented concepts can be applied to the process of
designing and writing programs. The broadest of these is object-oriented analysis and design which applies
an object-oriented methodology to the earliest stages of program development, during which the overall
design of a program is created. Here, the idea is to identify things in the problem domain that can be
modeled as objects. On another level, object-oriented programming encourages programmers to produce
generalized software components that can be used in a wide variety of programming projects.
Generalized Software Components
Every programmer builds up a stock of techniques and expertise expressed as snippets of code that can be
reused in new programs using the tried-and-true method of cut-and-paste: The old code is physically copied
into the new program and then edited to customize it as necessary. The problem is that the editing is
error-prone and time-consuming, and the whole enterprise is dependent on the programmer's ability to pull
out that particular piece of code from last year's project that looks like it might be made to fit. (On the level
of a corporation that wants to save money by not reinventing the wheel for each new project, just keeping
track of all the old wheels becomes a major task.)
Well-designed classes are software components that can be reused without editing. A well-designed class is
not carefully crafted to do a particular job in a particular program. Instead, it is crafted to model some
particular type of object or a single coherent concept. Since objects and concepts can recur in many
problems, a well-designed class is likely to be reusable without modification in a variety of projects.
Furthermore, in an object-oriented programming language, it is possible to make subclasses of an existing
class. This makes classes even more reusable. If a class needs to be customized, a subclass can be created,
and additions or modifications can be made in the subclass without making any changes to the original
class. This can be done even if the programmer doesn't have access to the source code of the class and
doesn't know any details of its internal, hidden implementation. We will discuss subclasses in the next
section.
Object-oriented Analysis and Design
A large programming project goes through a number of stages, starting with specification of the problem to
be solved, followed by analysis of the problem and design of a program to solve it. Then comes coding, in
which the program's design is expressed in some actual programming language. This is followed by testing
and debugging of the program. After that comes a long period of maintenance, which means fixing any new
problems that are found in the program and modifying it to adapt it to changing requirements. Together,
these stages form what is called the software life cycle. (In the real world, the ideal of consecutive stages is
seldom if ever achieved. During the analysis stage, it might turn out that the specifications are incomplete
or inconsistent. A problem found during testing requires at least a brief return to the coding stage. If the
problem is serious enough, it might even require a new design. Maintenance usually involves redoing some
of the work from previous stages....)
Large, complex programming projects are only likely to succeed if a careful, systematic approach is
adopted during all stages of the software life cycle. The systematic approach to programming, using
accepted principles of good design, is called software engineering. The software engineer tries to efficiently
construct programs that verifyably meet their specifications and that are easy to modify if necessary. There
is a wide range of "methodologies" that can be applied to help in the systematic design of programs. (Most
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of these methodologies seem to involve drawing little boxes to represent program components, with labeled
arrows to represent relationships among the boxes.)
We have been discussing object orientation in programming languages, which is relevant to the coding
stage of program development. But there are also object-oriented methodologies for analysis and design.
The question in this stage of the software life cycle is, How can one discover or invent the overall structure
of a program? As an example of a rather simple object-oriented approach to analysis and design, consider
this advice: Write down a description of the problem. Underline all the nouns in that description. The nouns
should be considered as candidates for becoming classes or objects in the program design. Similarly,
underline all the verbs. These are candidates for methods. This is your starting point. Further analysis might
uncover the need for more classes and methods, and it might reveal that subclassing can be used to take
advantage of similarities among classes.
This is perhaps a bit simple-minded, but the idea is clear and the general approach can be effective: Analyze
the problem to discover the concepts that are involved, and create classes to represent those concepts. The
design should arise from the problem itself, and you should end up with a program whose structure reflects
the structure of the problem in a natural way.
Programming Examples
The PairOfDice class in the previous section is already an example of a generalized software
component, although one that could certainly be improved. The class represents a single, coherent concept,
"a pair of dice." The instance variables hold the data relevant to the state of the dice, that is, the number
showing on each of the dice. The instance method represents the behaviour of a pair of dice, that is, the
ability to be rolled. This class would be reusable in many different programming projects.
On the other hand, the Student class from the previous section is not very reusable. It seems to be crafted
to represent students in a particular course where the grade will be based on three tests. If there are more
tests or quizzes or papers, it's useless. If there are two people in the class who have the same name, we are
in trouble (one reason why numerical student ID's are often used). Admittedly, it's much more difficult to
develop a general-purpose student class than a general-purpose pair-of-dice class. But this particular
Student class is good mostly as an example in a programming textbook.
Let's do another example in a domain that is simple enough that we have a chance of coming up with
something reasonably reusable. Consider card games that are played with a standard deck of playing cards
(a so-called "poker" deck, since it is used in the game of poker). In a typical card game, each player gets a
hand of cards. The deck is shuffled and cards are dealt one at a time from the deck and added to the players'
hands. In some games, cards can be removed from a hand, and new cards can be added. The game is won or
lost depending on the value (ace, 2, ..., king) and suit (spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts) of the cards that a
player receives. If we look for nouns in this description, there are several candidates for objects: game,
player, hand, card, deck, value, and suit. Of these, the value and the suit of a card are simple values, and
they will just be represented as instance variables in a Card object. In a complete program, the other five
nouns might be represented by classes. But let's work on the ones that are most obviously reusable: card,
hand, and deck.
If we look for verbs in the description of a card game, we see that we can shuffle a deck and deal a card
from a deck. This gives use us two candidates for instance methods in a Deck class. Cards can be added to
and removed from hands. This gives two candidates for instance methods in a Hand class. Cards are
relatively passive things, but we need to be able to determine their suits and values. We will discover more
instance methods as we go along.
First, we'll design the deck class in detail. When a deck of cards is first created, it contains 52 cards in some
standard order. The Deck class will need a constructor to create a new deck. The constructor needs no
parameters because any new deck is the same as any other. There will be an instance method called
shuffle() that will rearrange the 52 cards into a random order. The dealCard() instance method will
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get the next card from the deck. This will be a function with a return type of Card, since the caller needs to
know what card is being dealt. It has no parameters. What will happen if there are no more cards in the deck
when its dealCard() method is called? It should probably be considered an error to try to deal a card
from an empty deck. But this raises another question: How will the rest of the program know whether the
deck is empty? Of course, the program could keep track of how many cards it has used. But the deck itself
should know how many cards it has left, so the program should just be able to ask the deck object. We can
make this possible by specifying another instance method, cardsLeft(), that returns the number of
cards remaining in the deck. This leads to a full specification of all the subroutines in the Deck class:
Constructor and instance methods in class Deck:
public Deck()
// Constructor. Create an unshuffled deck of cards.
public void shuffle()
// Put all the used cards back into the deck,
// and shuffle it into a random order.
public int cardsLeft()
// As cards are dealt from the deck, the number of
// cards left decreases. This function returns the
// number of cards that are still left in the deck.
public Card dealCard()
// Deals one card from the deck and returns it.
This is everything you need to know in order to use the Deck class. Of course, it doesn't tell us how to
write the class. This has been an exercise in design, not in programming. In fact, writing the class involves a
programming technique, arrays, which will not be covered until Chapter 8. Nevertheless, you can look at
the source code, Deck.java, if you want. And given the source code, you can use the class in your programs
without understanding the implementation.
We can do a similar analysis for the Hand class. When a hand object is first created, it has no cards in it.
An addCard() instance method will add a card to the hand. This method needs a parameter of type Card
to specify which card is being added. For the removeCard() method, a parameter is needed to specify
which card to remove. But should we specify the card itself ("Remove the ace of spades"), or should we
specify the card by its position in the hand ("Remove the third card in the hand")? Actually, we don't have
to decide, since we can allow for both options. We'll have two removeCard() instance methods, one
with a parameter of type Card specifying the card to be removed and one with a parameter of type int
specifying the position of the card in the hand. (Remember that you can have two methods in a class with
the same name, provided they have different types of parameters.) Since a hand can contain a variable
number of cards, it's convenient to be able to ask a hand object how many cards it contains. So, we need an
instance method getCardCount() that returns the number of cards in the hand. When I play cards, I like
to arrange the cards in my hand so that cards of the same value are next to each other. Since this is a
generally useful thing to be able to do, we can provide instance methods for sorting the cards in the hand.
Here is a full specification for a reusable Hand class:
Constructor and instance methods in class Hand:
public Hand() {
// Create a Hand object that is initially empty.
public void clear() {
// Discard all cards from the hand, making the hand empty.
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public void addCard(Card c) {
// Add the card c to the hand. c should be non-null.
// (If c is null, nothing is added to the hand.)
public void removeCard(Card c) {
// If the specified card is in the hand, it is removed.
public void removeCard(int position) {
// If the specified position is a valid position in the
// hand, then the card in that position is removed.
public int getCardCount() {
// Return the number of cards in the hand.
public Card getCard(int position) {
// Get the card from the hand in given position, where
// positions are numbered starting from 0. If the
// specified position is not the position number of
// a card in the hand, then null is returned.
public void sortBySuit() {
// Sorts the cards in the hand so that cards of the same
// suit are grouped together, and within a suit the cards
// are sorted by value. Note that aces are considered
// to have the lowest value, 1.
public void sortByValue() {
// Sorts the cards in the hand so that cards of the same
// value are grouped together. Cards with the same value
// are sorted by suit. Note that aces are considered
// to have the lowest value, 1.
Again, you don't yet know enough to implement this class. But given the source code, Hand.java, you can
use the class in your own programming projects.
We have covered enough material to write a Card class. The class will have a constructor that specifies the
value and suit of the card that is being created. There are four suits, which can be represented by the
integers 0, 1, 2, and 3. It would be tough to remember which number represents which suit, so I've defined
named constants in the Card class to represent the four possibilities. For example, Card.SPADES is a
constant that represents the suit, spades. (These constants are declared to be public final static
ints. This is one case in which it makes sense to have static members in a class that otherwise has
only instance variables and instance methods.) The possible values of a card are the numbers 1, 2, ..., 13,
with 1 standing for an ace, 11 for a jack, 12 for a queen, and 13 for a king. Again, I've defined some named
constants to represent the values of aces and face cards. So, cards can be constructed by statements such as:
card1 = new Card( Card.ACE, Card.SPADES ); // Construct ace of spades.
card2 = new Card( 10, Card.DIAMONDS ); // Construct 10 of diamonds.
card3 = new Card( v, s ); // This is OK, as long as v and s
// are integer expressions.
A Card object needs instance variables to represent its value and suit. I've made these private so that
they cannot be changed from outside the class, and I've provided instance methods getSuit() and
getValue() so that it will be possible to discover the suit and value from outside the class. The instance
variables are initialized in the constructor, and are never changed after that. In fact, I've declared the
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instance variables suit and value to be final, since they are never changed after they are initialized.
(An instance variable can be declared final provided it is either given an initial value in its declaration or
is initialized in every constructor in the class.)
Finally, I've added a few convenience methods to the class to make it easier to print out cards in a
human-readable form. For example, I want to be able to print out the suit of a card as the word "Diamonds",
rather than as the meaningless code number 2, which is used in the class to represent diamonds. Since this is
something that I'll probably have to do in many programs, it makes sense to include support for it in the
class. So, I've provided instance methods getSuitAsString() and getValueAsString() to return
string representations of the suit and value of a card. Finally, there is an instance method toString()
that returns a string with both the value and suit, such as "Queen of Hearts". There is a good reason for
calling this method toString(). When any object is output with System.out.print(), the object's
toString() method is called to produce the string representation of the object. For example, if card
refers to an object of type Card, then System.out.println(card) is equivalent to
System.out.println(card.toString()). Similarly, if an object is appended to a string using
the + operator, the object's toSring() method is used. Thus,
System.out.println( "Your card is the " + card );
is equivalent to
System.out.println( "Your card is the " + card.toString() );
If the card is the queen of hearts, either of these will print out "Your card is the Queen of Hearts".
Here is the complete Card class. It is general enough to be highly reusable, so the work that went into
designing, writing, and testing it pays off handsomely in the long run.
/*
An object of class card represents one of the 52 cards in a
standard deck of playing cards. Each card has a suit and
a value.
*/
public class Card {
public final static int SPADES = 0, // Codes for the 4 suits.
HEARTS = 1,
DIAMONDS = 2,
CLUBS = 3;
public final static int ACE = 1, // Codes for non-numeric cards.
JACK = 11, // Cards 2 through 10 have
QUEEN = 12, // their numerical values
KING = 13; // for their codes.
private final int suit; // The suit of this card, one of the
// four constants: SPADES, HEARTS,
// DIAMONDS, CLUBS.
private final int value; // The value of this card, from 1 to 13.
public Card(int theValue, int theSuit) {
// Construct a card with the specified value and suit.
// Value must be between 1 and 13. Suit must be between
// 0 and 3. If the parameters are outside these ranges,
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// the constructed card object will be invalid.
value = theValue;
suit = theSuit;
}
public int getSuit() {
// Return the int that codes for this card's suit.
return suit;
}
public int getValue() {
// Return the int that codes for this card's value.
return value;
}
public String getSuitAsString() {
// Return a String representing the card's suit.
// (If the card's suit is invalid, "??" is returned.)
switch ( suit ) {
case SPADES: return "Spades";
case HEARTS: return "Hearts";
case DIAMONDS: return "Diamonds";
case CLUBS: return "Clubs";
default: return "??";
}
}
public String getValueAsString() {
// Return a String representing the card's value.
// If the card's value is invalid, "??" is returned.
switch ( value ) {
case 1: return "Ace";
case 2: return "2";
case 3: return "3";
case 4: return "4";
case 5: return "5";
case 6: return "6";
case 7: return "7";
case 8: return "8";
case 9: return "9";
case 10: return "10";
case 11: return "Jack";
case 12: return "Queen";
case 13: return "King";
default: return "??";
}
}
public String toString() {
// Return a String representation of this card, such as
// "10 of Hearts" or "Queen of Spades".
return getValueAsString() + " of " + getSuitAsString();
}
} // end class Card
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Java Programing: Section 5.3
I will finish this section by presenting a complete program that uses the Card and Deck classes. The
program lets the user play a very simple card game called HighLow. A deck of cards is shuffled, and one
card is dealt from the deck and shown to the user. The user predicts whether the next card from the deck
will be higher or lower than the current card. If the user predicts correctly, then the next card from the deck
becomes the current card, and the user makes another prediction. This continues until the user makes an
incorrect prediction. The number of correct predictions is the user's score.
My program has a subroutine that plays one game of HighLow. This subroutine has a return value that
represents the user's score in the game. The main() routine lets the user play several games of HighLow.
At the end, it reports the user's average score.
I won't go through the development of the algorithms used in this program, but I encourage you to read it
carefully and make sure that you understand how it works. Here is the program:
/*
This program lets the user play HighLow, a simple card game
that is described in the output statements at the beginning of
the main() routine. After the user plays several games,
the user's average score is reported.
*/
public class HighLow {
public static void main(String[] args) {
TextIO.putln("This program lets you play the simple card game,");
TextIO.putln("HighLow. A card is dealt from a deck of cards.");
TextIO.putln("You have to predict whether the next card will be");
TextIO.putln("higher or lower. Your score in the game is the");
TextIO.putln("number of correct predictions you make before");
TextIO.putln("you guess wrong.");
TextIO.putln();
int gamesPlayed = 0; // Number of games user has played.
int sumOfScores = 0; // The sum of all the scores from
// all the games played.
double averageScore; // Average score, computed by dividing
// sumOfScores by gamesPlayed.
boolean playAgain; // Record user's response when user is
// asked whether he wants to play
// another game.
do {
int scoreThisGame; // Score for one game.
scoreThisGame = play(); // Play the game and get the score.
sumOfScores += scoreThisGame;
gamesPlayed++;
TextIO.put("Play again? ");
playAgain = TextIO.getlnBoolean();
} while (playAgain);
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Java Programing: Section 5.3
averageScore = ((double)sumOfScores) / gamesPlayed;
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("You played " + gamesPlayed + " games.");
TextIO.putln("Your average score was " + averageScore);
} // end main()
static int play() {
// Lets the user play one game of HighLow, and returns the
// user's score in the game.
Deck deck = new Deck(); // Get a new deck of cards, and
// store a reference to it in
// the variable, Deck.
Card currentCard; // The current card, which the user sees.
Card nextCard; // The next card in the deck. The user tries
// to predict whether this is higher or lower
// than the current card.
int correctGuesses ; // The number of correct predictions the
// user has made. At the end of the game,
// this will be the user's score.
char guess; // The user's guess. 'H' if the user predicts that
// the next card will be higher, 'L' if the user
// predicts that it will be lower.
deck.shuffle();
correctGuesses = 0;
currentCard = deck.dealCard();
TextIO.putln("The first card is the " + currentCard);
while (true) { // Loop ends when user's prediction is wrong.
/* Get the user's prediction, 'H' or 'L'. */
TextIO.put("Will the next card be higher (H) or lower (L)? ");
do {
guess = TextIO.getlnChar();
guess = Character.toUpperCase(guess);
if (guess != 'H' && guess != 'L')
TextIO.put("Please respond with H or L: ");
} while (guess != 'H' && guess != 'L');
/* Get the next card and show it to the user. */
nextCard = deck.dealCard();
TextIO.putln("The next card is " + nextCard);
/* Check the user's prediction. */
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Java Programing: Section 5.3
if (nextCard.getValue() == currentCard.getValue()) {
TextIO.putln("The value is the same as the previous card.");
TextIO.putln("You lose on ties. Sorry!");
break; // End the game.
}
else if (nextCard.getValue() > currentCard.getValue()) {
if (guess == 'H') {
TextIO.putln("Your prediction was correct.");
correctGuesses++;
}
else {
TextIO.putln("Your prediction was incorrect.");
break; // End the game.
}
}
else { // nextCard is lower
if (guess == 'L') {
TextIO.putln("Your prediction was correct.");
correctGuesses++;
}
else {
TextIO.putln("Your prediction was incorrect.");
break; // End the game.
}
}
/* To set up for the next iteration of the loop, the nextCard
becomes the currentCard, since the currentCard has to be
the card that the user sees, and the nextCard will be
set to the next card in the deck after the user makes
his prediction. */
currentCard = nextCard;
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("The card is " + currentCard);
} // end of while loop
TextIO.putln();
TextIO.putln("The game is over.");
TextIO.putln("You made " + correctGuesses
+ " correct predictions.");
TextIO.putln();
return correctGuesses;
} // end play()
} // end class HighLow
Here is an applet that simulates the program:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
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Java Programing: Section 5.3
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
Section 5.4
Inheritance, Polymorphism, and Abstract Classes
A CLASS REPRESENTS A SET OF OBJECTS which share the same structure and behaviors. The class
determines the structure of objects by specifying variables that are contained in each instance of the class,
and it determines behavior by providing the instance methods that express the behavior of the objects. This
is a powerful idea. However, something like this can be done in most programming languages. The central
new idea in object-oriented programming -- the idea that really distinguishes it from traditional
programming -- is to allow classes to express the similarities among objects that share some, but not all, of
their structure and behavior. Such similarities can expressed using inheritance and polymorphism.
The topics covered in this section are relatively advanced aspects of object-oriented programming. Any
programmer should know what is meant by subclass, inheritance, and polymorphism. However, it will
probably be a while before you actually do anything with inheritance except for extending classes that
already exist.
The term inheritance refers to the fact that one class can inherit part or all of its structure and behavior from
another class. The class that does the inheriting is said to be a subclass of the class from which it inherits. If
class B is a subclass of class A, we also say that class A is a superclass of class B.
(Sometimes the terms derived class and base class are used instead of subclass and
superclass.) A subclass can add to the structure and behavior that it inherits. It can
also replace or modify inherited behavior (though not inherited structure). The
relationship between subclass and superclass is sometimes shown by a diagram in
which the subclass is shown below, and connected to, its superclass.
In Java, when you create a new class, you can declare that it is a subclass of an
existing class. If you are defining a class named "B" and you want it to be a subclass
of a class named "A", you would write
class B extends A {
.
. // additions to, and modifications of,
. // stuff inherited from class A
.
}
Several classes can be declared as subclasses of the
same superclass. The subclasses, which might be
referred to as "sibling classes," share some structures
and behaviors -- namely, the ones they inherit from
their common superclass. The superclass expresses
these shared structures and behaviors. In the diagram to
the left, classes B, C, and D are sibling classes.
Inheritance can also extend over several "generations"
of classes. This is shown in the diagram, where class E
is a subclass of class D which is itself a subclass of
class A. In this case, class E is considered to be a
subclass of class A, even though it is not a direct
subclass.
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
Let's look at an example. Suppose that a program has to
deal with motor vehicles, including cars, trucks, and
motorcycles. (This might be a program used by a
Department of Motor Vehicles to keep track of
registrations.) The program could use a class named
Vehicle to represent all types of vehicles. The
Vehicle class could include instance variables such
as registrationNumber and owner and instance
methods such as transferOwnership(). These are variables and methods common to all vehicles.
Three subclasses of Vehicle -- Car, Truck, and Motorcycle -- could then be used to hold variables
and methods specific to particular types of vehicles. The Car class might add an instance variable
numberOfDoors, the Truck class might have numberOfAxels, and the Motorcycle class could
have a boolean variable hasSidecar. (Well, it could in theory at least, even if it might give a chuckle to
the people at the Department of Motor Vehicles.) The declarations of these classes in Java program would
look, in outline, like this:
class Vehicle {
int registrationNumber;
Person owner; // (assuming that a Person class has been defined)
void transferOwnership(Person newOwner) {
. . .
}
. . .
}
class Car extends Vehicle {
int numberOfDoors;
. . .
}
class Truck extends Vehicle {
int numberOfAxels;
. . .
}
class Motorcycle extends Vehicle {
boolean hasSidecar;
. . .
}
Suppose that myCar is a variable of type Car that has been declared and initialized with the statement
Car myCar = new Car();
(Note that, as with any variable, it is OK to declare a variable and initialize it in a single statement. This is
equivalent to the declaration "Car myCar;" followed by the assignment statement "myCar = new
Car();".) Given this declaration, a program could to refer to myCar.numberOfDoors, since
numberOfDoors is an instance variable in the class Car. But since class Car extends class Vehicle, a
car also has all the structure and behavior of a vehicle. This means that myCar.registrationNumber,
myCar.owner, and myCar.transferOwnership() also exist.
Now, in the real world, cars, trucks, and motorcycles are in fact vehicles. The same is true in a program.
That is, an object of type Car or Truck or Motorcycle is automatically an object of type Vehicle.
This brings us to the following Important Fact:
A variable that can hold a reference
to an object of class A can also hold a reference
to an object belonging to any subclass of A.
The practical effect of this in our example is that an object of type Car can be assigned to a variable of type
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
Vehicle. That is, it would be legal to say
Vehicle myVehicle = myCar;
or even
Vehicle myVehicle = new Car();
After either of these statements, the variable myVehicle holds a reference to a Vehicle object that
happens to be an instance of the subclass, Car. The object "remembers" that it is in fact a Car, and not just
a Vehicle. Information about the actual class of an object is stored as part of that object. It is even
possible to test whether a given object belongs to a given class, using the instanceof operator. The test:
if (myVehicle instanceof Car) ...
determines whether the object referred to by myVehicle is in fact a car.
On the other hand, if myVehicle is a variable of type Vehicle the assignment statement
myCar = myVehicle;
would be illegal because myVehicle could potentially refer to other types of vehicles that are not cars.
This is similar to a problem we saw previously in Section 2.5: The computer will not allow you to assign an
int value to a variable of type short, because not every int is a short. Similarly, it will not allow you
to assign a value of type Vehicle to a variable of type Car because not every vehicle is a car. As in the
case of ints and shorts, the solution here is to use type-casting. If, for some reason, you happen to
know that myVehicle does in fact refer to a Car, you can use the type cast (Car)myVehicle to tell
the computer to treat myVehicle as if it were actually of type Car. So, you could say
myCar = (Car)myVehicle;
and you could even refer to ((Car)myVehicle).numberOfDoors. As an example of how this could be used in
a program, suppose that you want to print out relevant data about a vehicle. You could say:
System.out.println("Vehicle Data:");
System.out.println("Registration number: "
+ myVehicle.registrationNumber);
if (myVehicle instanceof Car) {
System.out.println("Type of vehicle: Car");
Car c;
c = (Car)myVehicle;
System.out.println("Number of doors: " + c.numberOfDoors);
}
else if (myVehicle instanceof Truck) {
System.out.println("Type of vehicle: Truck");
Truck t;
t = (Truck)myVehicle;
System.out.println("Number of axels: " + t.numberOfAxels);
}
else if (myVehicle instanceof Motorcycle) {
System.out.println("Type of vehicle: Motorcycle");
Motorcycle m;
m = (Motorcycle)myVehicle;
System.out.println("Has a sidecar: " + m.hasSidecar);
}
Note that for object types, when the computer executes a program, it checks whether type-casts are valid.
So, for example, if myVehicle refers to an object of type Truck, then the type cast (Car)myVehicle
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
will produce an error.
As another example, consider a program that deals with shapes drawn on the screen. Let's say that the
shapes include rectangles, ovals, and roundrects of various colors.
Three classes, Rectangle, Oval, and RoundRect, could be used to represent the three types of shapes.
These three classes would have a common superclass, Shape, to represent features that all three shapes
have in common. The Shape class could include instance variables to represent the color, position, and
size of a shape. It could include instance methods for changing the color, position, and size of a shape.
Changing the color, for example, might involve changing the value of an instance variable, and then
redrawing the shape in its new color:
class Shape {
Color color; // Color of the shape. (Recall that class Color
// is defined in package java.awt. Assume
// that this class has been imported.)
void setColor(Color newColor) {
// Method to change the color of the shape.
color = newColor; // change value of instance variable
redraw(); // redraw shape, which will appear in new color
}
void redraw() {
// method for drawing the shape
? ? ? // what commands should go here?
}
. . . // more instance variables and methods
} // end of class Shape
Now, you might see a problem here with the method redraw(). The problem is that each different type of
shape is drawn differently. The method setColor() can be called for any type of shape. How does the
computer know which shape to draw when it executes the redraw()? Informally, we can answer the
question like this: The computer executes redraw() by asking the shape to redraw itself. Every shape
object knows what it has to do to redraw itself.
In practice, this means that each of the specific shape classes has its own redraw() method:
class Rectangle extends Shape {
void redraw() {
. . . // commands for drawing a rectangle
}
. . . // possibly, more methods and variables
}
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
class Oval extends Shape {
void redraw() {
. . . // commands for drawing an oval
}
. . . // possibly, more methods and variables
}
class RoundRect extends Shape {
void redraw() {
. . . // commands for drawing a rounded rectangle
}
. . . // possibly, more methods and variables
}
If oneShape is a variable of type Shape, it could refer to an object of any of the types, Rectangle,
Oval, or RoundRect. As a program executes, and the value of oneShape changes, it could even refer to
objects of different types at different times! Whenever the statement
oneShape.redraw();
is executed, the redraw method that is actually called is the one appropriate for the type of object to which
oneShape actually refers. There may be no way of telling, from looking at the text of the program, what
shape this statement will draw, since it depends on the value that oneShape happens to have when the
program is executed. Even more is true. Suppose the statement is in a loop and gets executed many times. If
the value of oneShape changes as the loop is executed, it is possible that the very same statement
"oneShape.redraw();" will call different methods and draw different shapes as it is executed over and
over. We say that the redraw() method is polymorphic. A method is polymorphic if the action performed
by the method depends on the actual type of the object to which the method is applied. Polymorphism is
one of the major distinguishing features of object-oriented programming.
Perhaps this becomes more understandable if we change our terminology a bit: In object-oriented
programming, calling a method is often referred to as sending a message to an object. The object responds
to the message by executing the appropriate method. The statement "oneShape.redraw();" is a
message to the object referred to by oneShape. Since that object knows what type of object it is, it knows
how it should respond to the message. From this point of view, the computer always executes
"oneShape.redraw();" in the same way: by sending a message. The response to the message depends,
naturally, on who receives it. From this point of view, objects are active entities that send and receive
messages, and polymorphism is a natural, even necessary, part of this view. Polymorphism just means that
different objects can respond to the same message in different ways.
One of the most beautiful things about polymorphism is that it lets code that you
write do things that you didn't even conceive of, at the time you wrote it. If for some
reason, I decide that I want to add beveled rectangles to the types of shapes my
program can deal with, I can write a new subclass, BeveledRect, of class Shape
and give it its own redraw() method. Automatically, code that I wrote previously
-- such as the statement oneShape.redraw() -- can now suddenly start drawing
beveled rectangles, even though the beveled rectangle class didn't exist when I wrote
the statement!
In the statement "oneShape.redraw();", the redraw message is sent to the object oneShape. Look
back at the method from the Shape class for changing the color of a shape:
void setColor(Color newColor) {
color = newColor; // change value of instance variable
redraw(); // redraw shape, which will appear in new color
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
}
A redraw message is sent here, but which object is it sent to? Well, the setColor method is itself a
message that was sent to some object. The answer is that the redraw message is sent to that same object,
the one that received the setColor message. If that object is a rectangle, then it is the redraw() method
from the Rectangle class that is executed. If the object is an oval, then it is the redraw() method from
the Oval class. This is what you should expect, but it means that the redraw(); statement in the
setColor() method does not necessarily call the redraw() method in the Shape class! The
redraw() method that is executed could be in any subclass of Shape.
Again, this is not a real surprise if you think about it in the right way. Remember that an instance method is
always contained in an object. The class only contains the source code for the method. When a
Rectangle object is created, it contains a redraw() method. The source code for that method is in the
Rectangle class. The object also contains a setColor() method. Since the Rectangle class does
not define a setColor() method, the source code for the rectangle's setColor() method comes from
the superclass, Shape. But even though the source codes for the two methods are in different classes, the
methods themselves are part of the same object. When the rectangle's setColor() method is executed
and calls redraw(), the redraw() method that is executed is the one in the same object.
Whenever a Rectangle, Oval, or RoundRect object has to draw itself, it is the redraw() method in
the appropriate class that is executed. This leaves open the question, What does the redraw() method in
the Shape class do? How should it be defined?
The answer may be surprising: We should leave it blank! The fact is that the class Shape represents the
abstract idea of a shape, and there is no way to draw such a thing. Only particular, concrete shapes like
rectangles and ovals can be drawn. So, why should there even be a redraw() method in the Shape
class? Well, it has to be there, or it would be illegal to call it in the setColor() method of the Shape
class, and it would be illegal to write "oneShape.redraw();", where oneShape is a variable of type
Shape. The computer would say, oneShape is a variable of type Shape and there's no redraw()
method in the Shape class.
Nevertheless the version of redraw() in the Shape class will never be called. In fact, if you think about
it, there can never be any reason to construct an actual object of type Shape! You can have variables of
type Shape, but the objects they refer to will always belong to one of the subclasses of Shape. We say
that Shape is an abstract class. An abstract class is one that is not used to construct objects, but only as a
basis for making subclasses. An abstract class exists only to express the common properties of all its
subclasses.
Similarly, we could say that the redraw() method in class Shape is an abstract method, since it is never
meant to be called. In fact, there is nothing for it to do -- any actual redrawing is done by redraw()
methods in the subclasses of Shape. The redraw() method in Shape has to be there. But it is there only
to tell the computer that all Shapes understand the redraw message. As an abstract method, it exists
merely to specify the common interface of all the actual, concrete versions of redraw() in the subclasses
of Shape. There is no reason for the abstract redraw() in class Shape to contain any code at all.
Shape and its redraw() method are semantically abstract. You can also tell the computer, syntactically,
that they are abstract by adding the modifier "abstract" to their definitions. For an abstract method, the
block of code that gives the implementation of an ordinary method is replaced by a semicolon. An
implementation must be provided for the abstract method in any concrete subclass of the abstract class.
Here's what the Shape class would look like as an abstract class:
abstract class Shape {
Color color; // color of shape.
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
void setColor(Color newColor) {
// method to change the color of the shape
color = newColor; // change value of instance variable
redraw(); // redraw shape, which will appear in new color
}
abstract void redraw();
// abstract method -- must be defined in
// concrete subclasses
. . . // more instance variables and methods
} // end of class Shape
Once you have done this, it becomes illegal to try to create actual objects of type Shape, and the computer
will report an error if you try to do so.
In Java, every class that you declare has a superclass. If you don't specify a superclass, then the superclass
is automatically taken to be Object, a predefined class that is part of the package java.lang. (The class
Object itself has no superclass, but it is the only class that has this property.) Thus,
class myClass { . . .
is exactly equivalent to
class myClass extends Object { . . .
Every other class is, directly or indirectly, a subclass of Object. This means that any object, belonging to
any class whatsoever, can be assigned to a variable of type Object. The class Object represents very
general properties that are shared by all objects, belonging to any class. Object is the most abstract class
of all!
The Object class actually finds a use in some cases where objects of a very general sort are being
manipulated. For example, java has a standard class, java.util.Vector, that represents a list of
Objects. (The Vector class is in the package java.util. If you want to use this class in a program
you write, you would ordinarily use an import statement to make it possible to use the short name,
Vector, instead of the full name, java.util.Vector. See Section 4.5 for a discussion of packages
and import.) The Vector class is very convenient, because a Vector can hold any number of objects,
and it will grow, when necessary, as objects are added to it. Since the items in the list are of type Object,
the list can actually hold objects of any type.
A program that wants to keep track of various Shapes that have been drawn on the screen can store those
shapes in a Vector. Suppose that the Vector is named listOfShapes. A shape, oneShape, can be
added to the end of the list by calling the instance method
"listOfShapes.addElement(oneShape);". The shape could be removed from the list with
"listOfShapes.removeElement(oneShape);". The number of shapes in the list is given by the
function "listOfShapes.size()". And it is possible to retrieve the i-th object from the list with the
function call "listOfShapes.elementAt(i)". (Items in the list are numbered from 0 to
listOfShapes.size() - 1.) However, note that this method returns an Object, not a Shape. (Of
course, the people who wrote the Vector class didn't even know about Shapes, so the method they wrote
could hardly have a return type of Shape!) Since you know that the items in the list are, in fact, Shapes
and not just Objects, you can type-cast the Object returned by listOfShapes.elementAt(i) to
be a value of type Shape:
oneShape = (Shape)listOfShapes.elementAt(i);
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Java Programing: Section 5.4
Let's say, for example, that you want to redraw all the shapes in the list. You could do this with a simple
for loop, which is lovely example of object-oriented programming and polymorphism:
for (int i = 0; i < listOfShapes.size(); i++) {
Shape s; // i-th element of the list, considered as a Shape
s = (Shape)listOfShapes.elementAt(i);
s.redraw();
}
It might be worthwhile to look at an applet that actually uses an abstract Shape class and a Vector to
hold a list of shapes:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
If you click one of the buttons along the bottom of this applet, a shape will be added to the screen in the
upper left corner of the applet. The color of the shape is given by the "Choice menu" in the lower right.
Once a shape is on the screen, you can drag it around with the mouse. A shape will maintain the same
front-to-back order with respect to other shapes on the screen, even while you are dragging it. However,
you can move a shape out in front of all the other shapes if you hold down the shift key as you click on it.
In this applet the only time when the actual class of a shape is used is when that shape is added to the
screen. Once the shape has been created, it is manipulated entirely as an abstract shape. The routine that
implements dragging, for example, works only with variables of type Shape. As the Shape is being
dragged, the dragging routine just calls the Shape's draw method each time the shape has to be drawn, so
it doesn't have to know how to draw the shape or even what type of shape it is. The object is responsible for
drawing itself. If I wanted to add a new type of shape to the program, I would define a new subclass of
Shape, add another button to the applet, and program the button to add the correct type of shape to the
screen. No other changes in the programming would be necessary.
You might want to look at the source code for this applet, ShapeDraw.java, even though you won't be able
to understand all of it at this time. Even the definitions of the shape classes are somewhat different from
those I described in this chapter. (For example, the draw() method used in the applet has a parameter of
type Graphics. This parameter is required because of the way Java handles all drawing.) I'll return to this
example in later chapters when you know more about applets. However, it would still be worthwhile to look
at the definition of the Shape class and its subclasses in the source code for the applet. You might also
check how a Vector is used to hold a list of shapes.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 5.5
Section 5.5
More Details of Classes
ALTHOUGH THE BASIC IDEAS of object-oriented programming are reasonably simple and clear, they
are subtle, and they take time to get used to. And unfortunately, beyond the basic ideas there are a lot of
details. This section covers more of those annoying details. You should not necessarily master everything in
this section the first time through, but you should read it to be aware of what is possible. (This doesn't apply
to the first subsection, below, which you definitely need to master.) For the most part, when I need to use
material from this section later in the text, I will explain it again briefly, or I will refer you back to this
section.
Extending Existing Classes
The previous section discussed subclasses, including information about how to program with subclasses in
Java. However, that section dealt mostly with the theory. In this section, I want to emphasize the practical
matter of Java syntax by giving an example.
In day-to-day programming, especially for programmers who are just beginning to work with objects,
subclassing is used mainly in one situation. There is an existing class that can be adapted with a few
changes or additions. This is much more common than designing groups of classes and subclasses from
scratch. The existing class can be extended to make a subclass. The syntax for this is
class subclass-name extends existing-class-name {
.
. // Changes and additions.
.
}
(Of course, the class can optionally be declared to be public.)
As an example, suppose you want to write a program that plays the card game, Blackjack. You can use the
Card, Hand, and Deck classes developed in Section 3. However, a hand in the game of Blackjack is a
little different from a hand of cards in general, since it must be possible to compute the "value" of a
Blackjack hand according to the rules of the game. The rules are as follows: The value of a hand is obtained
by adding up the values of the cards in the hand. The value of a numeric card such as a three or a ten is its
numerical value. The value of a Jack, Queen, or King is 10. The value of an Ace can be either 1 or 11. An
Ace should be counted as 11 unless doing so would put the total value of the hand over 21. (Note that this
means that the second, third, or fourth Ace in the hand will always be counted as 1.)
One way to handle this is to extend the existing Hand class by adding a method that computes the
Blackjack value of the hand. Here's the definition of such a class:
public class BlackjackHand extends Hand {
public int getBlackjackValue() {
// Returns the value of this hand for the
// game of Blackjack.
int val; // The value computed for the hand.
boolean ace; // This will be set to true if the
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// hand contains an ace.
int cards; // Number of cards in the hand.
val = 0;
ace = false;
cards = getCardCount();
for ( int i = 0; i < cards; i++ ) {
// Add the value of the i-th card in the hand.
Card card; // The i-th card;
int cardVal; // The blackjack value of the i-th card.
card = getCard(i);
cardVal = card.getValue(); // The normal value, 1 to 13.
if (cardVal > 10) {
cardVal = 10; // For a Jack, Queen, or King.
}
if (cardVal == 1) {
ace = true; // There is at least one ace.
}
val = val + cardVal;
}
// Now, val is the value of the hand, counting any ace as 1.
// If there is an ace, and if changing its value from 1 to
// 11 would leave the score less than or equal to 21,
// then do so by adding the extra 10 points to val.
if ( ace == true && val + 10 <= 21 )
val = val + 10;
return val;
} // end getBlackjackValue()
} // end class BlackjackHand
Since BlackjackHand is a subclass of Hand, an object of type BlackjackHand contains all the
instance variables and instance methods defined in Hand, plus the new instance method
getBlackjackValue(). For example, if bHand is a variable of type BlackjackHand, then the
following are all legal method calls: bHand.getCardCount(), bHand.removeCard(0), and
bHand.getBlackjackValue().
Inherited variables and methods from the Hand class can also be used in the definition of
BlackjackHand (except for any that are declared to be private). The statement "cards =
getCardCount();" in the above definition of getBlackjackValue() calls the instance method
getCardCount(), which was defined in the Hand class.
Extending existing classes is an easy way to build on previous work. We'll see that many standard classes
have been written specifically to be used as the basis for making subclasses.
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Java Programing: Section 5.5
Interfaces
Some object-oriented programming languages, such as C++, allow a class to extend two or more
superclasses. This is called multiple inheritance. In the illustration below, for example, class E is shown as
having both class A and class B as direct superclasses, while class F has three direct superclasses.
Such multiple inheritance is not allowed in Java. The designers of Java wanted to keep the language
reasonably simple, and felt that the benefits of multiple inheritance were not worth the cost in increased
complexity. However, Java does have a feature that can be used to accomplish many of the same goals as
multiple inheritance: interfaces.
We've encountered the term "interface" before, in connection with black boxes in general and subroutines in
particular. The interface of a subroutine consists of the name of the subroutine, its return type, and the
number and types of its parameters. This is the information you need to know if you want to call the
subroutine. A subroutine also has an implementation: the block of code which defines it and which is
executed when the subroutine is called.
In Java, interface is a reserved word with an additional meaning. An "interface" in Java consists of
a set of subroutine interfaces, without any associated implementations. A class can implement an
interface by providing an implementation for each of the subroutines specified by the interface. Here is
an example of a very simple Java interface:
public interface Drawable {
public void draw();
}
This looks much like a class definition, except that the implementation of the method draw() is omitted.
A class that implements the interface, Drawable, must provide an implementation for this method.
Of course, the class can also include other methods and variables. For example,
class Line implements Drawable {
public void draw() {
. . . // do something -- presumably, draw a line
}
. . . // other methods and variables
}
While a class can extend only one other class, it can implement any number of interfaces. In fact, a class
can both extend another class and implement one or more interfaces. So, we can have things like
class FilledCircle extends Circle
implements Drawable, Fillable {
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. . .
}
The point of all this is that, although interfaces are not classes, they are something very similar. An
interface is very much like an abstract class, that is, a class that can never be used for constructing objects,
but can be used as a basis for building other classes. The subroutines in an interface are abstract methods,
which must be implemented in any concrete class that implements the interface. And as with abstract
classes, even though you can't construct an object from an interface, you can declare a variable whose type
is given by the interface. For example, if Drawable is an interface, and if Line and FilledCircle are
classes that implement Drawable, then you could say:
Drawable figure; // Declare a variable of type Drawable. It can
// refer to any object that implements the
// Drawable interface.
figure = new Line(); // figure now refers to an object of class Line
figure.draw(); // calls draw() method from class Line
figure = new FilledCircle(); // Now, figure refers to an object
// of class FilledCircle.
figure.draw(); // calls draw() method from class FilledCircle
A variable of type Drawable can refer to any object of any class that implements the Drawable
interface. A statement like figure.draw(), above, is legal because any such class has a draw()
method.
Note that a type is something that can be used to declare variables. A type can also be used to specify the
type of a parameter in a subroutine, or the return type of a function. In Java, a type can be either a class, an
interface, or one of the eight built-in primitive types. These are the only possibilities. Of these, however,
only classes can be used to construct new objects.
You are not likely to need to write your own interfaces until you get to the point of writing fairly complex
programs. However, there are a few interfaces that are used in important ways in Java's standard packages.
You'll learn about some of these standard interfaces in the next few chapters.
The Special Variables this and super
A static member of a class has a simple name, which can only be used inside the class definition. For use
outside the class, it has a full name of the form class-name.simple-name. For example, "System.out" is
a static member variable with simple name "out" in the class "System". It's always legal to use the full
name of a static member, even within the class where it's defined. Sometimes it's even necessary, as when
the simple name of a static member variable is hidden by a local variable of the same name.
Instance variables and instance methods also have simple names that can be used inside the class where the
variable or method is defined. But a class does not actually contain instance variables or methods, only their
source code. Actual instance variables and methods are contained in objects. To get at an instance variable
or method from outside the class definition, you need a variable that refers to the object. Then the full name
is of the form variable-name.simple-name. But suppose you are writing a class definition, and you want to
refer to the object that contains the instance method you are writing? Suppose you want to use a full name
for an instance variable, because its simple name is hidden by a local variable?
Java provides a special, predefined variable named "this" that you can use for these purposes. The
variable, this, can be used in the source code of an instance method to refer to the object that contains the
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method. If x is an instance variable, then this.x can be used as a full name for that variable. Whenever
the computer executes an instance method, it sets the variable, this, to refer to the object that contains the
method.
One common use of this is in constructors. For example:
public class Student {
private String name; // Name of the student.
public Student(String name) {
// Constructor. Create a student with specified name.
this.name = name;
}
.
. // More variables and methods.
.
}
In the constructor, the instance variable called name is hidden by a formal parameter. However, the
instance variable can still be referred to by its full name, this.name. In the assignment statement, the
value of the formal parameter, name, is assigned to the instance variable, this.name. This is considered
to be acceptable style: There is no need to dream up cute new names for formal parameters that are just
used to initialize instance variables. You can use the same name for the parameter as for the instance
variable.
There is another common use for this. Sometimes, when you are writing an instance method, you need to
pass the object that contains the method to a subroutine, as an actual parameter. In that case, you can use
this as the actual parameter. For example, if you wanted to print out a string representation of the object,
you could say "System.out.println(this);".
Java also defines another special variable, named "super", for use in the definitions of instance methods.
The variable super is for use in a subclass. Like this, super refers to the object that contains the
method. But it's forgetful. It forgets that the object belongs to the class you are writing, and it remembers
only that it belongs to the superclass of that class. The point is that the class can contain additions and
modifications to the superclass. super doesn't know about any of those additions and modifications. Let's
say that the class that you are writing contains an instance method named doSomething(). Consider the
subroutine call statement super.doSomething(). Now, super doesn't know anything about the
doSomething() method in the subclass. It only knows about things in the superclass, so it tries to
execute a method named doSomething() from the superclass. If there is none -- if the
doSomething() method was an addition rather than a modification -- you'll get a syntax error.
The reason super exists is so you can get access to things in the superclass that are hidden by things in the
subclass. For example, super.x always refers to an instance variable named x in the superclass. This can
be useful for the following reason: If a class contains an instance variable with the same name as an
instance variable in its superclass, then an object of that class will actually contain two variables with the
same name: one defined as part of the class itself and one defined as part of the superclass. The variable in
the subclass does not replace the variable of the same name in the superclass; it merely hides it. The
variable from the superclass can still be accessed, using super.
When you write a method in a subclass that has the same signature as a method in its superclass, the method
from the superclass is hidden in the same way. We say that the method in the subclass overrides the method
from the superclass. Again, however, super can be used to access the method from the superclass.
The major use of super is to override a method with a new method that extends the behavior of the
inherited method, instead of replacing that behavior entirely. The new method can use super to call the
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method from the superclass, and then it can add additional code to provide additional behavior. As an
example, suppose you have a PairOfDice class that includes a roll() method. Suppose that you want
a subclass, GraphicalDice, to represent a pair of dice drawn on the computer screen. The roll()
method in the GraphicalDice method should change the values of the dice and redraw the dice to show
the new values. The GraphicalDice class might look something like this:
public class GraphicalDice extends PairOfDice {
public void roll() {
// Roll the dice, and redraw them.
super.roll(); // Call the roll method from PairOfDice.
redraw(); // Call a method to draw the dice.
}
.
. // More stuff, including definition of redraw().
.
}
Note that this allows you to extend the behavior of the roll() method even if you don't know how the
method is implemented in the superclass!
Here is a more complete example. The applet at the end of Section 4.7 shows a disturbance that moves
around in a mosaic of little squares. As it moves, the squares it visits become a brighter red. The result
looks interesting, but I think it would be prettier if the pattern were symmetric. A symmetric version of the
applet is shown at the bottom of this page. The symmetric applet can be programmed as an easy extension
of the original applet.
In the symmetric version, each time a square is brightened, the
squares that can be obtained from that one by horizontal and
vertical reflection through the center of the mosaic are also
brightened. The four red squares in the picture, for example, form
a set of such symmetrically placed squares, as do the purple
squares and the green squares. (The blue square is at the center of
the mosaic, so reflecting it doesn't produce any other squares; it's
its own reflection.)
The original applet is defined by the class RandomBrighten.
This class uses features of Java that you won't learn about for a
while yet, but the actual task of brightening a square is done by a single method called brighten(). If
row and col are the row and column numbers of a square, then "brighten(row,col);" increases the
brightness of that square. All we need is a subclass of RandomBrighten with a modified brighten()
routine. Instead of just brightening one square, the modified routine will also brighten the horizontal and
vertical reflections of that square. But how will it brighten each of the four individual squares? By calling
the brighten() method from the original class. It can do this by calling super.brighten().
There is still the problem of computing the row and column numbers of the horizontal and vertical
reflections. To do this, you need to know the number of rows and the number of columns. The
RandomBrighten class has instance variables named ROWS and COLUMNS to represent these quantities.
Using these variables, it's possible to come up with formulas for the reflections, as shown in the definition
of the brighten() method below.
Here's the complete definition of the new class:
public class SymmetricBrighten extends RandomBrighten {
void brighten(int row, int col) {
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// Brighten the specified square and its horizontal
// and vertical reflections. This overrides the brighten
// method from the RandomBrighten class, which just
// brightens one square.
super.brighten(row, col);
super.brighten(ROWS - 1 - row, col);
super.brighten(row, COLUMNS - 1 - col);
super.brighten(ROWS - 1 - row, COLUMNS - 1 - col);
}
} // end class SymmetricBrighten
This is the entire source code for the applet at the bottom of this page.
Constructors in Subclasses
Constructors are not inherited. That is, if you extend an existing class to make a subclass, the constructors
in the superclass do not become part of the subclass. If you want constructors in the subclass, you have to
define new ones from scratch. If you don't define any constructors in the subclass, then the computer will
make up a default constructor, with no parameters, for you.
This could be a problem, if there is a constructor in the superclass that does a lot of necessary work. It looks
like you might have to repeat all that work in the subclass! This could be a real problem if you don't have
the source code to the superclass, and don't know how it works, or if the constructor in the superclass
initializes private member variables that you don't even have access to in the subclass!
Obviously, there has to be some fix for this, and there is. It involves the special variable, super, which
was introduced in the previous subsection. As the very first statement in a constructor, you can use super
to call a constructor from the superclass. The notation for this is a bit ugly and misleading, and it can only
be used in this one particular circumstance: It looks like you are calling super as a subroutine (even
though super is not a subroutine and you can't call constructors the same way you call other subroutines
anyway). As an example, assume that the PairOfDice class has a constructor that takes two integers as
parameters. Consider a subclass:
public class GraphicalDice extends PairOfDice {
public GraphicalDice() { // Constructor for this class.
super(3,4); // Call the constructor from the
// PairOfDice class, with parameters 3, 4.
initializeGraphics(); // Do some initialization specific
// to the GraphicalDice class.
}
.
. // More constructors, methods, variables...
.
}
This might seem rather technical, but unfortunately it is sometimes necessary. By the way, you can use the
special variable this in exactly the same way to call another constructor in the same class. This can be
useful since it can save you from repeating the same code in several constructors.
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Java Programing: Section 5.5
More about Access Modifiers
A class can be declared to be public. A public class can be accessed from anywhere. Certain classes have
to be public. A class that defines a stand-alone application must be public, so that the system will be able to
get at its main() routine. A class that defines an applet must be public so that it can be used by a Web
browser. If a class is not declared to be public, then it can only be used by other classes in the same
"package" as the class. Packages are discussed in Section 4.5. Classes that are not explicitly declared to be
in any package are put into something called the default package. All the examples in this textbook are in
the default package, so they are all accessible to one another whether or not they are declared public. So,
except for applications and applets, which must be public, it makes no practical difference whether our
classes are declared to be public or not.
However, once you start writing packages, it does make a difference. A package should contain a set of
related classes. Some of those classes are meant to be public, for access from outside the package. Others
can be part of the internal workings of the package, and they should not be made public. A package is a
kind of black box. The public classes in the package are the interface. (More exactly, the public variables
and subroutines in the public classes are the interface). The non-public classes are part of the non-public
implementation. Of course, all the classes in the package have unrestricted access to one another.
Following this model, I will tend to declare a class public if it seems like it might have some general
applicability. If it is written just to play some sort of auxiliary role in a larger project, I am more likely not
to make it public.
A member variable or subroutine in a class can also be declared to be public, which means that it is
accessible from anywhere. It can be declared to be private, which means that it accessible only from
inside the class where it is defined. Making a variable private gives you complete control over that
variable. The only code that will ever manipulate it is the code you write in your class. This is an important
kind of protection.
If no access modifier is specified for a variable or subroutine, then it is accessible from any class in the
same package as the class. As with classes, in this textbook there is no practical difference between
declaring a member public and using no access modifier at all. However, there might be stylistic reasons
for preferring one over the other. And a real difference does arise once you start writing your own packages.
There is a third access modifier that can be applied to a member variable or subroutine. If it is declared to
be protected, then it can be used in the class where it is defined and in any subclass of that class. This is
obviously less restrictive than private and more restrictive than public. Classes that are written
specifically to be used as a basis for making subclasses often have protected members. The
protected members are there to provide a foundation for the subclasses to build on. But they are still
invisible to the public at large.
Mixing Static and Non-static
Classes, as I've said, have two very distinct purposes. A class can be used to group together a set of static
member variables and static member subroutines. Or it can be used as a factory for making objects. The
non-static variables and subroutine definintions in the class specify the instance variables and methods of
the objects. In most cases, a class performs one or the other of these roles, not both.
Sometimes, however, static and non-static members are mixed in a single class. In this case, the class plays
a dual role. Sometimes, these roles are completely separate. It is also possible for the static and non-static
parts of a class to interact. This happens when instance methods use static member variables or call static
member subroutines. An instance method belongs to an object, not to the class itself, and there can be many
objects with their own versions of the instance method. But there is only one copy of a static member
variable. So, effectively, we have many objects sharing that one variable.
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As an example, let's rewrite the Student class that was used in the Section 2. I've added an ID for each
student and a static member called nextUniqueID. Although there is an ID variable in each student
object, there is only one nextUniqueID variable.
public class Student {
private String name; // Student's name.
private int ID; // Unique ID number for this student.
public double test1, test2, test3; // Grades on three tests.
private static int nextUniqueID = 0;
// keep track of next available unique ID number
Student(String theName) {
// Constructor for Student objects;
// provides a name for the Student,
// and assigns the student a unique
// ID number.
name = theName;
nextUniqueID++;
ID = nextUniqueID;
}
public String getName() {
// Accessor method for reading value of private
// instance variable, name.
return name;
}
public int getID() {
// Accessor method for reading value of ID.
return ID;
}
public double getAverage() {
// Compute average test grade.
return (test1 + test2 + test3) / 3;
}
} // end of class Student
The initialization "nextUniqueID = 0" is done only once, when the class is first loaded. Whenever a
Student object is constructed and the constructor says "nextUniqueID++;", it's always the same
static member variable that is being incremented. When the very first Student object is created,
nextUniqueID becomes 1. When the second object is created, nextUniqueID becomes 2. After the
third object, it becomes 3. And so on. The constructor stores the new value of nextUniqueID in the ID
variable of the object that is being created. Of course, ID is an instance variable, so every object has its own
individual ID variable. The class is constructed so that each student will automatically get a different value
for its ID variable. Furthermore, the ID variable is private, so there is no way for this variable to be
tampered with after the object has been created. You are guaranteed, just by the way the class is designed,
that every student object will have its own permanent, unique identification number. Which is kind of cool
if you think about it.
End of Chapter 5
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Java Programing: Chapter 5 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 5
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 5 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 5.1: In all versions of the PairOfDice class in Section 2, the instance variables die1 and
die2 are declared to be public. They really should be private, so that they are protected from being
changed from outside the class. Write another version of the PairOfDice class in which the instance
variables die1 and die2 are private. Your class will need methods that can be used to find out the
values of die1 and die2. (The idea is to protect their values from being changed from outside the class,
but still to allow the values to be read.) Include other improvements in the class, if you can think of any.
Test your class with a short program that counts how many times a pair of dice is rolled, before the total of
the two dice is equal to two.
See the solution!
Exercise 5.2: A common programming task is computing statistics of a set of numbers. (A statistic is a
number that summarizes some property of a set of data.) Common statistics include the mean (also known
as the average) and the standard deviation (which tells how spread out the data are from the mean). I have
written a little class called StatCalc that can be used to compute these statistics, as well as the sum of the
items in the dataset and the number of items in the dataset. You can read the source code for this class in the
file StatCalc.java. If calc is a variable of type StatCalc, then the following methods are defined:
● calc.enter(item); where item is a number, adds the item to the dataset.
● calc.getCount() is a function that returns the number of items that have been added to the
dataset.
● calc.getSum() is a function that returns the sum of all the items that have been added to the
dataset.
● calc.getMean() is a function that returns the average of all the items.
● calc.getStandardDeviation() is a function that returns the standard deviation of the
items.
Typically, all the data are added one after the other calling the enter() method over and over, as the data
become available. After all the data have been entered, any of the other methods can be called to get
statistical information about the data. The methods getMean() and getStandardDeviation()
should only be called if the number of items is greater than zero.
Modify the current source code, StatCalc.java, to add instance methods getMax() and getMin().
The getMax() method should return the largest of all the items that have been added to the dataset, and
getMin() should return the smallest. You will need to add two new instance variables to keep track of the
largest and smallest items that have been seen so far.
Test your new class by using it in a program to compute statistics for a set of non-zero numbers entered by
the user. Start by creating an object of type StatCalc:
StatCalc calc; // Object to be used to process the data.
calc = new StatCalc();
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Read numbers from the user and add them to the dataset. Use 0 as a sentinel value (that is, stop reading
numbers when the user enters 0). After all the user's non-zero numbers have been entered, print out each of
the six statistics that available from calc.
See the solution!
Exercise 5.3: This problem uses the PairOfDice class from Exercise 5.1 and the StatCalc class from
Exercise 5.2.
The program in Exercise 4.4 performs the experiment of counting how many times a pair of dice are rolled
before a given total comes up. It repeats this experiment 10000 times and then reports the average number
of rolls. It does this whole process for each possible total (2, 3, ..., 12).
Redo that exercise. But instead of just reporting the average number of rolls, you should also report the
standard deviation and the maximum number of rolls. Use a PairOfDice object to represent the dice. Use
a StatCalc object to compute the statistics. (You'll need a new StatCalc object for each possible total,
2, 3, ..., 12. You can use a new pair of dice if you want, but it's not necessary.)
See the solution!
Exercise 5.4: The BlackjackHand class from Section 5.5 is an extension of the Hand class from
Section 5.3. The instance methods in the Hand class are discussed in Section 5.3. In addition to those
methods, BlackjackHand includes an instance method, getBlackjackValue(), that returns the
value of the hand for the game of Blackjack. For this exercise, you will also need the Deck and Card
classes from Section 5.3.
A Blackjack hand typically contains from two to six cards. Write a program to test the BlackjackHand
class. You should create a BlackjackHand object and a Deck object. Pick a random number between 2
and 6. Deal that many cards from the deck and add them to the hand. Print out all the cards in the hand, and
then print out the value computed for the hand by getBlackjackValue(). Repeat this as long as the
user wants to continue.
In addition to TextIO, your program will depend on Card.java, Deck.java, Hand.java, and
BlackjackHand.java.
See the solution!
Exercise 5.5 Write a program that let's the user play Blackjack. The game will be a simplified version of
Blackjack as it is played in a casino. The computer will act as the dealer. As in the previous exercise, your
program will need the classes defined in Card.java, Deck.java, Hand.java, and BlackjackHand.java. (This is
the longest and most complex program that has come up so far in the exercises.)
You should first write a subroutine in which the user plays one game. The subroutine should return a
boolean value to indicate whether the user wins the game or not. Return true if the user wins, false if
the dealer wins. The program needs an object of class Deck and two objects of type BlackjackHand,
one for the dealer and one for the user. The general object in Blackjack is to get a hand of cards whose
value is as close to 21 as possible, without going over. The game goes like this.
First, two cards are dealt into each player's hand. If the dealer's hand has a value of 21 at this
point, then the dealer wins. Otherwise, if the user has 21, then the user wins. (This is called a
"Blackjack".) Note that the dealer wins on a tie, so if both players have Blackjack, then the
dealer wins.
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Java Programing: Chapter 5 Exercises
Now, if the game has not ended, the user gets a chance to add some cards to her hand. In this
phase, the user sees her own cards and sees one of the dealer's two cards. (In a casino, the
dealer deals himself one card face up and one card face down. All the user's cards are dealt
face up.) The user makes a decision whether to "Hit", which means to add another card to
her hand, or to "Stand", which means to stop taking cards.
If the user Hits, there is a possibility that the user will go over 21. In that case, the game is
over and the user loses. If not, then the process continues. The user gets to decide again
whether to Hit or Stand.
If the user Stands, the game will end, but first the dealer gets a chance to draw cards. The
dealer only follows rules, without any choice. The rule is that as long as the value of the
dealer's hand is less than or equal to 16, the dealer Hits (that is, takes another card). The user
should see all the dealer's cards at this point. Now, the winner can be determined: If the
dealer has gone over 21, the user wins. Otherwise, if the dealer's total is greater than or equal
to the user's total, then the dealer wins. Otherwise, the user wins.
Two notes on programming: At any point in the subroutine, as soon as you know who the winner is, you
can say "return true;" or "return false;" to end the subroutine and return to the main program.
To avoid having an overabundance of variables in your subroutine, remember that a function call such as
userHand.getBlackjackValue() can be used anywhere that a number could be used, including in
an output statement or in the condition of an if statement.
Write a main program that lets the user play several games of Blackjack. To make things interesting, give
the user 100 dollars, and let the user make bets on the game. If the user loses, subtract the bet from the
user's money. If the user wins, add an amount equal to the bet to the user's money. End the program when
the user wants to quit or when she runs out of money.
Here is an applet that simulates the program you are supposed to write. It would probably be worthwhile to
play it for a while to see how it works.
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 5 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 5
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 5 of this on-line Java textbook. You should be
able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz questions can be found here.
Question 1: Object-oriented programming uses classes and objects. What are classes and what are objects? What is the
relationship between classes and objects?
Question 2: Explain carefully what null means in Java, and why this special value is necessary.
Question 3: What is a constructor? What is the purpose of a constructor in a class?
Question 4: Suppose that Kumquat is the name of a class and that fruit is a variable of type Kumquat. What is
the meaning of the statement "fruit = new Kumquat();"? That is, what does the computer do when it executes
this statement? (Try to give a complete answer. The computer does several things.)
Question 5: What is meant by the terms instance variable and instance method?
Question 6: Explain what is meant by the terms subclass and superclass.
Question 7: Explain the term polymorphism.
Question 8: Java uses "garbage collection" for memory management. Explain what is meant here by garbage
collection. What is the alternative to garbage collection?
Question 9: For this problem, you should write a very simple but complete class. The class represents a counter that
counts 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,.... The name of the class should be Counter. It has one private instance variable representing
the value of the counter. It has two instance methods: increment() adds one to the counter value, and
getValue() returns the current counter value. Write a complete definition for the class, Counter.
Question 10: This problem uses the Counter class from Question 9. The following program segment is meant to
simulate tossing a coin 100 times. It should use two Counter objects, headCount and tailCount, to count the
number of heads and the number of tails. Fill in the blanks so that it will do so.
Counter headCount, tailCount;
tailCount = new Counter();
headCount = new Counter();
for ( int flip = 0; flip < 100; flip++ ) {
if (Math.random() < 0.5) // There's a 50/50 chance that this is true.
______________________ ; // Count a "head".
else
______________________ ; // Count a "tail".
}
System.out.println("There were " + ___________________ + " heads.");
System.out.println("There were " + ___________________ + " tails.");
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 6 Index
Chapter 6
Applets, HTML, and GUI's
JAVA IS A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE DESIGNED for networked computers and the World Wide
Web. Java applets are downloaded over a network to appear on a Web page. Part of learning Java is
learning to program applets and other Graphical User Interface programs. GUI programs are event-driven.
That is, user actions such as clicking on a button or pressing a key on the keyboard generate events, and the
program must respond to these events as they occur.
Event-driven programming builds on all the skills you have learned in the first five chapters of this text.
You need to be able to write the subroutines that respond to events. Inside these subroutines, you are doing
the kind of programming-in-the-small that was covered in Chapters 2 and 3. And of course, objects are
everywhere. Events are objects. Applets and other GUI components are objects. Events are handled by
instance methods contained in objects. In Java, event-oriented programming is object-oriented
programming.
This chapter covers the basics of applets, graphics, components, and events. There is also a section that
covers HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language used for writing Web pages. The discussion of
applets and GUI's will continue in the next chapter with more details and with more advanced techniques.
Contents Chapter 6:
● Section 1: The Basic Java Applet
● Section 2: HTML Basics and the Web
● Section 3: Graphics and the Paint Method
● Section 4: Mouse Events
● Section 5: Keyboard Events
● Section 6: Introduction to Layouts and Components
● Section 7: Looking Back: The Java 1.0 Event Model
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 6.1
Section 6.1
The Basic Java Applet
JAVA APPLETS ARE SMALL PROGRAMS that are meant to run on a page in a Web browser. Very
little of that statement is completely accurate, however. An applet is not a complete program. It doesn't have
to be small. And while many applets are meant to be used on Web pages, there are other ways to use them
and reasons to do so. A technically more correct, but not very useful, definition would say simply that an
applet is an object that belongs to the class java.applet.Applet or to one of its subclasses. Either
definition still leaves us a long way to go to really understand applets.
An applet is inherently part of a graphical user interface. It is a type of graphical component that can be
displayed in a window (whether belonging to a Web browser or to some other program). When shown in a
window, an applet is a rectangular area that can contain other components, such as buttons and text boxes.
It can display graphical elements such as images, rectangles, and lines. And it can respond to certain
"events", such as when the user clicks on the applet with a mouse.
The Applet class, defined in the package java.applet, is really only useful as a basis for making
subclasses. An object of type Applet has certain basic behaviors, but doesn't actually do anything useful.
It's just a blank area on the screen that doesn't respond to any events. To create a useful applet, a
programmer must define a subclass that extends the Applet class. There are several methods in the
Applet class that are defined to do nothing at all. The programmer must override at least some of these
methods and give them something to do.
Back in Section 2.1, when you first learned about Java programs, you encountered the idea of a main()
routine, which is not meant to be called by the programmer. The main() routine of a program is there to
be called by "the system" when it needs to execute the program. The programmer writes the main routine to
say what happens when the system runs the program. An applet needs no main() routine, since it is not a
stand-alone program. However, many of the methods in an applet are similar to main() in that they are
meant to be called by the system, and the job of the programmer is to say what happens in response to the
system's calls.
In this section, we'll look at a few of the things that applets can do. We'll spend the rest of this chapter and
the next filling in the details.
One of the methods that is defined in the Applet class to do nothing is the paint() method. You've
already encountered this method briefly in Section 3.7. The paint() method is called by the system when
the applet needs to be drawn. In a subclass of Applet, the paint() method can be redefined to draw
various graphical elements such as rectangles, lines, and text on the applet. The definition of this method
must have the form:
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// draw some stuff
}
The parameter g, of type Graphics, is provided by the system when it calls the paint() method. In
Java, all drawing of any kind is done using methods provided by a Graphics object. There are many such
methods. You will see a few examples later in this section, and I will discuss graphics in more detail in
Section 3.
The paint() method of an applet does not, by the way, draw GUI components such as buttons and text
input boxes that the applet might contain. Such GUI components are objects in their own right, defined by
other classes. All component objects, not just applets, have paint() methods. Each component is
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Java Programing: Section 6.1
responsible for drawing itself, in its own paint() method. Later, we'll see that many applets do not even
define a paint() method of their own. Such applets exist only to hold other GUI components, which
draw themselves.
As a first example of an applet, let's go the traditional route and look at an applet that displays the string
"Hello World!". We'll use the paint() method to display this string. The import statements at the
beginning make it possible to use the short names Applet and Graphics instead of the full names of the
classes java.applet.Applet and java.awt.Graphics. (See Section 4.5 for a discussion of
"packages," such as java.awt and java.applet.)
import java.awt.*;
import java.applet.*;
public class HelloWorldApplet extends Applet {
// An applet that simply displays the string Hello World!
public void paint(Graphics g) {
g.drawString("Hello World!", 10, 30);
}
} // end of class HelloWorldApplet
The drawString() method, defined in the Graphics class, actually does the drawing. The parameters
of this method specify the string to be drawn and the point in the applet where the string is to be placed.
More about this later.
Now, an applet is an object, not a class. So far we have only defined a class. Where does an actual applet
object come from? It is possible, of course, to create such objects:
Applet hw = new HelloWorldApplet();
This might even be useful if you are writing a program and would like to add an applet to a window you've
created. Most often, however, applet objects are created by "the system." For example, when an applet
appears on a page in a Web browser, "the system" means the Web browser. It is up to the browser program
to create the applet object and to add it to a Web page. The Web browser, in turn, gets instructions about
what is to appear on a given Web page from the source document for that page. For an applet to appear on a
Web page, the source document for that page must specify the name of the applet and its size. This
specification, like the rest of the document, is written in a language called HTML. I will discuss HTML in
more detail in Section 2. Here is some HTML code that instructs a Web browser to display a
HelloWorldApplet:
<center>
<applet code="HelloWorldApplet.class" width=200 height=50>
</applet>
</center>
and here is what this code displays:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't do Java.
If the browser you are using does not support Java, or if you have turned off Java support, then you won't
see anything. Otherwise, you should see the message "Hello world!". The message is displayed in a
rectangle that is 200 pixels in width and 50 pixels in height. You shouldn't be able to see the rectangle as
such, since by default, an applet has a background color that is the same as the color of the Web page on
which it is displayed. (This might not actually be the case in your browser.)
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Java Programing: Section 6.1
The HelloWorldApplet is pretty boring. An applet should do something, either on its own or in
response to user actions. As an example, we'll look at an applet in which a friendly greeting changes color
whenever the user clicks on a button. This example demonstrates several major aspects of applet
programming:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The button in this applet is an object that belongs to the class Button (more properly,
java.awt.Button). When the applet is created, the button must be created and added to the applet. This
is part of the process of initializing the applet. Unlike most objects, applets do not use constructors to do
initialization. (More exactly, a constructor would not be a good place to do initialization, since some aspects
of the applet, such as its height and width, have not been determined at the time the constructor is called.)
Instead, just after an applet object is created, the system calls that object's init() method, which has the
form
public void init() { . . . }
This method can do the task usually performed by a constructor, that is, to initialize the applet's instance
variables. The init() method is also the place where other components, such as buttons, are added to the
applet.
Once it has been added to the applet, a Button object mostly takes care of itself. In particular, it draws
itself. When the user clicks the button, it generates an event. The applet (or, in fact, any object) can be
programmed to respond to this event. Event-handling is the major topic in GUI programming, and I will
cover it in detail later. But in outline, it works like this: The type of event generated by a button is called an
ActionEvent. For the applet to respond to an event of this type, it must define a method
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) { . . . }
Furthermore, the button must be told that the applet will be "listening" for action events from the button.
This is done by calling one of the button object's instance methods, addActionListener, in the applet's
init() method.
What should the applet do in its actionPerformed() method? The color of the message in the applet
should change. It is tempting to think that the actionPerformed() method should simply redraw the
message in a new color. Unfortunately, there is a problem.
The applet's paint() method is called by the system as soon as the applet appears on the screen. But it
can also be called at other times. In fact, it is called whenever the contents of the applet need to be redrawn.
This might happen if the applet is covered up by another window and is then uncovered. It can happen
when you scroll the window of a browser, and the applet scrolls into view. And, it is especially important to
note, the applet's paint() method can be called because the program makes a request for the applet to be
redrawn. Such requests are made by calling a method named repaint().
The paint() method can be called over and over, and each time it's called, it must be able to draw the
correct picture in the applet. In the applet we are writing, that means drawing the message in the correct
color. Suppose our actionPerformed() method simply draws "Hello World" in a new color. The
paint() method must be able to redraw the message in the same color. How will the paint() method
know which color to use? The only way an object "knows" anything is by having data stored in its instance
variables. Our applet needs an instance variable to store information about the color of the message. The
actionPerformed() method sets the value of that instance variable. The paint() method checks the
value of the variable to decide which color to use for the message. In fact, the actionPerformed
method doesn't have to do any drawing at all! It just sets the instance variable and calls repaint(). In
response to the repaint() call, the system will call the paint() routine, and that is where the actual
drawing happens.
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Java Programing: Section 6.1
Given all this, you can understand a lot of what goes on in the source code for our colored Hello World
applet. This example shows several aspects of applet programming: An init() method sets up the applet
and adds components; a paint() method draws the applet based on data stored in instance variables; and
an event-handling method says what happens in response to certain user actions. I've included comments in
the source code to explain other aspects of the programming, which will be covered in full later in this
chapter. With this help, you should be able to follow what is going on:
// An applet that says "Hello World" in a big bold font,
// with a button to change the color of the message.
import java.awt.*; // Defines basic classes for GUI programming.
import java.awt.event.*; // Defines classes for working with events.
import java.applet.*; // Defines the applet class.
public class ColoredHelloWorldApplet
extends Applet implements ActionListener {
// Defines a subclass of Applet. The "implements ActionListener"
// part says that objects of type ColoredHelloApplet are
// capable of listening for ActionEvents. This is necessary
// if the applet is to respond to events from the button.
int colorNum; // Keeps track of which color is displayed;
// 1 for red, 2 for blue, 3 for green.
Font textFont; // The font in which the message is displayed.
// A font object represents a certain size and
// style of text drawn on the screen.
public void init() {
// This routine is called by the system to initialize
// the applet. It sets up the font and initial colors
// of the applet. It adds a button to the applet for
// changing the message color.
setBackground(Color.lightGray);
// The applet is filled with the background color before
// the paint method is called. The button and the message
// in this applet will appear on a light gray background.
colorNum = 1; // The color of the message is set to red.
textFont = new Font("Serif",Font.BOLD,24);
// Create a font object representing a big, bold font.
Button bttn = new Button("Change Color");
// Create a new button. "ChangeColor" is the text
// displayed on the button.
bttn.addActionListener(this);
// Set up bttn to send an "action event" to this applet
// when the user clicks the button. The parameter, this,
// is a name for the applet object that we are creating.
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Java Programing: Section 6.1
add(bttn); // Add the button to the applet, so that it
// will appear on the screen.
} // end init()
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// This routine is called by the system whenever the content
// of the applet needs to be drawn or redrawn. It displays
// the message "Hello World" in the proper color and font.
switch (colorNum) { // Set the color.
case 1:
g.setColor(Color.red);
break;
case 2:
g.setColor(Color.blue);
break;
case 3:
g.setColor(Color.green);
break;
}
g.setFont(textFont); // Set the font.
g.drawString("Hello World!", 20,70); // Draw the message.
} // end paint()
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
// This routine is called by the system when the user clicks
// on the button. The response is to change the colorNum
// which determines the color of the message, and to call
// repaint() to see that the applet is redrawn with the
// new color.
if (colorNum == 1) // Change colorNum.
colorNum = 2;
else if (colorNum == 2)
colorNum = 3;
else
colorNum = 1;
repaint(); // Tell system that this applet needs to be redrawn
} // end init()
} // end class ColoredHelloWorldApplet
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 6.2
Section 6.2
HTML Basics
APPLETS GENERALLY APPEAR ON PAGES in a Web browser program. Such pages are themselves
written in a language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language). An HTML document describes the
contents of a page. A Web browser interprets the HTML code to determine what to display on the page.
The HTML code doesn't look much like the resulting page that appears in the browser. The HTML
document does contain all the text that appears on the page, but that text is "marked up" with commands
that determine the structure and appearance of the text and determine what will appear on the page in
addition to the text.
HTML has developed rapidly in the last few years, and it has become a rather complicated language. In this
section, I will cover just the basics of the language. While that leaves out all the fancy stuff, it does include
just about everything I've used to make the Web pages in this on-line text.
It is possible to write an HTML page using an ordinary text editor, typing in all the mark-up commands by
hand. However, there are many Web-authoring programs that make it possible to create Web pages without
ever looking at the underlying code. Using these tools, you can compose a Web page in much the same way
that you would write a paper with a word processor. For example, Netscape Composer, which is part of
Netscape Communicator, works in this way. However, my opinion is that making high-quality Web pages
still requires some work with raw HTML, and serious Web authors still need to learn the HTML language.
The mark-up commands used by HTML are called tags. An HTML tag takes the form
<tag-name optional-modifiers>
Where the tag-name is a word that specifies the command, and the optional-modifiers, if present, are used
to provide additional information for the command (much like parameters in subroutines). A modifier takes
the form
modifier-name = value
Usually, the value is enclosed in quotes, and it must be if it is more than one word long or if it contains
certain special characters. There are a few modifiers which have no value, in which case only the name of
the modifier is present. HTML is case insensitive, which means that you can use uppercase and lowercase
letters interchangeably in tags and modifiers.
A simple example of a tag is <HR>, which draws a line -- also called a "horizontal rule" -- across the page.
The HR tag can take several possible modifiers such as WIDTH and ALIGN. For example, the short line just
after the heading of this page was produced by the HTML command:
<HR align=center width="33%">
The WIDTH here is specified as 33% of the available space. It could also be given as a fixed number of
pixels. The value for ALIGN could be CENTER, LEFT, or RIGHT. A LEFT alignment would shove the line
to the left side of the page, and a RIGHT alignment, to the right side. WIDTH and ALIGN are optional
modifiers. If you leave them out, then their default values will be used. The default for WIDTH is 100%, and
the default for ALIGN is LEFT.
Many tags require matching closing tags, which take the form
</tag-name>
For example, the tag <PRE> must always have a matching closing tag </PRE> later in the document. The
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Java Programing: Section 6.2
tag applies to everything that comes between the opening tag and the closing tag. The <PRE> tag tells a
Web browser to display everything between the <PRE> and the </PRE> just as it is formatted in the
original HTML source code, including all the spaces and carriage returns. (But tags between <PRE> and
</PRE> are still interpreted by the browser.) "PRE" stands for preformatted text. All of the sample
programs in these notes are formatted using the <PRE> command.
It is important for you to understand that when you don't use PRE, the computer will completely ignore the
formatting of the text in the HTML source code. The only thing it pays attention to is the tags. Five blank
lines in the source code have no more effect than one blank line or even a single blank space. Outside of
<PRE>, if you want to force a new line on the Web page, you can use the tag <BR>, which stands for
"break". For example, I might give my address as:
David Eck<BR>
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science<BR>
Hobart and William Smith Colleges<BR>
Geneva, NY 14456<BR>
If you want extra vertical space in your web page, you can use several <BR>'s in a row.
Similarly, you need a tag to indicate how the text should be broken up into paragraphs. This is done with
the <P> tag, which should be placed at the beginning of every paragraph. The <P> tag has a matching
</P>, which should be placed at the end of each paragraph. The closing </P> is technically optional, but
it is considered good form to use it. If you want all the lines of the paragraph to be shoved over to the right,
you can use <P ALIGN=RIGHT> instead of <P>. (This is mostly useful when used with one short line, or
when used with <BR> to make several short lines.) You can also use <P ALIGN=CENTER> for centered
lines.
By the way, if tags like <P> and <HR> have special meanings in HTML, you might wonder how I can get
them to appear here on this page. To get certain special characters to appear on the page, you have to use an
entity name in the HTML source code. The entity name for < is <, and the entity name for > is >.
Entity names begin with & and end with a semicolon. The character & is itself a special character whose
entity name is &. There are also entity names for nonstandard characters such as the accented e, é,
which has the entity name é.
The rest of this page discusses several other basic HTML tags. This is not meant to be a complete
discussion. But it is enough to produce interesting pages.
Overall Document Structure
HTML documents have a standard structure. They begin with <HTML> and end with </HTML>. Between
these tags, there are two sections, the head, which is marked off by <HEAD> and </HEAD>, and the body,
which -- as I'm sure you have guessed -- is surrounded by <BODY> and </BODY>. Often, the head contains
only one item: a title for the document. This title might be shown, for example, in the title bar of a Web
browser window. The title should not contain any HTML tags. The body contains the actual page contents
that are displayed by the browser. So, an HTML document takes this form:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>page-title</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
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Java Programing: Section 6.2
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Web browsers are not very picky about enforcing this structure; you can probably get away with leaving out
everything but the actual page contents. But it is good form to follow this structure for your pages.
The <BODY> tag can take a number of modifiers that affect the appearance of the page when it is displayed.
The modifier named BGCOLOR can be used to set the background color of the page. For example,
<BODY bgcolor=white>
will ensure that the background color for the page is white. You can add modifiers to control the color of
regular text (TEXT), hypertext links (LINK), and links to pages that have already been visited (VLINK).
When the user clicks and holds the mouse button on a link, the link is said to be active; you can control the
color of active links with the ALINK modifier. For example, how about a page with a black background,
white text, blue links, red active links, and gray visited links:
<BODY bgcolor=black text=white link=blue alink=red vlink=gray>
There are several standard color names that you can use in this context, but if you want complete control,
you'll have to learn how to specify colors using hexadecimal numbers. It is also possible to use an image for
the background of the page, instead of a solid color. Look up the details if you are interested.
Headings and Font Styles
HTML has a number of tags that affect the size and style of displayed text. For a heading, which is meant to
stand out on a line by itself, HTML offers the tags <H1>, <H2>, ..., <H6>. These tags are always used with
matching closing tags such as </H1>. The <H1> tag is meant for the most important headings and
produces the largest size text. I've found <H4> through <H6> to be too small to be useful. You can use
<BR> tags in headings, if you want multi-line headings. You can also use links and images, which are
described below. The heading tags can take ALIGN as a modifier, with the value LEFT, RIGHT, or
CENTER. For example, the heading
A Sample Heading
was written as "<H1 align=center>A Sample Heading</H1>" in the HTML source code.
There are a number of different style tags that you can apply to text. For example, bold text can be obtained
by surrounding the text with <B> and </B>. You can use <i> for italic, <U> for underlined, and <TT> for
typewriter style text. Most browsers support <SUB> for subscripted text and <SUP> for superscripted text.
For example, "x<SUP>2</SUP>" will give: x2.
Because HTML is meant to describe the logical structure of a document, rather than its exact appearance, it
has a number of tags for displaying the logical style of the text. For example, the <EM> tag is meant to
emphasize the text surrounded by <EM> and </EM>, while <STRONG> is for strong emphasis. And the
<CITE> style tag is meant for titles of books.
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Java Programing: Section 6.2
You can get even more control over the style of the text by using the <FONT>...</FONT> tag. The
<FONT> tag uses modifiers such as COLOR and SIZE to control the appearance of the font. For big blue
text, you would say:
<FONT color=blue size="+1">big blue text</FONT>
The value "+1" for the SIZE modifier means "a little bigger than usual." You could use "+2" for an even
bigger font, "-1" for a smaller font, and so on. However, only a limited number of different sizes are
available.
Lists
There are several tags for producing lists of items. The most widely used of these are <UL> and <OL>. The
<OL> tag gives an "ordered list", in which the items are numbered consecutively. The item numbers are
provided by the browser. The <UL> tag gives an "unordered list", in which the items are all marked with
the same special symbol. In the HTML source code, each list item is indicated by placing a <LI> tag at the
beginning of the item. The end of the list is marked by the appropriate closing tag, </OL> or </UL>. For
example, the following source code:
<UL>
<LI>Isaac Asimov
<LI>Ursula Leguin
<LI>Greg Bear
<LI>C. J. Cherryh
</UL>
produces this list:
● Isaac Asimov
● Ursula Leguin
● Greg Bear
● C. J. Cherryh
Links
The most distinctive feature of HTML is that documents can contain links to other documents. The user can
follow links from page to page and in the process visit pages from all over the Internet.
The <A> tag is used to create a link. The text between the <A> and its matching </A> appears on the page.
Usually, it is underlined and in a special color. The user can follow the link by clicking on this text. The
<A> tag uses the modifier HREF to say which document the link should connect to. The value for HREF
must be a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A URL is a coded set of instructions for finding a document
on the Internet. For example, the URL for my own "home page" is
http://math.hws.edu/eck/
To make a link to this page, such as David's Home Page, I would use the HTML source code
<A HREF="http://math.hws.edu/eck/">David's Home Page</A>
The best place to find URLs is on existing Web pages. Most browsers display the URL for the page you are
currently viewing, and they can display the URL of a link if you point to the link with the mouse.
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If you are writing an HTML document and you want to make a link to another document that is in the same
directory, you can use a relative URL. A relative URL consists of just the name of the file. For example, the
page you are now viewing comes from a directory that also contains the other sections in this chapter. For a
link to Section 1, which is in a file named s1.html, the relative URL would be just "s1.html", and the
complete link would look like
<A HREF="s1.html">Section 1</A>
There are also relative URLs for linking to files that are in "nearby" directories. Using relative URLs is a
good idea, since if you use them, you can move a whole collection of files without changing any of the links
between them (as long as you don't change the relative locations of the files).
Images
You can add images to a Web page with the <IMG> tag. (This is a tag that has no matching closing tag.)
The actual image must be stored in a separate file from the HTML document. The <IMG> tag has a
required modifier, named SRC, to specify the URL of the image file. For most browsers, the image should
be in one of the formats GIF (with a file name ending in ".gif") or JPEG (with a file name ending in ".jpeg"
or ".jpg"). A so-called animated gif file actually contains a series of images that the browser will display as
an animation. Usually, the image is stored in the same place as the HTML document, and a relative URL is
used to specify the image file.
The <IMG> tag also has several optional modifiers. It's a good idea to always include the HEIGHT and
WIDTH modifiers, which specify the size of the image in pixels. Some browsers, including Netscape,
handle images better if they know in advance how big they are. For browsers that can't display images, you
can use the ALT modifier to specify a string that will be displayed by the browser in place of the image.
The ALIGN modifier can be used to affect the placement of the image. "ALIGN=RIGHT" will shove the
image to the right edge of the page, and the text on the page will flow around the image. "ALIGN=LEFT"
works similarly. (Unfortunately, "ALIGN=CENTER" doesn't have the meaning you would expect.
Browsers treat images as if they are just big characters. Images can occur inside paragraphs, links, and
headings, for example. Alignment values of CENTER, TOP, and BOTTOM are used to specify how the image
should line up with other characters in a line of text: Should the baseline of the text be at the center, the top,
or the bottom of the image? Alignment values of RIGHT and LEFT were added to HTML later, but they are
the most useful values.)
For example, here is HTML code that will place an image from a file named figure1.gif on the page.
<IMG SRC="figure1.gif" ALIGN=RIGHT HEIGHT=150
WIDTH=100 ALT="Figure 1">
The image is 100 pixels wide and 150 pixels high. It will appear on the right edge of the page. If a browser
can't display images, it will display the string "Figure 1" instead.
There are many places on the Web where you can get graphics for use on your Web pages. For example,
http://www.iconbazaar.com makes a large number of images available. You should, of course, check on the
owner's copyright policy before using someone else's images on your pages.
The Applet tag and Applet Parameters
The <APPLET> tag is used to add a Java applet to a Web page. This tag must have a matching
</APPLET>. A required modifier named CODE gives the name of the compiled class file that contains the
applet. HEIGHT and WIDTH modifiers are required to specify the size of the applet. If you want the applet
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to be centered on the page, you can put the applet in a paragraph with CENTER alignment So, an applet tag
to display an applet named HelloWorldApplet centered on a Web page would look like this:
<P ALIGN=CENTER>
<APPLET CODE="HelloWorldApplet.class" HEIGHT=50 WIDTH=150>
</APPLET>
</P>
This assumes that the file HelloWorldApplet.class is located in the same directory with the HTML
document. If this is not the case, you can use another modifier, CODEBASE, to give the URL of the
directory that contains the class file. The value of CODE itself is always just a file name, not a URL.
If an applet uses a lot of .class files, it's a good idea to collect all the .class files into a single .zip or .jar file.
Zip and jar files are archive files which hold a number of smaller files. Your Java development system is
probably capable of creating them in some way. If your class files are in an archive, then you have to
specify the name of the archive file in an ARCHIVE modifier in the <APPLET> tag. Archive files won't
work on older browsers, but they should work for any browser that understands Java 1.1.
Applets can use applet parameters to customize their behavior. Applet parameters are specified by using
<PARAM> tags, which can only occur between an <APPLET> tag and the closing </APPLET>. The
PARAM tag has required modifiers named NAME and VALUE, and it takes the form
<PARAM NAME="param-name" VALUE="param-value">
The parameters are available to the applet when it runs. An applet can use the predefined method
getParameter() to check for parameters specified in PARAM tags. The getParameter() method
has the following interface:
String getParameter(String paramName)
The parameter paramName corresponds to the param-name in a PARAM tag. If the specified
paramName actually occurs in one of the PARAM tags, then getParameter returns the associated
param-value. If the specified paramName does not occur in any PARAM tag, then getParameter
returns the value null. Parameter names are case-sensitive, so you can't use "size" in the PARAM tag and
ask for "Size" in getParameter.
By the way, if you put anything besides PARAM tags between <APPLET> and </APPLET>, it will be
ignored by any browser that supports Java. On the other hand, a browser that does not support Java will
ignore the APPLET and PARAM tags. This means that if you put a message such as "Your browser doesn't
support Java" between <APPLET> and </APPLET>, then that message will only appear in browsers that
don't support Java.
Here is an example of an APPLET tag with PARAMs and some extra text for display in browsers that don't
support Java:
<APPLET code="ShowMessage.class" WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=50>
<PARAM NAME="message" VALUE="Goodbye World!">
<PARAM NAME="font" VALUE="Serif">
<PARAM NAME="size" VALUE="36">
<p align=center>Sorry, but your browser doesn't support Java!</p>
</APPLET>
The applet ShowMessage would presumably read these parameters in its init() method, which might
go something like this:
String display; // Instance variable: message to be displayed.
String fontName; // Instance variable: font to use for display.
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public void init() {
String value;
value = getParameter("message"); // Get message PARAM, if any.
if (value == null)
display = "Hello World!"; // default value
else
display = value; // Value from PARAM tag.
value = getParameter("font");
if (value == null)
fontName = "SansSerif"
else
fontName = value;
.
.
.
Dealing with the size parameter would be just a little harder, since a parameter value is always a
String, and the size is supposed to be an int. This means that the String value must somehow be
converted to an int. We'll worry about how to do that later.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 6.3
Section 6.3
Graphics and the Paint Method
EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON A COMPUTER SCREEN has to be drawn there, even the text. The Java
API includes a range of classes and methods that are devoted to drawing. In this section, I'll look at some of
the most basic of these. Note that all the classes mentioned in this section are defined in the package
java.awt.
For most of this chapter, we'll be drawing directly on applets, usually in the applets' paint() methods. In
Section 6, we'll encounter anther class of GUI component, Canvas, that exists only to be drawn on. In
many cases, a program does all its drawing in a Canvas which is just one of several components contained
in the applet. The Canvas class, the Applet class, and in fact all of the classes that represent GUI
components are subclasses of another class, named Component. The Component class represents the
general idea of a Graphical User Interface component that can appear on the screen. Many of the methods
used in applets, including paint() and repaint(), are actually inherited from Component. Most of
what I will say about graphics applies to any Component, not just to Applets and Canvases.
Whenever I talk about GUI components, I am referring to all objects that belong to subclasses of the
Component class.
To do any drawing at all in Java, you need a graphics context. A graphics context is an object belonging to
the class, Graphics. Instance methods are provided in this class for drawing shapes, text, and images.
Any given Graphics object can draw to only one location. In this chapter, that location will always be
one of Java's GUI components, such as an applet. The Graphics class is an abstract class, which means
that it is impossible to create a graphics context directly, with a constructor. There are two ways to get a
graphics context for drawing on a component: First of all, of course, when a component's paint()
method is called, the parameter to that method is a graphics context for drawing on the component. Second,
to make it possible to draw on a component from outside its paint() method, every component has an
instance method called getGraphics(). This method is a function that returns a graphics context for the
component. (The official line is that all drawing in a component should be done in that component's
paint() method, but I have found that this is not always practical and does not always give acceptable
performance. Anyway, if the people who designed Java really meant it, they wouldn't have made the
getGraphics() method public.)
The instance method, getGraphics(), is defined in the Component class. It returns a graphics context
that can be used for drawing to a particular component. That is, if comp is any component object and if g is
a variable of type Graphics, then you can say
g = comp.getGraphics();
After this assignment, g can be used for drawing to the rectangular area of the screen that represents the
component, comp. When you are writing your own applet or other component class, you need to call the
(inherited) getGraphics() method in the same class. So, you would say simply "g =
getGraphics()". This gives you a graphics context for drawing in the component you are writing.
If g is a graphics context that you've obtained with the getGraphics() methods, it is a good idea to call
the method g.dispose() after you have finished using it. This method frees any system resources that
are used by the graphics context. This is a good idea because on many systems, such resources are limited.
However, you should never call dispose() for the graphics context provided in the paint() method.
And you should never try to use a graphics context that has been disposed.
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Paint, Repaint, and Update
Most components do, in fact, do all drawing operations in their paint() methods. The paint() method
should be smart enough to correctly redraw the component at any time, using data stored in instance
variables that record the state of the component. If in the middle of some other method you realize that the
appearance of the component should change, then you should change the values of the instance variables
and call the component's repaint() method. This tells the system that it should redraw the component as
soon as it gets a chance (by calling the component's paint() method). This approach is satisfactory in
most cases. The alternative approach -- drawing directly to the applet with a graphics context obtained
through getGraphics() -- should be used only when repaint() doesn't give satisfactory results.
Now, as it happens, the system does not actually call the paint() method directly. There is another
method called update() which is the one actually called directly by the system. The built-in update
procedure first fills in the entire component with a background color. Then it calls the paint() method.
The paint() method draws on a rectangular area that has already been filled with the background color.
Usually, this is the right thing to do. However, if the paint method itself fills in the entire rectangle, so that
none of the background color is visible, then filling in the background was a wasted step. In that case, you
can override update() to read simply:
public void update(Graphics g) {
paint(g); // Don't fill with background color; just call paint.
}
It is possible to set the background color of a component, using the component's setBackground()
instance method that I will discuss below.
Coordinates
The screen of a computer is a grid of little squares called pixels. The color of each pixel can be set
individually, and drawing on the screen just means setting the colors of individual pixels.
A graphics context draws in a rectangle made
up of pixels. A position in the rectangle is
specified by a pair of integer coordinates,
(x,y). The upper left corner has coordinates
(0,0). The x coordinate increases from left
to right, and the y coordinate increases from
top to bottom. The illustration on the right
shows a 12-by-8 pixel component (with very
large pixels). A small line, rectangle, and oval
are shown as they would be drawn by coloring
individual pixels. (Note that, properly
speaking, the coordinates don't belong to the
pixels but to the grid lines between them.)
For any component, you can find out the size of the rectangle that it occupies by calling the instance method
getSize(). This method returns an object that belongs to the class, Dimension. A Dimension object
has two integer instance variables, width and height. The width of the component is
getSize().width pixels, and its height is getSize().height pixels.
When you are writing an applet, you don't necessarily know the applet's size. The size of an applet is
usually specified in an <APPLET> tag in the source code of a Web page, and it's easy for the Web-page
author to change the specified size. In some cases, when the applet is displayed in some other kind of
window instead of on a Web page, the applet can even be resized while it is running. So, it's not good form
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to depend on the size of the applet being set to some particular value. For other components, you have even
less chance of knowing the component's size in advance. This means that it's good form to check the size of
a component before doing any drawing on that component. For example, you can use a paint() method
that looks like:
public void paint(Graphics g) {
int width = getSize().width; // Find out the width of component.
int height = getSize().height; // Find out its height.
. . . // Draw the contents of the component.
}
Of course, your drawing commands will have to take the size into account. That is, they will have to use
(x,y) coordinates that are calculated based on the actual height and width of the applet.
Colors
Java is designed to work with the RGB color system. An RGB color is specified by three numbers that give
the level of red, green, and blue, respectively, in the color. A color in Java is an object of the class, Color.
You can construct a new color by specifying its red, blue, and green components. For example,
myColor = new Color(r,g,b);
There are two constructors that you can call in this way. In the one that I almost always use, r, g, and b are
integers in the range 0 to 255. In the other, they are numbers of type float in the range 0.0F to 1.0F. (You
might recall that a literal of type float is written with an "F" to distinguish it from a double number.)
Often, you can avoid constructing new colors altogether, since the Color class defines several named
constants representing common colors: Color.white, Color.black, Color.red, Color.green, Color.blue,
Color.cyan, Color.magenta, Color.yellow, Color.pink, Color.orange, Color.lightGray, Color.gray, and
Color.darkGray.
An alternative to RGB is the HSB color system. In the HSB system, a color is specified by three numbers
called the hue, the saturation, and the brightness. The hue is the basic color, ranging from red through
orange through all the other colors of the rainbow. The brightness is pretty much what it sounds like. A
fully saturated color is a pure color tone. Decreasing the saturation is like mixing white or gray paint into
the pure color. In Java, the hue, saturation and brightness are always specified by values of type float in
the range from 0.0F to 1.0F. The Color class has a static member function named getHSBColor for
creating HSB colors. To create the color with HSB values given by h, s, and b, you can say:
myColor = Color.getHSBColor(h,s,b);
For example, you could make a random color that is as bright and as saturated as possible with
myColor = Color.getHSBColor( (float)Math.random(), 1.0F, 1.0F );
The type cast is necessary because the value returned by Math.random() is of type double, and
Color.getHSBColor() requires values of type float. (By the way, you might ask why RGB colors
are created using a constructor while HSB colors are created using a static member function. The problem is
that we would need two different constructors, both of them with three parameters of type float.
Unfortunately, this is impossible. You can only have two constructors if their numbers or type of
parameters differ.)
The RGB system and the HSB system are just different ways of describing the same set of colors. It is
possible to translate between one system and the other. The best way to understand the color systems is to
experiment with them. In the following applet, you can use the scroll bars to control the RGB and HSB
values of a color. A sample of the color is shown on the right side of the applet. Computer monitors differ
as to the number of different colors they can display, so you might not get to see the full range of colors in
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this applet.
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
One of the instance variables in a Graphics object is the current drawing color, which is used for all
drawing of shapes and text. If g is a graphics context, you can change the current drawing color for g using
the method g.setColor(c), where c is a Color. For example, if you want to draw in green, you would
just say g.setColor(Color.green). The graphics context continues to use the color until you
explicitly change it with another setColor() command. If you want to know what the current drawing
color is, you can call the function g.getColor(), which returns an object of type Color. This can be
useful if you want to change to another drawing color temporarily and then restore the previous drawing
color.
Every component has an associated foreground color and background color. When the component is filled
by the update() method, it is filled with the background color. When a new graphics context is created
for a component, the current drawing color is set to the foreground color. Note that the foreground color and
background color are properties of the component, not of a graphics context.
The foreground and background colors can be set by instance methods setForeground(c) and
setBackground(c), which are defined in the Component class and therefore are available for use
with any component. These methods are commonly used to set the foreground and background colors of an
applet in the applet's init() method.
Fonts
A font represents a particular size and style of text. The same character will appear different in different
fonts. In Java, a font is characterized by a font name, a style, and a size. The available font names are
system dependent, but you can always use the following four strings as font names: "Serif", "SansSerif",
"Monospaced", and "Dialog". In Java 1.0, the font names were "TimesRoman", "Helvetica", and "Courier".
You can still use the older names if you want. (A "serif" is a little decoration on a character, such as a short
horizontal line at the bottom of the letter i. "SansSerif" means "without serifs." "Monospaced" means that
all the characters in the font have the same width. The "Dialog" font is the one that is typically used in
dialog boxes.)
The style of a font is specified using named constants that are defined in the Font class. You can specify
the style as one of the four values:
● Font.PLAIN,
● Font.ITALIC,
● Font.BOLD, or
● Font.BOLD + Font.ITALIC.
The size of a font is an integer. Size typically ranges from about 10 to 36, although larger sizes can also be
used. The size of a font is usually about equal to the height of the largest characters in the font, in pixels,
but this is not a definite rule. The size of the default font is 12.
Java uses the class named Font for representing fonts. You can construct a new font by specifying its font
name, style, and size in a constructor:
Font plainFont = new Font("Serif", Font.PLAIN, 12);
Font bigBoldFont = new Font("SansSerif", Font.BOLD, 24);
Every graphics context has a current font, which is used for drawing text. You can change the current font
with the setFont() method. For example, if g is a graphics context and bigBoldFont is a font, then
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the command g.setFont(bigBoldFont) will set the current font of g to bigBoldFont. You can
find out the current font of g by calling the method g.getFont(), which returns an object of type Font.
Every component has an associated font. It can be set with the instance method setFont(font), which
is defined in the Component class. When a graphics context is created for drawing on a component, the
graphic context's current font is set equal to the font of the component.
Shapes
The Graphics class includes a large number of instance methods for drawing various shapes, such as
lines, rectangles, and ovals. The shapes are specified using the (x,y) coordinate system described above.
They are drawn in the current drawing color of the graphics context. The current drawing color is set to the
foreground color of the component when the graphics context is created, but it can be changed at any time
using the setColor() method.
Here is a list of some of the most important drawing methods. With all these commands, any drawing that is
done outside the boundaries of the component is ignored. Note that all these methods are in the Graphics
class, so they all must be called through an object of type Graphics.
drawString(String str, int x, int y) -- Draws the text given by the string
str. The string is drawn using the current color and font of the graphics context. x specifies
the position of the left end of the string. y is the y-coordinate of the baseline of the string.
The baseline is a horizontal line on which the characters rest. Some parts of the characters,
such as the tails on a y or g, extend below the baseline.
drawLine(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2) -- Draws a line from the point
(x1,y1) to the point (x2,y2). The line is drawn as if with a pen that hangs one pixel to
the right and one pixel down from the (x,y) point where the pen is located. For example, if
g refers to an object of type Graphics, then the command g.drawLine(x,y,x,y),
which corresponds to putting the pen down at a point, draws the single pixel located at the
point (x,y).
drawRect(int x, int y, int width, int height) -- Draws the outline of a
rectangle. The upper left corner is at (x,y), and the width and height of the rectangle are as
specified. If width equals height, then the rectangle is a square. If the width or the
height is negative, then nothing is drawn. The rectangle is drawn with the same pen that is
used for drawLine(). This means that the actual width of the rectangle as drawn is
width+1, and similarly for the height. There is an extra pixel along the right edge and the
bottom edge. For example, if you want to draw a rectangle around the edges of the
component, you can say "g.drawRect(0, 0, getSize().width-1,
getSize().height-1);", where g is a graphics context for the component.
drawOval(int x, int y, int width, int height) -- Draws the outline of
an oval. The oval is one that just fits inside the rectangle specified by x, y, width, and
height. If width equals height, the oval is a circle.
drawRoundRect(int x, int y, int width, int height, int xdiam,
int ydiam) -- Draws the outline of a rectangle with rounded corners. The basic rectangle
is specified by x, y, width, and height, but the corners are rounded. The degree of
rounding is given by xdiam and ydiam. The corners are arcs of an ellipse with horizontal
diameter xdiam and vertical diameter ydiam. A typical value for xdiam and ydiam is 16.
But the value used should really depend on how big the rectangle is.
draw3DRect(int x, int y, int width, int height, boolean
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raised) -- Draws the outline of a rectangle that is supposed to have a three-dimensional
effect, as if it is raised from the screen or pushed into the screen. The basic rectangle is
specified by x, y, width, and height. The raised parameter tells whether the rectangle
seems to be raised from the screen or pushed into it. The 3D effect is achieved by using
brighter and darker versions of the drawing color for different edges of the rectangle. The
documentation recommends setting the drawing color equal to the background color before
using this method. The effect won't work well for some colors.
drawArc(int x, int y, int width, int height, int startAngle,
int arcAngle) -- Draws part of the oval that just fits inside the rectangle specified by x,
y, width, and height. The part drawn is an arc that extends arcAngle degrees from a
starting angle at startAngle degrees. Angles are measured with 0 degrees at the 3 o'clock
position (the positive direction of the horizontal axis). Positive angles are measured
counterclockwise from zero, and negative angles are measured clockwise. To get an arc of a
circle, make sure that width is equal to height.
fillRect(int x, int y, int width, int height) -- Draws a filled-in
rectangle. This fills in the interior of the rectangle that would be drawn by
drawRect(x,y,width,height). The extra pixel along the bottom and right edges is
not included. The width and height parameter give the exact width and height of the
rectangle. For example, if you wanted to fill in the entire component, you could say
"g.fillRect(0, 0, getSize().width, getSize().height);"
fillOval(int x, int y, int width, int height) -- Draws a filled-in oval.
fillRoundRect(int x, int y, int width, int height, int xdiam,
int ydiam) -- Draws a filled-in rounded rectangle.
fill3DRect(int x, int y, int width, int height, boolean
raised) -- Draws a filled-in three-dimensional rectangle.
fillArc(int x, int y, int width, int height, int startAngle,
int arcAngle) -- Draw a filled-in arc. This looks like a wedge of pie, whose crust is the
arc that would be drawn by the drawArc method.
Let's use some of the material covered in this section to write an applet. The applet will draw multiple
copies of a message on a black background. Each copy of the message is in a random color. Five different
fonts are used, with different sizes and styles. The displayed message is the string "Java!", but a different
message can be specified in an applet param. (Applet params were discussed at the end of the previous
section.) The applet works OK no matter what size is specified for the applet in the <applet> tag. Here's
the applet:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
The applet does have a problem. When the paint() method is called, it chooses random colors, fonts, and
locations for the messages. The information about which colors, fonts, and locations are used is not stored
anywhere. The next time paint() is called, it will make different random choices and will draw a
different picture. For this particular applet, the problem only really appears when the applet is partially
covered and then uncovered. Only the part that was covered will be redrawn, and in the part that's not
redrawn, the old picture will remain. Try it. You'll see partial messages, cut off by the dividing line between
the new picture and the old. (Actually, in some browsers, the entire applet might be repainted, even if only
part of it was covered.) A better approach is to compute the contents of the picture elsewhere, outside the
paint() method. Information about the picture should be stored in instance variables, and the paint()
method should use that information to draw the picture. If paint() is called twice before the data is
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recomputed, it should draw the same picture twice. Unfortunately, to store the data for the picture in this
applet, we would need to use either arrays, which will not be covered until Chapter 8, or off-screen images,
which will not be covered until Section 7.1. Other applets in this chapter will suffer from the same problem.
The source for the applet is shown below. I use an instance variable called message to hold the message
that the applet will display. There are five instance variables of type Font that hold represents different
sizes and styles of text. These variables are initialized in the applet's init() method. I also use the
init() method to set the background color of the applet to black.
The paint method simply draws 25 copies of the message. For each copy, it chooses one of the five fonts at
random, and it calls g.setFont() to select that font for drawing the text. It creates a random HSB color
and uses g.setColor() to select that color for drawing. It then chooses random (x,y) coordinates for
the location of the message. The x coordinate gives the horizontal position of the left end of the string. The
formula used for the x coordinate, "-50 + (int)(Math.random()*(width+40)" gives a random
integer in the range from -50 to width-10. This makes it possible for the string to extend beyond the left
edge or the right edge of the applet. Similarly, the formula for y allows the string to extend beyond the top
and bottom of the applet.
Here is the complete source code:
/*
This applet displays 25 copies of a message. The color and
position of each message is selected at random. The font
of each message is randomly chosen from among five possible
fonts. The messages are displayed on a black background.
*/
import java.awt.*;
import java.applet.*;
public class RandomStrings extends Applet {
String message; // The message to be displayed. This can be set
// in an applet param with name "message". If no
// value is provided in the applet tag, then
// the string "Java!" is used as the default.
Font font1, font2, font3, font4, font5; // The five fonts.
public void init() {
message = getParameter("message"); // Look for message in an
// applet param named
// "message".
if (message == null) // If no message is found, use "Java!".
message = "Java!";
font1 = new Font("Serif", Font.BOLD, 14);
font2 = new Font("SansSerif", Font.BOLD + Font.ITALIC, 24);
font3 = new Font("Monospaced", Font.PLAIN, 20);
font4 = new Font("Dialog", Font.PLAIN, 30);
font5 = new Font("Serif", Font.ITALIC, 36);
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setBackground(Color.black);
} // end init()
public void paint(Graphics g) {
int width = getSize().width; // Get applet's width and height.
int height = getSize().height;
for (int i = 0; i < 25; i++) {
// Draw one string. First, set the font to be one
// of the five available fonts, at random.
int fontNum = (int)(5*Math.random()) + 1;
switch (fontNum) {
case 1:
g.setFont(font1);
break;
case 2:
g.setFont(font2);
break;
case 3:
g.setFont(font3);
break;
case 4:
g.setFont(font4);
break;
case 5:
g.setFont(font5);
break;
} // end switch
// Set the color to be a bright, saturated color,
// with a random hue.
float hue = (float)Math.random();
g.setColor( Color.getHSBColor(hue, 1.0F, 1.0F) );
// Select the position of the string, at random.
int x,y;
x = -50 + (int)(Math.random()*(width+40));
y = (int)(Math.random()*(height+20));
// Draw the message.
g.drawString(message,x,y);
} // end for
} // end paint()
} // end class RandomStrings
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[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 6.4
Mouse Events
EVENTS ARE CENTRAL to programming for a graphical user interface. A GUI program doesn't have a
main() routine that outlines what will happen when the program is run, in a step-by-step process from
beginning to end. Instead, the program must be prepared to respond to various kinds of events that can
happen at unpredictable times and in an order that the program doesn't control. The most basic kinds of
events are generated by the mouse and keyboard. The user can press any key on the keyboard, move the
mouse, or press a button on the mouse. The user can do any of these things at any time, and the computer
has to respond appropriately.
In Java, events are represented by objects. When an event occurs, the system collects all the information
relevant to the event and constructs an object to contain that information. Different types of events are
represented by objects belonging to different classes. For example, when the user presses a button on the
mouse, an object belonging to a class called MouseEvent is constructed. The object contains information
such as the GUI component on which the user clicked, the (x,y) coordinates of the point in the
component where the click occurred, and which button on the mouse was pressed. When the user presses a
key on the keyboard, a KeyEvent is created. After the event object is constructed, it is passed as a
parameter to a designated subroutine. By writing that subroutine, the programmer says what should happen
when the event occurs.
As a Java programmer, you get a fairly high-level view of events. There is lot of processing that goes on
between the time that the user presses a key or moves the mouse and the time that a subroutine in your
program is called to respond to the event. Fortunately, you don't need to know much about that processing.
But you should understand this much: Even though your GUI program doesn't have a main() routine,
there is a sort of main routine running somewhere that executes a loop of the form
while the program is still running:
Wait for the next event to occur
Call a subroutine to handle the event
This loop is called an event loop. Every GUI program has an event loop. In Java, you don't have to write the
loop. It's part of "the system". If you write a GUI program in some other language, you might have to
provide a main routine that runs an event loop.
In this section, we'll look at handling mouse events in Java, and we'll cover the framework for handling
events in general. The next section will cover keyboard events. Java also has other types of events, which
are produced by GUI components. These will be introduced in Section 6 and covered in detail in Section
7.3.
For an event to have any effect, a program must detect the event and react to it. In order to detect an event,
the program must "listen" for it. Listening for events is something that is done by an object called an event
listener. An event listener object must contain instance methods for handling the events for which it listens.
For example, if an object is to serve as a listener for events of type MouseEvent, then it must contain the
following method (among several others):
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) { . . . }
The body of the method defines how the object responds when it is notified that a mouse button has been
pressed. The parameter, evt, contains information about the event. This information can be used by the
listener object to determine its response.
The methods that are required in a mouse event listener are specified in an interface named
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MouseListener. To be used as a listener for mouse events, an object must implement this
MouseListener interface. Java interfaces were covered in Section 5.5. (To review briefly: An
interface in Java is just a list of instance methods. A class can "implement" an interface by doing two
things. First, the class must be declared to implement the interface, as in "class MyListener
implements MouseListener" or "class RandomStrings extends Applet
implements MouseListener". Second, the class must include a definition for each instance method
specified in the interface. An interface can be used as the type for a variable or formal parameter. We
say that an object implements the MouseListener interface if it belongs to a class that implements the
MouseListener interface. Note that it is not enough for the object to include the specified methods. It
must also belong to a class that is specifically declared to implement the interface.)
Every event in Java is associated with a GUI component. For example, when the user presses a button on
the mouse, the associated component is the one that the user clicked on. Before a listener object can "hear"
events associated with a given component, the listener object must be registered with the component. If a
MouseListener object, mListener, needs to hear mouse events associated with a component object,
comp, the listener must be registered with the component by calling
"comp.addMouseListener(mListener);". The addActionListener() method is an instance
method in the class, Component. In particular, since an applet is a component, every applet has an
addMouseListener(), and so it is possible to set up a listener to respond to clicks on the applet.
The event classes, such as MouseEvent, and the listener interfaces, such as MouseListener, are
defined in the package java.awt.event. This means that if you want to work with events, you should
include the line "import java.awt.event.*;" at the beginning of your source code file.
Admittedly, there is a large number of details to tend to when you want to use events. To summarize, you
must
1. Put the import specification "import java.awt.event.*;" at the beginning of your source
code;
2. Declare that some class implements the appropriate listener interface, such as MouseListener;
3. Provide definitions in the class for the subroutines from that interface;
4. Register the listener object with the applet or other component.
Any object can act as a listener, if it implements the appropriate interface. It is considered good form to
define new classes just for listening. Unfortunately, doing this effectively requires some rather advanced
techniques. (See Section 7.6.) We'll use another strategy, which works well for small projects: Since an
applet is itself an object, we'll let the applet itself listen for events. This means that the applet class will be
declared to implement any necessary listener interfaces, and it will include the necessary methods to
respond to the events.
MouseEvent and MouseListener
The MouseListener interface specifies five different instance methods:
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt);
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent evt);
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent evt);
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent evt);
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent evt);
The mousePressed method is called as soon as the user presses down on one of the mouse buttons, and
mouseReleased is called when the user releases a button. These are the two methods that are most
commonly used, but any mouse listener object must define all five methods. You can leave the body of a
method empty if you don't want to define a response. The mouseClicked method is called if the user
presses a mouse button and then releases it quickly, without moving the mouse. In most cases, you should
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define mousePressed instead of mouseClicked. The other two methods are called when the mouse
cursor enters or leaves the component. If you wanted the component to change appearance whenever the
user moves the mouse over the component, you could define these two methods.
As an example, let's look at an applet that does something when the user clicks on it. Here's an improved
version of the RandomStrings applet from the end of the previous section. In this version, the applet
will redraw itself when you click on it:
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
For this version of the applet, we need to make four changes in the source code. First, add the line
"import java.awt.event.*;" before the class definition. Second, declare that the applet class
implements the MouseListener interface by saying:
class RandomStrings extends Applet implements MouseListener { ...
Third, define the five methods of the MouseListener interface. Only mousePressed will do
anything, and all it has to do is call repaint() to force the applet to be redrawn. The following methods
are added to the class definition:
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
// When user presses the mouse, tell the system to
// call the applet's paint() method.
repaint();
}
// The following empty routines are required by the
// MouseListener interface:
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent evt) { }
Fourth and finally, the applet must be registered to listen for mouse events. This should be done when the
applet is initialized, that is, in the applet's init() method. This line should be added to the init()
method:
addMouseListener(this);
This might need some explanation. We want to listen for mouse events on the applet itself, so we call the
applet's own addMouseListener method. The parameter to this method is the object that will be doing
the listening. In this case, the object is, again, the applet itself. "this" is a special variable that refers to the
applet. (See Section 5.5.) So, we are telling the applet to listen for mouse events on itself. All this means,
effectively, is that our mousePressed method will be called when the user clicks on the applet.
We could make all these changes in the source code of the original RandomStrings applet. However,
since we are supposed to be doing object-oriented programming, it might be instructive to write a subclass
that contains the changes. This will let us build on previous work and concentrate just on the modifications.
Here's the actual source code for the above applet. It uses "super", another special variable from Section
5.5.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
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public class ClickableRandomStrings extends RandomStrings
implements MouseListener {
public void init() {
// When the applet is created, do the initialization
// of the superclass, RandomStrings. Then set this
// applet to listen for mouse events on itself.
super.init();
addMouseListener(this);
}
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
// When user presses the mouse, tell the system to
// call the applet's paint() method.
repaint();
}
// The following empty routines are required by the
// MouseListener interface:
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent evt) { }
} // end class ClickableRandomStrings
Often, when a mouse event occurs, you want to know the location of the mouse cursor. This information is
available from the parameter to the event-handling method, evt. This parameter is an object of type
MouseEvent, and it contains instance methods that return information about the event. To find out the
coordinates of the mouse cursor, call evt.getX() and evt.getY(). These methods return integers
which give the x and y coordinates where the mouse cursor was positioned. The coordinates are expressed
in the component's coordinate system, where the top left corner of the component is (0,0).
The user can hold down certain modifier keys while using the mouse. The possible modifier keys include:
the Shift key, the Control key, the ALT key (called the Option key on the Macintosh), and the Meta key
(called the Command or Apple key on the Macintosh and with no equivalent in Windows). You might want
to respond to a mouse event differently when the user is holding down a modifier key. The boolean-valued
instance methods evt.isShiftDown(), evt.isControlDown(), evt.isAltDown(), and
evt.isMetaDown() can be called to test whether the modifier keys are pressed.
You might also want to have different responses depending on whether the user presses the left mouse
button, the middle mouse button, or the right mouse button. Now, not every mouse has a middle button and
a right button, so Java handles the information in a peculiar way. It treats pressing the right button as
equivalent to holding down the Meta key. That is, if the right button is pressed, then the instance method
evt.isMetaDown() will return true (even if the Meta key is not pressed). Similarly, pressing the
middle mouse button is equivalent to holding down the ALT key. In practice, what this really means is that
pressing the right mouse button under Windows is equivalent to holding down the Command key while
pressing the mouse button on Macintosh. A program tests for either of these by calling
evt.isMetaDown().
As an example, consider the following applet. Click on the applet (with the left mouse button) to place a red
rectangle on the applet. Click with the right mouse button (or hold down the Command key and click on a
Macintosh) to place a blue oval on the applet. Hold down the Shift key and click to clear the applet. (I draw
black outlines around the ovals and rectangles so that they will look nice when they overlap.)
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Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
The source code for this applet follows. You can see how the instance methods in the MouseEvent object
are used. You can also check for the Four Steps of Event Handling ("import java.awt.event.*",
"implements MouseListener", "addMouseListener", and the event-handling methods). This
applet has no paint() method. More properly speaking, it has the inherited paint() method that
doesn't draw anything. So, when the applet is repainted, it is simply filled with the background color. We
still have the problem that we are not storing information about what is drawn on the applet. So if the applet
is covered up and uncovered, the contents of the applet are erased.
You should pay attention to how the graphics context, g, is used in the mousePressed routine. Since I
am drawing on the applet from outside its paint() method, I need to obtain a graphics context by saying
"g = getGraphics()". I use g to draw an oval or rectangle on the applet, centered on the point where
the user clicked. Finally, the graphics context is disposed by calling g.dispose().
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.applet.*;
public class SimpleStamper extends Applet implements MouseListener {
public void init() {
// When the applet is created, set its background color
// to black, and register the applet to listen to mouse
// events on itself.
setBackground(Color.black);
addMouseListener(this);
}
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
// This method will be called when the user clicks the
// mouse on the applet.
if ( evt.isShiftDown() ) {
// The user was holding down the Shift key. Just
// repaint the applet, which will fill it with its
// background color, black.
repaint();
return;
}
int x = evt.getX(); // x-coordinate where user clicked.
int y = evt.getY(); // y-coordinate where user clicked.
Graphics g = getGraphics(); // Graphics context
// for drawing on the applet.
if ( evt.isMetaDown() ) {
// User right-clicked at the point (x,y).
// Draw a blue oval centered at the point (x,y).
// A black outline around the oval will make it more
// distinct when ovals and rects overlap.
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g.setColor(Color.blue);
g.fillOval( x - 30, y - 15, 60, 30 );
g.setColor(Color.black);
g.drawOval( x - 30, y - 15, 60, 30 );
}
else {
// Draw a red rectangle centered at the point (x,y).
g.setColor(Color.red);
g.fillRect( x - 30, y - 15, 60, 30 );
g.setColor(Color.black);
g.drawRect( x - 30, y - 15, 60, 30 );
}
g.dispose(); // We are finished with the graphics context,
// so dispose of it.
} // end mousePressed()
// The following empty routines are required by the
// MouseListener interface:
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent evt) { }
} // end class SimpleStamper
MouseMotionListeners and Dragging
Whenever the mouse is moved, it generates events. The operating system of the computer detects these
events and uses them to move the mouse cursor on the screen. It is also possible for a program to listen for
these "mouse motion" events and respond to them. The most common reason to do so is to implement
dragging. Dragging occurs when the user moves the mouse while holding down a mouse button.
The methods for responding to mouse motion events are defined in an interface named
MouseMotionListener. This interface specifies two event-handling methods:
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent evt);
public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent evt);
The mouseDragged method is called if the mouse is moved while a button on the mouse is pressed. If the
mouse is moved while no mouse button is down, then mouseMoved is called instead. The parameter, evt,
is an object of type MouseEvent. It contains the x and y coordinates of the mouse's location. As long as
the user continues to move the mouse, one of these methods will be called over and over. (So many events
are generated that it would be inefficient for a program to hear them all, if it doesn't want to do anything in
response. This is why the mouse motion event-handlers are defined in a separate interface from the other
mouse events. You can listen for the mouse events defined in MouseListener without automatically
hearing all mouse motion events as well.)
If you want your program to respond to mouse motion events, you must create an object that implements
the MouseMotionListener interface, and you must register that object to listen for events. The
registration is done by calling a component's addMouseMotionListener method. The object will then
listen for mouseDragged and mouseMoved events associated with that component. In most cases, the
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listener object will also implement the MouseListener interface so that it can respond to the other
mouse events as well. For example, if we want an applet to listen for all mouse events associated with the
applet, then the definition of the applet class has the form:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.applet.*;
public class Mouser extends Applet
implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener {
public void init() { // set up the applet
addMouseListener(this);
addMouseMotionListener(this);
. . . // other initializations
}
.
. // Define the seven MouseListener and
. // MouseMotionListener methods. Also, there
. // can be other variables and methods.
Here is a small sample applet that displays information about mouse events. It is programmed to respond to
any of the seven different kinds of mouse events by displaying the coordinates of the mouse, the type of
event, and a list of the modifier keys that are down (Shift, Control, Meta, and Alt). Experiment to see what
happens when you use the mouse on the applet. The source code for this applet can be found in
SimpleTrackMouse.java. I encourage you to read the source code. You should now be familiar with all the
techniques that it uses. (The applet flickers annoyingly as the mouse is moved. This is something that can
be fixed with a technique called "double buffering" that will be covered in Section 7.1.)
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
It is interesting to look at what a program needs to do in order to respond to dragging operations. In general,
the response involves three methods: mousePressed(), mouseDragged(), and
mouseReleased(). The dragging gesture starts when the user presses a mouse button, it continues while
the mouse is dragged, and it ends when the user releases the button. This means that the programming for
the response to one dragging gesture must be spread out over the three methods! Furthermore, the
mouseDragged() method can be called many times as the mouse moves. To keep track of what is going
on between one method call and the next, you need to set up some instance variables. In many applications,
for example, in order to process a mouseDragged event, you need to remember the previous coordinates
of the mouse. You can store this information in two instance variables prevX and prevY of type int. I
also suggest having a boolean variable, dragging, which is set to true while a dragging gesture is
being processed. This is necessary because not every mousePressed event is the beginning of a dragging
gesture. The mouseDragged and mouseReleased methods can use the value of dragging to check
whether a drag operation is actually in progress. You might need other instance variables as well, but in
general outline, the code for handling dragging looks like this:
private int prevX, prevY; // Most recently processed mouse coords.
private boolean dragging; // Set to true when dragging is in process.
. . . // other instance variables for use in dragging
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
if ( we-want-to-start-dragging ) {
dragging = true;
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prevX = evt.getX(); // Remember starting position.
prevY = evt.getY();
}
.
. // Other processing.
.
}
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent evt) {
if ( dragging == false ) // First, check if we are
return; // processing a dragging gesture.
int x = evt.getX();
int y = evt.getY();
.
. // Process a mouse movement from (prevX, prevY) to (x,y).
.
prevX = x; // Remember the current position for the next call.
prevY = y;
}
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent evt) {
if ( dragging == false ) // First, check if we are
return; // processing a dragging gesture.
dragging = false; // We are done dragging.
.
. // Other processing and clean-up.
.
}
As an example, let's look at a typical use of dragging: allowing the user to sketch a curve by dragging the
mouse. This example also shows many other features of graphics and mouse processing. In the following
applet, you can draw a curve by dragging the mouse on the large white area. Select a color for drawing by
clicking on one of the colored rectangles on the right. Note that the selected color is framed with a white
border. Clear your drawing by clicking in the square labeled "CLEAR". (This applet still has the old
problem that the drawing will disappear if you cover the applet and uncover it.)
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
You'll find the complete source code for this applet in the file SimplePaint.java. I will discuss a few aspects
of it here, but I encourage you to read it carefully in its entirety. There are lots of informative comments in
the source code.
The applet class for this example is designed to work for any reasonable applet size, that is, unless the
applet is too small. This means that coordinates are computed in terms of the actual width and height of the
applet. (The width and height are obtained by calling getSize().width and getSize().height.)
This makes things quite a bit harder than they would be if we assumed some particular fixed size for the
applet. Let's look at some of these computations in detail. For example, the command used to fill in the
large white drawing area is
g.fillRect(3, 3, width - 59, height - 6);
There is a 3-pixel border along each edge, so the height of the drawing area is 6 less than the height of the
applet. As for the width: The colored rectangles are 50 pixels wide. There is a 3-pixel border on each edge
of the applet. And there is a 3-pixel divider between the drawing area and the colored rectangles. All that
adds up to make 59 pixels that are not included in the width of the drawing area, so the width of the
drawing area is 59 less than the width of the applet.
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Java Programing: Section 6.4
The white square labeled "CLEAR" occupies a 50-by-50 pixel region beneath the colored rectangles.
Allowing for this square, we can figure out how much vertical space is available for the seven colored
rectangles, and then divide that space by 7 to get the vertical space available for each rectangle. This
quantity is represented by a variable, colorSpace. Out of this space, 3 pixels are used as spacing
between the rectangles, so the height of each rectangle is colorSpace - 3. The top of the N-th
rectangle is located (N*colorSpace + 3) pixels down from the top of the applet, assuming that we
start counting at zero. This is because there are N rectangles above the N-th rectangle, each of which uses
colorSpace pixels. The extra 3 is for the border at the top of the applet. After all that, we can write down
the the command for drawing the N-th rectangle:
g.fillRect(width - 53, N*colorSpace + 3, 50, colorSpace - 3);
That was not easy! But it shows the kind of careful thinking and precision graphics that is sometimes
necessary to get good results.
The mouse in this applet is used to do three different things: Select a color, clear the drawing, and draw a
curve. Only the third of these involves dragging, so not every mouse click will start a dragging operation.
The mousePressed routine has to look at the (x,y) coordinates where the mouse was clicked and
decide how to respond. If the user clicked on the CLEAR rectangle, the drawing area is cleared by calling
repaint(). If the user clicked somewhere in the strip of colored rectangles, the selected color is changed.
This involves computing which color the user clicked on, which is done by dividing the y coordinate by
colorSpace. Finally, if the user clicked on the drawing area, a drag operation is initiated. A boolean
variable, dragging, is set to true so that the mouseDragged and mouseReleased methods will
know that a curve is being drawn. The code for this follows the general form given above. The actual
drawing of the curve is done in the mouseDragged method, which just draws a line from the previous
location of the mouse to its current location.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 6.5
Section 6.5
Keyboard Events
IN JAVA, EVENTS are associated with GUI components. When the user presses a button on the mouse,
the event that is generated is associated with the component that contains the mouse cursor. What about
keyboard events? When the user presses a key, what component is associated with the key event that is
generated?
A GUI uses the idea of input focus to determine the component associated with keyboard events. At any
given time, exactly one interface element on the screen has the input focus, and that is where all keyboard
events are directed. If the interface element happens to be a Java component, then the information about the
keyboard event becomes a Java object of type KeyEvent, and it is delivered to any listener objects that are
listening for KeyEvents associated with that component. The necessity of managing input focus adds an
extra twist to working with keyboard events in Java.
It's a good idea to give the user some visual feedback about which component has the input focus. For
example, if the component is the typing area of a word-processor, the feedback is usually in the form of a
blinking text cursor. Another common visual clue is to draw a brightly colored border around the edge of a
component when it has the input focus, as I do in the sample applet later on this page.
A component that wants to have the input focus can call the method requestFocus(), which is defined
in the Component class. Calling this method does not absolutely guarantee that the component will
actually get the input focus. Several components might request the focus; only one will get it. This method
should only be used in certain circumstances in any case, since it can be a rude surprise to the user to have
the focus suddenly pulled away from a component that the user is working with. In a typical user interface,
the user can choose to give the focus to a component by clicking on that component with the mouse. And
pressing the tab key will often move the focus from one component to another.
Some components do not automatically receive the input focus when the user clicks on them. To solve this
problem, a program has to register a mouse listener with the component to detect user clicks. In response to
a user click, the mousePressed() method should call requestFocus() for the component.
Unfortunately, a component that requires this treatment on one platform might not require it on another
platform. In Sun Microsystem's implementation of Java, for example, applet objects must be treated in this
way. So if you create a subclass of Applet that is supposed to be able to respond to keyboard events, you
should be sure to set up a mouse listener for your class, and call requestFocus() in the
mousePressed() method. If you don't do this, your applet might work on some versions of Java, but on
others it will fail because it never receives the input focus.
Here is a sample applet that processes keyboard events. If the applet has the input focus, the arrow keys can
be used to move the colored square. Furthermore, typing the character 'R', 'G', 'B', or 'K' will set the color of
the square to red, green, blue, or black. When the applet has the input focus, the border of the applet is a
bright cyan (blue-green) color. When the applet does not have the focus, the border is gray, and a message,
"Click to activate," is displayed. When the user clicks on an unfocussed applet, it requests the input focus.
The complete source code for this applet is in the file KeyboardAndFocusDemo.java. I will discuss some
aspects of it below. After reading this section, you should be able to understand the source code in its
entirety.
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
In Java, keyboard event objects belong to a class called KeyEvent. An object that needs to listen for
KeyEvents must implement the interface, KeyListener. Furthermore, the object must be registered
with a component by calling the component's addKeyListener() method. When an applet is to listen
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Java Programing: Section 6.5
for keyboard events on itself, the registration is done with the command "addKeyListener(this);"
in the applet's init() method. All this is, of course, directly analogous to what you learned about mouse
events in the previous section. The KeyListener interface defines the following methods, which must be
included in any class that implements KeyListener:
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent evt);
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent evt);
public void keyTyped(KeyEvent evt);
Java makes a careful distinction between the keys that you press and the characters that you type. There are
lots of keys on a keyboard: letter keys, number keys, modifier keys such as Control and Shift, arrow keys,
page up and page down keys, keypad keys, function keys. In many cases, pressing a key does not type a
character. On the other hand, typing a character sometimes involves pressing several keys. For example, to
type an uppercase 'A', you have to press the Shift key and then press the A key before releasing the Shift
key. On my Macintosh computer, I can type an accented e, é, by holding down the Option key, pressing the
E key, releasing the Option key, and pressing E again. Only one character was typed, but I had to perform
three key-presses and I had to release a key at the right time. In Java, there are three types of KeyEvent.
The types correspond to pressing a key, releasing a key, and typing a character. The keyPressed method
is called when the user presses a key, the keyReleased method is called when the user releases a key,
and the keyTyped method is called when the user types a character. Note that one user action, such as
pressing the E key, can be responsible for two events, a keyPressed event and a keyTyped event.
Usually, it is better to think in terms of two separate streams of events, one consisting of keyPressed and
keyReleased events and the other consisting of keyTyped events. For some applications, you want to
monitor the first stream; for other applications, you want to monitor the second one. Of course, the
information in the keyTyped stream could be extracted from the keyPressed/keyReleased stream,
but it would be difficult (and also system-dependent to some extent). Some user actions, such as pressing
the Shift key, can only be detected as a keyPressed event. I have a solitaire game on my computer that
hilites every card that can be moved, when I hold down the Shift key. You could do something like that in
Java by hiliting the cards when the Shift key is pressed and removing the hilite when the Shift key is
released.
There is one more complication. Usually, when you hold down a key on the keyboard, that key will
auto-repeat. This means that it will generate multiple keyPressed events, as long as it is held down. It
can also generate multiple keyTyped events. For the most part, this will not affect your programming, but
you should not expect every keyPressed event to have a corresponding keyReleased event.
Every key on the keyboard has an integer code number. (Actually, this is only true for keys that Java knows
about. Many keyboards have extra keys that can't be used with Java.) When the keyPressed or
keyReleased method is called, the parameter, evt, contains the code of the key that was pressed or
released. The code can be obtained by calling the function evt.getKeyCode(). Rather than asking you
to memorize a table of code numbers, Java provides a named constant for each key. These constants are
defined in the KeyEvent class. For example the constant for the shift key is KeyEvent.VK_SHIFT. If
you want to test whether the key that the user pressed is the Shift key, you could say "if
(evt.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_SHIFT)". The key codes for the four arrow keys are
KeyEvent.VK_LEFT, KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT, KeyEvent.VK_UP, and KeyEvent.VK_DOWN.
Other keys have similar codes. (The "VK" stands for "Virtual Keyboard". In reality, different keyboards use
different key codes, but Java translates the actual codes from the keyboard into its own "virtual" codes.
Your program only sees these virtual key codes, so it will work with various keyboards on various
platforms without modification.)
In the case of a keyTyped event, you want to know which character was typed. This information can be
obtained from the parameter, evt, in the keyTyped method by calling the function
evt.getKeyChar(). This function returns a value of type char representing the character that was
typed.
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Java Programing: Section 6.5
In the KeyboardAndFocusDemo applet, shown above, I use the keyPressed routine to respond when
the user presses one of the arrow keys. The applet includes instance variables, squareLeft and
squareTop that give the position of the upper left corner of the square. When the user presses one of the
arrow keys, the keyPressed routine modifies the appropriate instance variable and calls repaint() to
redraw the whole applet. Note that the values of squareLeft and squareRight are restricted so that
the square never moves outside the white area of the applet:
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent evt) {
// Called when the user has pressed a key, which can be
// a special key such as an arrow key. If the key pressed
// was one of the arrow keys, move the square (but make sure
// that it doesn't move off the edge, allowing for a
// 3-pixel border all around the applet). SQUARE_SIZE is
// a named constant that specifies the size of the square.
int key = evt.getKeyCode(); // Keyboard code for the pressed key.
if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) {
squareLeft -= 8;
if (squareLeft < 3)
squareLeft = 3;
repaint();
}
else if (key == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) {
squareLeft += 8;
if (squareLeft > getSize().width - 3 - SQUARE_SIZE)
squareLeft = getSize().width - 3 - SQUARE_SIZE;
repaint();
}
else if (key == KeyEvent.VK_UP) {
squareTop -= 8;
if (squareTop < 3)
squareTop = 3;
repaint();
}
else if (key == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) {
squareTop += 8;
if (squareTop > getSize().height - 3 - SQUARE_SIZE)
squareTop = getSize().height - 3 - SQUARE_SIZE;
repaint();
}
} // end keyPressed()
Color changes -- which happen when the user types the characters 'R', 'G', 'B', and 'K', or the lower case
equivalents -- are handled in the keyTyped method. I won't include it here, since it is so similar to the
keyPressed method. Finally, to complete the KeyListener interface, the keyReleased method
must be defined. In the sample applet, the body of this method is empty since the applet does nothing to
respond to keyReleased events.
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Java Programing: Section 6.5
Focus Events
If a component is to change its appearance when it has the input focus, it needs some way to know when it
has the focus. In Java, objects are notified about changes of input focus by events of type FocusEvent.
An object that wants to be notified of changes in focus can implement the FocusListener interface.
This interface declares two methods:
public void focusGained(FocusEvent evt);
public void focusLost(FocusEvent evt);
Furthermore, the addFocusListener() method must be used to set up a listener for the focus events.
When a component gets the input focus, it calls the focusGained() method of any object that has been
registered with that component as a FocusListener. When it loses the focus, it calls the listener's
focusLost() method. Often, it is the component itself that listens for focus events.
In my sample applet, there is a boolean-valued instance variable named focussed. This variable is true
when the applet has the input focus and is false when the applet does not have focus. The applet implements
the FocusListener interface and listens for focus events. The applet's paint() method looks at the
value of focussed to decide what color the border of the applet should be. The value of the variable is set
in the focusGained() and focusLost() methods. These methods call repaint() so that the
applet will be redrawn with the correct border color. The method definitions are very simple:
public void focusGained(FocusEvent evt) {
// The applet now has the input focus.
focussed = true;
repaint(); // redraw with cyan border
}
public void focusLost(FocusEvent evt) {
// The applet has now lost the input focus.
focussed = false;
repaint(); // redraw with gray border
}
The other aspect of handling focus is to make sure that the applet requests the focus when the user clicks on
it. To do this, the applet implements the MouseListener interface and listens for mouse events on itself.
It defines a mousePressed routine that asks for the input focus:
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
requestFocus();
}
The other four methods of the mouseListener interface are defined to be empty. Note that the applet
implements three listener interfaces, so the class definition begins:
public class KeyboardAndFocusDemo extends Applet
implements KeyListener, FocusListener, MouseListener
The init() method registers the applet to listen for all three types of events. To do this, the init()
method includes the lines
addFocusListener(this);
addKeyListener(this);
addMouseListener(this);
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Java Programing: Section 6.5
State Machines
The information stored in an object's instance variables is said to represent the state of that object. When
one of the object's methods is called, the action taken by the object can depend on its state. (Or, in the
terminology we have been using, the definition of the method can look at the instance variables to decide
what to do.) Furthermore, the state can change. (That is, the definition of the method can assign new values
to the instance variables.) In computer science, there is the idea of a state machine, which is just something
that has a state and can change state in response to events or inputs. The response of a state machine to an
event or input depends on what state it's in. An object is a kind of state machine. Sometimes, this point of
view can be very useful in designing classes.
The state machine point of view can be especially useful in the type of event-oriented programming that is
required by graphical user interfaces. When designing an applet, you can ask yourself: What information
about state do I need to keep track of? What events can change the state of the applet? How will my
response to a given event depend on the current state? Should the appearance of the applet be changed to
reflect a change in state? How should the paint() method take the state into account? All this is an
alternative to the top-down, step-wise-refinement style of program design, which does not apply to the
overall design of an event-oriented program.
In the KeyboardAndFocusDemo applet, shown above, the state of the applet is recorded in the instance
variables focussed, squareLeft, and squareTop. These state variables are used in the paint()
method to decide how to draw the applet. They are set in the various event-handling methods.
In the rest of this section, we'll look at another example, where the state of the applet plays an even bigger
role. In this example, the user plays a simple arcade-style game by pressing the arrow keys. The example is
based on one of my frameworks, called KeyboardAnimationApplet. (See Section 3.7 for a
discussion of frameworks and a sample framework that supports animation.) The game is written as an
extension of the KeyboardAnimationApplet class. It includes a method, drawFrame(), that draws
one frame in the animation. It also defines keyPressed to respond when the user presses the arrow keys.
The source code for the game is in the file SubKillerGame.java. You can also look at the source code in
KeyboardAnimationApplet.java, but it uses some advanced techniques that I haven't covered yet.
You have to click on the game to activate it. The applet shows a black "submarine" moving back and forth
erratically near the bottom. Near the top, there is a blue "boat". You can move this boat back and forth by
pressing the left and right arrow keys. Attached to the boat is a red "depth charge." You can drop the depth
charge by hitting the down arrow key. The object is to blow up the submarine by hitting it with the depth
charge. If the depth charge falls off the bottom of the screen, you get a new one. If the sub explodes, a new
sub is created and you get a new depth charge. Try it! Make sure to hit the sub at least once, so you can see
the explosion.
Sorry, your browser doesn't
support Java.
Let's think about how this applet can be programmed. What constitutes the "state" of the applet? That is,
what things change from time to time and affect the appearance or behavior of the applet? Of course, the
state includes the positions of the boat, submarine, and depth charge, so I need instance variables to store
the positions. Anything else, possibly less obvious? Well, sometimes the depth charge is falling, and
sometimes it's not. That is a difference in state. Since there are two possibilities, I represent this aspect of
the state with a boolean variable, bombIsFalling. Sometimes the submarine is moving left and
sometimes it is moving right. The difference is represented by another boolean variable,
subIsMovingLeft. Sometimes, the sub is exploding. This is also part of the state, but representing it
requires a little more thought. While an explosion is in progress, the sub looks different in each frame, since
the size of the explosion increases. Also, I need to know when the explosion is over so that I can go back to
drawing the sub as usual. So, I use a variable, explosionFrameNumber, of type int, which tells how
many frames have been drawn since the explosion started. When no explosion is happening, the value of
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explosionFrameNumber is zero.
How and when do the values of these instance variables change? Some of them can change when the user
presses certain keys. In the program, this is checked in the keyPressed() method. If the user presses the
left or right arrow key, the position of the boat is changed. If the user presses the down arrow key, the depth
charge changes from not-falling to falling. This is coded as follows:
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent evt) {
int code = evt.getKeyCode(); // which key was pressed
if (code == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) {
// Move the boat left.
boatCenterX -= 15;
}
else if (code == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) {
// Move the boat right.
boatCenterX += 15;
}
else if (code == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) {
// Start the bomb falling, if it is not already falling.
if ( bombIsFalling == false )
bombIsFalling = true;
}
} // end keyPressed()
Note that it's not necessary to call repaint() when the state changes, since this applet is an animation
that is constantly being redrawn anyway. At some point in the program, I have to make sure that the user
does not move the boat off the screen. I could have done this in keyPressed(), but I choose to check for
this in another routine, just before drawing the boat.
Other aspects of the state are changed in the drawFrame() routine. From the point of view of
programming, this method is handling an event ("Hey, it's time to draw the next frame!"). It just happens to
be an event that is generated by the KeyboardAnimationApplet framework rather than by the user. In
my applet, the drawFrame() routine calls three other methods that I wrote to organize the process of
computing and drawing a new frame: doBombFrame(), doBoatFrame(), and doSubFrame().
Consider doBombFrame(). What happens in this routine depends on the current state, and the routine can
make changes to the state when it is executed. The state of the bomb can be falling or not-falling, as
recorded in the variable, bombIsFalling. If bombIsFalling is false, then the bomb is simply
positioned at the bottom of the boat. If bombIsFalling is true, the vertical coordinate of the bomb has to
be increased by some amount to make the bomb move down a bit from one frame to the next. But several
other things can happen. If the bomb has fallen off the bottom of the applet -- something that we can test by
looking at its vertical coordinate -- then bombIsFalling becomes false. This puts the bomb back at the
boat in the next frame. Also, the bomb might hit the sub. This can be tested by comparing the locations of
the bomb and the sub. If the bomb hits the sub, then the state changes in two ways: the bomb is no longer
falling and the sub is exploding. These state changes are implemented by setting bombIsFalling to
false and explosionFrameNumber to 1.
Most interesting is the submarine. What happens with the submarine depends on whether it is exploding or
not. If it is (that is, if explosionFrameNumber > 0), then yellow and red ovals are drawn at the sub's
position. The sizes of these ovals depend on the value of explosionFrameNumber, so they grow with
each frame of the explosion. After the ovals are drawn, the value of explosionFrameNumber is
incremented. If its value has reached 14, it is reset to 0. This reflects a change of state: The sub is no longer
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Java Programing: Section 6.5
exploding. It's important for you to understand what is happening here. There is no loop in the program to
draw the stages of the explosion. Each frame is a new event and is drawn separately, based on values stored
in instance variables. The state can change, which will make the next frame look different from the current
one.
In a frame where the sub is not exploding, it moves left or right. This is accomplished by adding or
subtracting a small amount to the horizontal coordinate of the sub. Whether it moves left or right is
determined by the value of the variable, subIsMovingLeft. It's interesting to consider how and when
this variable changes value. If the sub reaches the left edge of the applet, subIsMovingLeft is set to
false to make the sub start moving right. Similarly, if the sub reaches the right edge. But the sub can also
reverse direction at random times. The way this is implemented is that in each frame, there is a small
chance that the sub will reverse direction. This is done with the statement
if ( Math.random() < 0.04 )
sumIsMovingLeft = !subIsMovingLeft;
Since Math.random() is between 0 and 1, the condition "Math.random() < 0.04" has a 4 in 100,
or 1 in 25, chance of being true. In those frames where this conditions happens to evaluate to true, the sub
reverses direction. (The value of the expression "!subIsMovingLeft" is false when
subIsMovingLeft is true, and it is true when subIsMovingLeft is false, so it effectively
reverses the value of subIsMovingLeft.)
While it's not very sophisticated as arcade games go, the SubKillerGame applet does use some
interesting programming. And it nicely illustrates how to apply state-machine thinking in event-oriented
programming.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 6.6
Section 6.6
Introduction to Layouts and Components
IN PRECEDING SECTIONS, YOU'VE SEEN how to use a graphics context to draw on the screen and
how to handle mouse events and keyboard events. In one sense, that's all there is to GUI programming. If
you're willing to program all the drawing and handle all the mouse and keyboard events, you have nothing
more to learn. However, you would either be doing a lot more work than you need to do, or you would be
limiting yourself to very simple user interfaces. A typical user interface uses standard GUI components
such as buttons, scroll bars, text-input boxes, and menus. These components have already been written for
you, so you don't have to duplicate the work involved in developing them. They know how to draw
themselves, and they can handle the details of processing the mouse and keyboard events that concern them.
Consider one of the simplest user interface components, a push button. The button has a border, and it
displays some text. This text can be changed. Sometimes the button is disabled, so that clicking on it doesn't
have any effect. When it is disabled, its appearance changes. When the user clicks on the push button, the
button changes appearance while the mouse button is pressed and changes back when the mouse button is
released. In fact, it's more complicated than that. If the user moves the mouse outside the push button before
releasing the mouse button, the button changes to its regular appearance. To implement this, it is necessary
to respond to mouse drag events. Furthermore, on many platforms, a button can receive the input focus. If
the button has the focus and the user presses the space bar, the button is triggered. This means that the
button must respond to keyboard and focus events as well.
Fortunately, you don't have to program any of this, provided you use an object belonging to the standard
Button class. A Button object draws itself and processes mouse, mouse dragging, keyboard, and focus
events on its own. You only hear from the Button when the user triggers it by clicking on it or pressing
the space bar while the button has the input focus. When this happens, the Button object creates an event
object belonging to the class ActionEvent. That event is sent to any registered listeners to tell them that
the button has been pushed. Your program gets only the information it needs -- the fact that a button was
pushed.
Another aspect of GUI programming is laying out components on the screen, that is, deciding where they
are drawn and how big they are. You have probably noticed that computing coordinates can be a difficult
problem, especially if you don't assume a fixed size for the applet. Java has a solution for this, as well.
Components are the visible objects that make up a GUI. Some components are containers, which can hold
other components. An applet is an example of a container. An independent window is another type of
container. Java also has a class of container called Panel. Because a Panel object is a container, it can
hold other components. But a Panel is itself meant to be placed inside another container. This allows
complex nesting of components. Panels can be used to organize complicated user interfaces.
The components in a container must be "laid out," which means setting their sizes and positions. It's
possible to program the layout yourself, but ordinarily layout is done by a layout manager. A layout
manager is an object associated with a container that implements some policy for laying out the components
in that container. Different types of layout manager implement different policies.
In this section, we'll look at a few examples of using components and layout managers, leaving the details
until Section 7.2 and Section 7.3. The applets that we look at in this section have a large drawing area with
a row of controls below it. As a first example, here is a new version of the
ColoredHelloWorldApplet from the Section 1. Click the buttons to change the color of the message:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
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It is possible to draw directly on an applet, as I've done previously in this chapter. However, it is not a good
idea to do so when the applet contains components that will be laid out by a layout manager. The reason is
that it's hard to be sure exactly where the components will be placed by the layout manager and how big
they will be (If you knew that, you wouldn't be using the layout manager! It's supposed to make such
computations, so you don't have to.) A better idea is to use a special-purpose component to display the
drawing. This drawing component or "canvas" will be just one of the components contained in the applet.
The white rectangle in the above applet, where the "Hello World" message is displayed, is an example of
such a component. This component is a member of a class ColoredHelloWorldCanvas, which I have
defined as a subclass of the standard class, java.awt.Canvas. The Canvas class exists precisely for
creating such drawing areas. An object that belongs to the Canvas class itself is nothing but a patch of
color. To create a canvas with content, you have to define a subclass of Canvas and write a paint()
method for your subclass to draw the content you want.
When you use a canvas in this way, it's a good idea to put all the information necessary to do the drawing in
the canvas object, rather than in the main applet object. The original ColoredHelloWorldApplet
used an instance variable, textColor, to keep track of the color of the displayed message. In the new
version, the textColor variable is moved to the ColoredHelloWorldCanvas class. This class also
contains a method, setTextColor(), which can be called to tell the canvas to change the color of the
message. When the user clicks one of the buttons, the applet responds by calling this method. This is good
object-oriented program design: The ColoredHelloWorldCanvas class is responsible for displaying a
colored greeting, so it should contain all the data and behaviors associated with its role. On the other hand,
this class doesn't need to know anything about buttons, layouts, and events. Those are the job of the main
applet class. This separation of responsibility helps reduce the overall complexity of the program.
So, here's the ColoredHelloWorldCanvas class:
class ColoredHelloWorldCanvas extends Canvas {
// A canvas that displays the message "Hello World" on
// a white background in a big, bold font. A method is
// provided for changing the color of the message.
Color textColor; // Color in which "Hello World" is displayed.
Font textFont; // The font in which the message is displayed.
ColoredHelloWorldCanvas() {
// Constructor.
setBackground(Color.white);
textColor = Color.red;
textFont = new Font("Serif",Font.BOLD,24);
}
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// Show the message in the set color and font.
g.setColor(textColor);
g.setFont(textFont);
g.drawString("Hello World!", 20,40);
}
void setTextColor(Color color) {
// Set the text color and tell the system to repaint
// the canvas so the message will be in the new color.
textColor = color;
repaint();
}
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} // end class ColoredHelloWorldCanvas
You should be able to understand this. Just keep in mind that all this applies to the canvas, not to the whole
applet. When the constructor calls the method setBackground(), it's only the background of the canvas
that is set to white. The background color of the applet is not affected. Remember that every component has
its own background color, foreground color, and font. The setTextColor() method is called by the
applet when it wants to change the color of the displayed message. Note that setTextColor() calls
repaint(). Since this repaint() method is in the ColoredHelloWorldCanvas class, it causes
just the canvas to be repainted, not the whole applet. Every component has its own paint() and
repaint() methods, and every component is responsible for drawing itself. This is another example of
the way responsibilities are distributed in an object-oriented system.
The main applet class, ColoredHelloWorldApplet2, is responsible for managing all the components
in the applet and the events they generate. The components include the drawing canvas and three buttons.
These components are created and added to the applet in the applet's init() method. The applet will
listen for ActionEvents from the buttons, so the applet class implements the interface,
ActionListener. The applet's init() method sets up the applet to listen for ActionEvents from
each button. It does this by calling the button's addActionListener method.
The buttons are not contained directly in the applet. Instead, they are added to a Panel, and that panel is
added to the applet. The Panel is the gray strip across the bottom of the applet. Every container object,
including applets and panels, include several add() methods that are used to add components to the
container. For example, if bttn is a button, and panel is a container, then the command
"panel.add(bttn);" adds the button to the panel. This means that the button will appear in the panel.
Exactly where it shows up depends on the panel's layout manager.
Once the canvas and panel have been created, it's time to lay out the applet as a whole. This is done by the
last three lines of the init() method. I use a "BorderLayout," as the layout manager for the applet. A
BorderLayout displays one big component in the "Center" of the applet and, optionally, up to four other
components along the edges of the applet in the "North", "South", "East", and "West" positions. The
component in the center gets any space that is left over after the other components are drawn. In this
example, the canvas is added in the "Center" position, with the button bar below it, to the "South". When a
component is added to a container that uses a BorderLayout, the add() method has to specify which of
the five possible positions should be used for the component:
Here is the complete init() method from the applet class:
public void init() {
// This routine is called by the system to initialize the
// applet. It creates the canvas and lays out the applet
// to consist of a bar of control buttons below the canvas.
setBackground(Color.lightGray);
canvas = new ColoredHelloWorldCanvas();
Panel buttonBar = new Panel(); // panel to hold control buttons
Button redBttn = new Button("Red"); // Create buttons, add them
redBttn.addActionListener(this); // to the button bar. The
buttonBar.add(redBttn); // parameter to the Button
// constructor is the text
// that appears on Button.
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Button greenBttn = new Button("Green");
greenBttn.addActionListener(this);
buttonBar.add(greenBttn);
Button blueBttn = new Button("Blue");
blueBttn.addActionListener(this);
buttonBar.add(blueBttn);
setLayout(new BorderLayout(3,3)); // Set layout for applet.
add(buttonBar, BorderLayout.SOUTH); // Put panel at the bottom.
add(canvas, BorderLayout.CENTER); // Canvas will fill any
// remaining space.
} // end init()
You might not understand this completely just yet, but if you want to write an applet using a similar layout,
you can follow the pattern in this sample init() method.
In order to handle the ActionEvents from the buttons, the applet must define an
actionPerformed() method. This is the only method specified by the ActionListener interface.
This method has a parameter, evt, of type ActionEvent. This parameter can be used to find out which
button is responsible for the action event. The function evt.getActionCommand() returns a String
that gives the text that the button displays. The actionPerformed() method in the sample applet
checks the value returned by evt.getActionCommand() and sets the text color of the canvas to the
appropriate value. (Remember that canvas is an object belonging to the class
ColoredHelloWorldCanvas, which is shown above.)
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
String command = evt.getActionCommand();
if (command.equals("Red"))
canvas.setTextColor(Color.red);
else if (command.equals("Green"))
canvas.setTextColor(Color.green);
else if (command.equals("Blue"))
canvas.setTextColor(Color.blue);
} // end init()
There is just one more method in the applet, and it requires a little explanation:
public Insets getInsets() {
return new Insets(3,3,3,3);
}
This method is called by the layout manager to decide how much space to leave between the edges of the
applet and the components that the applet contains. The background color of the applet will show though in
this border. The object of type Insets that is returned by this method specifies a 3-pixel border along
each edge of the applet. There is also, by the way, a 3-pixel boundary between components in the applet.
This is specified in the constructor of the layout manager, "new BorderLayout(3,3)", in the applet's
init() method.
You can see how all this is put together in the source code for the applet, ColoredHelloWorldApplet2.java.
(Note that the source code for the canvas class is in a separate file, ColoredHelloWorldCanvas.java, and
you need both classes in order to use the applet.)
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As a second example, let's look at something a little more interesting. Here's a simple card game in which
you look at a playing card and try to predict whether the next card will be higher or lower in value. (Aces
have the lowest value in this game.) You've seen a text-oriented version of the same game in Section 5.3.
That section also defined Deck, Hand, and Card classes that are used in this applet. In this GUI version of
the game, you click on a button to make your prediction. If you predict wrong, you lose. If you make three
correct predictions, you win. After completing one game, you can click the "New Game" button to start a
new game. Try it! See what happens if you click on one of the buttons at a time when it doesn't make sense
to do so.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The overall form of this applet is the same as that of ColoredHelloWorldApplet2: It has three
buttons in a panel at the bottom of the applet and a large canvas for drawing. Of course, in this case the
canvas does more interesting things. The canvas class includes all the programming for the game. Since that
was true, I decided to let the canvas class act as ActionListener and respond to the buttons directly.
The applet class, which just sets everything up, is fairly simple:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.applet.*;
public class HighLowGUI extends Applet {
public void init() {
// The init() method lays out the applet using a BorderLayout.
// A HighLowCanvas occupies the CENTER position of the layout.
// On the bottom is a panel that holds three buttons. The
// HighLowCanvas object listens for ActionEvents from the
// buttons and does all the real work of the program.
setBackground( new Color(130,50,40) );
setLayout( new BorderLayout(3,3) );
HighLowCanvas board = new HighLowCanvas();
add(board, BorderLayout.CENTER); // Add canvas to the applet.
Panel buttonPanel = new Panel();
buttonPanel.setBackground( new Color(220,200,180) );
add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH); // Add panel to applet.
Button higher = new Button( "Higher" );
higher.addActionListener(board); // BOARD LISTENS, NOT APPLET!
higher.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
buttonPanel.add(higher);
Button lower = new Button( "Lower" );
lower.addActionListener(board);
lower.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
buttonPanel.add(lower);
Button newGame = new Button( "New Game" );
newGame.addActionListener(board);
newGame.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
buttonPanel.add(newGame);
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} // end init()
public Insets getInsets() {
return new Insets(3,3,3,3);
}
} // end class HighLowGUI
In programming the canvas class, HighLowCanvas, it is important to think in terms of the states that the
game can be in, how the state can change, and how the response to events can depend on the state. The
approach that produced the original, text-oriented game in Section 5.3 is not appropriate here. Trying to
thing about the game in terms of a process that goes step-by-step from beginning to end is more likely to
confuse you than to help you.
The state of the game includes the cards and the message that are displayed. The cards are stored in an
object of type Hand. The message is a String. These values are stored in instance variables in the canvas
class. There is also another, less obvious aspect of the state: Sometimes a game is in progress, and the user
is supposed to make a prediction about the next card. Sometimes we are between games, and the user is
supposed to click the "New Game" button. It's a good idea to keep track of this basic difference in state. The
canvas class uses a boolean variable named gameInProgress for this purpose.
The state of the applet can change whenever the user clicks on a button. The canvas class implements the
ActionListener interface and defines an actionPerformed() method to respond to the user's
clicks. This method simply calls one of three other methods, doHigher(), doLower(), or
newGame(), depending on which button was pressed. It's in these three event-handling methods that the
action of the game takes place.
We don't want to let the user start a new game if a game is currently in progress. That would be cheating.
So, the response in the newGame() method is different depending on whether the state variable
gameInProgress is true or false. If a game is in progress, the message instance variable should be set
to show an error message. If a game is not in progress, then all the state variables should be set to
appropriate values for the beginning of a new game. In any case, the canvas must be repainted so that the
user can see that the state has changed. The complete newGame() method is as follows:
void doNewGame() {
// Called by the constructor, and called by actionPerformed()
// if the user clicks the "New Game" button. Start a new game.
if (gameInProgress) {
// If the current game is not over, it is an error to try
// to start a new game.
message = "You still have to finish this game!";
repaint();
return;
}
deck = new Deck(); // Create a deck and hand to use for this game.
hand = new Hand();
deck.shuffle();
hand.addCard( deck.dealCard() ); // Deal the first card.
message = "Is the next card higher or lower?";
gameInProgress = true;
repaint();
}
The doHigher() and doLower() methods are almost identical (and could probably have been
combined into one method with a parameter, if I were more clever). Let's look at the doHigher()
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Java Programing: Section 6.6
routine. This is called when the user clicks the "Higher" button. This only makes sense if a game is in
progress, so the first thing doHigher() should do is check the value of the state variable
gameInProgress. If the value is false, then doHigher() should just set up an error message. If a
game is in progress, a new card should be added to the hand and the user's prediction should be tested. The
user might win or lose at this time. If so, the value of the state variable gameInProgress must be set to
false because the game is over. In any case, the applet is repainted to show the new state. Here is the
doHigher() method:
void doHigher() {
// Called by actionPerformed() when user clicks "Higher".
// Check the user's prediction. Game ends if user guessed
// wrong or if the user has made three correct predictions.
if (gameInProgress == false) {
// If the game has ended, it was an error to click "Higher",
// so set up an error message and abort processing.
message = "Click \"New Game\" to start a new game!";
repaint();
return;
}
hand.addCard( deck.dealCard() ); // Deal a card to the hand.
int cardCt = hand.getCardCount(); // How many cards in the hand?
Card thisCard = hand.getCard( cardCt - 1 ); // Card just dealt.
Card prevCard = hand.getCard( cardCt - 2 ); // The previous card.
if ( thisCard.getValue() < prevCard.getValue() ) {
gameInProgress = false;
message = "Too bad! You lose.";
}
else if ( thisCard.getValue() == prevCard.getValue() ) {
gameInProgress = false;
message = "Too bad! You lose on ties.";
}
else if ( cardCt == 4) {
gameInProgress = false;
message = "You win! You made three correct guesses.";
}
else {
message = "Got it right! Try for " + cardCt + ".";
}
repaint();
}
The paint() method of the applet uses the values in the state variables to decide what to show. It displays
the string stored in the message variable. It draws each of the cards in the hand. There is one little tricky
bit: If a game is in progress, it draws an extra face-down card, which is not in the hand, to represent the next
card in the deck. Drawing the cards requires some care and computation. I wrote a method, "void
drawCard(Graphics g, Card card, int x, int y)", which draws a card with its upper left
corner at the point (x,y). The paint() routine decides where to draw each card and calls this routine to
do the drawing. You can check out all the details in the source code, HighLowGUI.java. (This file contains
the source for both the applet class, HighLowGUI and the canvas class HighLowCanvas.)
As a final example, let's look quickly at an improved paint program, similar to the one from Section 4. The
user can draw on the large white area. In this version, the user selects the drawing color from the Choice
menu at the bottom of the applet. If the user hits the "Clear" button, the drawing area is filled with the
background color. I've added one feature: If the user hits the "Set Background" button, the background
color of the drawing area is set to the color currently selected in the Choice menu, and then the drawing
area is cleared. This lets you draw in cyan on a magenta background if you have a mind to.
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Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The drawing area in this applet is a component, belonging to the class SimplePaintCanvas. I wrote
this class as a sub-class of Canvas and programmed it to listen for mouse events and respond by drawing a
curve. As in the HighLowGUI applet, all the action takes place in the canvas class. The main applet class
just does the set up. One new feature of interest is the Choice menu. This component is an object belonging
to the standard class, Choice. We'll cover this component class in Chapter 7.
What you should note about this version of the paint applet is that in many ways, it was easier to write than
the original. There are no computations about where to draw things and how to decode user mouse clicks.
We don't have to worry about the user drawing outside the drawing area. The graphics context that is used
for drawing on the canvas can only draw on the canvas. If the user tries to extend a curve outside the
canvas, the part that lies outside the canvas is automatically ignored. We don't have to worry about giving
the user visual feedback about which color is selected. That is handled by the text displayed on the Choice
menu.
You'll find the source code for this example in the file SimplePaint2.java. The file contains both classes, the
applet class SimplePaint2 and the canvas class SimplePaintCanvas.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 6.7
Looking Back: The Java 1.0 Style of Event Handling
WHEN JAVA 1.1 WAS RELEASED, it included a large number of changes from Java 1.0. One of the
biggest changes was the introduction of an entirely new system for handling events. It is the newer Java 1.1
style of event handling that I have been discussing in this chapter. The newer style is also used in the most
recent versions of Java, and it will almost certainly continue to be used in the future. The new style of event
handling is more flexible and more efficient than the old style. Unfortunately, it is also more complicated.
The big advantage of Java 1.0 event handling is that it isn't necessary to set up listeners for events. Its big
disadvantage is that you are not able to set up listeners -- but the disadvantage only becomes apparent in
projects that use more than just a few classes and objects. For small projects, it can still make sense to use
Java 1.0 style event handling, if you want to go through the trouble of learning a whole new event-handling
architecture. It is also true that a few people out there are still using older browsers that support Java 1.0 but
not Java 1.1. If you want those people to be able to use your Java programs, you need to write them in Java
1.0.
The features of Java 1.0 that are superceded by newer features of Java 1.1 are said to be deprecated.
Deprecated features are still part of the language, but their use is discouraged. The idea is that they might be
dropped from Java altogether in some future version (although I don't think that is likely in the near term.)
The whole Java 1.0 event-handling architecture is deprecated in Java 1.1 and beyond.
In this section, I'll give an outline of the Java 1.0 style of event handling. For more complete information,
see a Java reference or look at Chapters 5 and 6 in the first edition of this on-line text, which should still be
available on the Web at http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes1/index.html.
One important note: You can use either Java 1.0 or Java 1.1 style event handling. But you can't mix them
in the same applet or program. For a given project, you have to decide which model you want to use and
stick to it.
The Event Model in Java 1.0
In Java 1.0 there is just one class of events, java.awt.Event. Every event is generated by a component,
which is called the target of the event. The target of an event object, evt, is given by the public instance
variable evt.target. Other instance variables carry other information about various types of events. For
example, the coordinates of a mouse-related event are given by evt.x and evt.y.
In Java 1.1 style event handling, an event is sent only to objects that are listening for the event. (This is
where the Java 1.1 style gets its advantage in efficiency: Events are not processed unless they have been
enabled, usually by registering a listener.) In the Java 1.0 style, whenever any event occurs, the system calls
a method named handleEvent() in the target component. For many types of events, handleEvent()
will in turn call a special purpose event-handling routine such as mouseDown() or keyDown(). Some of
these event-handling routines are discussed below. The handleEvent() method might or might not
actually handle the event. It returns a boolean value to the system to indicate whether the event was
handled. If the event is not handled by the target component, and if that component is contained in some
other component -- such as a Panel or Applet -- then the system gives the container component a chance
to handle the event by calling the handleEvent() method of the container. This process can continue up
a chain of containment until a top-level component such as an applet or frame is reached. If the top-level
component doesn't handle the event, then the event is ignored.
This might sound very complicated but what it comes down to in most cases is this: Mouse and keyboard
events are handled by the component to which they are targeted (usually a canvas object, if not the applet
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itself). The top-level applet class does all the other event-handling for the program. Events from buttons,
text fields, choice menus, and so on are allowed to filter up to the top level where they are handled by a
method in the applet class. (In fact, in any case where this simplified model is not appropriate, you should
really be using Java 1.1 style event handling.)
To deal with certain types of events, such as those generated by scroll bars, it is necessary to override the
handleEvent() method itself. But for the more common types of events, there are special purpose
event-handling methods that you can override.
Mouse and Keyboard Events in Java 1.0
As the user moves the mouse and presses buttons on the mouse, several event-handling methods can be
called. The most useful mouse-related methods are:
public boolean mouseDown(Event evt, int x, int y) {
. . . // respond to fact that user has pressed mouse button
return true;
}
public boolean mouseUp(Event evt, int x, int y) {
. . . // respond to fact that the user has released mouse button
return true;
}
public boolean mouseDrag(Event evt, int x, int y) {
. . . // respond to fact that mouse has moved, while
// user is holding down a mouse button
return true;
}
public boolean mouseMove(Event evt, int x, int y) {
. . . // respond to fact that mouse has moved, while
// user is NOT holding down a mouse button
return true;
}
Note that these are boolean-valued methods. In almost all cases, you should return true, which indicates
that you have handled the event. In the rare cases where you want to let the event be passed on to the next
possible handler, return false instead.
If the user clicks the mouse somewhere in the rectangle occupied by a component, the mouseDown()
method is called when the user presses the button, and the mouseUp() method when the user releases it. If
the user moves the mouse while holding the button down, the computer will call mouseDrag() over and
over as the mouse moves. The mouseMove() method is called when the user moves the mouse without
holding a button down.
In all of these methods, the parameters x and y give the horizontal and vertical position of the mouse, in
coordinates appropriate to the component. The parameter evt carries full information about the event that
caused the method to be called. (The x and y coordinates have been pulled out of this Event object for
your convenience.) You can check whether the user was holding down the shift key, the control key, or the
Meta key when the event occured by calling the boolean-valued methods evt.shiftDown(),
evt.controlDown(), and evt.metaDown(). Holding down the Meta key is equivalent to pressing
the right mouse button, so evt.metaDown() also returns true if the right mouse button is down. (For
some reason, there is no method for testing whether the Alt key -- or middle mouse button -- is down.
Instead you have to test "if ((evt.modifiers & Event.ALT_MASK) != 0)"!)
The applet at the bottom of this page uses Java 1.0 style handling of mouse events. If you are interested,
you can find the source code for this applet in the file TrackLines.java.
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As for keyboard events in Java 1.0, every time the user presses a key on the keyboard, two events are
generated: one when the user presses the key and one when the user releases the key. A component can be
programmed to respond to these events by overriding the keyDown() and keyUp() methods, which are
defined as follows:
public boolean keyDown(Event evt, int key) {
. . . // respond to the fact that a key has been pressed
return true;
}
public boolean keyUp(Event evt, int key) {
. . . // respond to the fact that a key has been released
return true;
}
The key parameter in these methods tells you which key was pressed by the user. You might be surprised
to see that this parameter has type int rather than char. This is because characters aren't the only things
that the user can type! The user can also press "action keys" such as the arrow keys and the function keys
F1, F2, etc.
If the user actually types a character, then the key parameter tells you which character was typed. Because
key is of type int, you have to use a type-cast to discover which character was typed:
char typedChar = (char)key;
If the user pressed one of the action keys, then the value of the key parameter will be a special constant
value that specifies which key was pressed. The value will be one of the following predefined constants:
Event.UP, Event.DOWN, Event.LEFT, Event.RIGHT, Event.HOME, Event.END,
Event.PGUP, Event.PGDN, or Event.F1 through Event.F12. The first four of these, which are
probably the most useful, correspond to the up, down, left, and right arrow keys.
When dealing with keyboard events, there is the complication of having to worry about the input focus. A
component that processes keyboard events should keep track of whether it has the input focus, so that it can
change its appearance when it has the focus. A focus event is sent to a component whenever it gains or
loses the input focus. In Java 1.0, this means calling the event-handling methods "public boolean
gotFocus(Event evt, Object what)" and "public boolean lostFocus(Event evt,
Object what)". You can override these methods in a component that needs to respond to focus events.
In general, both of the parameters to these methods can be ignored.
Action Events in Java 1.0
Besides mouse and keyboard events, there are the events that are generated when the user interacts with
graphical interface components such as buttons, menus, and text boxes. (The user actually causes these
other events with the mouse or keyboard, but they are translated by the system into more meaningful
terms.) For many of these events, the system calls the action() method, which takes the form
public boolean action(Event evt, Object arg) {
. . . // respond to the action event
return true; // or return false, if action not handled
}
To deal with action events, you should override the action() method in your subclass of Applet. The
method should handle all the action events from any component contained in the applet. When you write an
action() method, you know exactly which components might generate action events for it to handle, so
you can write it to handle just those components.
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Java Programing: Section 6.7
The second parameter in the action() method, arg, contains some information relevant to the event.
What type of information arg contains depends on the type of object that generated the event. The first
parameter, evt, has an instance variable, evt.target, which tells which component first received the
event. For an action event, this is also the component that generated the event in the first place. This means
that an action() method often looks something like this:
public boolean action(Event evt, Object arg) {
if (evt.target == button1) {
// handle a click on button1
return true;
}
else if (evt.target == button2) {
// handle a click on button2
return true;
}
else if (evt.target == colorChoice) {
// handle a selection from Choice object colorChoice
return true;
}
.
. // handle other possible targets
.
else
return super.action(evt,arg);
}
(In simple cases, when there are only a few components to worry about, you might not even have to check
evt.target; the second parameter, arg, might contain all the information you need.)
Here are the details about the action events that can be generated by various types of components:
● A Button generates an action event when the user clicks on the button. The arg parameter of
action() is a string that is equal to the button's label. (If you want to use this parameter, you can
type cast arg to type String.)
● A Choice generates an action event when the user selects one of the items in the Choice menu. The
arg parameter is the text of the item that the user selected.
● A TextField generates an action event if the user presses return while typing in the input box. The
arg parameter is a string that gives the contents of the box.
● A Checkbox generates an action event when the user clicks on it. The arg is an object of type
Boolean that gives the new state of the box. (An object of type Boolean contains a value
belonging to the primitive type boolean. A boolean value is not an object. "Wrapping" it inside
a Boolean object makes it possible to treat it as an object. To get the boolean value contained in
arg, you could say "boolean newState = ((Boolean)arg).booleanValue();". It's
generally much easier to use the Checkbox's getState() method to find out its state.)
Although this brief overview of events in Java 1.0 does not give you enough information to write complex
applications using the Java 1.0 event model, that's not something you should be doing anyway. There is
probably enough information on this page for you to use Java 1.0 event handling in simple applets.
End of Chapter 6
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 6 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 6
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 6 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 6.1: Write an applet that shows a pair of dice. When the user clicks on the applet, the dice should
be rolled (that is, the dice should be assigned newly computed random values). Each die should be drawn as
a square showing from 1 to 6 dots. Since you have to draw two dice, its a good idea to write a subroutine,
"void drawDie(Graphics g, int val, int x, int y)", to draw a die at the specified
(x,y) coordinates. The second parameter, val, specifes the value that is showing on the die. Assume that
the size of the applet is 100 by 100 pixels. Here is a working version of the applet. (My applet plays a
clicking sound when the dice are rolled. See the solution to see how this is done.)
See the solution!
Exercise 6.2: Improve your dice applet from the previous exercise so that it also responds to keyboard
input. When the applet has the input focus, it should be hilited with a colored border, and the dice should be
rolled whenever the user presses a key on the keyboard. This is in addition to rolling them when the user
clicks the mouse on the applet. Here is an applet that solves this exercise:
See the solution!
Exercise 6.3: In Exercise 6.1, above, you wrote a pair-of-dice applet where the dice are rolled when the
clicks on the applet. Now make a pair-of-dice applet that uses the methods discussed in Section 6.6. Draw
the dice on a "canvas", and place a "Roll" button below the canvas. The dice should be rolled when the user
clicks the Roll button. Your applet should look and work like this one:
(Note: Since there was only one button in this applet, I added it directly to the applet, rather than putting it
in a "buttonBar" panel and adding the panel to the applet.)
See the solution!
Exercise 6.4: In Exercise 3.5, you drew a checkerboard. For this exercise, write a checkerboard applet
where the user can select a square by clicking on it. Hilite the selected square by drawing a colored border
around it. When the applet is first created, no square is selected. When the user clicks on a square that is not
currently selected, it becomes selected. If the user clicks the square that is selected, it becomes unselected.
Assume that the size of the applet is 160 by 160 pixels, so that each square on the checkerboard is 20 by 20
pixels. Here is a working version of the applet:
See the solution!
Exercise 6.5: Write an applet that shows two squares. The user should be able to drag either square with the
mouse. (You'll need an instance variable to remember which square the user is dragging.) The user can drag
the square off the applet if she wants; if she does this, it's gone. You can try it here:
See the solution!
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Java Programing: Chapter 6 Exercises
Exercise 6.6: For this exercise, you should modify the SubKiller game from Section 6.5. You can start with
the existing source code, from the file SubKillerGame.java. Modify the game so it keeps track of the
number of hits and misses and displays these quantities. That is, every time the depth charge blows up the
sub, the number of hits goes up by one. Every time the depth charge falls off the bottom of the screen
without hitting the sub, the number of misses goes up by one. There is room at the top of the applet to
display these numbers. To do this exercise, you only have to add a half-dozen lines to the source code. But
you have to figure out what they are and where to add them. To do this, you'll have to read the source code
closely enough to understand how it works.
See the solution! (A working version of the applet can be found here.)
Exercise 6.7: Section 3.7 discussed SimpleAnimationApplet, a framework for writing simple
animations. You can define an animation by writing a subclass and defining a drawFrame() method. It is
possible to have the subclass implement the MouseListener interface. Then, you can have an animation
that responds to mouse clicks.
Write a game in which the user tries to click on a little square that jumps erratically around the applet. To
implement this, use instance variables to keep track of the position of the square. In the drawFrame()
method, there should be a certain probability that the square will jump to a new location. (You can
experiment to find a probability that makes the game play well.) In your mousePressed method, check
whether the user clicked on the square. Keep track of and display the number of times that the user hits the
square and the number of times that the user misses it. Don't assume that you know the size of the applet in
advance.
See the solution! (A working version of the applet can be found here.)
Exercise 6.8:Write a Blackjack applet that lets the user play a game of Blackjack, with the computer as the
dealer. The applet should draw the user's cards and the dealer's cards, just as was done for the graphical
HighLow card game in Section 6.6. You can use the source code for that game, HighLowGUI.java, for
some ideas about how to write your Blackjack game. The structures of the HighLow applet and the
Blackjack applet are very similar. You will certainly want to use the drawCard() method from that
applet.
You can find a description of the game of Blackjack in Exercise 5.5. Add the following rule to that
description: If a player takes five cards without going over 21, that player wins immediately. This rule is
used in some casinos. For your applet, it means that you only have to allow room for five cards. You should
assume that your applet is just wide enough to show five cards, and that it is tall enough to show the user's
hand and the dealer's hand.
Note that the design of a GUI Blackjack game is very different from the design of the text-oriented program
that you wrote for Exercise 5.5. The user should play the game by clicking on "Hit" and "Stand" buttons.
There should be a "New Game" button that can be used to start another game after one game ends. You
have to decide what happens when each of these buttons are pressed. You don't have much chance of
getting this right unless you think in terms of the states that the game can be in and how the state can
change.
Your program will need the classes defined in Card.java, Hand.java, BlackjackHand.java, and Deck.java.
Here is a working version of the applet:
See the solution!
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Java Programing: Chapter 6 Exercises
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 6 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 6
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 6 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: Programs written for a graphical user interface have to deal with "events." Explain what is
meant by the term event. Give at least two different examples of events, and discuss how a program might
respond to those events.
Question 2: What is an event loop?
Question 3: Explain carefully what the repaint() method does.
Question 4: What is HTML?
Question 5: Draw the picture that will be produced by the following paint() method:
public static void paint(Graphics g) {
for (int i=10; i <= 210; i = i + 50)
for (int j = 10; j <= 210; j = j + 50)
g.drawLine(i,10,j,60);
}
Question 6: Suppose you would like an applet that displays a green square inside a red circle, as illustrated.
Write a paint() method that will draw the image.
Question 7: Suppose that you are writing an applet, and you want the applet to respond in some way when
the user clicks the mouse on the applet. What are the four things you need to remember to put into the
source code of your applet?
Question 8: Java has a standard class called MouseEvent. What is the purpose of this class? What does
an object of type MouseEvent do?
Question 9: Explain what is meant by input focus. How is the input focus managed in a Java GUI program?
Question 10: Java has a standard class called Canvas. What is the point of this class? How are canvas
objects used, and why?
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 7 Index
Chapter 7
Advanced GUI Programming
THE JAVA PACKAGES java.awt and java.awt.event contain classes for writing programs that
use a graphical user interface. The previous chapter introduced several of these classes, such as the class
Button. An object of type Button represents a push-button that the user can click to perform some
action. When the programmer creates an instance of this class, it will appear on the screen as a button
appropriate to the platform on which the program is running. Even though the button will appear different
on different platforms, its "logical" or "abstract" behavior will be the same. The Java programmer only has
to worry about this abstract behavior; the platform-dependent details are left to the Java implementation on
each platform. This is why the Java GUI system is called the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT).
In this chapter, we'll take a more detailed look at using the AWT for graphical user interface programming,
starting with some advanced features of the Graphics class. We'll cover a number of new layout
managers, component classes, and event types, and we'll see how to open independent windows and dialog
boxes on the screen. Two new features of Java, threads and nested classes, will be introduced. Both of these
features are useful in many applications besides GUI programming.
This textbook is based on Java 1.1. A newer version, Java 1.2, builds on Java 1.1 by adding a large number
of new standard classes. In particular, Java 1.1 introduced a new set of user interface components called
Swing, as a supplement to the AWT. Java 1.2, together with a few optional features, is sometimes referred
to as Java 2 or Java Platform 2. The last section of this Chapter is a brief survey of Swing and Java 2.
The material in this chapter will be used in a number of examples and programming exercises in future
chapters. Aside from that, the material in this chapter is not a prerequisite the rest of this textbook.
Contents Chapter 7:
● Section 1: More about Graphics
● Section 2: More about Layouts and Components
● Section 3: Standard Components and Their Events
● Section 4: Programming with Components
● Section 5: Threads, Synchronization, and Animation
● Section 6: Nested Classes and Adapter Classes
● Section 7: Frames and Dialogs
● Section 8: Looking Forward: Swing and Java 2
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
Section 7.1
More About Graphics
IN THIS SECTION, we'll look at some additional aspects of graphics in Java. Most of the section deals
with Images, which are pictures stored in files or in the computer's memory. But we'll also consider a few
other techniques that can be used to draw better or more efficiently.
Images
To a computer, an image is just a set of numbers. The numbers specify the color of each pixel in the image.
The numbers representing the image on the computer's screen are stored in a part of memory called a frame
buffer. Many times each second, the computer's video card reads the data in the frame buffer and colors
each pixel on the screen according to that data. Whenever the computer needs to make some change to the
screen, it writes some new numbers to the frame buffer, and the change appears on the screen a fraction of a
second later, the next time the screen is redrawn by the video card.
Since it's just a set of numbers, the data for an image doesn't have to be stored in a frame buffer. It can be
stored elsewhere in the computer's memory. It can be stored in a file on the computer's hard disk. Just like
any other data file, an image file can be downloaded over the Internet. Java includes standard classes and
subroutines that can be used to copy image data from one part of memory to another and to get data from an
image file and use it to display the image on the screen.
The standard class java.awt.Image is used to represent images. A particular object of type Image
contains information about some particular image. There are actually two kinds of Image objects. One
kind represents an image in an image data file. The second kind represents an image in the computer's
memory. Either type of image can be displayed on the screen. The second kind of Image can also be
modified while it is in memory. We'll look at this second kind of Image below.
Every image is coded as a set of numbers, but there are various ways in which the coding can be done. For
images in files, there are two main coding schemes which are used in Java and on the Internet. One is used
for GIF images, which are usually stored in files that have names ending in ".gif". The other is used for
JPEG images, which are stored in files that have names ending in ".jpg" or ".jpeg". Both GIF and JPEG
images are compressed. That is, redundancies in the data are exploited to reduce the number of numbers
needed to represent the data. In general, the compression method used for GIF images works well for line
drawings and other images with large patches of uniform color. JPEG compression generally works well for
photographs.
The Applet class defines a method, getImage, that can be used for loading images
stored in GIF and JPEG files (and possibly in other types of image files, depending on the
version of Java). For example, suppose that the image of an ace of clubs, shown at the
right, is contained in a file named "ace.gif". In the source code for an applet, if img is a
variable of type Image, you could say
img = getImage( getCodeBase(), "ace.gif" );
to create an Image object to represent the ace. The second parameter is the name of the file that contains
the image. The first parameter specifies the directory that contains the image file. The value
"getCodeBase()" specifies that the image file is in the code base directory for the applet. Assuming that
the applet is in the default package, as usual, that just means that the image file is in the same directory as
the compiled class file of the applet.
Once you have an object of type Image, however you obtain it, you can draw the image in any graphics
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
context. Suppose that g is a graphics context, that is, an object belonging to the class Graphics, and
suppose that img is a variable of type Image. Then the usual command for drawing the image, img, in the
graphics context, g, is
g.drawImage(img, x, y, this);
This command can be used in an instance method of an applet, canvas, or other component. The parameters
x and y are integers that give the position of the top-left corner of the displayed image. The fourth
parameter, "this", requires some explanation. It's there because of the funny way that Java works with
images from image files. When you use getImage() to create an Image object from an image file, the
file is not downloaded immediately. The Image object simply remembers where the file is. The file will be
downloaded the first time you draw the image. However, when the image needs to be downloaded, the
drawImage() method only initiates the downloading. It doesn't wait for the data to arrive. So, after
drawImage() has finished executing, it's quite possible that the image has not actually been drawn! But
then, when does it get drawn? That's where the fourth parameter to the drawImage() command comes in.
The fourth parameter is something called an ImageObserver. After the image has been downloaded, the
system will inform the ImageObserver that the image is available, and the ImageObserver will
actually draw the image at that time. (For large images, it's even possible that the image will be drawn in
several parts as it is downloaded.) Any Component object can act as an ImageObserver, including
applets and canvases. In "g.drawImage(img, x, y, this);", the special variable this refers to
the object whose source code you are writing. When you are drawing an image to the screen, you should
almost always use "this" as the fourth parameter to drawImage().
There are a few useful variations of the drawImage() command. For example, it is possible to scale the
image as it is drawn to a specified width and height. This is done with the command
g.drawImage(img, x, y, width, height, this);
Another version makes it possible to draw just part of the image. In the command
g.drawImage(img, dest_x1, dest_y1, dest_x2, dest_y2,
source_x1, source_y1, source_x2, source_y2, this);
The integers source_x1, source_y1, source_x2, and source_y2 specify the top-left and
bottom-right corners of a rectangular region in the source image. The integers dest_x1, dest_y1,
dest_x2, and dest_y2 specify the corners of a region in the destination graphics context. The specified
rectangle in the image is drawn, with scaling if necessary, to the specified rectangle in the graphics context.
For an example in which this is useful, consider a card game that needs to display 52 different cards.
Dealing with 52 image files can be cumbersome and inefficient, especially for downloading over the
Internet. So, all the cards could be put into a single image:
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
Now, only one Image object is needed. Drawing one card means drawing a rectangular region from the
image. This technique is used in the following version of the HighLow card game from Section 6.6:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
In this applet, the cards are drawn by the following method. The variable, cardImages, is a variable of
type Image that represents the image of 52 cards that is shown above. Each card is 40 by 60 pixels. These
numbers are used, together with the suit and value of the card, to compute the corners of the source and
destination rectangles for the drawImage() command:
void drawCard(Graphics g, Card card, int x, int y) {
// Draws a card as a 40 by 60 rectangle with
// upper left corner at (x,y). The card is drawn
// in the graphics context g. If card is null, then
// a face-down card is drawn. The cards are taken
// from an Image object that loads the image from
// the file smallcards.gif.
if (card == null) {
// Draw a face-down card
g.setColor(Color.blue);
g.fillRect(x,y,40,60);
g.setColor(Color.white);
g.drawRect(x+3,y+3,33,53);
g.drawRect(x+4,y+4,31,51);
}
else {
int row = 0; // Which of the four rows contains this card?
switch (card.getSuit()) {
case Card.CLUBS: row = 0; break;
case Card.HEARTS: row = 1; break;
case Card.SPADES: row = 2; break;
case Card.DIAMONDS: row = 3; break;
}
int sx, sy; // Coords of upper left corner in the source image.
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
sx = 40*(card.getValue() - 1);
sy = 60*row;
g.drawImage(cardImages, x, y, x+40, y+60,
sx, sy, sx+40, sy+60, this);
System.out.println(card.toString());
}
} // end drawCard()
The complete source code for this applet can be found in HighLowGUI2.java.
Double Buffering for Smooth Animation
In addition to images in image files, objects of type Image can be used to represent images stored in the
computer's memory. What makes such images particularly useful is that it is possible to draw to an Image
in the computer's memory. This drawing is not visible to the user. Later, however, the image can be copied
very quickly to the screen. If this technique is used for repainting the screen, then behind the scenes, in
memory, an old image is erased and a new one is drawn step-by-step. This takes some time. If all this
drawing were done on screen, the user would see the image flicker. Instead, a complete new image replaces
the old one on the screen almost instantaneously. The user doesn't see all the steps involved in redrawing.
This technique can be used to do smooth, flicker-free animation and dragging.
I call an image in memory an off-screen canvas. The technique of drawing to an off-screen canvas and then
quickly copying the canvas to the screen is called double buffering. The name comes from the term frame
buffer, which refers to the region in memory that holds the image on the screen. (In fact, true double
buffering uses two frame buffers. The video card can display either frame buffer on the screen and can
switch instantaneously from one frame buffer to the other. One frame buffer is used as an off-screen canvas
to prepare a new image for the screen. Then the video card is told to switch from one frame buffer to the
other. No copying of memory is involved. Double-buffering as it is implemented in Java does require
copying, which takes some time and is not entirely flicker-free.)
Here are two applets that are identical, except that one uses double buffering and one does not. You can
drag the red and blue squares around the applets. For the applet on the left, you should notice an annoying
flicker as you drag a square (although on very fast computers it might not be all that noticeable):
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
An off-screen Image can be created by calling the instance method createImage(), which is defined
in the Component class. You can use this method in applets and canvases, for example. The
createImage() method takes two parameters to specify the width and height of the image to be created.
For example,
Image OSC = createImage(width, height);
Drawing to an off-screen canvas is done in the same way as any other drawing in Java, by using a graphics
context. The Image class defines an instance method getGraphics() that returns a Graphics object
that can be used for drawing on the off-screen canvas. (This works only for off-screen canvases. If you try
to do this with an Image from a file, an error will occur.) That is, if OSC is a variable of type Image that
refers to an off-screen canvas, you can say
Graphics offscreenGraphics = OSC.getGraphics();
Then, any drawing operations performed with the graphics context offscreenGraphics are applied to
the off-screen canvas. For example, "offscreenGraphics.drawRect(10,10,50,100);" will
draw a 50-by-100-pixel rectangle on the off-screen canvas. Once a picture has been drawn on the off-screen
canvas, the picture can be copied into another graphics context, g, using the method
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g.drawImage(OSC).
When using an off-screen canvas to avoid flicker, it's convenient to manage the off-screen canvas in the
update() method, which is called by the system when a component needs to be repainted. The
update() method can create the off-screen canvas if it doesn't already exist, call the component's
paint() method to draw to the off-screen canvas, and then copy the contents of the off-screen canvas to
the screen. With just a little more work, we can even allow for the case where the size of the component can
change. Here is what you would put in your applet or canvas class to make this work:
/* Some variable used for double-buffering */
Image OSC; // The off-screen canvas (created and used in update()).
// The size of the OSC matches the size of the component.
int widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC; // Current width and height of OSC.
// These are checked against the size
// of the component, to detect any change
// in the component's size. If the size
// has changed, a new OSC is created.
public void update(Graphics g) {
// To implement double-buffering, the update method calls paint to
// draw the contents of the applet on an off-screen canvas. Then
// the canvas is copied onto the screen. This method is responsible
// for creating the off-screen canvas. It will make a new OSC if
// the size of the applet changes.
if (OSC == null || widthOfOSC != getSize().width
|| heightOfOSC != getSize().height) {
// Create the OSC.
// (Or make a new one if applet size has changed.)
OSC = null; // (If OSC already exists, this frees up the memory.)
OSC = createImage(getSize().width, getSize().height);
widthOfOSC = getSize().width;
heightOfOSC = getSize().height;
}
/* Set things up in the OSC the way things are usually set
up for the paint method: Clear the OSC to the background color.
Set the graphics context to use the component's drawing color and
font.
*/
Graphics OSGr = OSC.getGraphics(); // Graphics context
// for drawing to OSC.
OSGr.setColor(getBackground());
OSGr.fillRect(0, 0, widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC);
OSGr.setColor(getForeground());
OSGr.setFont(getFont());
paint(OSGr); // Draw component's contents to OSGr
// instead of directly to g.
OSGr.dispose(); // We're done with this graphics context.
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
g.drawImage(OSC,0,0,this); // Copy OSC to screen.
} // end update()
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// Draw the contents of the applet to the graphics context g,
// just as they would be drawn on the screen.
.
.
} // end paint()
This is the technique used in the applet, shown above, that uses double buffering for smooth dragging. You
can find the complete source code in the file DoubleBufferedDrag.java. An update method and a few extra
instance variables are the only difference between the double-buffered version and the non-double-buffered
version, NonDoubleBufferedDrag.java. The same technique can be used to do smooth animation, as we'll
see in Section 5.
Double Buffering for Screen Repainting
Flicker was only one of the problems that we had with drawing in the previous chapter. Another problem
was that, in many cases, we had no convenient way of remembering the contents of a component so that we
could redraw the component when necessary. For example, in the paint applet in Section 6.6, the user's
sketch will disappear if the applet is covered up and then uncovered. Double buffering can be used to solve
this problem too. The idea is simple: Keep a copy of the drawing in an off-screen canvas. When the
component needs to be redrawn, copy the off-screen canvas onto the screen. This method is used in the
improved paint program at the end of this section.
When used in this way, the off-screen canvas should always contain a copy of the picture on the screen. The
update() and paint() methods should do nothing but copy the off-screen canvas to the screen. This
will refresh the picture when it is covered and uncovered. The actual drawing of the picture should take
place elsewhere. (Occasionally, it makes sense to draw some extra stuff on the screen, on top of the image
from the off-screen canvas. For example, a hilite or a shape that is being dragged might be treated in this
way. These things are not permanently part of the image. The permanent image is safe in the off-screen
canvas, and it can be used to restore the on-screen image when the hilite is removed or the shape is dragged
to a different location.)
There are two approaches to keeping the image on the screen synchronized with the image in the off-screen
canvas. In the first approach, in order to change the image, you make that change to the off-screen canvas
and then call repaint() to copy the modified image to the screen. This is safe and easy, but not always
efficient. The second approach is to make every change twice, once to the off-screen canvas and once to the
screen. This keeps the two images the same, but it requires some care to make sure that exactly the same
drawing is done in both.
In this application, it doesn't make sense to have the update() method create the canvas since the
off-screen canvas is used outside the update() method. I suggest having a separate method to handle the
creation of the off-screen canvas and its re-creation when the size of the component changes. This method
should always be called before using the off-screen canvas in any way. Here is the basic code that a class
needs in order to implement this:
/* Some variables used for double-buffering. */
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
Image OSC; // The off-screen canvas (created in setupOSC()).
int widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC; // Current width and height of OSC.
// These are checked against the size
// of the component, to detect any change
// in the component's size. If the size
// has changed, a new OSC is created.
// The picture in the off-screen canvas
// is lost when that happens.
void setupOSC() {
// This method is responsible for creating the off-screen canvas.
// It should always be called before using the OSC. It will make a
// new OSC if the size of the applet changes. A new off-screen
// canvas is filled with the background color of the component.
if (OSC == null || widthOfOSC != getSize().width
|| heightOfOSC != getSize().height) {
// Create the OSC, or make a new one
// if component size has changed.
OSC = null; // (If OSC already exists, this frees up the memory.)
OSC = createImage(getSize().width, getSize().height);
widthOfOSC = getSize().width;
heightOfOSC = getSize().height;
Graphics OSGr = OSC.getGraphics();
OSGr.setColor(getBackground());
OSGr.fillRect(0, 0, widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC);
OSGr.dispose()
}
}
public void update(Graphics g) {
// Redefine update so it doesn't clear before calling paint().
paint(g);
}
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// Just copy the off-screen canvas to the screen.
setupOSC(); // Ensure that OSC exists first!!
g.drawImage(OSC, 0, 0, this);
}
Note that the contents of the off-screen canvas are lost if the size changes. If this is a problem, you can
consider copying the contents of the old off-screen canvas to the new one before discarding the old canvas.
You can do this with drawImage(), and you can even scale the image to fit the new size if you want.
However, the results of scaling are not always attractive.
FontMetrics
In the rest of this section, we turn from Images to look briefly at a few other aspects of Java graphics.
Often, when drawing a string, it's important to know how big the image of the string will be. You need this
information if you want to center a string on an applet. Or if you want to know how much space to leave
between two lines of text, when you draw them one above the other. Or if the user is typing the string and
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
you want to position a cursor at the end of the string. In Java, questions about the size of a string are
answered by an object belonging to the standard class java.awt.FontMetrics.
There are several lengths associated with any given font. Some of them are shown in this illustration:
The red lines in the illustration are the baselines of the two lines of text. The suggested distance between
two baselines, for single-spaced text, is known as the lineheight of the font. The ascent is the distance that
tall characters can rise above the baselines, and the descent is the distance that tails like the one on the letter
g can descend below the baseline. The ascent and descent do not add up to the lineheight, because there
should be some extra space between the tops of characters in one line and the tails of characters on the line
above. The extra space is called leading. All these quantities can be determined by calling instance methods
in a FontMetrics object. There are also methods for determining the width of a character and the width
of a string.
If F is a font and g is a graphics context, you can get a FontMetrics object for the font F by calling
g.getFontMetrics(F). If fm is a variable that refers to the FontMetrics object, then the ascent,
descent, leading, and lineheight of the font can be obtained by calling fm.getAscent(),
fm.getDescent(), fm.getLeading(), and fm.getHeight(). If ch is a character, then
fm.charWidth(ch) is the width of the character when it is drawn in that font. If str is a string, then
fm.stringWidth(str) is the width of the string. For example, here is a paint() method that shows
the message "Hello World" in the exact center of the component:
public void paint(Graphics g) {
int width, height; // Width and height of the string.
int x, y; // Starting point of baseline of string.
Font F = g.getFont(); // What font will g draw in?
FontMetrics fm = g.getFontMetrics(F);
width = fm.stringWidth("Hello World");
height = fm.getAscent(); // Note: There are no tails on
// any of the chars in the string!
x = getSize().width / 2 - width / 2; // Go to center and back up
// half the width of the
// string.
y = getSize().height / 2 + height / 2; // Go to center, then move
// down half the height of
// the string.
g.drawString("Hello World", x, y);
}
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
Drawing with XORMode
Ordinarily, when shapes or text are drawn in a graphics context, g, the colors of the affected pixels are
changed to the current drawing color of g, as specified by g.setColor(). In Java, this type of drawing
is called paint mode, and it is not the only possibility. There is another mode of drawing called XOR mode,
in which the effect on the color of pixels is not so straightforward. Drawing in XOR mode has an interesting
and useful property: If you perform exactly the same drawing operation twice in a row, the second
operation reverses the effect of the first, leaving the image in its original state. Unfortunately, you can't be
sure what colors will be used when you draw in XOR mode.
XOR mode can be used, for example, to implement a "rubber band cursor." A rubber band cursor is
commonly used to draw straight lines. When the user clicks and drags the mouse, a moving line stretches
between the starting point of the drag and the current mouse location. When the user releases the mouse, the
line becomes a permanent part of the image. While the mouse is being dragged, the line is drawn in XOR
mode. When the mouse moves, the line is first redrawn in its previous position. In XOR mode, this second
drawing operation erases the first. Then, the line is drawn in its new position. When the user releases the
mouse, the line is erased one more time and is then drawn permanently using paint mode. The same idea
can be used for other figures besides lines. However, it doesn't work very well for filled shapes because of
the weird color effects. (Of course, maybe you like weird color effects.) A simple solution to the problem
with filled shapes is to draw only the outline of the shape when dragging.
Here is a little applet that illustrates XOR mode. Draw straight red lines by clicking and dragging. Draw
blue filled rectangles by right-clicking and dragging (or, on the Mac, Command-clicking). Shift-click on the
applet to clear it. Check out the colors when you draw one rectangle on top of another:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
If g is a graphics context, then you can use the command g.setXORMode(xorColor) to start using
XOR mode. The xorColor parameter is a Color that will (on some platforms) be used as follows: If you
draw in XOR mode over pixels whose color is the specified xorColor, then those pixels will be changed
to the current drawing color of the graphics context. That is, drawing over the xorColor in XOR mode is
the same as drawing over this color in the regular paint mode. In almost all cases, you want to use the
background color as the xorColor, so you should say g.setXORMode(getBackground()). You
can switch from XOR mode back to regular paint mode with the command g.setPaintMode().
There is one other point of interest in the above applet. To draw a rectangle in Java, you need to know the
coordinates of the upper left corner, the width, and the height. However, when a rectangle is drawn in this
applet, the available data consists of two corners of the rectangle: the starting position of the mouse and its
current position. From these two corners, the left edge, the top edge, the width, and the height of the
rectangle have to be computed. This can be done as follows:
void drawRectUsingCorners(Graphics g, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2) {
// Draw a rectangle with corners at (x1,y1) and (x2,y2).
int x,y; // Coordinates of the top-left corner.
int w,h; // Width and height of rectangle.
if (x1 < x2) { // x1 is the left edge
x = x1;
w = x2 - x1;
}
else { // x2 is the left edge
x = x2;
w = x1 - x2;
}
if (y1 < y2) { // y1 is the top edge
y = y1;
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Java Programing: Section 7.1
h = y2 - y1;
}
else { // y2 is the top edge
y = y2;
h = y1 - y2;
}
g.drawRect(x, y, w, h); // Draw the rect.
}
The source code for the above applet is in the file RubberBand.java.
A Better Paint Program
The techniques covered in this section can be used to improve the simple painting program from Section
6.6. The new version uses an off-screen canvas to save a copy of the user's work. As before, the user can
draw a free-hand sketch. However, in this version, the user can also choose to draw several shapes by
selecting from the pop-up menu in the upper right. The shapes are drawn using rubber band cursors in XOR
mode. Try it out! Check that when you cover up the applet with another window, your drawing is still there
when you uncover it.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The source code for this improved paint applet is in the file SimplePaint2.java. It uses an off-screen canvas
pretty much in the way described above. The paint() method for the Canvas object simply copies the
off-screen canvas to the screen. When the user begins a drag operation, two graphics contexts are obtained,
one for drawing on the screen and one for drawing to the off-screen canvas. If the user is sketching a curve,
every line segment in the curve is drawn to both the screen and to the off-screen canvas. This keeps the
off-screen picture in sync with the picture on the screen. When the user is drawing a shape, the rubber band
cursor is treated somewhat differently. The rubber band cursor is not a permanent part of the image, so there
is no need to draw it to the off-screen canvas. It is drawn only on the screen. When the drag operation ends,
the final shape is drawn to both the off-screen canvas and to the screen. There are lots of other details to
attend to. I encourage you to read the source code and see how it's done.
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.2
Section 7.2
More about Layouts and Components
MANY OF THE CLASSES IN THE AWT represent visual elements of a graphical user interface, such as
buttons, text-input boxes, and menus. All these classes, except for a few related to menus, are subclasses of
the class java.awt.Component.
Component is an abstract class, so that you can only create objects belonging to its subclasses, not to
Component itself. The subclasses that represent standard GUI elements are: Button, Checkbox,
Choice, Label, List, Scrollbar, TextArea, and TextField. The Canvas class, which we've
used in several examples, is also a subclass of Component. Objects of these classes have predefined
behaviors. For the most part, all you have to do is add them to your program and they take care of
themselves. When the user interacts with one of these components and some action is required, the
component generates an event that your program can detect and react to. I will discuss the standard GUI
components in the next section.
To appear on the screen, a component must be added to a container. A container in this context is a
component that can contain other components. Containers are represented by the class
java.awt.Container, which is a subclass of Component. The Container class, like
Component, is an abstract class. Container has two direct subclasses, Window and Panel. A
Window represents an independent top-level window that is not contained in any other component.
Window is not really meant to be used directly. It has two subclasses: Frame, to represent ordinary
windows that can have their own menu bars, and Dialog to represent dialog boxes that are used for
limited interactions with the user. I will discuss the window classes in Section 7.
A Panel, on the other hand, is a container that does not exist independently. The Applet class is a
subclass of Panel, and as you have seen, an applet does not exist on its own; it is must be displayed on a
Web page or in some other window. Any panel must be contained inside something else, either a Window,
another Panel, or -- in the case of an Applet -- a page in a Web browser.
The fact that panels can contain other panels means that you can
have many levels of components containing other components, as
shown in the illustration on the right. This leads to two questions:
How are components added to a container? How are their sizes
and positions controlled?
The sizes and positions of the components in a container are
usually controlled by a layout manager. Different layout managers
implement different ways of arranging components. There are
several predefined layout manager classes in the AWT:
FlowLayout, GridLayout, BorderLayout,
CardLayout and GridBagLayout. It is also possible to
define new layout managers, if none of these suit your purpose.
Every container is assigned a default layout manager when it is
first created. For Panels, including Applets, the default
layout manager belongs to the class FlowLayout. For
Windows, the default layout manager is a BorderLayout.
You can change the layout manager of a container using its setLayout() method. It is possible to set the
LayoutManager of a container to be null. This allows you to take complete charge of laying out the
components in the container. I will discuss this option further in Section 4.
As for adding components to a container, that's easy. You just use one of the container's add() methods.
There are several add() methods. Which one you should use depends on what type of LayoutManager
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Java Programing: Section 7.2
is being used by the container, so I will discuss the appropriate add() methods as I go along.
I have often found it to be fairly difficult to get the exact layout that I want in my applets and windows. I
will briefly discuss each of the layout manager classes here, but using them well will require practice and
experimentation.
FlowLayout
A FlowLayout simply lines up its components without trying to be particularly neat about it. After laying
out as many items as will fit in a row across the container, it will move on to the next row. The components
in a given row can be either left-aligned, right-aligned, or centered, and there can be horizontal and vertical
gaps between components. If the default constructor, "new FlowLayout()" is used, then the components on
each row will be centered and the horizontal and vertical gaps will be five pixels. The constructor
FlowLayout(int align, int hgap, int vgap)
can be used to specify alternative alignment and gaps. The possible values of align are
FlowLayout.LEFT, FlowLayout.RIGHT, and FlowLayout.CENTER. A nifty trick is to use a very
large value of hgap. This forces the FlowLayout to put exactly one component in each row, since there
won't be room on a single row for two components and the horizontal gap between them. The appropriate
add() method for FlowLayouts has a single parameter of type Component, specifying the component
to be added.
For example, suppose that we want an applet to contain one button, located in the upper right corner of the
applet. The default layout manager for an applet is a FlowLayout that uses center alignment. It would
center the button horizontally. We need to give the applet a new layout manager that uses right alignment,
which will shove the button to the right edge of the applet. The following init() method will do this:
public void init() {
setLayout( new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.RIGHT, 5, 5) );
add( new Button("Press me!") );
}
Although FlowLayouts are useful in certain circumstances, I almost always set the layout manager of an
applet to be a BorderLayout or a GridLayout. I use the FlowLayout mainly when I want to use a
panel to hold a strip of controls along the top or bottom of an applet. The examples in Section 6.6 used
panels in this way.
BorderLayout
A BorderLayout places one component in the center of a
container. The central component is surrounded by up to four other
components that border it to the "North", "South", "East", and "West",
as shown in the diagram at the right. Each of the four bordering
components is optional. The layout manager first allocates space to
the bordering components. Any space that is left over goes to the
center component.
If a container uses a BorderLayout, then components should be
added to the container using a version of the add() method that has
two parameters. The first parameter is the component that is being
added to the container. The second parameter specifies where the
component is to be placed. It must be one of the constants
BorderLayout.CENTER, BorderLayout.NORTH,
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BorderLayout.SOUTH, BorderLayout.EAST, or BorderLayout.WEST. For example, the
following code creates a panel with drawArea as its center component and with scroll bars to the right
and below:
Panel panel = new Panel();
panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
// To use BorderLayout with a Panel, you have
// to change the panel's layout manager; otherwise,
// a FlowLayout is used.
panel.add(drawArea, BorderLayout.CENTER);
// Assume drawArea already exists.
panel.add(hScroll, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
// Assume hScroll is a horizontal scroll bar
// component that already exists.
panel.add(vScroll, BorderLayout.EAST);
// Assume vScroll is a vertical scroll bar
// component that already exists.
Sometimes, you want to leave space between the components in a container. You can specify horizontal and
vertical gaps in the constructor of a BorderLayout object. For example, if you say
panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout(5,7));
then the layout manager will insert horizontal gaps of 5 pixels between components and vertical gaps of 7
pixels between components. (The horizontal gap is inserted between the center and west components and
between the center and east components; the vertical gap is inserted between the center and north
components and between the center and south components.)
GridLayout
A GridLayout lays out components in a grid of equal sized rectangles. The
illustration shows how the components would be arranged in a grid layout with 3
rows and 2 columns. If a container uses a GridLayout, the appropriate add
method takes a single parameter of type Component (for example:
add(myButton)). Components are added to the grid in the order shown; that is,
each row is filled from left to right before going on the next row.
The constructor for a GridLayout with R rows and C columns takes the form
"new GridLayout(R,C)". If you want to leave horizontal gaps of H pixels
between columns and vertical gaps of V pixels between rows, use "new GridLayout(R,C,H,V)"
instead.
When you use a GridLayout, it's probably good form to add just enough components to fill the grid.
However, this is not required. In fact, as long as you specify a non-zero value for the number of rows, then
the number of columns is essentially ignored. The system will use just as many columns as are necessary to
hold all the components that you add to the container. If you want to depend on this behavior, you should
probably specify zero as the number of columns. You can also specify the number of rows as zero. In that
case, you must give a non-zero number of columns. The system will use the specified number of columns,
with just as many rows as necessary to hold the components that are added to the container.
Horizontal grids, with a single row, and vertical grids, with a single column, are very common. For
example, suppose that button1, button2, and button3 are buttons and that you'd like to display them
in a horizontal row in a panel. If you use a horizontal grid for the panel, then the buttons will completely fill
that panel and will all be the same size. The panel can be created as follows:
Panel buttonBar = new Panel();
buttonBar.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,3));
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// (Note: The "3" here is pretty much ignored, and
// you could also say "new GridLayout(1,0)".
// To leave gaps between the buttons, you could use
// "new GridLayout(1,0,5,5)".)
buttonBar.add(button1);
buttonBar.add(button2);
buttonBar.add(button3);
You might find this button bar to be more attractive than the ones in the examples in the Section 6.6, which
used the default FlowLayout layout manager.
GridBagLayout
A GridBagLayout is similar to a GridLayout in that the container is broken down into rows and
columns of rectangles. However, a GridBagLayout is much more sophisticated because the rows do not
all have to be of the same height, the columns do not all have to be of the same width, and a component in
the container can spread over several rows and several columns. There is a separate class,
GridBagConstraints, that is used to specify the position of a component, the number of rows and
columns that it occupies, and several additional properties of the component.
Using a GridBagLayout is rather complicated, and I have used it on exactly two occasions in my own
Java programming career. I will not explain it here; if you are interested, you should consult a Java
reference.
CardLayout
CardLayouts differ from other layout managers in that in a container that uses a CardLayout, only
one of its components is visible at any given time. Think of the components as a set of "cards". Only one
card is visible at a time, but you can flip from one card to another. Methods are provided in the
CardLayout class for flipping to the first card, to the last card, and to the next card in the deck. A name
can be specified for each card as it is added to the container, and there is a method in the CardLayout
class for flipping directly to the card with a specified name.
Suppose, for example, that you want to create a Panel that can show any one of three Panels: panel1,
panel2, and panel3. Assume that panel1, panel2, and panel3 have already been created:
cardPanel = new Panel();
// assume cardPanel is declared as an instance variable
// so that it can be used in other methods
cards = new CardLayout();
// assume cards is declared as an instance variable
// so that it can be used in other methods
cardPanel.setLayout(cards);
cardPanel.add(panel1, "First");
// add panel1 with name "First"
cardPanel.add(panel2, "Second");
// add panel2 with name "Second"
cardPanel.add(panel3, "Third");
// add panel3 with name "Third"
Elsewhere in your program, you could show panel1 by saying
cards.show(cardPanel, "First");
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or
cards.first(cardPanel);
Other methods that are available are cards.last(cardPanel), cards.next(cardPanel), and
cards.previous(cardPanel). Note that each of these methods takes the container as a parameter.
To use a CardLayout effectively, you'll need to have instance variables to record both the layout
manager (cards in the example) and the container (cardPanel in the example). You need both of these
objects in order to flip from one card to another.
Components in Applets
When you are writing an Applet , you should remember that applets are themselves containers. This
means that they have add() methods that can be used to add components and a setLayout() method
that can be used to replace the default layout manager. In general, the entire layout of an applet should be
set up in its init() method. This will often involve constructing sub-panels and adding them to the
applet.
One final point: With most layout managers, you can specify horizontal and vertical gaps between
components. But what if you want gaps between the edges of a container and the components that it
contains? For that, you have to override the getInsets() method of the container. For an applet or
panel, the definition of this method usually has the form:
public Insets getInsets() {
return new Insets(top,left,bottom,right);
}
where top, left, bottom, and right are integers that specify the number of pixels to be inserted as a
gap along each edge. However, things get a little more complicated in the case of a container that already
has non-zero insets -- most commonly a window that uses insets to leave space for the borders of the
window and the menu bar.
In Section 7, I'll explain how to use components and insets in independent windows that belong to the
classes Frame and Dialog.
An Example
To finish this section, here is an applet that demonstrates various layout managers:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The applet itself uses a BorderLayout with vertical gaps of 3 pixels. These gaps show up in blue, which
is the background color of the applet as a whole. The blue border around the edges comes from a
getInsets() method in the applet. The Center component of the applet is a panel. This panel is set to
use a CardLayout as its layout manager. The layout contains six cards. Each card is itself another panel
that contains several buttons. Each card uses a different type of layout manager (several of which are
extremely stupid choices for laying out buttons).
The North component of the applet is a Choice menu, which contains the names of the six panels in the
card layout. The user can switch among the cards by selecting items from this menu. The South component
of the applet is a Label that displays an appropriate message whenever the user clicks on a button or
chooses an item from the Choice menu.
The source code for this applet is in the file LayoutDemo.java. It consists mainly of a long init() method
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that creates all the buttons, panels, and other components and lays out the applet.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.3
Section 7.3
Standard Components and Their Events
THIS SECTION DISCUSSES some of the GUI interface elements that are represented by subclasses of
Component. It also introduces the event classes and listener interfaces associated with each type of
component. The treatment here is very brief. I will give some examples of programming with these
components in the next section.
The Component class itself defines many useful methods that can be used with components of any type.
We've already used some of these in examples. Let comp be a variable that refers to any component. Then
the following methods are available (among many others):
● comp.getSize() is a function that returns an object belonging to the class Dimension. This
object contains two instance variables, comp.getSize().width and
comp.getSize().height, that give the current size of the component. One warning: When a
component is first created, its size is zero. The size will be set later, probably by a layout manager.
A common mistake is to check the size of a component before that size has been set.
● comp.getParent() is a function that returns a value of type Container. The container is the
one that contains the component, if any. For a top-level component such as a Window or Applet,
the value will be null.
● comp.getLocation() is a function that returns the location of the top-left corner of the
component. The location is specified in the coordinate system of the component's parent. The
returned value is an object of type Point. An object of type Point contains two instance
variables, x and y.
● comp.setEnabled(true) and comp.setEnabled(false) can be used to enable and
disable the component. This is only useful for certain types of components, such as button. When
a button is disabled, its appearance changes, and clicking on it will have no effect. There is a
boolean-valued function, comp.getEnabled() that you can call to discover whether the
component is enabled.
● comp.setVisible(true) and comp.setVisible(false) can be called to hide or show
the component.
● comp.setBackground(color) and comp.setForeground(color) set the background
and foreground colors for the component. If no colors are set for a component, it inherits the colors
of its parent container. The command comp.setFont(font) sets the default font that is used for
text displayed on the component. (These should work for all components, but might not work
properly for some of the standard components, depending on the version of Java.)
There is also an event type associated with components. Whenever a component is hidden, shown, moved,
or resized, an event belonging to the class ComponentEvent is generated. These events are handled in
the same way as the mouse and keyboard events that we saw in the previous chapter: If you want to listen
for a ComponentEvent, you have to implement the ComponentListener interface. This interface
defines four methods:
public void componentResized(ComponentEvent evt);
public void componentMoved(ComponentEvent evt);
public void componentHidden(ComponentEvent evt);
public void componentShown(ComponentEvent evt);
Once you have an object that implements this interface, you must register it with a component by calling
the component's addComponentListener() method. The parameter, evt, contains a function,
evt.getComponent(), that returns the Component that generated the event. From this interface, you
are most likely to use the componentResized() method, which is useful when you want to take some
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action each time the size of a component is changed.
For the rest of this section, we'll look at subclasses of Component that represent common GUI
components. Remember that using any component is a multi-step process. The component object must be
created with a constructor. It must be added to a container. In many cases, a listener must be registered to
respond to events from the component. And in some cases, a reference to the component must be saved in
an instance variable so that the component can be manipulated by the program after it has been created.
Here is a simple applet that demonstrates several of the components discussed in this section. Across the top
are a Choice menu, a Checkbox, and a TextField. The rest of the applet shows a large canvas with
ScrollBars below and to the right. The scroll bars control the color of the display. If you type in the
TextField and press return, the text you typed will be displayed on the canvas.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
Although this is a rather silly example, it does show how to create and use several types of components.
You'll find the source code for this example in the file EventDemo.java.
The Button Class
An object of class Button is a push button. You've already seen buttons used in the previous chapter, but
we can use a review of Buttons as a reminder of what's involved in using components, events, and
listeners. (Some of the methods described here are new.)
● Constructors: The Button class has a constructor that takes a string as a parameter. This string
becomes the label displayed on the button. For example: stopGoButton = new
Button("Go")
● Events: When the user clicks on a button, the button generates an event of type ActionEvent.
This event is sent to any listener that has been registered with the button.
● Listeners: An object that wants to handle events generated by buttons must implement the
ActionListener interface. This interface defines just one method, "pubic void
actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt)", which is called to notify the object of an action
event.
● Registration of Listeners: In order to actually receive notification of an event from a button, an
ActionListener must be registered with the button. This is done with the button's
addActionListener() method. For example:
stopGoButton.addActionListener(buttonHandler)
● Event methods: When actionPerformed(evt) is called by the button, the parameter, evt,
contains information about the event. This information can be retrieved by calling methods in the
ActionEvent class. In particular, evt.getActionCommand() returns a String giving the
command associated with the button. By default, this command is the label that is displayed on the
button.
● Component methods: There are several useful methods in the Button class. For example,
stopGoButton.setLabel("Stop") changes the label displayed on the button to "Stop". And
stopGoButton.setActionCommand("sgb") changes the action command associated to
this button for action events.
Of course, Buttons also have all the general Component methods, such as setEnabled() and
setFont(). The setEnabled() and setLabel() methods of a button are particularly useful for
giving the user information about what is going on in the program. A disabled button is better than a button
that gives an obnoxious error message such as "Sorry, you can't click on me now!"
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The Label Class
Labels are certainly the simplest type of component. An object of type Label is just a single line of text.
The text cannot be edited by the user, although it can be changed by your program. The constructor for a
Label specifies the text to be displayed:
Label message = new Label("Hello World!");
There is another constructor that specifies where in the label the text is located, if there is extra space. The
possible alignments are given by the constants Label.LEFT, Label.CENTER, and Label.RIGHT. For
example,
Label message = new Label("Hello World!", Label.CENTER);
creates a label whose text is centered in the available space. You can change the text displayed in a label by
calling the label's setText() method:
message.setText("Goodby World!");
Since the Label class is a subclass of Component, you can use methods such as setForeground()
with labels. For example:
Label message = New Label("Hello World!");
message.setForeground(Color.red); // display red text...
message.setBackground(Color.black); // on a black background...
message.setFont(new Font("Serif", Font.BOLD, 18)); // in a bold font
The Checkbox and CheckboxGroup Classes
A Checkbox is a component that has two states: checked and unchecked. The user can change the state of
a check box by clicking on it. The state of a checkbox is represented by a boolean value that is true if
the box is checked and false if the box is unchecked. A checkbox has a label, which is specified when the
box is constructed:
Checkbox showTime = new Checkbox("Show Current Time");
Usually, it's the user who sets the state of a Checkbox, but you can also set the state in your program. The
current state of a checkbox is set using its setState(boolean) method. For example, if you want the
checkbox showTime to be checked, you would say "showTime.setState(true);". To uncheck the
box, say "showTime.setState(false);". You can determine the current state of a checkbox by
calling its getState() method, which returns a boolean value.
In many cases, you don't need to worry about events from checkboxes. Your program can just check the
state whenever it needs to know it by calling the getState() method. However, a checkbox does
generate an event when its state changes, and you can detect this event and respond to it if you want
something to happen at the moment the state changes. When the state of a checkbox is changed, it generates
an event of type ItemEvent. The associated listener interface is ItemListener. To receive
notification of item events from a checkbox, an object must implement the ItemListener interface and
it must be registered with the checkbox by calling its addItemListener() method. The
ItemListener interface defines one method, "public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent
evt)".
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For handling ItemEvents, I recommend calling evt.getSource() in the itemStateChanged()
method to find out which object generated the event. (Of course, if you are only listening for events from
one component, you don't even have to do this.) The getSource() method can be used with any event
type, not just ItemEvents. The method evt.getSource() returns the object that generated the event.
The returned value is of type Object, but you can type-cast it to another type if you want. Once you know
the object that generated the event, you can ask the object to tell you its current state. For example, if you
know that the event had to come from one of two checkboxes, cb1 or cb2, then your
itemStateChanged() method might look like this:
public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent evt) {
Object source = evt.getSource();
if (source == cb1) {
boolean newState = cb1.getState();
... // respond to the change of state
}
else if (source == cb2) {
boolean newState = cb2.getState();
... // respond to the change of state
}
}
Closely related to checkboxes are radio buttons. Radio buttons occur in groups. At most one radio button in
a group can be checked at any given time. In Java, a radio button is just an object of type Checkbox that is
a member of such a group. An entire group of radio buttons is represented by an object belonging to the
class CheckboxGroup. The class CheckBoxGroup has methods
public void setSelectedCheckbox(Checkbox box);
public Checkbox getSelectedCheckbox();
for selecting one of the checkboxes in the group, and for discovering which box is currently selected. The
getSelectedCheckbox() method will return null if none of the boxes in the group is currently
selected.
To create a group of radio buttons, you should first create an object of type CheckboxGroup. To create
the individual buttons, use the constructor
Checkbox(String label, CheckboxGroup group, boolean state);
The third parameter of this constructor specifies the initial state of the checkbox. Remember that at most
one of the checkboxes in the group can have its state set to true. For example:
CheckboxGroup colorGroup = new CheckboxGroup();
Checkbox red = new Checkbox("Red", colorGroup, false);
Checkbox blue = new Checkbox("Blue", colorGroup, false);
Checkbox green = new Checkbox("Green", colorGroup, true);
Checkbox black = new Checkbox("Black", colorGroup, false);
This creates a group of four radio buttons labeled "Red", "Blue", "Green", and "Black". Initially, the third
button is selected. You still have to add the Checkboxes, individually, to some container. The
CheckboxGroup itself is not a component and cannot be added to a container. To actually use the buttons
effectively in your program, you would presumably want to store either the CheckboxGroup object or
the individual Checkbox objects in instance variables. ItemEvents are generated by each individual
Checkbox object when its state changes. Again, you can often ignore these events and simply ask the
CheckboxGroup which Checkbox is selected, whenever you have a need to know. If you do want to
respond to ItemEvents, you need to register your listener with each of the Checkboxes individually.
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The Choice Class
A CheckBoxGroup is one way of allowing the user to select one option from a predetermined set of
options. The Choice class represents another way of doing the same thing. An object of type Choice,
however, presents the options in the form of a menu. The menu lists a number of items. Only the selected
item is displayed. However, when the user clicks on the Choice component, the entire list is displayed,
and the user can select one of the items from the list. (There are three types of menus in Java: Choice
menus, pop-up menus, and pull-down menus. Pop-up menus and pull-down menus are not Components.
I'll discuss pop-up menus later in this section and pull-down menus in Section 7. In fact, Choice
components are not technically considered to be menus, but it's hard to find another word that adequately
describes what they do.)
When a Choice object is first constructed, it initially containes no items. An item is added to the bottom
of the menu by calling its instance method, add(String). The getItemCount() method returns an
int that gives the number of items in the list, and the method
public String getItem(int index)
gets the item in position number index in the list. (Items are numbered starting with zero, not one.) Other
useful methods are:
public int getSelectedIndex();
public String getSelectedItem();
public void select(int index);
public void select(String itemName);
These methods serve the obvious purposes (noting that an item can be referred to either by its position in
the list or by the actual text of the item).
For example, the following code will create an object of type Choice that contains the options Red, Blue,
Green, and Black:
Choice colorChoice = new Choice();
colorChoice.add("Red");
colorChoice.add("Blue");
colorChoice.add("Green");
colorChoice.add("Black");
The most common way to use a Choice menu is to call its getSelectedIndex() method when you
have a need to know which item in the menu is currently selected. However, like Checkboxes, Choice
components generate ItemEvents. You can register an itemListener with the Choice component
if you want to respond to such events when they occur.
The List Class
An object of type List is very similar to a Choice object. However, a List is presented on the screen as
a scrolling list of items. Furthermore, you can create a List in which it is possible for the user to select
more than one item in the list at the same time. The constructor for a List object takes the form
List(int itemsVisible, boolean multipleSelectionsAllowed);
The fist parameter tells how many items are visible in the list at one time; if the list contains more than this
number of items, then the user can use a scroll bar to scroll through the list. The second parameter
determines whether or not the user can select more than one item in the list at the same time. If you leave
out the second parameter, multiple selections are not allowed.
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The List class includes the add(String) method to add an item to the end of the list. You can also add
an item in a specified position in the list using the add(String,int) method. (Items are numbered
starting from zero.) The getItemCount() method returns an int giving the number of items in the list.
The method remove(int) deletes the item at a specified position, while remove(String) removes a
specified item. The select(int) method can be used to select the item at the specified position in the
list, and deselect(int) unselects the item.
If exactly one item in the list is selected, then the method getSelectedIndex() will return the index
of that item, and getSelectedItem() will return the item itself. However, if no items are selected or if
more than one item is selected, then getSelectedIndex() will return -1, and getSelectedItem()
will return null. In that case, you can use the methods getSelectedItems() and
getSelectedIndexes() to determine which items are selected. (However, these two methods return
"arrays", which I will not cover until Chapter 8.)
A List generates events of type ItemEvent, and you can register an ItemListener with a List if
you want. An ItemEvent is generated whenever an item is selected. In the case of a list that allows
multiple selections, an ItemEvent is also generated whenever an item is deselected. A List also
generates an event of type ActionEvent when the user double-clicks on an item. The action command
associated with such an ActionEvent is the text of the item on which the user double-clicked.
The TextField and TextArea Classes
TextFields and TextAreas are boxes where the user can type in and edit text. The difference between
them is that a TextField contains a single line of editable text, while a TextArea displays multiple
lines and might include scroll bars that the user can use to scroll through the entire contents of the
TextArea. (It is also possible to set a TextField or TextArea to be read-only so that the user can
read the text that it contains but cannot edit the text.)
Both TextField and TextArea are subclasses of TextComponent, which is itself a subclass of
Component. The TextComponent class supports the idea of a selection. A selection is a subset of the
characters in the TextComponent, including all the characters from some starting position to some
ending position. The selection is hilited on the screen. The user selects text by dragging the mouse over it.
Some useful methods in class TextComponent include the following. They can, of course, be used for
both TextFields and TextAreas.
public void setText(String newText); // substitute newText
// for current contents
public String getText(); // return a copy of the current contents
public String getSelectedText(); // return the selected text
public select(int start, int end); // change the selected range;
// characters in the range start <= pos < end are
// selected; characters are numbered starting from zero
public int getSelectionStart(); // get starting point of selection
public int getSelectionEnd(); // get end point of selection
public void setEditable(boolean canBeEdited);
// specify whether or not the text in the component
// can be edited by the user
The constructor for a TextField takes the form
TextField(int columns);
where columns specifies the number of characters that should be visible in the text field. This is used to
determine the width of the text field. (Because characters can be of different sizes, the number of characters
visible in the text field might not be exactly equal to columns.) You don't have to specify the number of
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columns; for example, you might want the text field to expand to the maximum size available. In that case,
you can use the constructor TextField(), with no parameters. You can also use the following
constructors, which specify the initial contents of the text field:
TextField(String contents);
TextField(String contents, int columns);
The constructors for a TextArea are
TextArea();
TextArea(int lines, int columns);
TextArea(String contents);
TextArea(String contents, int lines, int columns);
The parameter lines specifies how many lines of text are visible in the text area. This determines the
height of the text area. (The text area can actually contain any number of lines; a scroll bar is used to reveal
lines that are not currently visible.) It is common to use a TextArea as the Center component of a
BorderLayout. In that case, it isn't useful to specify the number of lines and columns, since the TextArea
will expand to fill all the space available in the center area of the container.
The TextArea class adds a few useful procedures to those inherited from TextComponent:
public void append(String text);
// add the specified text at the end of the current
// contents; line breaks can be inserted by using the
// special character \n
public void insert(String text, int pos);
// insert the text, starting at specified position
public void replaceRange(String text, int start, int end);
// delete the text from position start to position end
// and then insert the specified text in its place
A TextField generates an ActionEvent when the user presses return while typing in the
TextField. The TextField class includes an addActionListener() method that can be used to
register a listener with a TextField. In the actionPerformed() method, the
evt.getActionCommand() method will return a copy of the text from the TextField. TextAreas
do not generate action events.
The ScrollBar Class
Finally, we come to the ScrollBar class. A ScrollBar allows the user to select an integer value from
a range of values. A scroll bar can be either horizontal or vertical. It has five parts:
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The position of the tab specifies the currently selected value. The user can move the tab by dragging it or by
clicking on any of the other parts of the scroll bar. On some platforms, the size of the tab tells what portion
of a scrolling region is currently visible. It is actually the position of the bottom or left edge of the tab that
represents the currently selected value.
A scroll bar has four associated integer values:
● min, which specifies the starting point of the range of values represented by the scrollbar,
corresponding to the left or bottom edge of the bar
● max, which specifies the end point of the range of values, corresponding to the right or top edge of
the bar
● visible, which specifies the size of the tab
● value, which gives the currently selected value, somewhere in the range between min and (max
- visible).
These values can be specified when the scroll bar is created. The constructor takes the form
Scrollbar(int orientation, int value, int visible, int min, int max);
The orientation, which specifies whether the scroll bar is horizontal or vertical, must be one of the
constants Scrollbar.HORIZONTAL or Scrollbar.VERTICAL. The value must be between min and
(max - visible). You can leave out all the int parameters to get a scroll bar with default values.
You can set the value of the scroll bar at any time with the method setValue(int). If you want to set
any of the other parameters, you have to set them all, using
public void setValues(int value, int visible, int min, int max);
Methods getValue(), getVisibleAmount(), getMinimum() and getMaximum() are provided
for reading the current values of each of these parameters.
The remaining question is, how far does the tab move when the user clicks on the up-arrow or down-arrow
or in the page-up or page-down region of a scrollbar? The amount by which the value changes when the
user clicks on the up-arrow or down-arrow is called the unit increment. The amount by which it changes
when the user clicks in the page-up or page-down region is called the block increment. By default, both of
these values are 1. They can be set using the methods:
public void setUnitIncrement(int unitIncrement);
public void setBlockIncrement(int blockIncrement);
Let's look at an example. Suppose that you want to use a very large canvas, which is too large to fit on the
screen. You might decide to display only part of the canvas and to provide scroll bars to allow the user to
scroll through the entire canvas. Let's say that the actual canvas is 1000 by 1000 pixels, and that you will
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show a 200-by-200 region of the canvas at any one time. Let's look at how you would set up the vertical
scroll bar. The horizontal bar would be essentially the same.
The visible of the scroll bar would be 200, since that is how many pixels would actually be displayed.
The value of the scroll bar would represent the vertical coordinate of the pixel that is at the top of the
display. (Whenever the value changes, you have to redraw the display.) The min would be 0, and the
max would be 1000. The range of values that can be set on the scroll bar is from 0 to 800. (Remember that
the largest possible value is the maximum minus the visible amount.)
The page increment for the scroll bar could be set to some value a little less than 200, say 190 or 175. Then,
when the user clicks in the page-up or page-down region, the display will scroll by an amount almost equal
to its size. The line increment could be left at 1, but it is likely that this would be too small since it
represents a scrolling increment of just one pixel. A line increment of 15 might make more sense, since then
the display would scroll by a more reasonable 15 pixels when the user clicks the up-arrow or down-arrow.
(Of course, all these values would have to be reset if the display area is resized. Most likely, that would be
done by listening for ComponentEvents and defining a componentResized() method to adjust the
values of the scroll bars.)
A scroll bar generates an event of type AdjustmentEvent whenever the user changes the value of the
scroll bar. The associated AdjustmentListener interface defines one method,
"adjustmentValueChanged(AdjustmentEvent evt)", which is called by the scroll bar to
notify the listener that the value on the scroll bar has been changed. This method should repaint the display
or make whatever other change is appropriate for the new value. The method evt.getValue() returns
the current value on the scroll bar. If you are using more than one scroll bar and need to determine which
scroll bar generated the event, use evt.getSource() to determine the source of the event.
Pop-up Menus
Pop-up menus differ from all the components discussed above because they are not components and they
are not usually visible. The user calls up a pop-up menu by performing some platform-dependent action
with the mouse. For example, this might mean clicking with the right mouse button or middle mouse
button, or clicking the mouse while holding down the control key. On my Windows computer with a
two-button mouse, I have to press both mouse buttons at the same time to call up a pop-up menu.
Here is an applet that uses a pop-up menu. It's an improved version of an applet you saw in Section 5.4.
You can place shapes on the drawing area by clicking on the buttons. Once a shape is on the drawing area,
you can drag it around. A pop-up menu will appear if you click your mouse on a shape, using the
appropriate action for calling up a pop-up menu on your platform. The menu includes commands for
changing the color and size of the shape, for deleting the shape, and for moving it to the front of all the
other shapes. If you select one of the commands, the menu disappears and the command is carried out. Try
it:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
It's not much more difficult to use pop-up menus in a program than it is to use the above components. A
pop-up menu generates an ActionEvent when the user selects a command from the menu. The action
command associated with that event is the label of the menu item that was selected. You can register an
ActionListener with the menu to listen for commands from the menu.
A pop-up menu is an object belonging to the class PopupMenu. A newly created pop-up menu is empty.
Items can be added to the menu with its add(String) method. A separator line can be added with the
addSeparator() method. (There's a lot more you can do with menu items, if you want to look it up.) If
pmenu is a pop-up menu, it can be added to a component, comp, by calling comp.add(pmenu).
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However, this does not make the menu appear on the screen. To make a menu appear, a program has to call
pmenu.show(comp,x,y). The pop-up menu appears with its upper-left corner at the point (x,y), where
the coordinates are given in comp's coordinate system.
The only other question is when to show the menu. It should be shown when the user performs the
platform-dependent mouse action that is used for calling up pop-up menus -- assuming that the action is
performed in a context where popping up the menu makes sense. (In the above applet, for example, that
means only when the user is clicking on a shape). To hear such actions, you have to listen for mouse events
from the component. A MouseEvent, evt, has a boolean-valued method,
evt.isPopupTrigger() that you can call to determine whether the user is trying to pop up a menu.
This could theoretically occur in either the mousePressed or in the mouseReleased method, so you
should test for the pop-up trigger in both of these methods. The mousePressed method might look
something like this (mouseReleased would be similar):
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
if (evt.isPopupTrigger()) {
int x = evt.getX();
int y = evt.getY();
... // Maybe test if it makes sense to show the menu here.
pmenu.show(this,x,y); // Assume that "this" is a component
// that is listening for its own
// mouse events and that pmenu is
// the pop-up menu that has been
// added to that component.
}
else {
...// handle a normal mouse click
}
}
Note that this method just makes the menu appear on the screen. Any command generated by that menu
must be handled elsewhere, in an actionPerformed method. The source code for the above applet can
be found in the file ShapeDrawWithMenu.java. Look there for a realistic example of using pop-up menus.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
Section 7.4
Programming with Components
THE TWO PREVIOUS SECTIONS described some raw materials that are available in the form of layout
managers and standard GUI components. This section presents some programming examples that make use
of those raw materials.
As a first example, let's look at a simple calculator applet. This example demonstrates typical uses of
TextFields, Buttons, and Labels, and it uses several layout managers. In the applet, you can enter
two real numbers in the text-input boxes and click on one of the buttons labeled "+", "-", "*", and "/". The
corresponding operation is performed on the numbers, and the result is displayed in Label at the bottom of
the applet. If one of the input boxes contains an illegal entry -- a word instead of a number, for example --
an error message is displayed in the Label.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
When designing an applet such as this one, you should start by asking yourself questions like: How will the
user interact with the applet? What components will I need in order to support that interaction? What events
can be generated by user actions, and what will the applet do in response? What data will I have to keep in
instance variables to keep track of the state of the applet? What information do I want to display to the user?
Once you have answered these questions, you can decide how to lay out the components. You might want
to draw the layout on paper. At that point, you are ready to begin writing the program.
In the simple calculator applet, the user types in two numbers and clicks a button. The computer responds
by doing a computation with the user's numbers and displaying the result. The program uses two
TextField components to get the user's input. The TextFields do a lot of work on their own. They
respond to mouse, focus, and keyboard events. They show blinking cursors when they are active. They
collect and display the characters that the user types. The program only has to do three things with each
TextField: Create it, add it to the applet, and get the text that the user has input by calling its
getText() method. The first two things are done in the applet's init() method. The text from the input
box is used in an actionPerformed() method, when the user clicks on one of the buttons. When a
component is created in one method and used in another, we need an instance variable to refer to it. In this
case, I use two instance variables, xInput and yInput, of type TextField to refer to the input boxes.
The Label that is used to display the result is treated similarly: A Label is created and added to the
applet in the init() method. When an answer is computed in the actionPerformed method, the
Label's setText() method is used to display the answer in the label. I use an instance variable named
answer, of type Label, to refer to the label.
The applet also has four Buttons and two more Labels. (The two extra labels display the strings "x ="
and "y =".) I don't use instance variables for these components because I don't need to refer to them outside
the init() method.
The applet as a whole uses a GridLayout with four rows and one column. The bottom row is occupied
by the Label, answer. The other three rows each contain several components. Each of these rows is
occupied by a Panel that has its own layout manager. The row that contains the four buttons is a Panel
that uses a GridLayout with one row and four columns. The Panels that contain the input boxes use
BorderLayouts. The input box occupies the Center position of the BoarderLayout, with a Label
on the West. (This example shows that BorderLayouts are more versatile than it might appear at first.)
All the work of setting up the applet is done in its init() method:
public void init() {
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
setBackground(Color.lightGray);
/* Create the input boxes, and make sure that the background
color is white. */
xInput = new TextField("0");
xInput.setBackground(Color.white);
yInput = new TextField("0");
yInput.setBackground(Color.white);
/* Create panels to hold the input boxes and labels "x = " and
"y = ". By using a BorderLayout with the TextField in the
Center position, the TextField will take up all the space
left after the label is given its preferred size. */
Panel xPanel = new Panel();
xPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout(2,2));
xPanel.add( new Label(" x = "), BorderLayout.WEST );
xPanel.add(xInput, BorderLayout.CENTER);
Panel yPanel = new Panel();
yPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout(2,2));
yPanel.add( new Label(" y = "), BorderLayout.WEST );
yPanel.add(yInput, BorderLayout.CENTER);
/* Create a panel to hold the four buttons for the four
operations. A GridLayout is used so that the buttons
will all have the same size and will fill the panel. */
Panel buttonPanel = new Panel();
buttonPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,4));
Button plus = new Button("+");
plus.addActionListener(this); // Applet will listen for
buttonPanel.add(plus); // events from the buttons.
Button minus = new Button("-");
minus.addActionListener(this);
buttonPanel.add(minus);
Button times = new Button("*");
times.addActionListener(this);
buttonPanel.add(times);
Button divide = new Button("/");
divide.addActionListener(this);
buttonPanel.add(divide);
/* Create the label for displaying the answer (in red). */
answer = new Label("x + y = 0", Label.CENTER);
answer.setForeground(Color.red);
/* Set up the layout for the applet, using a GridLayout,
and add all the components that have been created. */
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
setLayout(new GridLayout(4,1,2,2));
add(xPanel); // (Calls the add() method of the applet itself.)
add(yPanel);
add(buttonPanel);
add(answer);
/* Try to give the input focus to xInput, which is the natural
place for the user to start. */
xInput.requestFocus();
} // end init()
The action of the applet takes place in the actionPerformed() method. The algorithm for this method
is simple:
get the number from the input box xInput
get the number from the input box yInput
get the action command (the name of the button)
if the command is "+"
add the numbers and display the result in the label, answer
else if the command is "-"
subtract the numbers and display the result in the label, answer
else if the command is "*"
multiply the numbers and display the result in the label, answer
else if the command is "/"
divide the numbers and display the result in the label, answer
There is only one problem with this. When we call xInput.getText() and yInput.getText() to
get the contents of the input boxes, the results are Strings, not numbers. It's possible to convert a
String to a number. Unfortunately, Java doesn't make it easy. The following code will get the contents of
the input box, xInput, and convert it to a value of type double:
String xStr = xInput.getText();
Double d = new Double(xStr);
x = d.doubleValue(); // where x is a variable of type double.
An object belonging to the standard class, Double, contains a value of type double. (Double is called a
wrapper class. An object of type Double is a wrapper for a value of type double. This class exists
because a value of type double is not an object, and some contexts require objects. If you want to use a
double value in such a context, you have to wrap it in an object of type Double.) The constructor "new
Double(xStr)" converts xStr to a double value and puts it in an object of type Double. The
function d.doubleValue() gets the numerical value from that object. This is really unnecessarily
complicated, isn't it? (Things are a little easier for integers. If you want to convert a String, str, to an
int value, you can say "int N = Integer.parseInt(str)". Integer is the wrapper class for
values of type int, and parseInt() is a static method in that class. For some reason, there is no
parseDouble() method in the Double class.)
The complications are not over. If the string xStr does not contain a legal number, then the constructor
"new Double(xStr)" generates an error. It is good style to catch this error and display an error
message to the user. Catching the error requires the try...catch statement, which will be covered in
Chapter 9. In the meantime, you can see how it's done in the actionPerformed() method from the
applet. Aside from the difficulty of getting numerical values from the input boxes, the method is
straightforward:
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
double x, y; // The numbers from the input boxes.
/* Get a number from the xInput TextField. Use
xInput.getText() to get its contents as a String.
Convert this String to a double. The try...catch
statement will check for errors in the String. If
the string is not a legal number, the error message
"Illegal data for x." is put into the answer and
the actionPerformed() method ends. */
try {
String xStr = xInput.getText();
Double d = new Double(xStr);
x = d.doubleValue();
}
catch (NumberFormatException e) {
answer.setText("Illegal data for x.");
return; // Break out of the actionPerformed method.
}
/* Get a number from yInput in the same way. */
try {
String yStr = yInput.getText();
Double d = new Double(yStr);
y = d.doubleValue();
}
catch (NumberFormatException e) {
answer.setText("Illegal data for y.");
return; // Break out of the actionPerformed method.
}
/* Perform the operation based on the action command
from the button. Note that division by zero produces
an error message. */
String op = evt.getActionCommand();
if (op.equals("+"))
answer.setText( "x + y = " + (x+y) );
else if (op.equals("-"))
answer.setText( "x - y = " + (x-y) );
else if (op.equals("*"))
answer.setText( "x * y = " + (x*y) );
else if (op.equals("/")) {
if (y == 0)
answer.setText("Can't divide by zero!");
else
answer.setText( "x / y = " + (x/y) );
}
} // end actionPerformed()
The complete source code for this applet can be found in the file SimpleCalculator.java. (It contains very
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
little in addition to the two methods shown above.)
As a second example, let's look more briefly at another applet. In this example, the user manipulates three
scrollbars to set the red, green, and blue levels of a color. The value of each color level is displayed in a
label, and the color itself is displayed in a large rectangle:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The layout manager for the applet is a GridLayout with one row and three columns. The first column
contains a Panel that uses another GridLayout, which contains three Scrollbars. The second also
uses a GridLayout to contain three Labels. The third column contains the colored rectangle. The
component in this column is a Canvas. The displayed color is the background color of the canvas. When
the user changes the color, the background color of the canvas is changed and the canvas is repainted. This
is one of the few cases where an object of type Canvas is used, rather than an object belonging to a
subclass of the Canvas class.
When the user changes the value on a scrollbar, an event of type AdjustmentEvent is generated. In
order to respond to such events, the applet implements the AdjustmentListener interface, which
specifies the method "public void adjustmentValueChanged(AdjustmentEvent evt)".
The applet registers itself to listen for adjustment events from each scrollbar. The applet has instance
variables to refer to the scrollbars, the labels, and the canvas. Let's look at the code from the init()
method for setting up one of the scrollbars, redScroll:
redScroll = new Scrollbar(Scrollbar.HORIZONTAL, 0, 10, 0, 265);
redScroll.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
redScroll.addAdjustmentListener(this);
The first line constructs a horizontal scrollbar whose initial value is 0. The entire length of the scroll bar
represents numbers between 0 and 265, as specified by the last two parameters in the constructor. However,
the tab of the scrollbar takes up 10 units, as specified in the third parameter, so the value of the scrollbar is
actually restricted to the range from 0 to 255. These are the possible values of a color level. In the second
line, the background color of the scrollbar is set. On some platforms, all scrollbars are the same color and
this command is ignored. On other platforms, every component inherits its color from its container, and this
can look unattractive. The third line registers the applet ("this") to listen for adjustment events from the
scrollbar.
In the adjustmentValueChanged() method, the applet must respond to the fact that the user has
changed the value of one of the scroll bars. The response is to read the values of all the scrollbars, set the
labels to display those values, and change the color displayed by the canvas. (This is slightly lazy
programming, since only one of the labels actually needs to be changed. However, there is no rule against
setting the text of a label to the same text that it is already displaying.)
public void adjustmentValueChanged(AdjustmentEvent evt) {
int r = redScroll.getValue();
int g = greenScroll.getValue();
int b = blueScroll.getValue();
redLabel.setText(" R = " + r);
greenLabel.setText(" G = " + g);
blueLabel.setText(" B = " + b);
colorCanvas.setBackground(new Color(r,g,b));
colorCanvas.repaint(); // Redraw the canvas in its new color.
} // end adjustmentValueChanged
The complete source code can be found in the file RGBColorChooser.java.
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
Java's standard component classes are often all you need to construct a user interface. Sometimes, however,
you need a component that Java doesn't provide. In that case, you can write your own component class,
building on one of the components that Java does provide. We've already done this, actually, every time
we've written a subclass of the Canvas class. A Canvas is a blank slate. By defining a subclass, you can
make it show any picture you like, and you can program it to respond in any way to mouse and keyboard
events. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you don't need such freedom, and you can build on one of Java's more
sophisticated component classes.
For example, suppose I have a need for a "stopwatch" component. When the user clicks on the stopwatch, I
want it to start timing. When the user clicks again, I want it to display the elapsed time since the first click.
The display can be done with a Label, and I can define my StopWatch component as a subclass of the
Label class. A StopWatch object will listen for mouse clicks on itself. The first time the user clicks, it
will change its display to "Timing..." and remember the time when the click occurred. When the user clicks
again, it will compute and display the elapsed time. (Of course, I don't necessarily have to define a subclass.
I could use a regular label in my applet, set the applet to listen for mouse events on the label, and let the
applet do the work of keeping track of the time and changing the text displayed on the label. However, by
writing a new class, I have something that is reusable in other projects. I also have all the code involved in
the stopwatch function collected together neatly in one place. For more complicated components, both of
these considerations are very important.)
The StopWatch class is not very hard to write. I need an instance variable to record the time when the
user started the stopwatch. Times in Java are measured in milliseconds and are stored in variables of type
long (to allow for very large values). In the mousePressed method, I need to know whether the timer is
being started or stopped, so I need another instance variable to keep track of this aspect of the component's
state. There is one more item of interest: How do I know what time the mouse was clicked? The method
System.currentTimeMillis() returns the current time. But there can be some delay between the
time the user clicks the mouse and the time when the mousePressed() routine is called. I don't want to
know the current time. I want to know the exact time when the mouse was pressed. When I wrote the
StopWatch class, this need sent me on a search in the Java documentation. I found that if evt is an
object of type MouseEvent, then the function evt.getWhen() returns the time when the event
occurred. I call this function in the mousePressed() routine.
The complete StopWatch class is rather short:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class StopWatch extends Label implements MouseListener {
private long startTime; // Start time of timer.
// (Time is measured in milliseconds.)
private boolean running; // True when the timer is running.
public StopWatch() {
// Constructor. First, call the constructor from
// the superclass, Label. Then, set the component to
// listen for mouse clicks on itself.
super(" Click to start timer. ", Label.CENTER);
addMouseListener(this);
}
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
// React when user presses the mouse.
// Start the timer or stop it if it is already running.
if (running == false) {
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// Record the time and start the timer.
running = true;
startTime = evt.getWhen(); // Time when mouse was clicked.
setText("Timing....");
}
else {
// Stop the timer. Compute the elapsed time since the
// timer was started and display it.
running = false;
long endTime = evt.getWhen();
double seconds = (endTime - startTime) / 1000.0;
setText("Time: " + seconds + " sec.");
}
}
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent evt) { }
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent evt) { }
} // end StopWatch
Don't forget that since StopWatch is a subclass of Label, you can do anything with a StopWatch that
you can do with a Label. You can add it to a container. You can set its font, foreground color, and
background color. You can even set the text that it displays (although this would interfere with its
stopwatch function).
Let's look at one more example of defining a custom component. Suppose that -- for no good reason
whatsoever -- I want a component that acts like a Label except that it displays its text in mirror-reversed
form. Since no standard component does anything like this, the MirrorLabel class is defined as a
subclass of Canvas. It has a constructor that specifies the text to be displayed and a setText() method
that changes the displayed text. The paint() method draws the text mirror-reversed, in the center of the
component. This uses techniques discussed in Section 1. Information from a FontMetrics object is used
to center the text in the component. The reversal is achieved by using an off-screen canvas. The text is
drawn to the canvas, in the usual way. Then the canvas is copied to the screen with the command:
g.drawImage(OSC, widthOfOSC, 0, 0, heightOfOSC,
0, 0, widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC, this);
This is the version of drawImage() that specifies corners of destination and source rectangles. The
corner (0,0) in OSC is matched to the corner (widthOfOSC,0) on the screen, while
(widthOfOSC,heightOfOSC) is matched to (0,heightOfOSC). This reverses the image
left-to-right. Here is the complete class:
import java.awt.*;
public class MirrorLabel extends Canvas {
// Constructor and methods meant for use public use.
public MirrorLabel(String text) {
// Construct a MirrorLabel to display the specified text.
this.text = text;
}
public void setText(String text) {
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
// Change the displayed text. Call invalidate so that
// its size will be computed if its container is validated.
this.text = text;
invalidate(); // (This command will be discussed below.)
repaint();
}
public String getText() {
// Return the string that is displayed by this component.
return text;
}
// Implementation. Not meant for public use.
private String text; // The text displayed by this component.
private Image OSC; // An off-screen canvas holding
// the non-reversed text.
private int widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC; // Size of off-screen canvas.
public void update(Graphics g) {
// Redefine update so that it calls paint without erasing.
paint(g);
}
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// The paint method makes a new OSC, if necessary. It writes
// a non-reversed copy of the string to the OSC, then reverses
// the OSC as it copies it to the screen.
if (OSC == null || getSize().width != widthOfOSC
|| getSize().height != heightOfOSC) {
OSC = createImage(getSize().width, getSize().height);
widthOfOSC = getSize().width;
heightOfOSC = getSize().height;
}
Graphics OSG = OSC.getGraphics();
OSG.setColor(getBackground());
OSG.fillRect(0, 0, widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC);
OSG.setColor(getForeground());
OSG.setFont(getFont());
FontMetrics fm = OSG.getFontMetrics(getFont());
int x = (widthOfOSC - fm.stringWidth(text)) / 2;
int y = (heightOfOSC + fm.getAscent() - fm.getDescent()) / 2;
OSG.drawString(text, x, y);
OSG.dispose();
g.drawImage(OSC, widthOfOSC, 0, 0, heightOfOSC,
0, 0, widthOfOSC, heightOfOSC, this);
}
public Dimension getMinimumSize() {
return getPreferredSize();
}
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
// Compute a preferred size that will hold the string plus
// a border of 5 pixels.
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FontMetrics fm = getFontMetrics(getFont());
return new Dimension(fm.stringWidth(text) + 10,
fm.getAscent() + fm.getDescent() + 10);
}
} // end MirrorLabel
This class defines the method "public Dimension getPreferredSize()". This method is called
by a layout manager when it wants to know how big the component would like to be. The size is not always
respected. For example, in a GridLayout, every component is sized to fit the available space. However,
in some cases the preferred size is essential. For example, the height of a component in the North or South
position of a BorderLayout is given by the component's preferred size. Java's standard GUI components
already define a getPreferredSize() method. But when you define a component as a subclass of
Canvas, you should include a preferred size method. (You are also supposed to include a
getMinimumSize() method, but I don't know of any case where the minimum size is actually
respected.)
Here is an applet that demonstrates a MirrorLabel and a StopWatch component. The applet uses a
FlowLayout, so the components are not arranged very neatly. The applet also contains two buttons,
which are there to illustrate another fine point of programming with components. (Don't forget to try the
StopWatch!)
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
If you click the button labeled "Change Text in this Applet", the text in all the components will be changed.
However, you will notice that the components don't change size. That won't happen until you click the other
button. Here's how it works: When you click the button labeled "Validate" or "Do Validation", the applet's
validate() method is called. The validate() method computes new sizes for components in the
applet and lays out the applet again. However, it only computes a new size for a component if that
component has been declared to be "invalid." This is done by calling the component's invalidate()
method. If you look at the source code for MirrorLabel, you'll see that the setText() method calls
invalidate(). This means that when the text in a MirrorLabel is changed, the MirrorLable is
marked as being invalid. The next time the applet is validated, the size of the MirrorLabel will be
changed. The situation for Java's standard components is not completely clear. On my computer, the
Buttons change size, but the StopWatch does not. The best programming style requires that when you
make a change to a component that might require a change in size, you should call the component's
invalidate() method and call the validate() method of the container that contains the component.
(In practice, I rarely do this, and only after I see a problem when I run the program.)
As a final example, we'll look at an applet that does not use a layout manager. If you set the layout manager
of a container to be null, then you assume complete responsibility for positioning and sizing the
components in that container. If comp is a component, then the statement
comp.setBounds(x, y, width, height);
puts the top left corner at the point (x,y), measured in the coordinated system of the container that
contains the component, and it sets the width and height of the component to the specified values. You can
call the setBounds() method any time you like. (You can even make a component that moves or
changes size while the user is watching.) If you are writing an applet that has a known, fixed size, then you
can set the bounds of each component in the applet's init() method. That's what done in the following
applet, which contains four components: two buttons, a label, and a canvas that displays a checkerboard
pattern. This applet doesn't do anything useful. The buttons just change the text in the label.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
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Java Programing: Section 7.4
In the init() method of this applet, the components are created and added to the applet. Then the
setBounds() method of each component is called to set the size and position of the component:
public void init() {
setLayout(null); // I will do the layout myself!
setBackground(new Color(0,150,0)); // Dark green background.
/* Create the components and add them to the applet. If you
don't add them to the applet, they won't appear, even if
you set their bounds! */
board = new SimpleCheckerboardCanvas();
add(board);
newGameButton = new Button("New Game");
newGameButton.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
newGameButton.addActionListener(this);
add(newGameButton);
resignButton = new Button("Resign");
resignButton.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
resignButton.addActionListener(this);
add(resignButton);
message = new Label("Click \"New Game\" to begin a game.",
Label.CENTER);
message.setForeground(Color.green);
message.setFont(new Font("Serif", Font.BOLD, 14));
add(message);
/* Set the position and size of each component by calling
its setBounds() method. It is assumed that this applet
is 330 pixels wide and 240 pixels high. */
board.setBounds(20,20,164,164);
newGameButton.setBounds(210, 60, 100, 30);
resignButton.setBounds(210, 120, 100, 30);
message.setBounds(0, 200, 330, 30);
}
It's easy, in this case, to get an attractive layout. It's much more difficult to do your own layout if you want
to allow for changes of size. In that case, you have to respond to changes in the container's size by
recomputing the sizes and positions of all the components that it contains. One way to do this is by listening
for ComponentEvents from the container and doing the computations in the componentResized()
method. However, my real advice is that if you want to allow for changes in the container's size, try to find
a layout manager to do the work for you.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.5
Section 7.5
Threads, Synchronization, and Animation
MUST AN APPLET BE COMPLETELY DEPENDENT on events sent from outside to get anything
done? Can't an applet do something on its own initiative and on its own schedule? Something more like a
traditional program that just executes a sequence of instructions from beginning to end?
The answer is yes. The applet can create a thread. A thread represents a thread of control, which
independently executes a sequence of instructions from beginning to end. Several threads can exist and run
at the same time. An applet -- or, indeed, any Java program -- can create one or more threads and start them
running. Each of the threads acts as a little program. The separate threads run independently but they can
communicate with each other by sharing variables.
One common use of threads is to do animation. A thread runs continuously while an applet is displayed.
Several times a second, the thread changes the applet's display. If the changes are frequent enough, and the
changes small enough, the viewer will perceive continuous motion.
Programming with threads is called parallel programming because several threads can run in parallel.
Parallel programming can get tricky when several threads are all using a shared resource. An example of a
shared resource is the screen. If several threads try to draw to the screen at the same time, it's possible for
the contents of the screen to become corrupted. Instance variables can also be shared resources. In order to
avoid problems with shared resources, access to shared resources must be synchronized in some way. Java
defines a fairly natural and easy way of doing such synchronization. I will discuss it below.
Note that on most computers, you can't literally have two threads running "at the same time," since there is
only one processor, which can only do one thing at a time. Only computers with more than one processor
can literally do more than one thing at a time. However, this does not solve the synchronization problem on
single-processor computers! A single-processor computer simulates multiprocessing by switching rapidly
from thread to thread. Without proper synchronization, a thread can be interrupted at any time to let another
thread run, and this can cause problems. Suppose, for example that a thread reads the value of an important
variable just before it is interrupted. After the thread resumes, it makes a decision based on the value it just
read. The problem is that, without proper synchronization, some other thread might have butted in and
changed the value of the variable in the meantime! The decision that the thread makes is based on a value
that is no longer necessarily valid. Synchronization can be used to make sure this doesn't happen.
Even if an applet creates only one thread, there will still be two threads running in parallel, since there is
always a user interface thread that monitors user actions and feeds events to the applet. What happens if the
thread is trying to draw something at the same time that the user changes the size of the applet? What if one
thread is drawing to an off-screen image at the same time another thread is copying that image to the
screen? These are synchronization problems. So, even in the simple case of an apple that creates a single
thread, synchronization can be an issue.
In Java, a thread is just an object of type Thread. The class Thread is defined in the standard package
java.lang. A thread object must have a subroutine to execute. That subroutine is always named run(),
but there are two different places where the run() method might be located, depending on how the thread
is programmed.
The Thread class itself defines a run() method, which doesn't do anything. One way to make a useful
thread is to define a subclass of Thread and override the run() method in your subclass to make it do
something useful.
A second way to program a thread -- and the only one I will use for the time being -- is to create a class that
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Java Programing: Section 7.5
implements the interface called Runnable. This interface defines one method, "public void
run()". (To implement this interface means to declare that the class "implements Runnable" and to
define the method "public void run()" in the class.) A thread can be constructed from an object of
type Runnable. When such a thread is run, it executes the run() method from the Runnable object.
I'll give an example of all this in just a moment. The advantage of defining a thread in this way is that the
run() method has access to all the instance variables of the object, so that the thread will be able to read
and change the values of those variables. (A disadvantage is that throwing a run() method into a class can
completely muddle the clear division of responsibilities that should be the hallmark of object-oriented
programming. The run() method is logically part of the Thread object, but it is physically part of the
Runnable object. Keep this in mind: It's best to think of the run() method as a separate entity.)
Suppose that runnableObject is an object that implements Runnable. And suppose that runner is a
variable of type Thread. Then the statement
runner = new Thread(runnableObject);
creates a thread that can execute the run() method of runnableObject. However, the thread does not
automatically start running. To get it to run, you have to call its start() method:
runner.start();
The thread will then begin executing the run() method. At the same time, the rest of your program
continues to execute. The thread continues until it reaches the end of the run() method. At that point it
"dies" and cannot be restarted or reused. If you want to execute the same run() method again, you have to
create a new thread to do it. You can check whether a thread is still alive by calling its isAlive()
method, which returns a boolean value:
if (runner.isAlive()) . . .
(Note: it is possible to kill a thread before it finishes normally by calling its stop() method. However, use
of this method is discouraged since it is error-prone, and I will avoid it entirely.)
As we work through a few examples in the rest of this section, I'll be introducing several important new
ideas. One of the ideas has to do with managing the state of an applet. The state of an applet consists of its
instance variables. The state determines how the applet will respond when its methods are called. Managing
the state means determining how and when the state should change. In many cases, it also means making
the state of the applet apparent to the user, so the user isn't surprised or frustrated by the applet's behavior.
One way to make the state of the applet apparent is to disable a button whenever clicking on that button
would make no sense. Recall that a button, bttn, can be disabled with the command
"bttn.setEnabled(false);", and it can be enabled with "bttn.setEnabled(true);".
Let's look at the first example. When you click on the button in the following applet, a thread is created that
blinks the color of the message from red to green and back again several times. Note that the button is
disabled while the message is blinking:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The source code for this applet begins with the lines:
public class BlinkingHelloWorld1 extends Applet
implements ActionListener, Runnable {
ColoredHelloWorldCanvas canvas; // Canvas that displays the message
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Button blinkBttn; // The "Blink at Me" button.
Thread blinker; // A thread that cycles the message colors.
In this example, the applet class itself implements Runnable. (There is nothing special about applets in
this regard. Any class can implement Runnable. It might be useful, for example, to have a Runnable
canvas.) Later in the source code, the thread will be created with the command "blinker = new
Thread(this);", where this refers to the applet object itself. This means that the thread we create
will execute whatever run() method is defined in the BlinkingHelloWorld1 class. Let's think about
what we want this thread to do. (This is just like designing a small program.) We want the thread to blink
the color of the message. We'll also give the thread the responsibility of disabling and enabling the button,
since that way we can be sure that the button will be disabled just as long as the message is blinking. A
pseudocode version of the run method would be:
disable the blinkBttn
set the text color to green
pause for a while
set the text color to red
pause for a while
set the text color to green
pause for a while
set the text color to red
pause for a while
set the text color to green
pause for a while
set the text color to red
enable the blinkBttn
The pauses are necessary since otherwise the blinking would go by much too fast to see. Unfortunately, for
technical reasons, getting a thread to pause requires a try...catch statement, which will not be covered
until Chapter 9. For the time being, I will just give you a subroutine that can be called by a thread to insert a
pause in its execution:
void delay(int milliseconds) {
// Pause for the specified number of milliseconds,
// where 1000 milliseconds equal one second.
try {
Thread.sleep(milliseconds);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
Using this subroutine and a setTextColor() routine from the ColoredHelloWorldCanvas class,
the applet's run() method becomes:
public void run() {
blinkBttn.setEnabled(false);
canvas.setTextColor(Color.green);
delay(300);
canvas.setTextColor(Color.red);
delay(300);
canvas.setTextColor(Color.green);
delay(300);
canvas.setTextColor(Color.red);
delay(300);
canvas.setTextColor(Color.green);
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delay(300);
canvas.setTextColor(Color.red);
blinkBttn.setEnabled(true);
}
The blinker thread, which executes this run method, has to be created and started when the user clicks
the "Blink at Me!" button. This is done in the applet's actionPerformed() method, which is called
when the user clicks the button:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
if ( blinker == null || (blinker.isAlive() == false) ) {
blinker = new Thread(this);
blinker.start();
}
}
This routine creates and starts a thread. That thread executes the above run() method, which blinks the
text several times. When the run method ends, the thread dies.
I only want one of these threads to be running at a time. To be sure of this, before creating the new thread, I
test whether another thread already exists and is running. Since the button is disabled while a thread is
running, this test might seem unnecessary. However, it's usually better to test a condition rather than just
assume it's true. And in this case, it's just possible that the user might manage to click the button a second
time before the first thread gets started.
The complete source code for this example can be found in the file BlinkingHelloWorld1.java.
In the previous example, the thread that was created ran for only a short time, until it had run through all the
instructions in its run() method. In many cases, though, we want a thread to run over an extended period.
Often a thread that is created by an applet should run as long as the applet itself exists. Before working with
such threads, though, you need to know more about an applet's life cycle.
An applet, just like any other object, has a "life cycle." It is created, it exists for a time, and it is destroyed.
The Applet class defines an init() method, which is called just after the applet is created. There are
other methods in the Applet class which are called at other points in an applet's life cycle. A programmer
can provide definitions of these methods if there are tasks that the programmer would like to have executed
at those points in the applet's life cycle.
Just before an applet object is destroyed, the method "public void destroy()" is called to give the
applet a chance to clean up before it ceases to exist. Because of Java's automatic garbage collection, a lot of
cleanup is done automatically. There are a few cases, however, where destroy() might be useful. In
particular, if the applet has created any threads, those threads should almost certainly be stopped before the
applet is destroyed. The destroy() method is a natural place to do this. As another example, it is
possible for an applet to create a separate window on the screen. The applet's destroy method could close
such a window so it doesn't hang around after the applet no longer exists.
An applet also has methods "public void start()" and "public void stop()". These play
similar roles to init() and destroy(). However, while init() and destroy() are each called
exactly once during the life cycle of an applet, start() and stop() can be called many times. The
start() method is definitely called by the system at least once when the applet object is first created, just
after the init() method is called. The stop() method will definitely be called at least once, before the
applet is destroyed. In addition to these calls, the system can choose to stop the applet by calling its
stop() method at any time and then later restart it by calling its start() method again. For example, a
Web browser will typically stop an applet if the user leaves the page on which the applet is displayed, and
will restart it if the user returns to that page. An applet that has been stopped will not receive any other
events until it has been restarted.
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It is not always clear what initialization should be done in init() and what should be done in start().
Things that only need to be done once should ordinarily be done in init(). If the applet creates a separate
thread to carry out some task, it is reasonable to start that thread in the start() method and stop it in the
stop() method. If the applet uses a large amount of some computer resource such as memory, it might be
reasonable for it to allocate that resource in its start() method and release it in its stop() method, so
that the applet will not be hogging resources when it isn't even running. On the other hand, sometimes this
is impossible because the applet needs to retain the resource for its entire lifetime.
The next example creates a thread that runs until the user clicks on a button, or until the applet itself is
stopped:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
When you click on the "Blink!" button, the message starts cycling between two colors. The name of the
"Blink!" button changes to "Stop!". Clicking on the "Stop!" button will stop the blinking. (The command
that changes the name of the button, blinkBttn, to "Stop!" is blinkBttn.setLabel("Stop!").
This is another case of changing the appearance of the applet when it changes state in order to help the user
understand what is going on.) The other two buttons can be used at any time to set the colors that are used
for the blinking message. Recall that the blinking is handled by one thread while the button events are
handled by a separate user interface thread, so in this example you really do get to see two threads operating
in parallel.
The run() method for this example has a while loop that makes it blink the text over and over. The
interesting question is how to get the loop to end and the thread to stop running when the user clicks the
"Stop!" button. The answer is to use a shared instance variable for communication between the thread and
the applet. The thread tests the value of the variable and keeps running as long as the variable has a certain
value. When the user clicks on the "Stop!" button, the applet changes the value of the variable. The thread
sees this change and responds by exiting from its run() method and dying.
I tend to use a variable named status for this type of communication. It's a good idea, for the sake of
readability, to use named constants as the possible values of status. For this example, the status
information that I need is whether the thread should continue or should end. I use constants named GO and
TERMINATE to represent these two possibilities. The thread continues running as long as the value of
status is GO. It ends when the value of status changes to TERMINATE. To implement this, the applet
includes the following instance variables:
private final static int GO = 0, // For use as values of status.
TERMINATE = 1;
private volatile int status; // This is used for communication between
// the applet and the thread. The value is
// set by the applet to tell the thread what
// to do. When the applet wants the thread
// to terminate, it sets the value of status
// to TERMINATE.
(The word volatile is a new modifier that has to do with communication between threads. It should be
used on a variable whose value is set by one thread and read by another. The somewhat technical reason is
this: If a variable is not declared to be volatile, then on some computers, when one thread changes the
value of the variable, other threads might not immediately see the new value. This is another type of
synchronization problem. Later in this section, I'll mention "synchronized" methods and statements.
Variables that are accessed only in synchronized methods and statements don't have to be declared
volatile.)
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The idea is for the thread to run just so long as the value of status is GO. The thread's run() method
tests the value of status in a while loop, which continues only so long as status == GO. Note that
the value of status must be set equal to GO before the thread is started, since otherwise the run()
method would finish immediately. When the user clicks on the "Blink!" button, the following commands
are executed to start the thread:
runner = new Thread(this);
status = GO;
runner.start();
In addition to blinking the text, the thread is also responsible for changing the label on the button. Here is
the entire run() method for the thread:
public void run() {
blinkBttn.setLabel("Stop!");
while (status == GO) {
waitDelay(300);
changeColor();
}
blinkBttn.setLabel("Blink!");
}
Here, the waitDelay() method imposes a delay of 300 milliseconds, while changeColor() changes
the color of the displayed message. Both these methods are defined elsewhere in the applet.
The thread is started and stopped in the actionPerformed() method, in response to the user clicking
on the Blink/Stop button. When the user clicks "Stop!", the value of status is set to TERMINATE. The
thread sees this value and stops. But we have to be careful. What if the user never clicks on "Stop!"? We
should be careful not to leave the thread running after the applet is destroyed. An applet that creates
threads that might otherwise run forever should make sure to terminate them, either in its stop() method
or in its destroy() method. In this example, I use the stop() method to stop the thread by setting
status to TERMINATE. The stop() method will be called by the system if you close the window that
displays this page or follow a link to another page (or, in Netscape, if you just resize the page). So, if you
start the message blinking, go to another page, and then return to this one, the blinking should be stopped.
In the second blinking hello world applet, there are two reasons why the color of the message might change:
because the runner thread changes it or because the user clicks on the "Red/Green" button or the
"Black/Blue" button. These two reasons are handled by two different threads. The variables that record the
current color are resources that are shared by two threads. When a thread is accessing a shared resource, it
usually needs exclusive access to that resource, so that no other thread can butt in and access the resource at
the same time. In Java, exclusive access is implemented using synchronized methods and synchronized
statements. A method is declared to be synchronized by adding the synchronized modifier to its
definition. Here, for example, is the method that is called by the runner thread to change the color of the
message:
synchronized void changeColor() {
// Change from first to second color or vice versa.
if (showingFirstColor) {
// Change to showing second color.
showingFirstColor = false;
if (useRedAndGreen)
canvas.setTextColor(Color.green);
else
canvas.setTextColor(Color.blue);
}
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else {
// Change to showing first color.
showingFirstColor = true;
if (useRedAndGreen)
canvas.setTextColor(Color.red);
else
canvas.setTextColor(Color.black);
}
} // end changeColor()
The other method that can change the color of the text is the actionPerformed() method, which is
called by the user interface thread when the user clicks on one of the buttons. Like the changeColor()
method, the actionPerformed() method is declared to be synchronized. This means that all the
code that does color changes is contained inside synchronized methods. Therefore, only one of the
color-change processes can be running at any given time, and there is no possibility of their interfering with
each other.
Here, briefly, is how such synchronization is implemented in Java: Every object in Java has an associated
lock. The lock can be "held" by a thread, but only one thread can hold the lock at a given time. The rule is
that in order to execute a synchronized method in an object, a thread must obtain that object's lock. If the
lock is already held by another thread, then the second thread must wait until the first thread releases the
lock. If all access to a shared resource takes place inside methods that are synchronized on the same object,
then each thread that accesses the resource has exclusive access.
When a resource is only used in part of a method, it's not necessary to make the entire method
synchronized. A single statement can be synchronized. The synchronized statement takes the form
synchronized( object ) {
statements
}
(The synchronized statement, for some unknown reason, requires the braces { and } even if they contain
just a single statement.) To execute the statements, a thread must first obtain the lock belonging to the
specified object. Often, you will say "synchronized(this)" to synchronize on the same object that
contains the method. However, it is also possible to synchronize on another object's lock.
What could go wrong in the sample applet if the methods were not synchronized? For example: When the
blinker thread executes this statement:
if (useRedAndGreen)
canvas.setTextColor(Color.green);
else
canvas.setTextColor(Color.blue);
it is possible that just after the thread tests the value of useRedAndGreen, the other thread butts in and
changes the value of useRedAndGreen. Then the blinker thread resumes and changes the text color
based on the value of useRedAndGreen that it saw. However, that value is no longer valid, and the
thread changes the text to an incorrect color. The state of the applet has become inconsistent. The variables
say the color should be one thing, but the actual color is different. It's not a big deal here, but there are cases
where something like this -- even if it happens very, very rarely -- could be a really big deal.
The complete source code for this example is in the file BlinkingHelloWorld2.java.
In the rest of this section, I will try to explain the most advanced aspect of synchronization, the wait()
and notify() methods. These methods are defined in the Object class, and so they can be used with
any object. In order to legally call an object's wait() method, a thread must hold that object's lock. So
wait() is usually called only in synchronized methods and statements.
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A thread calls an object's wait() method when it wants to wait for some event to occur. (While it is
waiting, it releases its hold on the lock, so that other threads can run.) Some other thread must call the same
object's notify() method when the event occurs. When an object's notify() method is called, any
threads that are waiting on that object will wake up and can continue. Obviously, this requires close
coordination between several threads, which means very careful programming.
If notify() is never called, it's possible that a waiting thread might wait forever. You can avoid this with
good programming, but you can also put a time limit on how long the thread will wait. This is done by
passing a parameter to the wait() method specifying the maximum number of milliseconds that the
thread will wait. If notify() has not been called by the end of that time period, the thread will wake up
anyway.
As with an earlier example on this page, use of the wait() method requires a try...catch statement.
Here are two methods that can be called to wait indefinitely or for a specified time period:
synchronized void waitDelay(int milliseconds) {
// Pause for the specified number of milliseconds OR
// until the notify() method is called by some other thread.
try {
wait(milliseconds);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
synchronized void waitDelay() {
// Pause until the notify() method is called
// by some other thread.
try {
wait();
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
The first of these can be used as a kind of interruptable delay. A thread that calls it will pause for the
specified number of milliseconds, unless a call to notify() occurs in the meantime. I use this
waitDelay() method in the run() method of the BlinkingHelloWorld2 applet. Whenever I set
the status variable in that applet to TERMINATE, I call notify(). If the thread is in the middle of a
waitDelay(), this will wake it up. Suppose you click on the "Stop!" button just after the runner thread
calls waitDelay(300). Because of the call to notify(), the runner thread wakes up and terminates
immediately, instead of continuing to sleep for 300 milliseconds before terminating. This avoids a
noticeable delay between the time you click on the button and the time that its name changes back to
"Blink!". However, this is still a pretty trivial use of wait() and notify(). The final example in this
section shows how to use them in a non-trivial way. It also provides an example of using an off-screen
canvas to do smooth animation. Here's the last "Hello World" you'll see in these notes:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The complete source code for this applet can be found in the file ScrollingHelloWorld.java. I'll only look at
a few aspects of it here.
The thread that animates this applet runs continually as long as this page is visible. The thread is created
when the applet is first started, and it is stopped when the applet is destroyed. However, during periods
when the applet is stopped, the thread is not actively running. It is just waiting to be notified when the
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applet is restarted. This behavior is programmed using the applet's wait() and notify() methods.
The runner thread in this applet has three possible statuses: GO to tell it to run the animation;
TERMINATE to tell it to terminate because the applet is about to be destroyed; and SUSPEND to tell it that
the applet has been stopped, and that it should go to sleep and wait for the applet to be restarted. The
applet's start() method sets the status to GO. If the thread does not yet exist, it is created and started.
Otherwise, the existing thread is notified that the value of status has changed. This will wake up a thread
that has been put to sleep by a previous call to stop():
synchronized public void start() {
// Called when the applet is being started or restarted.
// Create a new thread or restart the existing thread.
status = GO;
if (runner == null || ! runner.isAlive()) {
// Thread doesn't yet exist or has died for some reason.
runner = new Thread(this);
runner.start();
}
else { // Another thread exists and is still alive, but
notify(); // is presumably sleeping. Wake it up.
}
}
The stop() and destroy methods merely change the value of status and notify the thread that the value
has changed:
synchronized public void stop() {
// Called when the applet is about to be stopped.
// Suspend the thread.
status = SUSPEND;
notify();
}
synchronized public void destroy() {
// Called when the applet is about to be permanently
// destroyed. Stop the thread.
status = TERMINATE;
notify();
}
The run() method for this example uses the following while loop to run the animation:
while (status != TERMINATE) {
synchronized(this) {
while (status == SUSPEND)
waitDelay();
}
if (status == GO)
nextFrame();
if (status == GO)
waitDelay(250);
}
This loop is repeated until status becomes equal to TERMINATE. The synchronized statement in this
loop,
synchronized(this) {
while (status == SUSPEND)
waitDelay();
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}
causes the thread to pause as long as the status is SUSPEND. It's good practice here to use a while
statement rather than an if statement, since in general notify() could be called for several different
reasons. Just because notify() has been called, it doesn't necessarily mean that the value of status has
changed from SUSPEND to something else.
You might wonder why this is synchronized. If it were not synchronized, the following sequence of events
would be possible: (1) The runner thread finds that the value of status is SUSPEND and decides to call
waitDelay(); (2) some other thread butts in, changes the value of status and calls notify(); (3)
the runner thread resumes and calls waitDelay() after notify() has already been called. Then the
waitDelay() will cause the thread to wait for a notify() that has already occurred and is not going to
occur again. This would be a minor disaster: The animation will not properly restart, or the thread will not
properly terminate. Again, in other circumstances, the disaster could be major.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 7.6
Nested Classes and Adapter Classes
A CLASS SEEMS LIKE IT SHOULD BE a pretty important thing. A class is a high-level building block
of a program, representing a potentially complex idea and its associated data and behaviors. I've always felt
a bit silly writing tiny little classes that exist only to group a few scraps of data together. However, such
trivial classes are often useful and even essential. Fortunately, in Java, I can ease the embarrassment,
because one class can be nested inside another class. My trivial little class doesn't have to stand on its own.
It becomes part of a larger more respectable class. This is particularly useful when you want to create a little
class specifically to support the work of a larger class. And, more seriously, there are other good reasons for
nesting the definition of one class inside another class.
In Java, a nested or inner class is any class whose definition is inside the definition of another class. Inner
classes can be either named or anonymous. I will come back to the topic of anonymous classes later in this
section. A named inner class looks just like any other class, except that it is nested inside another class. (It
can even contain further levels of nested classes, but you shouldn't carry these things too far.)
Like any other item in a class, a named inner class can be either static or non-static. A static nested class is
part of the static structure of the containing class. It can be used inside that class to create objects in the
usual way. If it has not been declared private, then it can also be used outside the containing class, but when
it is used outside the class, its name must indicate its membership in the containing class.
For example, suppose a class named WireFrameModel represents a set of lines in three-dimensional
space. (Such models are used to represent three-dimensional objects in graphics programs.) Suppose that
the WireFrameModel class contains a static nested class, Line, that represents a single line. Then,
outside of the class WireFrameModel, the Line class would be referred to as
WireFrameModel.Line. Of course, this just follows the normal naming convention for static members
of a class. The definition of the WireFrameModel class with its nested Line class would look, in
outline, like this:
public class WireFrameModel {
. . . // other members of the WireFrameModel class
static public class Line {
// Represents a line from the point (x1,y1,z1)
// to the point (x2,y2,z2) in 3-dimensional space.
double x1, y1, z1;
double x2, y2, z2;
} // end class Line
. . . // other members of the WireFrameModel class
} // end WireFrameModel
Inside the WireframeModel class, a Line object would be created with the constructor "new
Line()". Outside the class, "new WireFrameModel.Line()" would be used.
A static nested class has full access to the members of the containing class, even to the private members.
This can be another motivation for declaring a nested class, since it lets you give one class access to the
private members of another class without making those members generally available to other classes.
When you compile the above class definition, two class files will be created. Even though the definition of
Line is nested inside WireFrameModel, the compiled Line class is stored in a separate file. The name
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of the class file for Line will be WireFrameModel$Line.class.
To understand non-static nested classes, you have to stretch your mind a bit. Non-static members of a class
are not really part of the class itself. This is just as true for non-static nested classes as it is for any other
non-static part of a class. The non-static members of a class specify what will be contained in objects that
are created from that class. The same is true -- at least logically -- for non-static nested classes. It's as if
each object that belongs to the containing class has its own copy of the nested class. For example, from
outside the containing class, a non-static nested class has to be referred to as
objectName.NestedClassName, rather than as ContainingClassName.NestedClassName. The non-static
nested class cannot be used in the static methods of the containing class. It can, of course, be used in the
non-static methods of the containing class -- and in that case, what's being used is really the copy of the
nested class associated with the "this" object in that method, as if you had said
"this.NestedClassName".
In order to create an object that belongs to a non-static nested class, you must first have an object that
belongs to the containing class. The nested class object is permanently associated with the containing class
object, and it has complete access to the members of the containing class object. Looking at an example will
help. Here is a simple applet that shows four randomly colored squares. Each square is a Canvas object.
The applet runs a thread that every so often picks one of the squares and changes its color:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The thread in this applet could have been programmed by declaring that the applet class "implements
Runnable" and adding a run() method to the class. Instead of doing it that way, however, I decided to
define a non-static nested class to represent the thread object. The nested class is a subclass of the Thread
class, and it has its own run() method. Because of the nesting, the thread object has access to the instance
variables of the applet object, so communication between the thread and the applet is no problem. Here's the
full definition of the applet class.
public class RandomColorGrid extends Applet {
ColorSwatchCanvas canvas0, canvas1, canvas2, canvas3;
// Canvases to be displayed in applet. (The definition
// of the ColorSwatchCanvas class will be given below.)
Thread runner; // A thread that randomly changes the color
// of a canvas every so often. Note that all
// synchronization in this applet is
// done on the Thread object.
volatile int status; // Status variable for controlling the thread.
final static int GO = 0, // Possible values for status.
SUSPEND = 1,
TERMINATE = 2;
class Runner extends Thread {
// The runner for the RandomColorGrid canvas will be an
// object belonging to this nested class.
public void run() {
// Run method picks a random canvas, changes it's color,
// waits for a random time between 30 and 3029
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// milliseconds, and then repeats this process
// indefinitely.
while (status != TERMINATE) {
synchronized(this) {
// As long as applet is stopped, don't do anything.
while (status == SUSPEND)
try { wait(); }
catch (InterruptedException e) { }
}
switch ( (int)(4*Math.random()) ) {
case 0: canvas0.randomColor(); break;
case 1: canvas1.randomColor(); break;
case 2: canvas2.randomColor(); break;
case 3: canvas3.randomColor(); break;
}
synchronized(this) { // delay for a bit
try { wait( (int)(3000*Math.random() + 30) ); }
catch (InterruptedException e) { }
}
}
} // end run()
} // end nested class Runner
public void init() {
// Initialize the applet. Create 4 ColorSwatchCanvasses
// and arrange them in a horizontal grid.
setBackground(Color.black);
setLayout(new GridLayout(1,0,2,2));
canvas0 = new ColorSwatchCanvas();
canvas1 = new ColorSwatchCanvas();
canvas2 = new ColorSwatchCanvas();
canvas3 = new ColorSwatchCanvas();
add(canvas0);
add(canvas1);
add(canvas2);
add(canvas3);
}
public Insets getInsets() {
// Put a 2-pixel black border around the applet.
return new Insets(2,2,2,2);
}
public void start() {
// Applet is being started or restarted. Create a
// thread or tell the existing thread to restart.
status = GO;
if (runner == null || ! runner.isAlive()) {
runner = new Runner();
runner.start();
}
else {
runner.notify();
}
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}
public void stop() {
// Applet is about to be stopped. Tell thread to suspend.
synchronized(runner) {
status = SUSPEND;
runner.notify();
}
}
public void destroy() {
// Applet is about to be destroyed.
// Tell thread to terminate.
synchronized(runner) {
status = TERMINATE;
runner.notify();
}
}
} // end class RandomColorGridApplet
This is actually a cleaner way of programming threads than willy-nilly declaring all kinds of objects to be
Runnable.
Note, by the way, how I did the synchronization in this example. Synchronization only works if all
concerned threads are synchronized on the same object. In the run() method, synchronization is done on
"this", which refers to the thread object. If I had simply declared start(), stop(), and destroy()
to be synchronized methods, they would be synchronized on the applet object, not the thread object, which
would do me no good at all. So instead, I use a synchronized statement to synchronize on the thread
object, runner.
The use of the special variable, this, in the run() method raises another issue. When used in the
Runner class, this refers to the object of type Runner. What about the RandomColorGridApplet
object that is associated with the thread? Is there any way to refer to the applet object? Yes, but it's a little
clumsy. Inside the nested Runner class, the applet object that is associated with the thread object, this, is
referred to as RandomColorGridApplet.this.
Event-handling is an even more natural application of nested classes. Instead of adding the responsibility of
listening for events onto an object that already has some other well-defined responsibility, you can create an
object belonging to a nested class that has handling certain events as its one-and-only, clearly-defined
responsibility. Since the event-handling object belongs to a nested class, it has access to any data and
methods that it needs from the containing class.
Here is an outline of how you could use a nested class to handle action events from a button:
public class MyApplet extends Applet {
class ButtonHandler implements ActionListener {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
. . . // Handle the action event.
// (This method has full access to all
// the members of the MyApplet class.)
}
} // end nested class ButtonHandler
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public void init() {
ButtonHandler handler = new ButtonHandler();
Button bttn = new Button("Do It!");
bttn.addActionListener(handler);
. . . // other initialization
}
. . . // other members of MyApplet
} // end class MyApplet
Some of the listener interfaces, such as MouseListener and ComponentListener, include a lot of
methods. The rules for interfaces say that when a class implements an interface, it must include a definition
for each method declared in the interface. For example, if you are only be interested in using the
mousePressed() method of the MouseListener interface, you end up including empty definitions
for mouseClicked(), mouseReleased(), mouseEntered(), and mouseExited(). If you use
a specially-created nested class to handle events, there is a way to avoid this. As a convenience, the package
java.awt.event includes several adapter classes, such as MouseAdapter and
ComponentAdapter. The MouseAdapter class is a trivial class that implements the
MouseListener interface by defining each of the methods in that interface to be empty. To make your
own mouse listener classes, you can extend the MouseAdapter class and override just those methods that
you are interested in. ComponentAdapter and other adapter classes work in the same way.
For example, if you want to respond to changes in the size of a component, you could use a component
listener based on ComponentAdapter to listen for componentResized events:
public class MyApplet extends Applet {
class Resizer extends ComponentAdapter {
public void componentResized(ComponentEvent evt) {
. . . // Respond to new component size.
// (This method has full access to all
// the members of MyApplet.)
}
// No need to define the other ComponentListener Methods
} // end nested class Resizer
public void init() {
MyCanvas canvas = new MyCanvas(); // Some component in whose
// size we are interested.
canvas.addComponentListener( new Resizer() );
. . . // more initialization
}
. . . // more members of MyApplet
} end class MyApplet
In some cases, you might find yourself writing a nested class and then using that class in just a single line of
your program. For example, the Resizer class in the above example might well be used only in the line
"canvas.addComponentListener(new Resizer());". Is it worth creating such a class?
Indeed, it can be, but for cases like this you have the option of using an anonymous nested class. An
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anonymous class is created with a variation of the new operator that has the form
new superclass-or-interface () {
methods-and-variables
}
This constructor defines a new class, without giving it a name, and it simultaneously creates an object that
belongs to that class. The intention of this expression is to refer to: "a new object of a class that is the same
as superclass-or-interface but with these methods-and-variables added." An expression of this form can
be used in any statement where a regular "new" could be used. For example:
canvas.addComponentListener(
new ComponentAdapter() {
public void componentResized(ComponentEvent evt) {
. . . // Respond to new component size.
}
} // end of anonymous class definition
); // end of canvas.addComponentListener statement
This defines an anonymous class that is a subclass of ComponentAdapter, containing the given
componentResized() method. It also creates an object belonging to that anonymous class. That object
is assigned to be the listener for component events from the canvas. When the canvas changes size, the
object's componentResized() method is called.
Note that it is possible to base an anonymous class on an interface, rather than a superclass. In this case, the
anonymous class must implement the interface by defining all the methods that are declared in the interface.
For a final example, we'll return to the colored-square applet from earlier on this page. In addition to the
spontaneous color changes in that applet, each of the colored squares will change color if you click on it.
The squares are objects belonging to a class named ColorSwatchCanvas. This class sets up a mouse
listener to listen for clicks on the canvas. It does this with an anonymous class:
class ColorSwatchCanvas extends Canvas {
// A canvas that displays a random color. It changes to
// another random color if the user clicks on it, or if the
// randomColor() method is called.
ColorSwatchCanvas() { // constructor
randomColor(); // Select the canvas's initial random color.
addMouseListener( // Create an object to listen for mouse clicks.
new MouseAdapter() {
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent evt) {
// Change color when mouse is pressed.
randomColor();
}
}
); // end addMouseListener statement
} // end constructor
void randomColor() {
// Change the color of the canvas to a random color.
int r = (int)(256*Math.random());
int g = (int)(256*Math.random());
int b = (int)(256*Math.random());
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setBackground(new Color(r,g,b));
repaint();
}
} // end class ColorSwatchCanvas
Using anonymous nested classes is generally considered to the best programming style for event handling.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.7
Section 7.7
Frames and Dialogs
APPLETS ARE A FINE IDEA. It's nice to be able to put a complete program in a rectangle on a Web
page. But more serious, large-scale programs have to run in their own windows, independently of a Web
browser. In Java, a program can open an independent window by creating an object of type Frame. A
Frame has a title, displayed in the title bar at the top of the window. It can have a menu bar containing one
or more pull-down menus. A Frame is a Container, which means that it can hold other GUI
components. The default layout manager for a Frame is a BorderLayout. A common way to design a
frame is to add a single GUI component, such as a Panel or Canvas, in the layout's Center position so
that it will fill the entire frame.
It is possible for an applet to create a frame. The frame will be a separate window from the Web browser
window in which the applet is running. Any frame created by an applet includes a warning message such as
"Warning: Insecure Applet Window." The warning is there so that you can always recognize windows
created by applets. This is just one of the security restrictions on applets, which, after all, are programs that
can be downloaded automatically from Web sites that you happen to stumble across without knowing
anything about them.
Here is an applet that displays just one small button on the page. When you click the "Launch ShapeDraw"
button, a window will be opened. This is another version of the ShapeDraw program that you've seen
several times already. This version has a pull-down menu named "Add Shape", which contains commands
that you can use to add shapes to the window. (Note for Macintosh users: The menus for the frame might
just be added to the list of menus at the top of the screen. Look there for the "Add Shape" menu if you don't
see it at the top of the window.) Once a shape is in the window, you can drag it around. The color that will
be used for newly created shapes is controlled by another pull-down menu named "Color". There is also a
pop-up menu that appears when you click on a shape in the appropriate, platform-dependent way.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The window in this example belongs to a class named ShapeDrawFrame, which is defined as a subclass
of Frame. The applet creates the window with the statement
shapeDraw = new ShapeDrawFrame();
The constructor sets up the structure of the window and makes the window appear on the screen. Once the
window has been created, it runs independently of the applet and of any other windows. Of course, there
can be some communication through shared variables, method calls, and events. In the sample applet above,
for example, the name of the button changes from "Launch ShapeDraw" to "Close ShapeDraw" while the
window is open. If the user clicks on the "Close ShapeDraw" button, the applet responds by closing the
window. This is done by calling an appropriate method in the window object. On the other hand, if the user
closes the window by clicking on its close box, an event is generated belonging to the class
WindowEvent. The applet listens for such events so that it can change the name of the button back to
"Launch ShapeDraw" when the window is closed. (You might be interested to see how all this is handled in
the source code for the applet. You can find it in the file ShapeDrawLauncher.java.)
Fortunately, you don't have to learn a lot of new material to use frames. There are a few specialized
methods in the Frame class that you should know about. You'll want to know how to use pull-down menus
and menu bars. And there are a few important events that are generated by windows. Aside from that,
programming with frames is the same as programming with applets. Many of the new features show up in
the constructor for the ShapeDrawFrame class, so let's take a look at that:
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public ShapeDrawFrame() {
// Constructor. Create and open the window. The window
// has a menu bar containing two menus, "Add Shape" and
// "Color". The content of the window is a canvas belonging
// to the class ShapeCanvas.
setBackground(Color.white);
/* Set window title by calling the superclass constructor. */
super("Shape Draw");
/* Create a canvas that fills the frame. */
canvas = new ShapeCanvas();
add(canvas, BorderLayout.CENTER);
/* Create pull-down menus and a menu bar. The frame listens
for ActionEvents from the menus. These are generated when
the user selects commands from the menus. */
Menu colorMenu = new Menu("Color", true); // Color choice menu.
colorMenu.add("Red");
colorMenu.add("Green");
colorMenu.add("Blue");
colorMenu.add("Cyan");
colorMenu.add("Magenta");
colorMenu.add("Yellow");
colorMenu.add("Black");
colorMenu.add("White");
colorMenu.addActionListener(this);
Menu shapeMenu = new Menu("Add Shape", true); // Shape menu.
shapeMenu.add("Rectangle");
shapeMenu.add("Oval");
shapeMenu.add("Round Rect");
shapeMenu.addActionListener(this);
MenuBar mbar = new MenuBar(); // Create menu bar and add the menus.
mbar.add(shapeMenu);
mbar.add(colorMenu);
setMenuBar(mbar); // Add the menu bar to the frame.
/* Do the remaining setup and show the window. */
setBounds(30,50,380,280); // Set size and position of window.
setResizable(false); // Make the window non-resizable.
addWindowListener(
new WindowAdapter() {
// A listener that will close the window
// when the user clicks its close box.
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public void windowClosing(WindowEvent evt) {
ShapeDrawFrame.this.dispose();
}
}
); // end addWindowListener statement
show(); // Make the window visible.
} // end constructor
This constructor begins by calling a constructor from the superclass, Frame. The Frame constructor
specifies a title for the window, which is displayed in the window's title bar. A Frame object contains an
instance method, setTitle(String), that can be used to set the title of the frame at any time. There is
also a getTitle() method that returns the current title.
The frame's "Color" menu is created with the command "Menu colorMenu = new Menu("Color",
true);". The second parameter of the Menu constructor specifies that this should be a tear-off menu,
which can be dragged by the user away from the menu bar, where it becomes a little independent window.
(This might not work on all platforms.) This second parameter is optional. The add() method is used to
add commands to the menu. The version of the add() command that is used here takes a String, which
will appear as one of the commands in the menu. You can be more sophisticated than this if you want.
There is another version of the add command that adds one menu as a submenu or hierarchical menu in
another menu. You can add a separator line to a menu with the addSeparator() method. You can also
create an object belonging to the class MenuItem and add it to a menu. A MenuItem represents a
command, and the text of that command appears in the menu. But you can also associate a keyboard
shortcut key with the menu item (like Control-V for pasting in Windows or Command-V for pasting on a
Macintosh). Furthermore, a MenuItem can be enabled and disabled. And there are even
CheckboxMenuItems representing menu items that can be checked and unchecked by the user
(generally to represent options that can be turned on and off). You can look up all the details in a Java
reference if you are interested.
For a menu to be useful, you must register an ActionListener with it. Whenever the user selects an
item from the menu, an ActionEvent is generated and the actionPerformed() method of the
action listener is called. The action command that is associated with the ActionEvent is the text of the
menu item. (It is also possible to listen for action events from individual MenuItem objects, but it is more
common simply to use one listener for the menu as a whole.) In the above constructor, the frame itself is
registered as the listener for the menus. There is an actionPerformed() method elsewhere in the
ShapeDrawFrame class that handles menu commands.
A pull-down menu can only appear in the menu bar of a frame. A menu bar is an object of type MenuBar.
Menus are added to the menu bar using the add() method of the MenuBar object. The menu bar itself
must be associated with the frame by calling the frame's setMenuBar() command. Note that a frame can
have only one menu bar, but that you can change to a different menu bar at any time by calling
setMenuBar().
In this example, I call setBounds(30,50,380,280) to set the position and size of the frame. The
upper left corner of the frame will be at the point (30,50) on the computer screen, where (0,0) is the upper
left corner of the screen. The width of the frame will be 380 and the height will be 280. By calling
setResizable(false), I make it impossible for the user to change the size of the frame. By default,
the frame would be resizable. In most cases, it's better to allow the user to change the size of the frame, but
that means you have to write a program that can deal with components that change size.
(Using the setBounds() command is also not particularly good style. Better style would be to use the
pack() command, which tells the frame to set itself to its so-called preferred size. A frame computes its
preferred size by taking into consideration the preferred sizes and the layout of all the components that it
contains. However, I failed to define a getPreferredSize() method in the ShapeCanvas class, so
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the canvas component in the frame doesn't know how big it wants to be. In this case, setBounds()
works well enough. But if you ever start writing "serious" GUI components that will see a lot of reuse by
yourself or other programmers, you have to start worrying about the fine points of style, like
getPreferredSize(). The MessageDialog example that is discussed at the end of this page uses
both pack() and getPreferredSize(). Look at the source code if you'd like to see how they work.)
The next statement in the constructor sets up a listener to listen for WindowEvents from the frame:
addWindowListener(
new WindowAdapter() {
// A listener that will close the window
// when the user clicks its close box
public void windowClosing(WindowEvent evt) {
ShapeDrawFrame.this.dispose();
}
}
); // end addWindowListener statement
This requires some explanation. To understand it all, you need to have absorbed the material about
anonymous nested classes and adapter classes from the previous section. Frames generate events belonging
to the class WindowEvent. There are seven types of WindowEvent, and the associated
WindowListener interface declares seven methods. Here, I only want to define a response to one type
of window event, so I base my listener object on the WindowAdapter class. The listener object belongs
to an anonymous subclass of WindowAdapter. The windowClosing() method is called when the
user clicks on the close box of the frame. The system does not automatically close the window when the
user does this! It just generates a windowClosing event. The event handler for that event is responsible
for closing the window. (It can even decide not to close it. For example, the event handler method might ask
the user, "Do you really want to close this window?" and give the user a chance to change his mind.) A
frame is closed by calling its dispose() method. The statement
ShapeDrawFrame.this.dispose() in the event handler refers to the dispose() method in the
ShapeDrawFrame class.
The final line in the constructor for ShapeDrawFrame is "show();". This is extremely important. When
a window is first created, it is hidden. The show() command makes the window appear on the screen.
By the way, the ShapeDrawFrame class also includes the following main() routine:
public static void main(String[] args) {
new ShapeDrawFrame();
}
This means that ShapeDrawFrame can be executed as an independent program. When it is executed, the
main() routine simply opens a window of type ShapeDrawFrame. After opening the window, the
main() routine ends, but the window stays open until the user closes it. (If the frame is being run as an
independent program, it would be a good idea to call System.exit(0) when the user closes the
window. This statement will end the program completely, not just dispose of the window. This can be done
in the windowClosing method.)
A problem sometimes arises when using Insets with frames. To leave a border between the edges of the
frame and the components that it contains, you have to define a getInsets() method in the frame class.
However, on some platforms, a frame already uses insets to leave space for the menu bar. Your
getInsets() has to allow for this space. The way to do this is to call super.getInsets() to find
out how much space the frame is already allowing for insets. Then add on the extra space that you want to
allow for the border. The following getInsets() method adds an extra 2 pixels to the insets along each
edge of the frame:
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public Insets getInsets() {
Insets currentInsets = super.getInsets();
Insets myInsets = new Insets();
myInsets.top = currentInsets.top + 2;
myInsets.bottom = currentInsets.bottom + 2;
myInsets.left = currentInsets.left + 2;
myInsets.right = currentInsets.right + 2;
return myInsets;
}
(When you call super.getInsets(), you are not supposed to modify the object that it returns. You
should construct a new object and return that one, as is done in this example.)
Dialogs
Like a frame, a dialog box is a separate window. Unlike a frame, however, a dialog box is not completely
independent. Every dialog box is associated with a frame, which is called its parent. The dialog box is
dependent on its parent. For example, if the parent is closed, the dialog box will also be closed.
Dialog boxes can be either modal or modeless. When a modal dialog is created, its parent frame is blocked.
That is, the user will not be able to interact with the parent or even bring the parent to the front of the screen
until the dialog box is closed. Modeless dialog boxes do not block their parents in the same way, so they
seem a lot more like independent windows.
In Java, a dialog box is an object belonging to the class Dialog or to one of its subclasses. A Dialog
cannot have a menu bar, but it can contain other GUI components, and it generates the same
WindowEvents as a Frame. Dialog objects can be either modal or modeless. A parameter to the
constructor specifies which it should be.
Click on this button to run a little demonstration of modal dialogs:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The dialogs in this example belong to a class named MessageDialog, which is defined in the file
MessageDialog.java. You might find this class useful for creating simple dialogs for your own programs.
The source code for the applet and frame classes used in this example is in the file
DialogDemoLauncher.java
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 7.8
Section 7.8
Looking Forward: Swing and Java 2
JAVA PLATFORM 2.0 HAS BEEN OUT for over a year. Java Platform 2.0 is the name that Sun
Microsystems uses, somewhat confusingly, for version 1.2 of the Java language plus some optional features
that make it suitable for large-scale business applications. In the transition from Java 1.0 to Java 1.1, many
features were "deprecated," meaning that it is no longer advisable to use them. The same was not true in the
transition from Java 1.1 to 1.2. With only a very few minor exceptions, everything in Java 1.1 carries over
unchanged to Java 1.2. This textbook covers Java 1.1, but everything in it is valid for Java 1.2 and Java
Platform 2.
Even in Java 1.1, there are many features that I will not cover. These features take the form of standard
classes that provide various capabilities. For example, Java 1.1 includes a set of classes that are used for
RMI (Remote Method Invocation). RMI allows a program running on one computer on a network to use
objects that exist on other computers on the network. The methods of that object are "invoked", that is
called, remotely.
One especially important advanced feature of Java 1.1 is the Java Bean technology. A Java Bean is simply
an object that follows certain programming guidelines. All the GUI components in java.awt are Beans,
for example. An object that follows the guidelines can be used in a Bean Builder application, which is a
visual development tool that lets application developers assemble programs from pre-existing parts. The
parts are Java Beans. Java Beans have properties. A property is just a value associated with the bean. A
property has a name. If PropName is a property, then the bean contains one or both of the methods
getPropName() and setPropName() for reading and changing the value of the property. To define a
property named PropName, the bean doesn't have to do anything more than define these methods. This is
one of the programming guidelines for beans. A Bean Builder application can recognize a property by
looking for these methods, and it will make it possible for an application developer to manipulate these
properties.
To make it easier to work with properties, Java 1.1 defines a PropertyChangeEvent class and an
associated PropertyChangeListener. A bean can generate a PropertyChangeEvent when one
of its properties changes. It can define an addPropertyChangeListener() method so that other
objects can be registered to receive notification when the value of a property changes. A Bean Builder can
check for this method to determine whether a bean supports property change events.
Perhaps the most visible change from Java 1.1 to Java 1.2 is the introduction of a new set of GUI
components called "Swing." Swing components can be used as an alternative to the components defined in
the AWT. Swing uses the idea of properties and PropertyChangeEvents extensively. It also adds a
similar event type, ChangeEvent, which carries less information than a PropertyChangeEvent and
can therefore be handled more efficiently.
In addition to Swing, Java 1.2 introduces a few other new features. For example, it includes classes to
support Drag and Drop (the ability to drag information from one component and drop it on another, even
between Java and non-Java programs) and Accessibility (classes that support access to Java programs,
including Swing components, by tools that such as audible text readers, which can help to make a program
accessible to the blind).
Java 1.2 also includes a greatly enhanced two-dimensional graphics capability. (A three-dimensional
graphics package is available as an optional add-on.) This takes the form of a new class, Graphics2D,
which is a subclass of the Graphics class that is used in the AWT. In addition to the graphics routines
from the Graphics class, a Graphics2D object includes support for additional shapes, curves, lines that
are more than one pixel thick, and dotted and dashed lines. In addition, it has support for geometric
transformations, which means that it is possible to apply rotation, scaling, and translation operations to
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whatever is drawn in the graphics context.
Swing
Swing consists of a collection of classes defined in the package javax.swing. Swing builds on the basic
functionality of the AWT, including the Component and Container classes and all the layout manager,
event, and listener classes, but it replaces the actual GUI components from the AWT with a new set of GUI
components. For each type of GUI component in the AWT, there is a corresponding class in Swing. The
java.awt.Button class is replaced by javax.swing.JButton. The java.awt.Frame class is
replaced by javax.swing.JFrame. The java.applet.Applet class is replaced by
javax.swing.JApplet. And so on. There are a few differences between the AWT components and the
corresponding Swing components, so it is not quite possible to take an existing AWT program and convert
it into a Swing program by adding a "J" to all the class names. But the other changes that are needed are
minor. One significant change is that it is not possible to add components directly to a JApplet or
JFrame. The components have to be added to something called the "content pane" with a command such
as "getContentPane().add(comp);". Another difference is that there is no JCanvas class. A
Swing program would most likely use a JPanel as a replacement for an AWT canvas.
However, Swing extends these AWT-like components with a large number of new component classes. For
example, there is a JTable class for making two-dimensional tables like those used in a spreadsheet.
There is a JTabbedPane that is something like a CardLayout except that there are "tabs" on the tops of
the cards that the user can click to move from one card to another. A JToolBar consists of a row or
column of icons that the user can click to perform various commands. A JSplitPane is divided into two
sections, with a divider between them. The user can move the divider to change the sizes of the two
sections. There is a text editor pane -- something like a TextArea -- that supports a mixture of different
sizes and styles of text. You've probably seen all these things in modern GUI programs, but they are not
available in the AWT.
Furthermore, the components in Swing have more capabilities individually than those in the AWT. For
example, the JPanel class can support double buffering automatically. Buttons and labels can display
images instead of or in addition to text. A component can have an associated "tool tip" that pops up in a
little window when the user points the mouse at the component.
So, you might be asking, why not just use Swing instead of the AWT exclusively? It might be that in the
future, everyone will do so. However, there are still some reasons to use the AWT. For one thing, the
enhanced capabilities of Swing come at a cost of increased complexity. Programming for any GUI is hard.
Programming for a modern, full-featured GUI like that implemented by Swing is proportionately harder.
Furthermore, Java 1.2 is still not as widely available in Web browsers as Java 1.1, and it is such a large
system that it is not clear how quickly it will be deployed. Java 1.1 seems to me to be quite suitable for the
kind of small application that is likely to appear on a Web page. It is also my guess that it will take some
time for a system as large and complex as Swing to become completely stable.
Another question that arises is, why was Swing implemented as a separate package? Why not just add more
components to the AWT? The reason here is that there are a lot of architectural (under-the-hood)
innovations in Swing. A Swing component is really a different sort of thing from an AWT component, even
though they have similar looks and behaviors. It is not possible to mix Swing and AWT components in the
same program (unless you really, really know why you are doing). Every AWT component has a so-called
"native peer", which is the GUI component that you actually see on the screen. This peer is created and
controlled by the native operating system (Windows, Mac OS, Unix). In an AWT program, there are many
such native components. In a Swing, there is only one, corresponding to the entire window or applet. The
other Swing components are written entirely in Java. They are drawn using Java graphics. Their events are
processed entirely by methods written in Java. This means that Swing components should work more
consistently on different platforms.
Furthermore, a Swing component has a double structure. It consists of a model and a user interface
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Java Programing: Section 7.8
delegate, or UI delegate. The model is an object that holds the component's data, such as the text in a
JTextArea or the numbers in a JTable. The UI delegate is an object that is in charge of drawing the
component and handling events associated with that component. It is possible to provide different views of
the same data by using the same model for several components. The model can communicate with a UI
delegate with ChangeEvents. When the data in the model changes, a ChangeEvent informs the UI
delegate, and it redraws the component to reflect the change. This structure makes it possible for Swing to
implement "pluggable look-and-feel". It's possible to change the whole visual style of a program by
installing a new set of UI delegates, without changing the underlying data in the models. This makes it
possible for a program to look and feel like a Windows program on a Windows computer, while the same
program looks and feels like a Macintosh program on a Mac. It is even possible to change the look-and-feel
of a program while it is running.
Obviously, this has been only the briefest of introductions to Swing. Actually using it requires ascending a
steep learning curve. However, I think you'd find that what you've learned about the AWT is a good
foundation for learning about Swing.
End of Chapter 7
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 7 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 7
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 7 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 7.1: Exercise 5.2 involved a class, StatCalc.java, that could compute some statistics of a set of
numbers. Write an applet that uses the StatCalc class to compute and display statistics of numbers
entered by the user. The applet will have an instance variable of type StatCalc that does the
computations. The applet should include a TextField where the user enters a number. It should have
four labels that display four statistics for the numbers that have been entered: the number of numbers, the
sum, the mean, and the standard deviation. Every time the user enters a new number, the statistics displayed
on the labels should change. The user enters a number by typing it into the TextField and pressing
return. There should be a "Clear" button that clears out all the data. This means creating a new StatCalc
object and resetting the displays on the labels. My applet also has an "Enter" button that does the same thing
as pressing the return key in the TextField. (Recall that a TextField generates an ActionEvent
when the user presses return, so your applet should register itself to listen for ActionEvents from the
TextField.) Here is my solution to this problem:
See the solution!
Exercise 7.2: Write an applet with a TextArea where the use can enter some text. The applet should have
a button. When the user clicks on the button, the applet should count the number of lines in the user's input,
the number of words in the user's input, and the number of characters in the user's input. This information
should be displayed on three labels in the applet. Recall that if textInput is a TextArea, then you can
get the contents of the TextArea by calling the function textInput.getText(). This function
returns a String containing all the text from the TextArea. The number of characters is just the length
of this String. Lines in the String are separated by the new line character, '\n', so the number of lines is
just the number of new line characters in the String, plus one. Words are a little harder to count. Exercise
3.4 has some advice about finding the words in a String. Essentially, you want to count the number of
characters that are first characters in words. Here is my applet:
See the solution!
Exercise 7.3: The RGBColorChooser applet lets the user set the red, green, and blue levels in a color by
manipulating scroll bars. Something like this could make a useful custom component. Such a component
could be included in a program to allow the user to specify a drawing color, for example. Rewrite the
RGBColorChooser as a component. Make it a subclass of Panel instead of Applet. Instead of doing
the initialization in an init() method, you'll have to do it in a constructor. The component should have a
method, getColor(), that returns the color currently displayed on the component. It should also have a
method, setColor(Color c), to set the color to a specified value. Both these methods would be useful
to a program that uses your component.
In order to write the setColor(Color c) method, you need to know that if c is a variable of type
Color, then c.getRed() is a function that returns an integer in the range 0 to 255 that gives the red
level of the color. Similarly, the functions c.getGreen() and c.getBlue() return the blue and green
components.
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Java Programing: Chapter 7 Exercises
Test your component by using it in a simple applet that sets the component to a random color when the user
clicks on a button, like this one:
See the solution!
Exercise 7.4: In the Blackjack game BlackjackGUI.java from Exercise 6.8, the user can click on the "Hit",
"Stand", and "NewGame" buttons even when it doesn't make sense to do so. It would be better if the
buttons were disabled at the appropriate times. The "New Game" button should be disabled when there is a
game in progress. The "Hit" and "Stand" buttons should be disabled when there is not a game in progress.
The instance variable gameInProgress tells whether or not a game is in progress, so you just have to
make sure that the buttons are properly enabled and disabled whenever this variable changes value. Make
this change in the Blackjack program. This applet uses a canvas class, BlackjackCanvas, to represent
the board. You'll have to do most of your work in that class. In order to manipulate the buttons, you'll need
instance variables to refer to the buttons. One problem you have to deal with is that the buttons are used in
both the applet class and the canvas class.
I strongly advise using a subroutine to set the value of the gameInProgress variable. Then the
subroutine can take responsibility for enabling and disabling the buttons. Recall that if bttn is a variable
of type Button, then bttn.setEnabled(false) disables the button and
bttn.setEnabled(true) enables the button.
See the solution! [A working applet can be found here.]
Exercise 7.5: Building on your solution to the preceding exercise, make it possible for the user to place bets
on the Blackjack game. When the applet starts, give the user $100. Add a TextField to the strip of
controls along the bottom of the applet. The user can enter the bet in this TextField. When the game
begins, check the amount of the bet. You should do this when the game begins, not when it ends, because
several errors can occur: The contents of the TextField might not be a legal number. The bet that the
user places might be more money than the user has, or it might be <= 0. You should detect these errors and
show an error message instead of starting the game. The user's bet should be an integral number of dollars.
You can convert the user's input into an integer, and check for illegal, non-numeric input, with a
try...catch statement of the form
try {
betAmount = Integer.parseInt( betInput.getText() );
}
catch (NumberFormatException e) {
. . . // The input is not a number.
// Respond by showing an error message and
// exiting from the doNewGame() method.
}
It would be a good idea to make the TextField uneditable while the game is in progress. If betInput
is the TextField, you can make it editable and uneditable by the user with the commands
betAmount.setEditable(true) and betAmount.setEditable(false).
In the paint() method, you should include commands to display the amount of money that the user has
left.
There is one other thing to think about: The applet should not start a new game when it is first created. The
user should have a chance to set a bet amount before the game starts. In the constructor for the canvas class,
you should not call doNewGame(). You might want to start the game with the message "Welcome to
Blackjack".
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Java Programing: Chapter 7 Exercises
See the solution! [A working applet can be found here.]
Exercise 7.6: The StopWatch component from Section 7.4 displays the text "Timing..." when the stop
watch is running. It would be nice if it displayed the elapsed time since the stop watch was started. For that,
you need to create a Thread. Add a Thread to the original source code, StopWatch.java, to display the
elapsed time in seconds. Create the thread in the mousePressed() routine when the timer is started.
Stop the thread in the mousePressed() routine when the timer is stopped. The elapsed time won't be
very accurate anyway, so just show the integral number of seconds. You only need to set the text a few
times per second. In my run() method, I insert a delay of 100 milliseconds after I set the text. Here is an
applet that tests my solution to this exercise:
See the solution!
Exercise 7.7: The applet at the end of Section 7.8 shows animations of moving symmetric patterns that
look something like the image in a kaleidascope. Symmetric patterns are pretty. Make the SimplePaint3
applet do symmetric, kaleidascopic patterns. As the user draws a figure, the applet should be able to draw
reflected versions of that figure to make symmetric pictures.
The applet will have several options for the type of symmetry that is displayed. The user should be able to
choose one of four options from a Choice menu. Using the "No symmetry" option, only the figure that the
user draws is shown. Using "2-way symmetry", the user's figure and its horizontal reflection are shown.
Using "4-way symmetry", the two vertical reflections are added. Finally, using "8-way symmetry", the four
diagonal reflections are also added. Formulas for computing the reflections are given below.
The source code SimplePaint3.java already has a putFigure() subroutine that draws all the figures. You
can add a putMultiFigure() routine to draw a figure and some or all of its reflections.
putMultiFigure can call the existing putFigure to draw each figure. It decides which reflections to
draw based on the setting of the symmetry Choice menu. Where the mousePressed, mouseDragged,
and mouseReleased methods call putFigure, they should call putMultiFigure instead.
If (x,y) is a point in a component that is width pixels wide and height pixels high, then the
reflections of this point are obtained as follows:
The horizontal reflection is (width - x, y)
The two vertical reflections are (x, height - y) and (width - x, height -
y)
To get the four diagonal reflections, first compute the diagonal reflection of (x,y) as
a = (int)( ((double)y / height) * width );
b = (int)( ((double)x / width) * height );
Then use the horizontal and vertical reflections of the point (a,b):
(a, b)
(width - a, b)
(a, height - b)
(width - a, height - b)
(The diagonal reflections are harder than they would be if the canvas were square. Then the
height would equal the width, and the reflection of (x,y) would just be (y,x).)
To reflect a figure determined by two points, (x1,y1) and (x2,y2), compute the reflections of both
points to get the reflected figure.
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Java Programing: Chapter 7 Exercises
This is really not so hard. The changes you have to make to the source code are not as long as the
explanation I have given here.
Here is my applet. Don't forget to try it with the symmetry Choice menu set to "8-way Symmetry"!
See the solution!
Exercise 7.8: Turn your applet from the previous exercise into a stand-alone application that runs in a
Frame. This is not an easy exercise, since the material on frames in Section 7.7 is sort of sketchy. The
information is there if you read carefully. (But I won't think too badly of you if you just look at the
solution.)
As another improvement, you can add an "Undo" button. When the user clicks on the "Undo" button, the
previous drawing operation will be undone. This just means returning to the image as it was before the
drawing operation took place. This is easy to implement, as long as we allow just one operation to be
undone. When the off-screen canvas, OSC, is created, make a second off-screen canvas, undoBuffer, of
the same size. Before starting any drawing operation, copy the image from OSC to undoBuffer. You can
do this with the commands
Graphics undoGr = undoBuffer.getGraphics();
undoGr.drawImage(OSC, 0, 0, null);
When the user clicks "Undo", just swap the values of OSC and undoBuffer and repaint. The previous
image will appear on the screen. Clicking on "Undo" again will "undo the undo".
Here is a button that opens the paint program in its own window. (You don't have to write an applet like this
one. Just open the frame in the program's main() routine.)
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 7 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 7
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 7 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: What is the FontMetrics class used for?
Question 2: An off-screen canvas can be used to do double buffering. Explain this. (What are off-screen
canvases? How are they used? Why are they important? What does this have to do with animation?)
Question 3: One of the main classes in the AWT is the Component class. What is meant by a component?
What are some examples?
Question 4: What is the function of a LayoutManager in Java?
Question 5: What does it mean to use a null layout manager, and why would you want to do so?
Question 6: What is a Checkbox and how is it used?
Question 7: What is a thread?
Question 8: If you want to program an applet to show an animation, you have to create a thread. Why?
Question 9: What is meant by a non-static nested class? What are the advantages of using one?
Question 10: What is the purpose of the Frame class?
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 8 Index
Chapter 8
Arrays
COMPUTERS GET A LOT OF THEIR POWER from working with data structures. A data structure is an
organized collection of related data. An object is a type of data structure (although it is in fact more than
this, since it also includes operations or methods for working with that data). However, this type of data
structure -- consisting of a fairly small number of named instance variables -- is only one of the many
different types of data structure that a programmer might need. In many cases, the programmer has to build
more complicated data structures by linking objects together. But there is one type of data structure that is
so important and so basic that it is built into every programming language: the array.
An array is a data structure consisting of a numbered list of items, where all the items are of the same type.
In Java, the items in an array are always numbered from zero up to some maximum value, which is set
when the array is created. For example, an array might contain 100 integers, numbered from zero to 99. The
items in an array can belong to one of Java's primitive types. They can also be references to objects, so that
you could, for example, make an array containing all the Buttons in an applet.
This chapter discusses how arrays are created and used in Java. It also covers the standard class
java.util.Vector. An object of type Vector is very similar to an array object.
Contents of Chapter 8:
● Section 1: Creating and Using Arrays
● Section 2: Programming with Arrays
● Section 3: Vectors and Dynamic Arrays
● Section 4: Searching and Sorting
● Section 5: Multi-Dimensional Arrays
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 8.1
Section 8.1
Creating and Using Arrays
WHEN A NUMBER OF DATA ITEMS are chunked together into a unit, the result is a data structure.
Data structures can have very complex structure, but in many applications, the appropriate data structure
consists simply of a sequence of data items. Data structures of this simple variety can be either arrays or
records.
The term "record" is not used in Java. A record is essentially the same as a Java object that has instance
variables only, but no instance methods. Some other languages, which do not support objects in general,
nevertheless do support records. The C programming language, for example, is not object-oriented, but it
has records, which in C go by the name "struct." The data items in a record -- in Java, an object's instance
variables -- are called the fields of the record. Each item is referred to using a field name. In Java, field
names are just the names of the instance variables. The distinguishing characteristics of a record are that the
data items in the record are referred to by name and that different fields in a record are allowed to be of
different types. For example, if the class Person is defined as:
class Person {
String name;
int id_number;
Date birthday;
int age;
}
then an object of class Person could be considered to be a record with four fields. The field names are
name, id_number, birthday, and age. Note that the fields are of various types: String, int, and
Date.
Because records are just a special type of object, I will not discuss them further.
Like a record, an array is a sequence of items. However, where items in a record are referred to by name,
the items in an array are numbered, and individual items are referred to by their position number.
Furthermore, all the items in an array must be of the same type. The definition of an array is: a numbered
sequence of items, which are all of the same type. The number of items in an array is called the length of
the array. The position number of an item in an array is called the index of that item. The type of the
individual items in an array is called the base type of the array.
The base type of an array can be any Java type, that is, one of the primitive types, or a class name, or an
interface name. If the base type of an array is int, it is referred to as an "array of ints." An array with
base type String is referred to as an "array of Strings." However, an array is not, properly speaking, a
list of integers or strings or other values. It is better thought of as a list of variables of type int, or of type
String, or of some other type. As always, there is some potential for confusion between the two uses of a
variable: as a name for a memory location and as a name for the value stored in that memory location. Each
position in an array acts as a variable. Each position can hold a value of a specified type (the base type of
the array). The value can be changed at any time. Values are stored in an array. The array is the container,
not the values.
The items in an array -- really, the individual variables that make up the array -- are more often referred to
as the elements of the array. In Java, the elements in an array are always numbered starting from zero. That
is, the index of the first element in the array is zero. If the length of the array is N, then the index of the last
element in the array is N-1. Once an array has been created, its length cannot be changed.
Java arrays are objects. This has several consequences. Arrays are created using a form of the new
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Java Programing: Section 8.1
operator. No variable can ever hold an array; a variable can only refer to an array. Any variable that can
refer to an array can also hold the value null, meaning that it doesn't at the moment refer to anything. Like
any object, an array belongs to a class, which like all classes is a subclass of the class Object. The
elements of the array are, essentially, instance variables in the array object, except that they are referred to
by number rather than by name.
Nevertheless, even though arrays are objects, there are differences between arrays and other kinds of
objects, and there are a number of special language features in Java for creating and using arrays.
Suppose that A is a variable that refers to an array. Then the item at index k in A is referred to as A[k]. The
first item is A[0], the second is A[1], and so forth. "A[k]" is really a variable, and it can be used just like
any other variable. You can assign values to it, you can use it in expressions, and you can pass it as a
parameter to subroutines. All of this will be discussed in more detail below. For now, just keep in mind the
syntax
array-variable [ integer-expression ]
for referring to an element of an array.
Although every array, as an object, is a member of some class, array classes never have to be defined. Once
a type exists, the corresponding array class exists automatically. If the name of the type is BaseType, then
the name of the associated array class is BaseType[]. That is to say, an object belonging to the class
BaseType[] is an array of items, where each item is a variable of type BaseType. The brackets, "[]",
are meant to recall the syntax for referring to the individual items in the array. "BaseType[]" is read as
"array of BaseType" or "BaseType array." It might be worth mentioning here that if ClassA is a subclass
of ClassB, then ClassA[] is automatically a subclass of ClassB[].
The base type of an array can be any legal Java type. From the primitive type int, the array type int[] is
derived. Each element in an array of type int[] is a variable of type int, which holds a value of type
int. From a class named Shape, the array type Shape[] is derived. Each item in an array of type
Shape[] is a variable of type Shape, which holds a value of type Shape. This value can be either null
or a reference to an object belonging to the class Shape. (This includes objects belonging to subclasses of
Shape.)
Let's try to get a little more concrete about all this, using arrays of integers as our first example. Since
int[] is a class, it can be used to declare variables. For example,
int[] list;
creates a variable named list of type int[]. This variable is capable of referring to an array of ints,
but initially its value is null (if it is a member variable in a class) or undefined (if it is a local variable in a
method). The new operator is used to create a new array object, which can then be assigned to list. The
syntax for using new with arrays is different from the syntax you learned previously. As an example,
list = new int[5];
creates an array of five integers. More generally, the constructor "new BaseType[N]" is used to create
an array belonging to the class BaseType[]. The value N in brackets specifies the length of the array, that
is, the number of elements that it contains. Note that the array "knows" how long it is. The length of the
array is an instance variable in the array object. In fact, the length of an array, list, can be referred to as
list.length. (However, you are not allowed to change the value of list.length, so it's really a
"final" instance variable, that is, one whose value cannot be changed after it has been initialized.)
The situation produced by the statement "list = new int[5];" can be pictured like this:
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Java Programing: Section 8.1
Note that the newly created array of integers is automatically filled with zeros. In Java, a newly created
array is always filled with a known, default value: zero for numbers, false for boolean, the character
with Unicode number zero for char, and null for objects.
The elements in the array, list, are referred to a list[0], list[1], list[2], list[3], and
list[4]. (Note again that the index for the last item is one less than list.length.) However, array
references can be much more general than this. The brackets in an array reference can contain any
expression whose value is an integer. For example if indx is a variable of type int, then list[indx]
and list[2*indx+7] are syntactically correct references to elements of the array list. Thus, the
following loop would print all the integers in the array, list, to standard output:
for (int i = 0; i < list.length; i++) {
System.out.println( list[i] );
}
The first time through the loop, i is 0, and list[i] refers to list[0]. So, it is the value stored in the
variable list[0] that is printed. The second time through the loop, i is 1, and the value stored in
list[1] is printed. The loop ends after printing the value of list[4], when i becomes equal to 5 and
the continuation condition "i<list.length" is no longer true. This is a typical example of using a loop
to process an array. I'll discuss more examples of array processing throughout this chapter.
Every use of a variable in a program specifies a memory location. Think for a moment about what the
computer does when it encounters a reference to an array element, list[k], while it is executing a
program. The computer must determine which memory location is being referred to. To the computer,
list[k] means something like this: "Get the pointer that is stored in the variable, list. Follow this
pointer to find an array object. Get the value of k. Go to the k-th position in the array, and that's the
memory location you want." There are two things that can go wrong here. Suppose that the value of list
is null. If that is the case, then list doesn't even refer to an array. The attempt to refer to an element of an
array that doesn't exist is an error. This is an example of a "null pointer" error. The second possible error
occurs if list does refer to an array, but the value of k is outside the legal range of indices for that array.
This will happen if k < 0 or if k >= list.length. This is called an "array index out of bounds"
error. When you use arrays in a program, you should be mindful that both types of errors are possible.
However, array index out of bounds errors are by far the most common error when working with arrays.
For an array variable, just as for any variable, you can declare the variable and initialize it in a single step.
For example,
int[] list = new int[5];
If list is a local variable in a subroutine, then this is exactly equivalent to the two statements:
int[] list;
list = new int[5];
(If list is an instance variable, then of course you can't simply replace "int[] list = new
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int[5];" with "int[] list; list = new int[5];" since the assignment statement "list =
new int[5];" is only legal inside a subroutine.)
The new array is filled with the default value appropriate for the base type of the array -- zero for int and
null for class types, for example. However, Java also provides a way to initialize an array variable with a
new array filled with a specified list of values. In a declaration statement that creates a new array, this is
done with an array initializer. For example,
int[] list = { 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49 };
creates a new array containing the seven values 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, and 49, and sets list to refer to that
new array. The value of list[0] will be 1, the value of list[1] will be 4, and so forth. The length of
list is seven, since seven values are provided in the initializer.
An array initializer takes the form of a list of values, separated by commas and enclosed between braces.
The length of the array does not have to be specified, because it is implicit in the list of values. The items in
an array initializer don't have to be constants. They can be variables or arbitrary expressions, provided that
their values are of the appropriate type. For example, the following declaration creates an array of eight
Colors. Some of the colors are given by expressions of the form "new Color(r,g,b)":
Color[] palette =
{
Color.black,
Color.red,
Color.pink,
new Color(0,180,0), // dark green
Color.green,
Color.blue,
new Color(180,180,255), // light blue
Color.white
}
A list initializer of this form can be used only in a declaration statement, to give an initial value to a newly
declared array variable. It cannot be used in an assignment statement to assign a value to a variable that has
been previously declared. However, there is another, similar notation for creating a new array that can be
used in an assignment statement or passed as a parameter to a subroutine. The notation uses another form of
the new operator to create and initialize a new array object. (This rather odd syntax is reminiscent of the
syntax for anonymous classes, which were discussed in Section 7.6.) For example to assign a new value to
an array variable, list, that was declared previously, you could use:
list = new int[] { 1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, 343 };
The general syntax for this form of the new operator is
new base-type [ ] { list-of-values }
This is an expression whose value is an array object. It can be used in any context where an object of type
base-type[] is expected. For example, if makeButtons is a method that takes an array of Strings as a
parameter, you could say:
makeButtons( new String[] { "Stop", "Go", "Next", "Previous" } );
One final note: For historical reasons, the declaration
int[] list;
can also be written as
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Java Programing: Section 8.1
int list[];
which is a syntax used in the languages C and C++. However, this alternative syntax does not really make
much sense in the context of Java, and it is probably best avoided. After all, the intent is to declare a
variable of a certain type, and the name of that type is "int[]". It makes sense to follow the "type-name
variable-name;" syntax for such declarations.
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 8.2
Section 8.2
Programming with Arrays
ARRAYS ARE THE MOST BASIC AND THE MOST IMPORTANT type of data structure, and
techniques for processing arrays are among the most important programming techniques you can learn.
Two fundamental array processing techniques -- searching and sorting -- will be covered in Section 4. This
section introduces some of the basic ideas of array processing in general.
In many cases, processing an array means applying the same operation to each item in the array. This is
commonly done with a for loop. A loop for processing all the items in an array A has the form:
// do any necessary initialization
for (int i = 0; i < A.length; i++) {
. . . // process A[i]
}
Suppose, for example, that A is an array of type double[]. Suppose that the goal is to add up all the
numbers in the array. An informal algorithm for doing this would be:
Start with 0;
Add A[0]; (process the first item in A)
Add A[1]; (process the second item in A)
.
.
.
Add A[ A.length - 1 ]; (process the last item in A)
Putting the obvious repetition into a loop and giving a name to the sum, this becomes:
double sum; // The sum of the numbers in A.
sum = 0; // Start with 0.
for (int i = 0; i < A.length; i++)
sum += A[i]; // add A[i] to the sum, for
// i = 0, 1, ..., A.length - 1
Note that the continuation condition, "i < A.length", implies that the last value of i that is actually
processed is A.length-1, which is the index of the final item in the array. It's important to use "<" here,
not "<=", since "<=" would give an array out of bounds error.
Eventually, you should just about be able to write loops similar to this one in your sleep. I will give a few
more simple examples. Here is a loop that will count the number of items in the array A which are less than
zero:
int count; // For counting the items.
count = 0; // Start with 0 items counted.
for (int i = 0; i < A.length; i++) {
if (A[i] < 0.0) // if this item is less than zero...
count++; // ...then count it
}
// At this point, the value of count is the number
// of items that have passed the test of being < 0
Replace the test "A[i] < 0.0", if you want to count the number of items in an array that satisfy some
other property. Here is a variation on the same theme. Suppose you want to count the number of times that
an item in the array A is equal to the item that follows it. The item that follows A[i] in the array is
A[i+1], so the test in this case is "if (A[i] == A[i+1])". But there is a catch: This test cannot be
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Java Programing: Section 8.2
applied when A[i] is the last item in the array, since then there is no such item as A[i+1]. The result of
trying to apply the test in this case would be an array out of bounds error. This just means that we have to
stop one item short of the final item:
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < A.length - 1; i++) {
if (A[i] == A[i+1])
count++;
}
Another typical problem is to find the largest number in A. The strategy is to go through the array, keeping
track of the largest number found so far. We'll store the largest number found so far in a variable called
max. As we look through the array, whenever we find a number larger than the current value of max, we
change the value of max to that larger value. After the whole array has been processed, max is the largest
item in the array overall. The only question is, what should the original value of max be? One possibility is
to start with max equal to A[0], and then to look through the rest of the array, starting from A[1], for
larger items:
double max = A[0];
for (int i = 1; i < A.length; i++) {
if (A[i] > max)
max = A[i];
}
// at this point, max is the largest item in A
(There is one subtle problem here. It's possible in Java for an array to have length zero. In that case, A[0]
doesn't exist, and the reference to A[0] in the first line gives an array out of bounds error. However,
zero-length arrays are normally something that you want to avoid in real problems. Anyway, what would it
mean to ask for the largest item in an array that contains no items at all?)
As a final example of basic array operations, consider the problem of copying an array. To make a copy of
our sample array A, it is not sufficient to say
double[] B = A;
since this does not create a new array object. All it does is declare a new array variable and make it refer to
the same object to which A refers. (So that, for example, a change to A[i] will automatically change B[i]
as well.) To make a new array that is a copy of A, it is necessary to make a new array object and to copy
each of the individual items from A into the new array:
double[] B = new double[A.length]; // Make a new array object,
// the same size as A.
for (int i = 0; i < A.length; i++)
B[i] = A[i]; // Copy each item from A to B.
Copying values from one array to another is such a common operation that Java has a predefined subroutine
to do it. The subroutine, System.arraycopy(), is a static member subroutine in the standard System
class. Its declaration has the form
public static void arraycopy(Object sourceArray, int sourceStartIndex,
Object destArray, int destStartIndex, int count)
where sourceArray and destArray can be arrays with any base type. Values are copied from
sourceArray to destArray. The count tells how many elements to copy. Values are taken from
sourceArray starting at position sourceStartIndex and are stored in destArray starting at
position destStartIndex. For example, to make a copy of the array, A, using this subroutine, you
would say:
double B = new double[A.length];
System.arraycopy( A, 0, B, 0, A.length );
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Java Programing: Section 8.2
An array type, such as double[], is a full-fledged Java type, so it can be used in all the ways that any
other Java type can be used. In particular, it can be used as the type of a formal parameter in a subroutine. It
can even be the return type of a function. For example, it might be useful to have a function that makes a
copy of an array of doubles:
double[] copy( double[] source ) {
// Create and return a copy of the array, source.
// If source is null, return null.
if ( source == null )
return null;
double[] cpy; // A copy of the source array.
cpy = new double[source.length];
System.arraycopy( source, 0, cpy, 0, source.length );
return cpy;
}
The main() routine of a program has a parameter of type String[]. You've seen this used since all the
way back in Chapter 2, but I haven't really been able to explain it until now. The parameter to the main()
routine is an array of Strings. When the system calls the main() routine, the strings in this array are the
command-line parameters. When using a command-line interface, the user types a command to tell the
system to execute a program. The user can include extra input in this command, beyond the name of the
program. This extra input becomes the command-line parameters. For example, if the name of the class that
contains the main() routine is myProg, then the user can type "java myProg" to execute the program.
In this case, there are no command-line parameters. But if the user types the command "java myProg
one two three", then the command-line parameters are the strings "one", "two", and "three". The
system puts these strings into an array of Strings and passes that array as a parameter to the main()
routine. Here, for example, is a short program that simply prints out any command line parameters entered
by the user:
public class CLDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("You entered " + args.length
+ " command-line parameters.");
if (args.length > 0) {
System.out.println("They were:");
for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++)
System.out.println(" " + args[i]);
}
} // end main()
} // end class CLDemo
Note that the parameter, args, is never null when main() is called by the system, but it might be an
array of length zero.
In practice, command-line parameters are often the names of files to be processed by the program. I will
give some examples of this in Chapter 10, when I discuss file processing.
So far, all my examples of array processing have used sequential access. That is, the elements of the array
were processed one after the other in the sequence in which they occur in the array. But one of the big
advantages of arrays is that they allow random access. That is, every element of the array is equally
accessible at any given time.
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Java Programing: Section 8.2
As an example, let's look at a well-known problem called the birthday problem: Suppose that there are N
people in a room. What's the chance that there are two people in the room who have the same birthday?
(That is, they were born on the same day in the same month, but not necessarily in the same year.) Most
people severely underestimate the probability. We actually look at a different version of the problem:
Suppose you choose people at random and check their birthdays. How many people will you check before
you find one who has the same birthday as someone you've already checked? Of course, the answer in a
particular case depends on random factors, but we can simulate the experiment with a computer program
and run the program several times to get an idea of how many people need to be checked on average.
To simulate the experiment, we need to keep track of each birthday that we find. There are 365 different
possible birthdays. (We'll ignore leap years.) For each possible birthday, we need to know, has this birthday
already been used? The answer is a boolean value, true or false. To hold this data, we can use an array of
365 boolean values:
boolean[] used;
used = new boolean[365];
The days of the year are numbered from 0 to 364. The value of used[i] is true if someone has been
selected whose birthday is day number i. Initially, all the values in the array, used, are false. When we
select someone whose birthday is day number i, we first check whether used[i] is true. If so, then this is
the second person with that birthday. We are done. If used[i] is false, we set used[i] to be true to
record the fact that we've encountered someone with that birthday, and we go on to the next person. Here is
a subroutine that carries out the simulated experiment (Of course, in the subroutine, there are no simulated
people, only simulated birthdays):
static void birthdayProblem() {
// Simulate choosing people at random and checking the
// day of the year they were born on. If the birthday
// is the same as one that was seen previously, stop,
// and output the number of people who were checked.
boolean[] used; // For recording the possible birthdays
// that have been seen so far. A value
// of true in used[i] means that a person
// whose birthday is the i-th day of the
// year has been found.
int count; // The number of people who have been checked.
used = new boolean[365]; // Initially, all entries are false.
count = 0;
while (true) {
// Select a birthday at random, from 0 to 364.
// If the birthday has already been used, quit.
// Otherwise, record the birthday as used.
int birthday; // The selected birthday.
birthday = (int)(Math.random()*365);
count++;
if ( used[birthday] )
break;
used[birthday] = true;
}
TextIO.putln("A duplicate birthday was found after "
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Java Programing: Section 8.2
+ count + " tries.");
} // end birthdayProblem()
This subroutine makes essential use of the fact that every element in a newly created array of booleans is
set to be false. If we wanted to reuse the same array in a second simulation, we would have to reset all
the elements in it to be false with a for loop
for (int i = 0; i < 365; i++)
used[i] = false;
Here is an applet that will run the simulation as many times as you like. Are you surprised at how few
people have to be chosen, in general?
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
One of the examples in Section 6.4 was an applet that shows multiple copies of a message in random
positions, colors, and fonts. When the user clicks on the applet, the positions, colors, and fonts are changed
to new random values. Like several other examples from that chapter, the applet had a flaw: It didn't have
any way of storing the data that would be necessary to redraw itself. Chapter 7 introduced off-screen
canvases as a solution to this problem, but off-screen canvases are not a good solution in every case. Arrays
provide us with an alternative solution. Here's a new version of the applet. This version uses an array to
store the position, font, and color of each string. When the applet is painted, this information is used to draw
the strings, so it will redraw itself correctly when it is covered and then uncovered. When you click on the
applet, the array is filled with new random values and the applet is repainted.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
In this applet, the number of copies of the message is given by a named constant, MESSAGE_COUNT. One
way to store the position, color, and font of MESSAGE_COUNT strings would be to use four arrays:
int[] x = new int[MESSAGE_COUNT];
int[] y = new int[MESSAGE_COUNT];
Color[] color = new Color[MESSAGE_COUNT];
Font[] font = new Font[MESSAGE_COUNT];
These arrays would be filled with random values. In the paint() method, the i-th copy of the string
would be drawn at the point (x[i],y[i]). Its color would be given by color[i]. And it would be
drawn in the font font[i]. This would be accomplished by the paint() method
public void paint(Graphics g) {
for (int i = 0; i < MESSAGE_COUNT; i++) {
g.setColor( color[i] );
g.setFont( font[i] );
g.drawString( message, x[i], y[i] );
}
}
This approach is said to use parallel arrays. The data for a given copy of the message is spread out across
several arrays. If you think of the arrays as laid out in parallel columns -- array x in the first column, array
y in the second, array color in the third, and array font in the fourth -- then the data for the i-th string
can be found along the the i-th row. There is nothing wrong with using parallel arrays in this simple
example, but it does go against the object-oriented philosophy of keeping related data in one object. If we
follow this rule, then we don't have to imagine the relationship among the data because all the data for one
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copy of the message is physically in one place. So, when I wrote the applet, I made a simple class to
represent all the data that is needed for one copy of message:
class StringData {
// Data for one copy of the message.
int x,y; // Position of the message.
Color color; // Color of the message.
Font font; // Font used for the message.
}
To store the data for multiple copies of the message, I use an array of type StringData[]. The array is
declared as an instance variable, with the name data:
StringData[] data;
Of course, the value of data is null until an actual array is created and assigned to it. This is done in the
init() method of the applet with the statement
data = new StringData[MESSAGE_COUNT];
Just after this array is created, the value of each element in the array is null. We want to store data in
objects of type StringData, but no such objects exist yet. All we have is an array of variables that are
capable of referring to such objects. I decided to create the objects in the applet's init method. (It could be
done in other places -- just so long as we avoid trying to use to an object that doesn't exist.) The objects are
created with the for loop
for (int i = 0; i < MESSAGE_COUNT; i++)
data[i] = new StringData();
Now, the idea is to store data for the i-th copy of the message in the variables data[i].x, data[i].y,
data[i].color, and data[i].font. (Make sure that you understand the notation here: data[i]
refers to an object. That object contains instance variables. The notation data[i].x tells the computer:
"Find your way to the object that is referred to by data[i]. Then go to the instance variable named x in
that object." Variable names can get even more complicated than this.) Using the array, data, the
paint() method for the applet becomes
public void paint(Graphics g) {
for (int i = 0; i < MESSAGE_COUNT; i++) {
g.setColor( data[i].color );
g.setFont( data[i].font );
g.drawString( message, data[i].x, data[i].y );
}
}
There is still the matter of filling the array, data, with random values. If you are interested, you can look at
the source code for the applet, RandomStringsWithArray.java.
The applet actually uses one other array. The font for a given copy of the message is chosen at random from
a set of five possible fonts. In the original version of the applet, there were five variables of type Font to
represent the fonts. The variables were named font1, font2, font3, font4, and font5. To select one
of these fonts at random, a switch statement could be used:
Font randomFont; // One of the 5 fonts, chosen at random.
int rand; // A random integer in the range 0 to 4.
rand = (int)(Math.random() * 5);
switch (rand) {
case 0:
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Java Programing: Section 8.2
randomFont = font1;
break;
case 1:
randomFont = font2;
break;
case 2:
randomFont = font3;
break;
case 3:
randomFont = font4;
break;
case 4:
randomFont = font5;
break;
}
In the new version of the applet, the five fonts are stored in an array, which is named fonts. This array is
declared as an instance variable
Font[] fonts;
The array is created and filled with fonts in the init() method:
fonts = new Font[5]; // Array to store five fonts.
fonts[0] = new Font("Serif", Font.BOLD, 14);
fonts[1] = new Font("SansSerif", Font.BOLD + Font.ITALIC, 24);
fonts[2] = new Font("Monospaced", Font.PLAIN, 20);
fonts[3] = new Font("Dialog", Font.PLAIN, 30);
fonts[4] = new Font("Serif", Font.ITALIC, 36);
This makes it much easier to select one of the fonts at random. It can be done with the statements
Font randomFont; // One of the 5 fonts, chosen at random.
int fontIndex; // A random number in the range 0 to 4.
fontIndex = (int)(Math.random() * 5);
randomFont = fonts[ fontIndex ];
The switch statement has been replaced by a single line of code. This is a very typical application of
arrays. Here is another example of the same sort of thing. Months are often stored as numbers 1, 2, 3, ..., 12.
Sometimes, however, these numbers have to be translated into the names January, February, ..., December.
The translation can be done with an array. The array could be declared and initialized as
static String[] monthName = { "January", "February", "March",
"April", "May", "June",
"July", "August", "September",
"October", "November", "December" };
If mth is a variable that holds one of the integers 1 through 12, then monthName[mth-1] is the name of
the corresponding month. Simple array indexing does the translation for us!
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 8.3
Section 8.3
Vectors and Dynamic Arrays
THE SIZE OF AN ARRAY is fixed when it is created. In many cases, however, the number of data items
that are actually stored in the array varies with time. Consider the following examples: An array that stores
the lines of text in a word-processing program. An array that holds the list of computers that are currently
downloading a page from a Web site. An array that contains the shapes that have been added to the screen
by the user of a drawing program. Clearly, we need some way to deal with cases where the number of data
items in an array is not fixed.
Partially Full Arrays
Consider an application where the number of items that we want to store in an array changes as the program
runs. Since the size of the array can't actually be changed, a separate counter variable must be used to keep
track of how many spaces in the array are in use. (Of course, every space in the array has to contain
something; the question is, how many spaces contain useful or valid items?)
Consider, for example, a program that reads positive integers entered by the user and stores them for later
processing. The program stops reading when the user inputs a number that is less than or equal to zero. The
input numbers can be kept in an array, numbers, of type int[]. Let's say that no more than 100 numbers
will be input. Then the size of the array can be fixed at 100. But the program must keep track of how many
numbers have actually been read and stored in the array. For this, it can use an integer variable, numCt.
Each time a number is stored in the array, numCt must be incremented by one. As a rather silly example,
let's write a program that will read the numbers input by the user and then print them in reverse order. (This
is, at least, a processing task that requires that the numbers be saved in an array. Remember that many types
of processing, such as finding the sum or average or maximum of the numbers, can be done without saving
the individual numbers.)
public class ReverseInputNumbers {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int[] numbers; // An array for storing the input values.
int numCt; // The number of numbers saved in the array.
int num; // One of the numbers input by the user.
numbers = new int[100]; // Space for 100 ints.
numCt = 0; // No numbers have been saved yet.
TextIO.putln("Enter up to 100 positive integers; enter 0 to end.");
while (true) { // Get the numbers and put them in the array.
TextIO.put("? ");
num = TextIO.getlnInt();
if (num <= 0)
break;
numbers[numCt] = num;
numCt++;
}
TextIO.putln("\nYour numbers in reverse order are:\n");
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Java Programing: Section 8.3
for (int i = numCt - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
TextIO.putln( numbers[i] );
}
} // end main();
} // end class ReverseInputNumbers
It is especially important to note that the variable numCt plays a dual role. It is the number of numbers that
have been entered into the array. But it is also the index of the next available spot in the array. For example,
if 4 numbers have been stored in the array, they occupy locations number 0, 1, 2, and 3. The next available
spot is location 4. When the time comes to print out the numbers in the array, the last occupied spot in the
array is location numCt - 1, so the for loop prints out values starting from location numCt - 1 and
going down to 0.
Let's look at another, more realistic example. Suppose that you write a game program, and that players can
join the game and leave the game as it progresses. As a good object-oriented programmer, you probably
have a class named Player to represent the individual players in the game. A list of all players who are
currently in the game could be stored in an array, playerList, of type Player[]. Since the number of
players can change, you will also need a variable, playerCt, to record the number of players currently in
the game. Assuming that there will never be more than 10 players in the game, you could declare the
variables as:
Player[] playerList = new Player[10]; // Up to 10 players.
int playerCt = 0; // At the start, there are no players.
After some players have joined the game, playerCt will be greater than 0, and the player objects
representing the players will be stored in the array elements playerList[0], playerList[1], ...,
playerList[playerCt-1]. Note that the array element playerList[playerCt] is not in use.
The procedure for adding a new player, newPlayer, to the game is simple:
playerList[playerCt] = newPlayer; // Put new player in next
// available spot.
playerCt++; // And increment playerCt to count the new player.
Deleting a player from the game is a little harder, since you don't want to leave a "hole" in the array.
Suppose you want to delete the player at index k in playerList. If you are not worried about keeping
the players in any particular order, then one way to do this is to move the player from the last occupied
position in the array into position k and then to decrement the value of playerCt:
playerList[k] = playerList[playerCt - 1];
playerCt--;
The player previously in position k is no longer in the array. The player previously in position playerCt
- 1 is now in the array twice. But it's only in the occupied or valid part of the array once, since
playerCt has decreased by one. Remember that every element of the array has to hold some value, but
only the values in positions 0 through playerCt - 1 will be looked at or processed in any way.
Suppose that when deleting the player in position k, you'd like to keep the remaining players in the same
order. (Maybe because they take turns in the order in which they are stored in the array.) To do this, all the
players in positions k+1 and above must move down one position in the array. Player k+1 replaces player
k, who is out of the game. Player k+2 fills the spot left open when player k+1 moved. And so on. The code
for this is
for (int i = k+1; i < playerCt; i++) {
playerList[i-1] = playerList[i];
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}
playerCt--;
It's worth emphasizing that the Player example deals with an array whose base type is a class. An item in
the array is either null or is a reference to an object belonging to the class, Player. The Player objects
themselves are not really stored in the array, only references to them. Note that because of the rules for
assignment in Java, the objects can actually belong to subclasses of Player. Thus there could be different
classes of Players such as computer players, regular human players, players who are wizards, ..., all
represented by different subclasses of Player.
As another example, suppose that a class Shape represents the general idea of a shape drawn on a screen,
and that it has subclasses to represent specific types of shapes such as lines, rectangles, rounded rectangles,
ovals, filled-in ovals, and so forth. (Shape itself would be an abstract class, as discussed in Section 5.4.)
Then an array of type Shape[] can hold references to objects belonging to the subclasses of Shape. For
example, the situation created by the statements
Shape[] shapes = new Shape[100]; // Array to hold up to 100 shapes.
shapes[0] = new Rect(); // Put some objects in the array.
shapes[1] = new Line(); // (A real program would
shapes[2] = new FilledOval(); // use some parameters here.)
int shapeCt = 3; // Keep track of number of objects in array.
could be illustrated as:
Such an array would be useful in a drawing program. The array could be used to hold a list of shapes to be
displayed. If the Shape class includes a method, "void redraw(Graphics g)" for drawing the
shape in a graphics context g, then all the shapes in the array could be redrawn with a simple for loop:
for (int i = 0; i < shapeCt; i++)
shapes[i].redraw(g);
The statement "shapes[i].redraw(g);" calls the redraw() method belonging to the particular
shape at index i in the array. Each object knows how to redraw itself, so that repeated executions of the
statement can produce a variety of different shapes on the screen. This is nice example both of
polymorphism and of array processing.
Dynamic Arrays
In each of the above examples, an arbitrary limit was set on the number of items -- 100 ints, 10
Players, 100 Shapes. Since the size of an array is fixed, a given array can only hold a certain maximum
number of items. In many cases, such an arbitrary limit is undesirable. Why should a program work for 100
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data values, but not for 101? The obvious alternative of making an array that's so big that it will work in any
practical case is not usually a good solution to the problem. It means that in most cases, a lot of computer
memory will be wasted on unused space in the array. That memory might be better used for something else.
And what if someone is using a computer that could handle as many data values as the user actually wants
to process, but doesn't have enough memory to accommodate all the extra space that you've allocated?
Clearly, it would be nice if we could increase the size of an array at will. This is not possible, but what is
possible is just as good. Remember that an array variable does not actually hold an array. It just holds a
reference to an array object. We can't make the array bigger, but we can make a new, bigger array object
and change the value of the array variable so that it refers to the bigger array. Of course, we also have to
copy the contents of the old array into the new array. The array variable then refers to an array object that
contains all the data of the old array, with room for additional data. The old array will be garbage collected,
since it is no longer in use.
Let's look back at the game example, in which playerList is an array of type Player[] and
playerCt is the number of spaces that have been used in the array. Suppose that we don't want to put a
pre-set limit on the number of players. If a new player joins the game and the current array is full, we just
make a new, bigger one. The same variable, playerList, will refer to the new array. Note that after this
is done, playerList[0] will refer to a different memory location, but the value stored in
playerList[0] will still be the same as it was before. Here is some code that will do this:
// Add a new player, even if the current array is full.
if (playerCt == playerList.length) {
// Array is full. Make a new, bigger array,
// copy the contents of the old array into it,
// and set playerList to refer to the new array.
int newSize = 2 * playerList.length; // Size of new array.
Player[] temp = new Player[newSize]; // The new array.
System.arraycopy(playerList, 0, temp, 0, playerList.length);
playerList = temp; // Set playerList to refer to new array.
}
// At this point, we KNOW there is room in the array.
playerList[playerCt] = newPlayer; // Add the new player...
playerCt++; // ...and count it.
If we are going to be doing things like this regularly, it would be nice to define a reusable class to handle
the details. An array-like object that changes size to accommodate the amount of data that it actually
contains is called a dynamic array. A dynamic array supports the same operations as an array: putting a
value at a given position and getting the value that is stored at a given position. But there is no upper limit
on the positions that can be used (except those imposed by the size of the computer's memory). In a
dynamic array class, the put and get operations must be implemented as instance methods. Here, for
example, is a class that implements a dynamic array of ints:
public class DynamicArrayOfInt {
private int[] data; // An array to hold the data.
public DynamicArrayOfInt() {
// Constructor.
data = new int[1]; // Array will grow as necessary.
}
public int get(int position) {
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// Get the value from the specified position in the array.
// Since all array positions are initially zero, when the
// specified position lies outside the actual physical size
// of the data array, a value of 0 is returned.
if (position >= data.length)
return 0;
else
return data[position];
}
public void put(int position, int value) {
// Store the value in the specified position in the array.
// The data array will increase in size to include this
// position, if necessary.
if (position >= data.length) {
// The specified position is outside the actual size of
// the data array. Double the size, or if that still does
// not include the specified position, set the new size
// to 2*position.
int newSize = 2 * data.length;
if (position >= newSize)
newSize = 2 * position;
int[] newData = new int[newSize];
System.arraycopy(data, 0, newData, 0, data.length);
data = newData;
// The following line is for demonstration purposes only.
System.out.println("Size of dynamic array increased to "
+ newSize);
}
data[position] = value;
}
} // end class DynamicArrayOfInt
The data in a DynamicArrayOfInt object is actually stored in a regular array, but that array is discarded
and replaced by a bigger array whenever necessary. If numbers is a variable of type
DynamicArrayOfInt, then the command numbers.put(pos,val) stores the value val at position
number pos in the dynamic array. The function numbers.get(pos) returns the value stored at position
number pos.
The first example in this section used an array to store positive integers input by the user. We can rewrite
that example to use a DynamicArrayOfInt. A reference to numbers[i] is replace by
numbers.get(i). The statement "numbers[numCt] = num;" is replaced by
"numbers.put(numCt,num);". Here's the program:
public class ReverseWithDynamicArray {
public static void main(String[] args) {
DynamicArrayOfInt numbers; // To hold the input numbers.
int numCt; // The number of numbers stored in the array.
int num; // One of the numbers input by the user.
numbers = new DynamicArrayOfInt();
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Java Programing: Section 8.3
numCt = 0;
TextIO.putln("Enter some positive integers; Enter 0 to end");
while (true) { // Get numbers and put them in the dynamic array.
TextIO.put("? ");
num = TextIO.getlnInt();
if (num <= 0)
break;
numbers.put(numCt, num); // Store num in the dynamic array.
numCt++;
}
TextIO.putln("\nYour numbers in reverse order are:\n");
for (int i = numCt - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
TextIO.putln( numbers.get(i) ); // Print the i-th number.
}
} // end main();
} // end class ReverseWithDynamicArray
The following applet simulates this program. I've included an output statement in the
DynamicArrayOfInt class. This statement will inform you each time the data array increases in size.
(Of course, the output statement doesn't really belong in the class. It's included here for demonstration
purposes.)
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
Vectors
The DynamicArrayOfInt class could be used in any situation where an array of int with no preset
limit on the size is needed. However, if we want to store Shapes instead of ints, we would have to
define a new class to do it. That class, probably named "DynamicArrayOfShape", would look exactly
the same as the DynamicArrayOfInt class except that everywhere the type "int" appears, it would be
replaced by the type "Shape". Similarly, we could define a DynamicArrayOfDouble class, a
DynamicArrayOfPlayer class, and so on. But there is something a little silly about this, since all these
classes are close to being identical. It would be nice to be able to write some kind of source code, once and
for all, that could be used to generate any of these classes on demand, given the type of value that we want
to store. This would be an example of generic programming. Some programming languages, such as C++,
have support for generic programming. Java does not. The closest we can come in Java is to use the type
Object.
In Java, every class is a subclass of the class named Object. This means that every object can be assigned
to a variable of type Object. Any object can be put into an array of type Object[]. If a subroutine has a
formal parameter of type Object, than any object can be passed to the subroutine as an actual parameter.
If we defined a DynamicArrayOfObject class, then we could store objects of any type. This is not true
generic programming, and it doesn't apply to the primitive types such as int and double. But it does
come close. In fact, there is no need for us to define a DynamicArrayOfObject class. Java already has
a standard class named Vector that serves much the same purpose. The Vector class is in the package
java.util, so if you want to use the Vector class in a program, you should put the directive "import
java.util.*;" or "import java.util.Vector;" at the beginning of your source code file.
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The Vector class differs from my DynamicArrayOfInt class in that a Vector object always has a
definite size, and it is illegal to refer to a position in the Vector that lies outside its size. In this, a
Vector is more like a regular array. However, the size of a Vector can be increased at will, and it
increases automatically in certain cases. The Vector class defines many instance methods. I'll describe
some of the most useful. Suppose that vec is a variable of type Vector.
vec.size() -- This function returns the current size of the vector. Valid positions in the
vector are between 0 and vec.size() - 1. Note that the size can be zero, and it is zero
when a vector is first created.
vec.addElement(obj) -- Adds an object onto the end of the vector, increasing the size
of the vector by 1. The parameter, obj, can refer to an object of any type.
vec.elementAt(N) -- This function returns the value stored at position N in the vector.
N must be an integer in the range 0 to vec.size() - 1. If N is outside this range, an
error occurs.
vec.setElementAt(obj, N) -- Assigns the object, obj, to position N in the vector,
replacing the item previously stored at position N. The integer N must be in the range from 0
to vec.size() - 1.
vec.insertElementAt(obj, N) -- Moves all the items in the vector in positions N
and above up one position, and then assigns the object, obj, to position N. The integer N
must be in the range from 0 to vec.size(). The size of the vector increases by 1.
vec.removeElement(obj) -- If the specified object occurs somewhere in the vector, it
is removed from the vector. Any items in the vector that come after the removed item are
moved down one position. The size of the vector decreases by 1. The value of the parameter,
obj, must not be null.
vec.removeElementAt(N) -- Deletes the element at position N in the vector. N must be
in the range 0 to vec.size() - 1. Items in the vector that come after position N are
moved down one position. The size of the vector decreases by 1.
vec.setSize(N) -- Changes the size of the vector to N, where N must be an integer
greater than or equal to zero. If N is bigger than the current size of the vector, new elements
are added to the vector and filled with nulls. If N is smaller than the current size, then the
extra elements are removed from the end of the vector.
vec.indexOf(obj, start) -- A function that searches for the object, obj, in the
vector, starting at position start. If the object is found in the vector at or after position
start, then the position number where it is found is returned. If the object is not found,
then -1 is returned. The second parameter can be omitted, and the search will start at position
0.
For example, suppose again that players in a game are represented by objects of type Player. The players
currently in the game could be stored in a Vector named players. This variable would be declared as
Vector players;
and initialized to refer to a new, empty Vector object with
players = new Vector();
If newPlayer is a variable that refers to a Player object, the new player would be added to the game by
saying
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players.addElement(newPlayer);
and if player number i leaves the game, it is only necessary to say
players.removeElementAt(i);
All this works very nicely. The only slight difficulty arises when you use the function
players.elementAt(i) to get the value stored at position i in the vector. The return type of this
function is Object. In this case the object that is returned by the function is actually of type Player. In
order to do anything useful with the returned value, it's usually necessary to typecast it to type Player:
Player plr = (Players)players.elementAt(i);
For example, if the Player class includes an instance method makeMove() that is called to allow a
player to make a move in the game, then the code for letting all the players move is
for (int i = 0; i < players.size(); i++) {
Player plr = (Players)players.elementAt(i);
plr.makeMove();
}
In Section 5.4, I displayed an applet, ShapeDraw, that uses vectors. Here is another version of the same
idea, simplified to make it easier to see how vectors are being used. Right-click the large white canvas to
add a colored rectangle. (On a Macintosh, Command-click the canvas.) The color of the rectangle is given
by the "rainbow palette" along the bottom of the applet. Click the palette to select a new color. Click and
drag rectangles with the left mouse button. Hold down the Alt or Option key and click on a rectangle to
delete it. Shift-click a rectangle to move it out in front of all the other rectangles.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The source code for this applet is in the file SimpleDrawRects.java. You should be able to follow it in its
entirety, if you've read Chapter 7. Here, I just want to look at the parts of the program that use a vector.
The applet uses a variable named rects, of type Vector, to hold information about the rectangles that
have been added to the drawing area. The objects that are stored in the vector belong to a class,
ColoredRect, that is defined as
class ColoredRect {
// Holds data for one colored rectangle.
int x,y; // Upper left corner of the rectangle.
int width,height; // size of the rectangle.
Color color; // Color of the rectangle.
}
If g is a variable of type Graphics, then the following code draws all the rectangles in the vector rects
(with a black outline around each rectangle, as shown in the applet):
for (int i = 0; i < rects.size(); i++) {
ColoredRect rect = (ColoredRect)rects.elementAt(i);
g.setColor( rect.color );
g.fillRect( rect.x, rect.y, rect.width, rect.height);
g.setColor( Color.black );
g.drawRect( rect.x, rect.y, rect.width - 1, rect.height - 1);
}
To implement all the mouse operations in the applet, it must be possible to find the rectangle, if any, that
contains the point where the user clicked the mouse. To do this, I wrote the function
ColoredRect findRect(int x, int y) {
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// Find the topmost rect that contains the point (x,y).
// Return null if no rect contains that point. The
// rects in the Vector are considered in reverse order
// so that if one lies on top of another, the one on top
// is seen first and is the one that is returned.
for (int i = rects.size() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
ColoredRect rect = (ColoredRect)rects.elementAt(i);
if ( x >= rect.x && x < rect.x + rect.width
&& y >= rect.y && y < rect.y + rect.height )
return rect; // (x,y) is inside this rect.
}
return null; // No rect containing (x,y) was found.
}
The code for removing a ColoredRect, rect, from the canvas is simply
rects.removeElement(rect) (followed by a repaint()). Bringing a given rectangle out in front
of all the other rectangles is just a little harder. Since the rectangles are drawn in the order in which they
occur in the vector, the rectangle that is in the last position in the vector is in front of all the other rectangles
on the screen. So we need to move the rectangle to the last position in the vector. This is done by removing
the rectangle from its current position in the vector and then adding it back at the end:
void bringToFront(ColoredRect rect) {
// If rect != null, move it out in front of the other
// rects by moving it to the last position in the Vector.
if (rect != null) {
rects.removeElement(rect);
rects.addElement(rect);
repaint();
}
}
This should be enough to give you the basic idea. You can look in the source code for more details.
As these examples show, Vectors can be very useful. The package java.util also includes a few
other classes for working with Objects. We'll look at some of them in later chapters.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 8.4
Section 8.4
Searching and Sorting
TWO ARRAY PROCESSING TECHNIQUES that are particularly common are searching and sorting.
Searching here refers to finding an item in the array that meets some specified criterion. Sorting refers to
rearranging all the items in the array into increasing or decreasing order (where the meaning of increasing
and decreasing can depend on the context).
Sorting and searching are often discussed, in a theoretical sort of way, using an array of numbers as an
example. In practical situations, though, more interesting types of data are usually involved. For example,
the array might be a mailing list, and each element of the array might be an object containing a name and
address. Given the name of a person, you might want to look up that person's address. This is an example of
searching, since you want to find the object in the array that contains the given name. It would also be
useful to be able to sort the array according to various criteria. One example of sorting would be ordering
the elements of the array so that the names are in alphabetical order. Another example would be to order the
elements of the array according to zip code before printing a set of mailing labels. (This kind of sorting can
get you a cheaper postage rate on a large mailing.)
This example can be generalized to a more abstract situation in which we have an array that contains
objects, and we want to search or sort the array based on the value of one of the instance variables in that
array. We can use some terminology here that originated in work with "databases," which are just large,
organized collections of data. We refer to each of the objects in the array as a record. The instance variables
in an object are then called fields of the record. In the mailing list example, each record would contain a
name and address. The fields of the record might be the first name, last name, street address, state, city and
zip code. For the purpose of searching or sorting, one of the fields is designated to be the key field.
Searching then means finding a record in the array that has a specified value in its key field. Sorting means
moving the records around in the array so that the key fields of the record are in increasing (or decreasing)
order.
In this section, most of my examples follow the tradition of using arrays of numbers. But I'll also give a few
examples using records and keys, to remind you of the more practical applications.
Searching
There is an obvious algorithm for searching for a particular item in an array: Look at each item in the array
in turn, and check whether that item is the one you are looking for. If so, the search is finished. If you look
at every item without finding the one you want, then of course you can say that the item is not in the array.
It's easy to write a subroutine to implement this algorithm. Let's say the array that you want to search is an
array of ints. Here is a method that will search the array for a specified integer. If the integer is found, the
method returns the index of the location in the array where it is found. If the integer is not in the array, the
method returns the value -1 as a signal that the integer could not be found:
static int find(int[] A, int N) {
// Searches the array A for the integer N.
for (int index = 0; index < A.length; index++) {
if ( A[index] == N )
return index; // N has been found at this index!
}
// If we get this far, then N has not been found
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// anywhere in the array. Return a value of -1 to
// indicate this.
return -1;
}
This method of searching an array by looking at each item in turn is called linear search. If nothing is
known about the order of the items in the array, then there is really no better alternative algorithm. But if
the elements in the array are known to be in increasing or decreasing order, then a much faster search
algorithm can be used. An array in which the elements are in order is said to be sorted. Of course, it takes
some work to sort an array, but if the array is to be searched many times, then the work done in sorting it
can really pay off.
Binary search is a method for searching for a given item in a sorted array. Although the implementation is
not trivial, the basic idea is simple: If you are searching for an item in a sorted list, then it is possible to
eliminate half of the items in the list by inspecting a single item. For example, suppose that you are looking
for the number 42 in a sorted array of 1000 integers. Let's assume that the array is sorted into increasing
order. Suppose you check item number 500 in the array, and find that item is 93. Since 42 is less than 93,
and since the elements in the array are in increasing order, we can conclude that if 42 occurs in the array at
all, then it must occur somewhere before location 500. All the locations numbered 500 or above contain
values that are greater than or equal to 93. These locations can be eliminated as possible locations of the
number 42.
The next obvious step is to check location 250. If the number at that location is, say, 21, then you can
eliminate locations before 250 and limit further search to locations between 251 and 499. The next test will
limit the search to about 125 locations, and the one after that to about 62. After just 10 steps, there is only
one location left. This is a whole lot better than looking through every element in the array. If there were a
million items, it would still take only 20 steps for this method to search the array! (Mathematically, the
number of steps is the logarithm, in the base 2, of the number of items in the array.)
In order to make binary search into a Java subroutine that searches an array A for an item N, we just have to
keep track of the range of locations that could possibly contain N. At each step, as we eliminate
possibilities, we reduce the size of this range. The basic operation is to look at the item in the middle of the
range. If this item is greater than N, then the second half of the range can be eliminated. If it is less than N,
then the first half of the range can be eliminated. If the number in the middle just happens to be N exactly,
then the search is finished. If the size of the range decreases to zero, then the number N does not occur in
the array. Here is a subroutine that returns the location of N in a sorted array A. If N cannot be found in the
array, then a value of -1 is returned instead:
static int binarySearch(int[] A, int N) {
// Searches the array A for the integer N.
// A is assumed to be sorted into increasing order.
int lowestPossibleLoc = 0;
int highestPossibleLoc = A.length - 1;
while (highestPossibleLoc >= lowestPossibleLoc) {
int middle = (lowestPossibleLoc + highestPossibleLoc) / 2;
if (A[middle] == N) {
// N has been found at this index!
return middle;
}
else if (A[middle] > N) {
// eliminate locations >= middle
highestPossibleLoc = middle - 1;
}
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else {
// eliminate locations <= middle
lowestPossibleLoc = middle + 1;
}
}
// At this point, highestPossibleLoc < LowestPossibleLoc,
// which means that N is known to be not in the array. Return
// a -1 to indicate that N could not be found in the array.
return -1;
}
Association Lists
One particularly common application of searching is with association lists. The standard example of an
association list is a dictionary. A dictionary associates definitions with words. Given a word, you can use
the dictionary to look up its definition. We can think of the dictionary as being a list of pairs of the form
(w,d), where w is a word and d is its definition. A general association list is a list of pairs (k,v), where
k is some "key" value, and v is a value associated to that key. In general, we want to assume that no two
pairs in the list have the same key. The basic operation on association lists is this: Given a key, k, find the
value v associated with k, if any.
Association lists are very widely used in computer science. For example, a compiler has to keep track of the
location in memory associated with each variable. It can do this with an association list in which each key is
a variable name and the associated value is the address of that variable in memory. Another example would
be a mailing list, if we think of it as associating an address to each name on the list. As a related example,
consider a phone directory that associates a phone number to each name. The items in the list could be
objects belonging to the class:
class PhoneEntry {
String name;
String phoneNum;
}
The data for a phone directory consists of an array of type PhoneEntry[] and an integer variable to keep
track of how many entries are actually stored in the directory. (This is an example of a "partially full array"
as discussed in the previous section. It might be better to use a dynamic array or a Vector to hold the
phone entries.) A phone directory could be an object belonging to the class:
class PhoneDirectory {
PhoneEntry[] info = new PhoneEntry[100]; // Space for 100 entries.
int entries = 0; // Actual number of entries in the array.
void addEntry(String name, String phoneNum) {
// Add a new item at the end of the array.
info[entries] = new PhoneEntry();
info[entries].name = name;
info[entries].phoneNum = phoneNum;
entries++;
}
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String getNumber(String name) {
// Return phone number associated with name,
// or return null if the name does not occur
// in the array.
for (int index = 0; index < entries; index++) {
if (name.equals( info[index].name )) // Found it!
return info[index].phoneNum;
}
return null; // Name wasn't found.
}
}
Note that the search method, getNumber, only looks through the locations in the array that have actually
been filled with PhoneEntries. Also note that unlike the search routines given earlier, this routine does not
return the location of the item in the array. Instead, it returns the value that it finds associated with the key,
name. This is often done with association lists.
This class could use a lot of improvement. For one thing, it would be nice to use binary search instead of
simple linear search in the getNumber method. However, we could only do that if the list of PhoneEntries
were sorted into alphabetical order according to name. In fact, it's really not all that hard to keep the list of
entries in sorted order, as you'll see in just a second.
Insertion Sort
We've seen that there are good reasons for sorting arrays. There are many algorithms available for doing so.
One of the easiest to understand is the insertion sort algorithm. This method is also applicable to the
problem of keeping a list in sorted order as you add new items to the list. Let's consider that case first:
Suppose you have a sorted list and you want to add an item to that list. If you want to make sure that the
modified list is still sorted, then the item must be inserted into the right location, with all the smaller items
coming before it and all the bigger items after it. This will mean moving each of the bigger items up one
space to make room for the new item.
static void insert(int[] A, int itemsInArray, int newItem) {
// Assume that A contains itemsInArray items in increasing
// order (A[0] <= A[1] <= ... <= A[itemsInArray-1]).
// This routine adds newItem to the array in its proper
// position, keeping the array in increasing order.
int loc = itemsInArray - 1; // Start at the end of the array.
/* Move items bigger than newItem up one space;
Stop when a smaller item is encountered or when the
beginning of the array (loc == 0) is reached. */
while (loc >= 0 && A[loc] > newItem) {
A[loc + 1] = A[loc]; // Bump item from A[loc] up to loc+1.
loc = loc - 1; // Go on to next location.
}
A[loc + 1] = newItem; // Put newItem in last vacated space.
}
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Conceptually, this could be extended to a sorting method if we were to take all the items out of an unsorted
array, and then insert them back into the array one-by-one, keeping the list in sorted order as we do so. Each
insertion can be done using the insert routine given above. In the actual algorithm, we don't really take
all the items from the array; we just remember what part of the array has been sorted:
static void insertionSort(int[] A) {
// Sort the array A into increasing order.
int itemsSorted; // Number of items that have been sorted so far.
for (itemsSorted = 1; itemsSorted < A.length; itemsSorted++) {
// Assume that items A[0], A[1], ... A[itemsSorted-1]
// have already been sorted. Insert A[itemsSorted]
// into the sorted list.
int temp = A[itemsSorted]; // The item to be inserted.
int loc = itemsSorted - 1; // Start at end of list.
while (loc >= 0 && A[loc] > temp) {
A[loc + 1] = A[loc]; // Bump item from A[loc] up to loc+1.
loc = loc - 1; // Go on to next location.
}
A[loc + 1] = temp; // Put temp in last vacated space.
}
}
The following is an illustration of one stage in insertion sort. It shows what happens during one execution
of the for loop in the above method, when itemsSorted is 5.
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Java Programing: Section 8.4
Selection Sort
Another typical sorting method uses the idea of finding the biggest item in the list and moving it to the end
-- which is where it belongs if the list is to be in increasing order. Once the biggest item is in its correct
location, you can then apply the same idea to the remaining items. That is, find the next-biggest item, and
move it into the next-to-last space, and so forth. This algorithm is called selection sort. It's easy to write:
static void selectionSort(int[] A) {
// Sort A into increasing order, using selection sort
for (int lastPlace = A.length-1; lastPlace > 0; lastPlace--) {
// Find the largest item among A[0], A[1], ...,
// A[lastPlace], and move it into position lastPlace
// by swapping it with the number that is currently
// in position lastPlace.
int maxLoc = 0; // Location of largest item seen so far.
for (int j = 1; j <= lastPlace; j++) {
if (A[j] > A[maxLoc]) {
// Since A[j] is bigger than the maximum we've seen
// so far, j is the new location of the maximum value
// we've seen so far.
maxLoc = j;
}
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}
int temp = A[maxLoc]; // Swap largest item with A[lastPlace].
A[maxLoc] = A[lastPlace];
A[lastPlace] = temp;
} // end of for loop
}
Insertion sort and selection sort are suitable for sorting fairly small arrays (up to a few hundred elements,
say). There are more complicated sorting algorithms that are much faster than insertion sort and selection
sort for large arrays. I'll discuss one such algorithm in Section 11.1.
A variation of selection sort is used in the Hand class that was introduced in Section 5.3. (By the way, you
are finally in a position to fully understand the source code for both the Hand class and the Deck class
from that section. See the source files Deck.java and Hand.java.)
In the Hand class, a hand of playing cards is represented by a Vector. The objects stored in the Vector
are of type Card. A Card object contains instance methods getSuit() and getValue() that can be
used to determine the suit and value of the card. In my sorting method, I actually create a new vector and
move the cards one-by-one from the old vector to the new vector. The cards are selected from the old vector
in increasing order. In the end, the new vector becomes the hand and the old vector is discarded. This is
certainly not an efficient procedure! But hands of cards are so small that the inefficiency is negligible. Here
is the code:
public void sortBySuit() {
// Sorts the cards in the hand so that cards of the same
// suit are grouped together, and within a suit the cards
// are sorted by value. Note that aces are considered to have
// the lowest value, 1.
Vector newHand = new Vector();
while (hand.size() > 0) {
int pos = 0; // Position of minimal card.
Card c = (Card)hand.elementAt(0); // Minimal card seen so far.
for (int i = 1; i < hand.size(); i++) {
Card c1 = (Card)hand.elementAt(i);
if ( c1.getSuit() < c.getSuit() ||
(c1.getSuit() == c.getSuit()
&& c1.getValue() < c.getValue()) ) {
pos = i;
c = c1;
}
}
hand.removeElementAt(pos);
newHand.addElement(c);
}
hand = newHand;
}
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Unsorting
I can't resist ending this section on sorting with a related problem that is much less common, but is a bit
more fun. That is the problem of putting the elements of an array into a random order. The typical case of
this problem is shuffling a deck of cards. A good algorithm for shuffling is similar to selection sort, except
that instead of moving the biggest item to the end of the list, an item is selected at random and moved to the
end of the list. Here is a subroutine to shuffle an array of ints:
static void shuffle(int[] A) {
for (int lastPlace = A.length-1; lastPlace > 0; lastPlace--) {
// Choose a random location from among 0,1,...,lastPlace.
int randLoc = (int)(Math.random()*(lastPlace+1));
// Swap items in locations randLoc and lastPlace.
int temp = A[randLoc];
A[randLoc] = A[lastPlace];
A[lastPlace] = temp;
}
}
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 8.5
Multi-Dimensional Arrays
ANY TYPE CAN BE USED AS THE BASE TYPE FOR AN ARRAY. You can have an array of ints,
an array of Strings, an array of Objects, and so on. In particular, since an array type is a first-class
Java type, you can have an array of arrays. For example, an array of ints has type int[]. This means
that there is automatically another type, int[][], which represents an "array of arrays of ints". Such an
array is said to be a two-dimensional array. Of course once you have the type int[][], there is nothing to
stop you from forming the type int[][][], which represents a three-dimensional array -- and so on.
There is no limit on the number of dimensions that an array type can have. However, arrays of dimension
three or higher are fairly uncommon, and I concentrate here mainly on two-dimensional arrays. The type
BaseType[][] is usually read "two-dimensional array of BaseType" or "BaseType array array".
The declaration statement "int[][] A;" declares a variable named A of type int[][]. This variable
can hold a reference to an object of type int[][]. The assignment statement "A = new int[3][4];"
creates a new two-dimensional array object and sets A to point to the newly created object. As usual, the
declaration and assignment could be combined in a single declaration statement "int[][] A = new
int[3][4];". The newly created object is an array of arrays-of-ints. The notation int[3][4]
indicates that there are 3 arrays-of-ints in the array A, and that there are 4 ints in each array-of-ints.
However, trying to think in such terms can get a bit confusing -- as you might have already noticed. So it is
customary to think of a two-dimensional array of items as a rectangular grid or matrix of items. The
notation "new int[3][4]" can then be taken to describe a grid of ints with 3 rows and 4 columns.
The following picture might help:
For the most part, you can ignore the reality and keep the picture of a grid in mind. Sometimes, though, you
will need to remember that each row in the grid is really an array in itself. These arrays can be referred to as
A[0], A[1], and A[2]. Each row is in fact a value of type int[]. It could, for example, be passed to a
subroutine that asks for a parameter of type int[].
The notation A[1] refers to one of the rows of the array A. Since A[1] is itself an array of ints, You can
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another subscript to refer to one of the positions in that row. For example, A[1][3] refers to item number
3 in row number 1. Keep in mind, of course, that both rows and columns are numbered starting from zero.
So, in the above example, A[1][3] is 5. More generally, A[i][j] refers to the grid position in row
number i and column number j. The 12 items in A are named as follows:
A[0][0] A[0][1] A[0][2] A[0][3]
A[1][0] A[1][1] A[1][2] A[1][3]
A[2][0] A[2][1] A[2][2] A[2][3]
A[i][j] is actually a variable of type int. You can assign integer values to it or use it in any other
context where an integer variable is allowed.
It might be worth noting that A.length gives the number of rows of A. To get the number of columns in
A, you have to ask how many ints there are in a row; this number would be given by A[0].length, or
equivalently by A[1].length or A[2].length. (There is actually no rule that says that all the rows of
an array must have the same length, and some advanced applications of arrays use varying-sized rows. But
if you use the new operator to create an array in the manner described above, you'll always get an array
with equal-sized rows.)
Three-dimensional arrays are treated similarly. For example, a three-dimensional array of ints could be
created with the declaration statement "int[][][] B = new int[7][5][11];". It's possible to
visualize the value of B as a solid 7-by-5-by-11 block of cells. Each cell holds an int and represents one
position in the three-dimensional array. Individual positions in the array can be referred with variable names
of the form B[i][j][k]. Higher-dimensional arrays follow the same pattern, although for dimensions
greater than three, there is no easy way to visualize the structure of the array.
It's possible to fill a multi-dimensional array with specified items at the time it is declared. Recall that when
an ordinary one-dimensional array variable is declared, it can be assigned an "array initializer," which is
just a list of values enclosed between braces, { and }. Array initializers can also be used when a
multi-dimensional array is declared. An initializer for a two-dimensional array consists of a list of
one-dimensional array initializers, one for each row in the two-dimensional array. For example, the array A
shown in the picture above could be created with:
int[][] A = { { 1, 0, 12, -1 },
{ 7, -3, 2, 5 },
{ -5, -2, 2, 9 }
};
If no initializer is provided for an array, then when the array is created it is automatically filled with the
appropriate value: zero for numbers, false for boolean, and null for objects.
Just as in the case of one-dimensional arrays, two-dimensional arrays are often processed using for
statements. To process all the items in a two-dimensional array, you have to use one for statement nested
inside another. If the array A is declared as
int[][] A = new int[3][4];
then you could store a zero into each location in A with:
for (int row = 0; row < 3; row++) {
for (int column = 0; column < 4; column++) {
A[row][column] = 0;
}
}
The first time the outer for loop executes (with row = 0), the inner for loop fills in the four values in the
first row of A, namely A[0][0] = 0, A[0][1] = 0, A[0][2] = 0, and A[0][3] = 0. The next
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execution of the outer for loop fills in the second row of A. And the third and final execution of the outer
loop fills in the final row of A.
Similarly, you could add up all the items in A with:
int sum = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
for (int j = 0; j < 4; i++)
sum = sum + A[i][j];
To process a three-dimensional array, you would, of course, use triply nested for loops.
A two-dimensional array can be used whenever the data being represented can be naturally arranged into
rows and columns. Often, the grid is built into the problem. For example, a chess board is a grid with 8
rows and 8 columns. If a class named ChessPiece is available to represent individual chess pieces, then
the contents of a chess board could be represented by a two-dimensional array:
ChessPiece[][] board = new ChessPiece[8][8];
Or consider the "mosaic" of colored rectangles used as an example in Section 4.6. The mosaic is
implemented by class named MosaicCanvas. The data about the color of each of the rectangles in the
mosaic is stored in an instance variable named grid of type Color[][]. Each position in this grid is
occupied by a value of type Color. There is one position in the grid for each colored rectangle in the
mosaic. The actual two-dimensional array is created by the statement:
grid = new Color[ROWS][COLUMNS];
where ROWS is the number of rows of rectangles in the mosaic and COLUMNS is the number of columns.
The value of the Color variable grid[i][j] is the color of the rectangle in row number i and column
number j. When the color of that rectangle is changed to some color value, c, the value stored in
grid[i][j] is changed with a statement of the form "grid[i][j] = c;". When the mosaic is
redrawn, the values stored in the two-dimensional array are used to decide what color to make each
rectangle. Here is a simplified version of the paint() method from the MosaicCanvas class, so you
can see how it uses the array:
public void paint(Graphics g) {
// Draw all the colored rectangles in the grid.
int rowHeight = getSize().height / ROWS;
int colWidth = getSize().width / COLUMNS;
for (int row = 0; row < ROWS; row++) {
for (int col = 0; col < COLUMNS; col++) {
g.setColor( grid[row][col] ); // Get color from array.
g.fillRect( col*colWidth, row*rowHeight,
colWidth, rowHeight );
}
}
}
Sometimes two-dimensional arrays are used in problems in which the grid is not so visually obvious.
Consider a company that owns 25 stores. Suppose that the company has data about the profit earned at each
store for each month in the year 2000. If the stores are numbered from 0 to 24, and if the twelve months
from January '00 through December '00 are numbered from 0 to 11, then the profit data could be stored in
an array, profit, constructed as follows:
double[][] profit = new double[25][12];
profit[3][2] would be the amount of profit earned at store number 3 in March, and more generally,
profit[storeNum][monthNum] would be the amount of profit earned in store number storeNum
in month number monthNum. In this example, the one-dimensional array profit[storeNum] has a
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very useful meaning: It is just the profit data for one particular store for the whole year.
Let's assume that the profit array has already been filled with data. This data can be processed in a lot of
interesting ways. For example, the total profit for the company -- for the whole year from all its stores -- can
be calculated by adding up all the entries in the array:
double totalProfit; // Company's total profit in 2000.
totalProfit = 0;
for (int store = 0; store < 25; store++) {
for (int month = 0; month < 12; month++)
totalProfit += profit[store][month];
}
Sometimes it is necessary to process a single row or a single column of an array, not the entire array. For
example, to compute the total profit earned by the company in December, that is, in month number 11, you
could use the loop:
double decemberProfit = 0.0;
for (storeNum = 0; storeNum < 25; storeNum++)
decemberProfit += profit[storeNum][11];
Let's extend this idea to create a one-dimensional array that contains the total profit for each month of the
year:
double[] monthlyProfit; // Holds profit for each month.
monthlyProfit = new double[12];
for (int month = 0; month < 12; month++) {
// compute the total profit from all stores in this month.
monthlyProfit[month] = 0.0;
for (int store = 0; store < 25; store++) {
// Add the profit from this store in this month
// into the total profit figure for the month.
monthlyProfit[month] += profit[store][month];
}
}
As a final example of processing the profit array, suppose that we wanted to know which store generated
the most profit over the course of the year. To do this, we have to add up the monthly profits for each store.
In array terms, this means that we want to find the sum of each row in the array. As we do this, we need to
keep track of which row produces the largest total.
double maxProfit; // Maximum profit earned by a store.
int bestStore; // The number of the store with the
// maximum profit.
double total = 0.0; // Total profit for one store.
// First compute the profit from store number 0.
for (int month = 0; month < 12; month++)
total += profit[0][month];
bestStore = 0; // Start by assuming that the best
maxProfit = total; // store is store number 0.
// Now, go through the other stores, and whenever we
// find one with a bigger profit than maxProfit, revise
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// the assumptions about bestStore and maxProfit.
for (store = 1; store < 25; store++) {
// Compute this store's profit for the year.
total = 0.0;
for (month = 0; month < 12; month++)
total += profit[store][month];
// Compare this store's profits with the highest
// profit we have seen among the preceding stores.
if (total > maxProfit) {
maxProfit = total; // Best profit seen so far!
bestStore = store; // It came from this store.
}
} // end for
// At this point, maxProfit is the best profit of any
// of the 25 stores, and bestStore is a store that
// generated that profit. (Note that there could also be
// other stores that generated exactly the same profit.)
For the rest of this section, we'll look at a more substantial example. Here is an applet that lets two users
play checkers against each other. A player moves by clicking on the piece to be moved and then on the
empty square to which it is to be moved. The squares that the current player can legally click are hilited. A
piece that has been selected to be moved is surrounded by a white border. Other pieces that can legally be
moved are surrounded by a cyan-colored border. If a piece has been selected, each empty square that it can
legally move to is hilited with a green border. The game enforces the rule that if the current player can jump
one of the opponent's pieces, then the player must jump. When a player's piece becomes a king, by reaching
the opposite end of the board, a big white "K" is drawn on the piece.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
I will only cover a part of the programming of this applet. I encourage you to read the complete source
code, Checkers.java. At over 700 lines, this is a more substantial example than anything you've seen before
in this course, but it's an excellent example of state-based, event-driven programming. The source file
defines four classes. The logic of the game is implemented in a class named CheckersCanvas.
The data about the pieces on the board are stored in a two-dimensional array. Because of the complexity of
the program, I wanted to divide it into several classes. One of these classes is CheckersData, which
handles the data for the board. It is mainly this class that I want to talk about.
The CheckersData class has an instance variable named board of type int[][]. The value of board
is set to "new int[8][8]", an 8-by-8 grid of integers. The values stored in the grid are defined as
constants representing the possible contents of a square on a checkerboard:
public static final int
EMPTY = 0, // Value representing an empty square.
RED = 1, // A regular red piece.
RED_KING = 2, // A red king.
BLACK = 3, // A regular black piece.
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BLACK_KING = 4; // A black king.
The constants RED and BLACK are also used in my program (or, perhaps, misused) to represent the two
players in the game. When a game is started, the values in the variable, board, are set to represent the
initial state of the board. The grid of values looks like
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 6
0 BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY
1 EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK
2 BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY BLACK EMPTY
3 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY
4 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY
5 EMPTY RED EMPTY RED EMPTY RED EMPTY RED
6 RED EMPTY RED EMPTY RED EMPTY RED EMPTY
7 EMPTY RED EMPTY RED EMPTY RED EMPTY RED
A black piece can only move "down" the grid. That is, the row number of the square it moves to must be
greater than the row number of the square it comes from. A red piece can only move up the grid. Kings of
either color, of course, can move in both directions.
One function of the CheckersData class is to take care of all the details of making moves on the board.
An instance method named makeMove() is provided to do this. When a player moves a piece from one
square to another, the values stored at two positions in the array are changed. But that's not all. If the move
is a jump, then the piece that was jumped is removed from the board. (The method checks whether the
move is a jump by checking if the square to which the piece is moving is two rows away from the square
where it starts.) Furthermore, a RED piece that moves to row 0 or a BLACK piece that moves to row 7
becomes a king. This is good programming: the rest of the program doesn't have to worry about any of
these details. It just calls this makeMove() method:
public void makeMove(int fromRow, int fromCol, int toRow, int toCol) {
// Make the move from (fromRow,fromCol) to (toRow,toCol). It is
// ASSUMED that this move is legal! If the move is a jump, the
// jumped piece is removed from the board. If a piece moves
// to the last row on the opponent's side of the board, the
// piece becomes a king.
board[toRow][toCol] = board[fromRow][fromCol]; // Move the piece.
board[fromRow][fromCol] = EMPTY;
if (fromRow - toRow == 2 || fromRow - toRow == -2) {
// The move is a jump. Remove the jumped piece from the board.
int jumpRow = (fromRow + toRow) / 2; // Row of the jumped piece.
int jumpCol = (fromCol + toCol) / 2; // Column of the jumped piece.
board[jumpRow][jumpCol] = EMPTY;
}
if (toRow == 0 && board[toRow][toCol] == RED)
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board[toRow][toCol] = RED_KING; // Red piece becomes a king.
if (toRow == 7 && board[toRow][toCol] == BLACK)
board[toRow][toCol] = BLACK_KING; // Black piece becomes a king.
} // end makeMove()
An even more important function of the CheckersData class is to find legal moves on the board. In my
program, a move in a Checkers game is represented by an object belonging to the following class:
class CheckersMove {
// A CheckersMove object represents a move in the game of
// Checkers. It holds the row and column of the piece that is
// to be moved and the row and column of the square to which
// it is to be moved. (This class makes no guarantee that
// the move is legal.)
int fromRow, fromCol; // Position of piece to be moved.
int toRow, toCol; // Square it is to move to.
CheckersMove(int r1, int c1, int r2, int c2) {
// Constructor. Set the values of the instance variables.
fromRow = r1;
fromCol = c1;
toRow = r2;
toCol = c2;
}
boolean isJump() {
// Test whether this move is a jump. It is assumed that
// the move is legal. In a jump, the piece moves two
// rows. (In a regular move, it only moves one row.)
return (fromRow - toRow == 2 || fromRow - toRow == -2);
}
} // end class CheckersMove.
The CheckersData class has an instance method which finds every legal moves that is currently
available for a specified player. This method is a function that returns an array of type CheckersMove[].
The array contains all the legal moves, represented as CheckersMove objects. The specification for this
method reads
public CheckersMove[] getLegalMoves(int player)
// Return an array containing all the legal CheckersMoves
// for the specified player on the current board. If the player
// has no legal moves, null is returned. The value of player
// should be one of the constants RED or BLACK; if not, null
// is returned. If the returned value is non-null, it consists
// entirely of jump moves or entirely of regular moves, since
// if the player can jump, only jumps are legal moves.
A brief pseudocode algorithm for the method is
Start with an empty list of moves
Find any legal jumps and add them to the list
if there are no jumps:
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Find any other legal moves and add them to the list
if the list is empty:
return null
else:
return the list
Now, what is this "list"? We have to return the legal moves in an array. But since an array has a fixed size,
we can't create the array until we know how many moves there are, and we don't know that until near the
end of the method, after we've already made the list! A neat solution is to use a Vector instead of an array
to hold the moves as we find them. As we add moves to the vector, it will grow just as large as necessary.
At the end of the method, we can create the array that we really want and copy the data into it:
Let "moves" be an empty vector
Find any legal jumps and add them to moves
if moves.size() is 0:
Find any other legal moves and add them to moves
if moves.size() is 0:
return null
else:
Let moveArray be an array of CheckersMoves of length moves.size()
Copy the contents of moves into moveArray
return moveArray
Now, how do we find the legal jumps or the legal moves? The information we need is in the board array,
but it takes some work to extract it. We have to look through all the positions in the array and find the
pieces that belong to the current player. For each piece, we have to check each square that it could
conceivably move to, and check whether that would be a legal move. There are four squares to consider.
For a jump, we want to look at squares that are two rows and two columns away from the piece. Thus, the
line in the algorithm that says "Find any legal jumps and add them to moves" expands to:
For each row of the board:
For each column of the board:
if one of the player's pieces is at this location:
if it is legal to jump to row + 2, column + 2
add this move to moves
if it is legal to jump to row - 2, column + 2
add this move to moves
if it is legal to jump to row + 2, column - 2
add this move to moves
if it is legal to jump to row - 2, column - 2
add this move to moves
The line that says "Find any other legal moves and add them to moves" expands to something similar,
except that we have to look at the four squares that are one column and one row away from the piece.
Testing whether a player can legally move from one given square to another given square is itself
non-trivial. The square the player is moving to must actually be on the board, and it must be empty.
Furthermore, regular red and black pieces can only move in one direction. I wrote the following utility
method to check whether a player can make a given non-jump move:
private boolean canMove(int player, int r1, int c1, int r2, int c2) {
// This is called by the getLegalMoves() method to determine
// whether the player can legally move from (r1,c1) to (r2,c2).
// It is ASSUMED that (r1,c1) contains one of the player's
// pieces and that (r2,c2) is a neighboring square.
if (r2 < 0 || r2 >= 8 || c2 < 0 || c2 >= 8)
return false; // (r2,c2) is off the board.
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if (board[r2][c2] != EMPTY)
return false; // (r2,c2) already contains a piece.
if (player == RED) {
if (board[r1][c1] == RED && r2 > r1)
return false; // Regular red piece can only move down.
return true; // The move is legal.
}
else {
if (board[r1][c1] == BLACK && r2 < r1)
return false; // Regular black piece can only move up.
return true; // The move is legal.
}
} // end canMove()
This method is called by my getLegalMoves() method to check whether one of the possible moves that
it has found is actually legal. I have a similar method that is called to check whether a jump is legal. In this
case, I pass to the method the square containing the player's piece, the square that the player might move to,
and the square between those two, which the player would be jumping over. The square that is being
jumped must contain one of the opponent's pieces. This method has the specification:
private boolean canJump(int player, int r1, int c1,
int r2, int c2, int r3, int c3) {
// This is called by two previous methods to check
// whether the player can legally jump from (r1,c1) to (r3,c3).
// It is assumed that the player has a piece at (r1,c1), that
// (r3,c3) is a position that is 2 rows and 2 columns distant
// from (r1,c1) and that (r2,c2) is the square between (r1,c1)
// and (r3,c3).
Given all this, you should be in a position to understand the complete getLegalMoves() method. It's a
nice way to finish off this chapter, since it combines several topics that we've looked at: one-dimensional
arrays, vectors, and two-dimensional arrays:
public CheckersMove[] getLegalMoves(int player) {
if (player != RED && player != BLACK)
return null;
int playerKing; // The constant for a King belonging to the player.
if (player == RED)
playerKing = RED_KING;
else
playerKing = BLACK_KING;
Vector moves = new Vector(); // Moves will be stored in this vector.
/* First, check for any possible jumps. Look at each square on
the board. If that square contains one of the player's pieces,
look at a possible jump in each of the four directions from that
square. If there is a legal jump in that direction, put it in
the moves vector.
*/
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Java Programing: Section 8.5
for (int row = 0; row < 8; row++) {
for (int col = 0; col < 8; col++) {
if (board[row][col] == player || board[row][col] == playerKing) {
if (canJump(player, row, col, row+1, col+1, row+2, col+2))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row, col, row+2, col+2));
if (canJump(player, row, col, row-1, col+1, row-2, col+2))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row, col, row-2, col+2));
if (canJump(player, row, col, row+1, col-1, row+2, col-2))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row, col, row+2, col-2));
if (canJump(player, row, col, row-1, col-1, row-2, col-2))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row, col, row-2, col-2));
}
}
}
/* If any jump moves were found, then the user must jump, so we
don't add any regular moves. However, if no jumps were found,
check for any legal regular moves. Look at each square on
the board. If that square contains one of the player's pieces,
look at a possible move in each of the four directions from
that square. If there is a legal move in that direction,
put it in the moves vector.
*/
if (moves.size() == 0) {
for (int row = 0; row < 8; row++) {
for (int col = 0; col < 8; col++) {
if (board[row][col] == player
|| board[row][col] == playerKing) {
if (canMove(player,row,col,row+1,col+1))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row,col,row+1,col+1));
if (canMove(player,row,col,row-1,col+1))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row,col,row-1,col+1));
if (canMove(player,row,col,row+1,col-1))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row,col,row+1,col-1));
if (canMove(player,row,col,row-1,col-1))
moves.addElement(new CheckersMove(row,col,row-1,col-1));
}
}
}
}
/* If no legal moves have been found, return null. Otherwise, create
an array just big enough to hold all the legal moves, copy the
legal moves from the vector into the array, and return the array.
*/
if (moves.size() == 0)
return null;
else {
CheckersMove[] moveArray = new CheckersMove[moves.size()];
for (int i = 0; i < moves.size(); i++)
moveArray[i] = (CheckersMove)moves.elementAt(i);
return moveArray;
}
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Java Programing: Section 8.5
} // end getLegalMoves
End of Chapter 8
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 8 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 8
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 8 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 8.1: An example in Section 8.2 tried to answer the question, How many random people do you
have to select before you find a duplicate birthday? The source code for that program can be found in the
file BirthdayProblemDemo.java. Here are some related questions:
● How many random people do you have to select before you find three people who share the same
birthday? (That is, all three people were born on the same day in the same month, but not
necessarily in the same year.)
● Suppose you choose 365 people at random. How many different birthdays will they have? (The
number could theoretically be anywhere from 1 to 365).
● How many different people do you have to check before you've found at least one person with a
birthday on each of the 365 days of the year?
Write three programs to answer these questions. Like the example program, BirthdayProblemDemo,
each of your programs should simulate choosing people at random and checking their birthdays. (In each
case, ignore the possibility of leap years.)
See the solution!
Exercise 8.2: Write a program that will read a sequence of positive real numbers entered by the user and
will print the same numbers in sorted order from smallest to largest. The user will input a zero to mark the
end of the input. Assume that at most 100 positive numbers will be entered.
See the solution!
Exercise 8.3: A polygon is a geometric figure made up of a sequence of connected line segments. The
points where the line segments meet are called the vertices of the polygon. The Graphics class includes
commands for drawing and filling polygons. For these commands, the coordinates of the vertices of the
polygon are be stored in arrays. If g is a variable of type Graphics then
● g.drawPolygon(xCoords, yCoords, pointCt) will draw the outline of the polygon
with vertices at (xCoords[0],yCoords[0]), (xCoords[1],yCoords[1]), ...,
(xCoords[pointCt-1],yCoords[pointCt-1]). The third parameter, pointCt, is an
int that specifies the number of vertices of the polygon. Its value should be 3 or greater. The first
two parameters are arrays of type int[]. Note that the polygon automatically includes a line from
the last point, (xCoords[pointCt-1],yCoords[pointCt-1]), back to the starting point
(xCoords[0],yCoords[0]).
● g.fillPolygon(xCoords, yCoords, pointCt) fills the interior of the polygon with the
current drawing color. The parameters have the same meaning as in the drawPolygon() method.
Note that it is OK for the sides of the polygon to cross each other, but the interior of a polygon with
self-intersections might not be exactly what you expect.
Write a little applet that lets the user draw polygons. As the user clicks a sequence of points, count them and
store their x- and y-coordinates in two arrays. These points will be the vertices of the polygon. Also, draw a
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Java Programing: Chapter 8 Exercises
line between each consecutive pair of points to give the user some visual feedback. When the user clicks
near the starting point, draw the complete polygon. Draw it with a red interior and a black border. The user
should then be able to start drawing a new polygon. When the user shift-clicks on the applet, clear it.
There is no need to store information about the contents of the applet. The paint() method can just draw
a border around the applet. The lines and polygons can be drawn using a graphics context, g, obtained with
the command "g = getGraphics();".
You can try my solution. Note that nothing is drawn on the applet until you click the second vertex of the
polygon. You have to click within two pixels of the starting point to see a filled polygon.
See the solution!
Exercise 8.4: For this problem, you will need to use an array of objects. The objects belong to the class
MovingBall, which I have already written. You can find the source code for this class in the file
MovingBall.java. A MovingBall represents a circle that has an associated color, radius, direction, and
speed. It is restricted to moving in a rectangle in the (x,y) plane. It will "bounce back" when it hits one of
the sides of this rectangle. A MovingBall does not actually move by itself. It's just a collection of data.
You have to call instance methods to tell it to update its position and to draw itself. The constructor for the
MovingBall class takes the form
new MovingBall(xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax)
where the parameters are integers that specify the limits on the x and y coordinates of the ball. In this
exercise, you will want balls to bounce off the sides of the applet, so you will create them with the
constructor call "new MovingBall(0, getSize().width, 0, getSize().height)". The
constructor creates a ball that initially is colored red, has a radius of 5 pixels, is located at the center of its
range, has a random speed between 4 and 12, and is headed in a random direction. If ball is a variable of
type MovingBall, then the following methods are available:
● ball.draw(g) -- draw the ball in a graphics context. The parameter, g, must be of type
Graphics. (The drawing color in g will be changed to the color of the ball.)
● ball.travel() -- change the (x,y)-coordinates of the ball by an amount equal to its speed.
The ball has a certain direction of motion, and the ball is moved in that direction. Ordinarily, you
will call this once for each frame of an animation, so the speed is given in terms of "pixels per
frame". Calling this routine does not move the ball on the screen. It just changes the values of some
instance variables in the object. The next time the object's draw() method is called, the ball will be
drawn in the new position.
● ball.headTowards(x,y) -- change the direction of motion of the ball so that it is headed
towards the point (x,y). This does not affect the speed.
These are the methods that you will need for this exercise. There are also methods for setting various
properties of the ball, such as ball.setColor(color) for changing the color and
ball.setRadius(radius) for changing its size. See the source code for more information.
For this exercise, you should create an applet that shows an animation of 25 balls bouncing around on a
black background. Your applet can be defined as a subclass of SimpleAnimationApplet, which was first
introduced in Section 3.7. Use an array of type MovingBall[] to hold the 25 balls. The drawFrame()
method in your applet should move all the balls and draw them.
In addition, your applet should implement the MouseListener and MouseMotionListener
interfaces. When the user presses the mouse or drags the mouse, call each of the ball's headTowards()
methods to make the balls head towards the mouse's location.
Here is my solution. Try clicking and dragging on the applet:
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Java Programing: Chapter 8 Exercises
See the solution!
Exercise 8.5: To do this exercise, you need to know the material on components and layouts from Chapter
7. Write an applet that draws pie charts based on data entered by the user. A pie chart is a circle divided into
colored wedges. Each wedge of the pie corresponds to one number in an array of positive numbers. The
number of degrees in the wedge is proportional to the corresponding number. If g is a variable of type
Graphics, then a wedge can be drawn with the command
g.fillArc(left, top, width, height, startAngle, degrees);
All the parameters in this command are integers. The first four parameters give the left edge, top edge,
width, and height of a rectangle containing the "pie". For a circle, the width and height must be the same.
The fifth parameter tells the starting angle of the wedge, and the sixth tells the number of degrees in the
wedge.
Your applet should include 12 TextFields where the user can enter the data for the pie chart. You will
need an array of type TextField[] to keep track of these input boxes. Section 7.4 has an example that
shows how to get a number of type double from an input box. You should ignore any input boxes that are
empty. Use the data from the non-empty input boxes for the pie chart.
The applet should have a button that the user clicks to draw the pie chart. And it should have a sub-class of
the Canvas class that will display the pie chart. I suggest that this class include an instance variable of type
int[] to store the data needed for the pie chart. The data that you need is the angles of the dividing lines
between the wedges. This is not the same as the data from the input boxes, but it can be computed from that
data. Suppose the user's data is data[0], data[1], ..., data[dataCt-1]. Let dataSum be the sum
of all the user's data, data[0] + data[1] + ... + data[dataCt-1]. Let sum be the sum of
the first i data values, data[0] + data[1] + ... + data[i-1]. Then the angle for the i-th
dividing line in the pie chart is given by "(int)(360*sum/dataSum + 0.5)". (The "360" is there
because it represents the number of degrees in a full circle. The "+0.5" is there so the answer will be
rounded to the nearest integer rather than truncated downwards.)
Here is my solution:
See the solution!
Exercise 8.6: The game of Go Moku (also known as Pente or Five Stones) is similar to Tic-Tac-Toe, except
that it played on a much larger board and the object is to get five squares in a row rather than three. Players
take turns placing pieces on a board. A piece can be placed in any empty square. The first player to get five
pieces in a row -- horizontally, vertically, or diagonally -- wins. If all squares are filled before either player
wins, then the game is a draw. Write an applet that lets two players play Go Moku against each other.
Your applet will be simpler than the Checkers applet from Section 8.5. Play alternates strictly between
the two players, and there is no need to hilite the legal moves. You will only need two classes, a short applet
class to set up the applet and a GoMokuCanvas class to draw the board and do all the work of the game.
Nevertheless, you will probably want to look at the source code for the checkers applet, Checkers.java, for
ideas about the general outline of the program.
The hardest part of the program is checking whether the move that a player makes is a winning move. To
do this, you have to look in each of the four possible directions from the square where the user has placed a
piece. You have to count how many pieces that player has in a row in that direction. If the number is five or
more in any direction, then that player wins. As a hint, here is part of the code from my applet. This code
counts the number of pieces that the user has in a row in a specified direction. The direction is specified by
two integers, dirX and dirY. The values of these variables are 0, 1, or -1, and at least one of them is
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non-zero. For example, to look in the horizontal direction, dirX is 1 and dirY is 0.
int ct = 1; // Number of pieces in a row belonging to the player.
int r, c; // A row and column to be examined.
r = row + dirX; // Look at square in specified direction.
c = col + dirY;
while ( r >= 0 && r < 13 && c >= 0 && c < 13
&& board[r][c] == player ) {
// Square is on the board, and it
// contains one of the players's pieces.
ct++;
r += dirX; // Go on to next square in this direction.
c += dirY;
}
r = row - dirX; // Now, look in the opposite direction.
c = col - dirY;
while ( r >= 0 && r < 13 && c >= 0 && c < 13
&& board[r][c] == player ) {
ct++;
r -= dirX; // Go on to next square in this direction.
c -= dirY;
}
Here is my applet. It uses a 13-by-13 board. You can do the same or use a normal 8-by-8 checkerboard.
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 8 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 8
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 8 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: What does the computer do when it executes the following statement? Try to give as complete
an answer as possible.
Color[] pallette = new Color[12];
Question 2: What is meant by the basetype of an array?
Question 3: What does it mean to sort an array?
Question 4: What is meant by a dynamic array? What is the advantage of a dynamic array over a regular
array?
Question 5: What is the purpose of the following subroutine? What is the meaning of the value that it
returns, in terms of the value of its parameter?
static String concat( String[] str ) {
if (str == null)
return null;
String ans = "";
for (int i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
ans = ans + str[i];
return ans;
}
Question 6: Show the exact output produced by the following code segment.
char[][] pic = new char[6][6];
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
for (int j = 0; j < 6; j++) {
if ( i == j || i == 0 || i == 5 )
pic[i][j] = '*';
else
pic[i][j] = '.';
}
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < 6; j++)
System.out.print(pic[i][j]);
System.out.println();
}
Question 7: Write a complete subroutine that finds the largest value in an array of ints. The subroutine
should have one parameter, which is an array of type int[]. The largest number in the array should be
returned as the value of the subroutine.
Question 8: Suppose that temperature measurements were made on each day of 1999 in each of 100 cities.
The measurements have been stored in an array
int[][] temps = new int[100][365];
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Java Programing: Chapter 8 Quiz
where temps[c][d] holds the measurement for city number c on the dth day of the year. Write a code
segment that will print out the average temperature, over the course of the whole year, for each city. The
average temperature for a city can be obtained by adding up all 365 measurements for that city and dividing
the answer by 365.0.
Question 9: Suppose that a class, Employee, is defined as follows:
class Employee {
String lastName;
String firstName;
double hourlyWage;
int yearsWithCompany;
}
Suppose that data about 100 employees is already stored in an array:
Employee[] employeeData = new Employee[100];
Write a code segment that will output the first name, last name, and hourly wage of each employee who has
been with the company for 20 years or more.
Question 10: Suppose that A has been declared and initialized with the statement
double[] A = new double[20];
And suppose that A has already been filled with 20 values. Write a program segment that will find the
average of all the non-zero numbers in the array. (The average is the sum of the numbers, divided by the
number of numbers. Note that you will have to count the number of non-zero entries in the array.) Declare
any variables that you use.
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 9 Index
Chapter 9
Correctness and Robustness
COMPUTER PROGRAMS THAT FAIL are much too common. Programs are fragile. A tiny error can
cause a program to misbehave or crash. Most of us are familiar with this from our own experience with
computers. And we've all heard stories about software glitches that cause spacecraft to crash, telephone
service to fail, and, in a few cases, people to die.
Programs don't have to be as bad as they are. It might well be impossible to guarantee that programs are
problem-free, but careful programming and well-designed programming tools can help keep the problems
to a minimum. This chapter will look at issues of correctness and robustness of programs. We'll also look at
exceptions, one of the tools that Java provides as an aid in writing robust programs.
Contents of Chapter 9:
● Section 1: Introduction to Correctness and Robustness
● Section 2: Writing Correct Programs
● Section 3: Exceptions and the try...catch Statement
● Section 4: Programming with Exceptions
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 9.1
Section 9.1
Introduction to Correctness and Robustness
A PROGRAM IS correct if accomplishes the task that it was designed to perform. It is robust if it can
handle illegal inputs and other unexpected situations in a reasonable way. For example, consider a program
that is designed to read some numbers from the user and then print the same numbers in sorted order. The
program is correct if it works for any set of input numbers. It is robust if it can also deal with non-numeric
input by, for example, printing an error message and ignoring the bad input. A non-robust program might
crash or give nonsensical output in the same circumstance.
Every program should be correct. (A sorting program that doesn't sort correctly is pretty useless.) It's not the
case that every program needs to be completely robust. It depends on who will use it and how it will be
used. For example, a small utility program that you write for your own use doesn't have to be at all robust.
The question of correctness is actually more subtle than it might appear. A programmer works from a
specification of what the program is supposed to do. The programmer's work is correct if the program meets
its specification. But does that mean that the program itself is correct? What if the specification is incorrect
or incomplete? A correct program should be a correct implementation of a complete and correct
specification. The question is whether the specification correctly expresses the intention and desires of the
people for whom the program is being written. This is a question that lies largely outside the domain of
computer science.
Most computer users have personal experience with programs that don't work or that crash. In many cases,
such problems are just annoyances, but even on a personal computer there can be more serious
consequences, such as lost work or lost money. When computers are given more important tasks, the
consequences of failure can be proportionately more serious.
Recently, as I write this, the failure of two multi-million space missions to Mars has been in the news. Both
failures were probably due to software problems, but in both cases the problem was not with an incorrect
program as such. In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere
because data that was expressed in English units of measurement (such as feet and pounds) was entered into
a computer program that was designed to use metric units (such as centimeters and grams). A few months
later, the Mars Polar Lander probably crashed because its software turned off its landing engines too soon.
The program was supposed to detect the bump when the spacecraft landed and turn off the engines then. It
has been determined that deployment of the landing gear might have jarred the spacecraft enough to
activate the program, causing it to turn off the engines when the spacecraft was still in the air. The
unpowered spacecraft would then have fallen to the Martian surface. A more robust system would have
checked the altitude before turning off the engines!
There are many equally dramatic stories of problems caused by incorrect or poorly written software. Let's
look at a few incidents recounted in the book Computer Ethics by Tom Forester and Perry Morrison. (This
book covers various ethical issues in computing. It, or something like it, is essential reading for any student
of computer science.)
In 1985 and 1986, one person was killed and several were injured by excess radiation, while undergoing
radiation treatments by a mis-programmed computerized radiation machine. In another case, over a ten-year
period ending in 1992, almost 1,000 cancer patients received radiation dosages that were 30% less than
prescribed because of a programming error.
In 1985, a computer at the Bank of New York started destroying records of on-going security transactions
because of an error in a program. It took less than 24 hours to fix the program, but by that time, the bank
was out $5,000,000 in overnight interest payments on funds that it had to borrow to cover the problem.
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Java Programing: Section 9.1
The programming of the inertial guidance system of the F-16 fighter plane would have turned the plane
upside-down when it crossed the equator, if the problem had not been discovered in simulation. The
Mariner 18 space probe was lost because of an error in one line of a program. The Gemini V space capsule
missed its scheduled landing target by a hundred miles, because a programmer forgot to take into account
the rotation of the Earth.
In 1990, AT&T's long-distance telephone service was disrupted throughout the United States when a newly
loaded computer program proved to contain a bug.
These are just a few examples. Software problems are all too common. As programmers, we need to
understand why that is true and what can be done about it.
Part of the problem, according to the inventors of Java, can be traced to programming languages
themselves. Java was designed to provide some protection against certain types of errors. How can a
language feature help prevent errors? Let's look at a few examples.
Early programming languages did not require variables to be declared. In such languages, when a variable
name is used in a program, the variable is created automatically. You might consider this more convenient
than having to declare every variable explicitly. But there is an unfortunate consequence: An inadvertent
spelling error might introduce an extra variable that you had no intention of creating. This type of error was
responsible, according to one famous story, for yet another lost spacecraft. In the FORTRAN programming
language, the command "DO 20 I = 1,5" is the first statement of a loop. Now, spaces are insignificant
in FORTRAN, so this is equivalent to "DO20I=1,5". On the other hand, the command "DO20I=1.5",
with a period instead of a comma, is an assignment statement that assigns the value 1.5 to the variable
DO20I. Supposedly, the inadvertent substitution of a period for a comma in a statement of this type caused
a rocket to blow up on take-off. Because FORTRAN doesn't require variables to be declared, the compiler
would be happy to accept the statement "DO20I=1.5." It would just create a new variable named DO20I.
If FORTRAN required variables to be declared, the compiler would have complained that the variable
DO20I was undeclared.
While most programming languages today do require variables to be declared, there are other features in
common programming languages that can cause problems. Java has eliminated some of these features.
Some people complain that this makes Java less efficient and less powerful. While there is some justice in
this criticism, the increase in security and robustness is probably worth the cost in most circumstances. The
best defense against some types of errors is to design a programming language in which the errors are
impossible. In other cases, where the error can't be completely eliminated, the language can be designed so
that when the error does occur, it will automatically be detected. This will at least prevent the error from
causing further harm, and it will alert the programmer that there is a bug that needs fixing. Let's look at a
few cases where the designers of Java have taken these approaches.
An array is created with a certain number of locations, numbered from zero up to some specified maximum
index. It is an error to try to use an array location that is outside of the specified range. In Java, any attempt
to do so is detected automatically by the system. In some other languages, such as C and C++, it's up to the
programmer to make sure that the index is within the legal range. Suppose that an array, A, has three
locations, A[0], A[1], and A[2]. Then A[3], A[4], and so on refer to memory locations beyond the
end of the array. In Java, an attempt to store data in A[3] will be detected. The program will be terminated
(unless the error is "caught", as discussed in Section 3). In C or C++, the computer will just go ahead and
store the data in memory that is not part of the array. Since there is no telling what that memory location is
being used for, the result will be unpredictable. The consequences could be much more serious than a
terminated program. (See, for example, the discussion of buffer overflow errors later in this section.)
Pointers are a notorious source of programming errors. In Java, a variable of object type holds either a
pointer to an object or the special value null. Any attempt to use a null value as if it were a pointer to an
actual object will be detected by the system. In some other languages, again, it's up to the programmer to
avoid such null pointer errors. In my old Macintosh computer, a null pointer was actually implemented as
if it were a pointer to memory location zero. A program could use a null pointer to change values stored in
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memory near location zero. Unfortunately, the Macintosh stored important system data in those locations.
Changing that data could cause the whole system to crash, a consequence more severe than a single failed
program.
Another type of pointer error occurs when a pointer value is pointing to an object of the wrong type or to a
segment of memory that does not even hold a valid object at all. These types of errors are impossible in
Java, which does not allow programmers to manipulate pointers directly. In other languages, it is possible to
set a pointer to point, essentially, to any location in memory. If this is done incorrectly, then using the
pointer can have unpredictable results.
Another type of error that cannot occur in Java is a memory leak. In Java, once there are no longer any
pointers that refer to an object, that object is "garbage collected" so that the memory that it occupied can be
reused. In other languages, it is the programmer's responsibility to return unused memory to the system. If
the programmer fails to do this, unused memory can build up, leaving less memory for programs and data.
There is a story that many common programs for Windows computers have so many memory leaks that the
computer will run out of memory after a few days of use and will have to be restarted.
Many programs have been found to suffer from buffer overflow errors. Buffer overflow errors often make
the news because they are responsible for many network security problems. When one computer receives
data from another computer over a network, that data is stored in a buffer. The buffer is just a segment of
memory that has been allocated by a program to hold data that it expects to receive. A buffer overflow
occurs when more data is received than will fit in the buffer. The question is, what happens then? If the
error is detected by the program or by the networking software, then the only thing that has happened is a
failed network data transmission. The real problem occurs when the software does not properly detect
buffer overflows. In that case, the software continues to store data in memory even after the buffer is filled,
and the extra data goes into some part of memory that was not allocated by the program as part of the
buffer. That memory might be in use for some other purpose. It might contain important data. It might even
contain part of the program itself. This is where the real security issues come in. Suppose that a buffer
overflow causes part of a program to be replaced with extra data received over a network. When the
computer goes to execute the part of the program that was replaced, it's actually executing data that was
received from another computer. That data could be anything. It could be a program that crashes the
computer or takes it over. A malicious programmer who finds a convenient buffer overflow error in
networking software can try to exploit that error to trick other computers into executing his programs.
For software written completely in Java, buffer overflow errors are impossible. The language simply does
not provide any way to store data into memory that has not been properly allocated. To do that, you would
need a pointer that points to unallocated memory or you would have to refer to an array location that lies
outside the range allocated for the array. As explained above, neither of these is possible in Java. (However,
there could conceivably still be errors in Java's standard classes, since some of the methods in these classes
are actually written in the C programming language rather than in Java.)
It's clear that language design can help prevent errors or detect them when they occur. Doing so involves
restricting what a programmer is allowed to do. Or it requires tests, such as checking whether a pointer is
null, that take some extra processing time. Some programmers feel that the sacrifice of power and
efficiency is too high a price to pay for the extra security. In some applications, this is true. However, there
are many situations where safety and security are primary considerations. Java is designed for such
situations.
There is one area where the designers of Java chose not to detect errors automatically: numerical
computations. In Java, a value of type int is represented as a 32-bit binary number. With 32 bits, it's
possible to represent a little over four billion different values. The values of type int range from
-2147483648 to 2147483647. What happens when the result of a computation lies outside this range? For
example, what is 2147483647 + 1? And what is 2000000000 * 2? The mathematically correct result in each
case cannot be represented as a value of type int. These are examples of integer overflow. In most cases,
integer overflow should be considered an error. However, Java does not automatically detect such errors.
For example, it will compute the value of 2147483647 + 1 to be the negative number, -2147483648. (What
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happens is that any extra bits beyond the 32-nd bit in the correct answer are discarded. Values greater than
2147483647 will "wrap around" to negative values. Mathematically speaking, the result is always "correct
modulo 232".)
For example, consider the 3N+1 program, which was first introduced in Section 3.2. Starting from a
positive integer N, the program computes a certain sequence of integers:
while ( N != 1 ) {
if ( N % 2 == 0 ) // If N is even...
N = N / 2;
else
N = 3 * N + 1;
System.out.println(N);
}
But there is a problem here: If N is too large, then the value of 3*N+1 will not be mathematically correct
because of integer overflow. The problem arises whenever 3*N+1 > 2147483647, that is when N >
2147483646/3. For a completely correct program, we should check for this possibility before
computing 3*N+1:
while ( N != 1 ) {
if ( N % 2 == 0 ) // If N is even...
N = N / 2;
else {
if (N > 2147483646/3) {
System.out.println("Sorry, but the value of N has become");
System.out.println("too large for your computer!");
break;
}
N = 3 * N + 1;
}
System.out.println(N);
}
The problem here is not that the original algorithm for computing 3N+1 sequences was wrong. The
problem is that it just can't be correctly implemented using 32-bit integers. Many programs ignore this type
of problem. But integer overflow errors have been responsible for their share of serious computer failures,
and a completely robust program should take the possibility of integer overflow into account. (The
infamous "Y2K" bug was, in fact, just this sort of error.)
For numbers of type double, there are even more problems. There are still overflow errors, which occur
when the result of a computation is outside the range of values that can be represented as a value of type
double. This range extends up to about 1.7 times 10 to the power 308. Numbers beyond this range do not
"wrap around" to negative values. Instead, they are represented by special values that have no numerical
equivalent. The values Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY and Double.NEGATIVE_INFINITY
represent numbers outside the range of legal values. For example, 20 * 1e308 is computed to be
Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY. Another special value of type double, Double.NaN, represents an
illegal or undefined result. ("NaN" stands for "Not a Number".) For example, the result of dividing by zero
or taking the square root of a negative number is Double.NaN. You can test whether a number x is this
special non-a-number value by calling the boolean-valued function Double.isNaN(x).
For real numbers, there is the added complication that most real numbers can only be represented
approximately on a computer. A real number can have an infinite number of digits after the decimal point.
A value of type double is only accurate to about 15 digits. The real number 1/3, for example, is the
repeating decimal 0.333333333333..., and there is no way to represent it exactly using a finite number of
digits. Computations with real numbers generally involve a loss of accuracy. In fact, if care is not exercised,
the result of a large number of such computations might be completely wrong! There is a whole field of
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computer science, known as numerical analysis, which is devoted to studying algorithms that manipulate
real numbers.
Not all possible errors are detected automatically in Java. Furthermore, even when an error is detected
automatically, the system's default response is to report the error and terminate the program. This is hardly
robust behavior! So, a programmer still needs to learn techniques for avoiding and dealing with errors.
These are the topics of the rest of this chapter.
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 9.2
Writing Correct Programs
CORRECT PROGRAMS DON'T just happen. It takes planning and attention to detail to avoid errors in
programs. There are some techniques that programmers can use to increase the likelihood that their
programs are correct.
In some cases, it is possible to prove that a program is correct. That is, it is possible to demonstrate
mathematically that the sequence of computations represented by the program will always produce the
correct result. Rigorous proof is difficult enough that in practice it can only be applied to fairly small
programs. Furthermore, it depends on the fact that the "correct result" has been specified correctly and
completely. As I've already pointed out, a program that correctly meets its specification is not useful if its
specification was wrong. Nevertheless, even in everyday programming, we can apply some of the ideas and
techniques that are used in proving that programs are correct.
The fundamental ideas are process and state. A state consists of all the information relevant to the execution
of a program at a given moment during the execution of the program. The state includes, for example, the
values of all the variables in the program, the output that has been produced, any input that is waiting to be
read, and a record of the position in the program where the computer is working. A process is the sequence
of states that the computer goes through as it executes the program. From this point of view, the meaning of
a statement in a program can be expressed in terms of the effect that the execution of that statement has on
the computer's state. As a simple example, the meaning of the assignment statement "x = 7;" is that after
this statement is executed, the value of the variable x will be 7. We can be absolutely sure of this fact, so it
is something upon which we can build part of a mathematical proof.
In fact, it is often possible to look at a program and deduce that some fact must be true at a given point
during the execution of a program. For example, consider the do loop
do {
TextIO.put("Enter a positive integer: ");
N = TextIO.getlnInt();
} while (N <= 0);
After this loop ends, we can be absolutely sure that the value of the variable N is greater than zero. The loop
cannot end until this condition is satisfied. This fact is part of the meaning of the while loop. More
generally, if a while loop uses the test "while (condition)", then after the loop ends, we can be
sure that the condition is false. We can then use this fact to draw further deductions about what happens
as the execution of the program continues. (With a loop, by the way, we also have to worry about the
question of whether the loop will ever end. This is something that has to be verified separately.)
A fact that can be proven to be true after a given program segment has been executed is called a
postcondition of that program segment. Postconditions are known facts upon which we can build further
deductions about the behavior of the program. A postcondition of a program as a whole is simply a fact that
can be proven to be true after the program has finished executing. A program can be proven to be correct by
showing that the postconditions of the program meet the program's specification.
Consider the following program segment, where all the variables are of type double:
disc = B*B - 4*A*C;
x = (-B + Math.sqrt(disc)) / (2*A);
The quadratic formula (from high-school mathematics) assures us that the value assigned to x is a solution
of the equation A*x2 + B*x + C = 0, provided that the value of disc is greater than or equal to zero and
the value of A is not zero. If we can assume or guarantee that B*B-4*A*C >= 0 and that A != 0, then
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the fact that x is a solution of the equation becomes a postcondition of the program segment. We say that
the condition, B*B-4*A*C >= 0 is a precondition of the program segment. The condition that A != 0
is another precondition. A precondition is defined to be condition that must be true at a given point in the
execution of a program in order for the program to continue correctly. A precondition is something that you
want to be true. It's something that you have to check or force to be true, if you want your program to be
correct.
For example, consider the longer program segment
do {
TextIO.putln("Enter A, B, and C. B*B-4*A*C must be >= 0.");
TextIO.put("A = ");
A = TextIO.getlnDouble();
TextIO.put("B = ");
B = TextIO.getlnDouble();
TextIO.put("C = ");
C = TextIO.getlnDouble();
if (A == 0 || B*B - 4*A*C < 0)
TextIO.putln("Your input is illegal. Try again.");
} while (A == 0 || B*B - 4*A*C < 0);
disc = B*B - 4*A*C;
x = (-B + Math.sqrt(disc)) / (2*A);
After the loop ends, we can be sure that B*B-4*A*C >= 0 and that A != 0. The preconditions for the
last two lines are fulfilled, so the postcondition that x is a solution of the equation A*X2 + B*X + C = 0 is
also valid. This program segment correctly and provably computes a solution to the equation. (Actually,
because of problems with representing numbers on computers, this is not 100% true. The algorithm is
correct, but the program is not a perfect implementation of the algorithm. See the discussion at the end of
the previous section.)
Here is another variation, in which the precondition is checked by an if statement. In the first part of the
if statement, where a solution is computed and printed, we know that the preconditions are fulfilled. In the
other parts, we know that one of the preconditions fails to hold. In any case, the program is correct.
TextIO.putln("Enter your values for A, B, and C.");
TextIO.put("A = ");
A = TextIO.getlnDouble();
TextIO.put("B = ");
B = TextIO.getlnDouble();
TextIO.put("C = ");
C = TextIO.getlnDouble();
if (A != 0 && B*B - 4*A*C >= 0) {
disc = B*B - 4*A*C;
x = (-B + Math.sqrt(disc)) / (2*A);
TextIO.putln("A solution of A*X*X + B*X + C = 0 is " + x);
}
else if (A == 0) {
TextIO.putln("The value of A cannot be zero.");
}
else {
TextIO.putln("Since B*B - 4*A*C is less than zero, the");
TextIO.putln("equation A*X*X + B*X + C = 0 has no solution.");
}
Whenever you write a program, it's a good idea to watch out for preconditions and think about how your
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program handles them. Often, a precondition can offer a clue about how to write the program.
For example, every array reference, such as A[i], has a precondition: The index must be within the range
of legal indices for the array. For A[i], the precondition is that 0 <= i < A.length. The computer
will check this condition when it evaluates A[i], and if the condition is not satisfied, the program will be
terminated. In order to avoid this, you need to make sure that the index has a legal value. (There is actually
another precondition, namely that A is not null, but let's leave that aside for the moment.) Consider the
following code, which searches for the number x in the array A:
i = 0;
while (A[i] != x) {
i++;
}
As this program segment stands, it has a precondition, namely that x is actually in the array. If this
precondition is satisfied, then the loop will end when A[i] == x. That is, the value of i when the loop
ends will be the position of x in the array. However, if x is not in the array, then the value of i will just
keep increasing until it is equal to A.length. At that time, the reference to A[i] is illegal and the
program will be terminated. To avoid this, we can add a test to make sure that the precondition for referring
to A[i] is satisfied:
i = 0;
while (i < A.length && A[i] != x) {
i++;
}
Now, the loop will definitely end. After it ends, i will satisfy either i == A.length or A[i] == x.
An if statement can be used after the loop to test which of these conditions caused the loop to end:
i = 0;
while (i < A.length && A[i] != x) {
i++;
}
if (i == A.length)
System.out.println("x is not in the array");
else
System.out.println("x is in position " + i);
Preconditions and postconditions are, by the way, a convenient way to express the contract of a subroutine.
The preconditions of a subroutine are the conditions that must be satisfied for the subroutine to work
correctly. The postcondition expresses the task that is accomplished by the subroutine. Here, for example, is
a subroutine that searches for a number in an array. The contract is stated in the comment in terms of a
precondition and a postcondition.
static int find( double[] A, double x ) {
// Search for x in the array A.
// Precondition: A is not null.
// Postcondition: The return value is -1 if x does not
// occur in the array. Otherwise, the
// return value is an index in A where
// x is found.
int i; // An index in the array A.
i = 0;
while ( i < A.length && A[i] != x ) {
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i++;
}
if (i == A.length)
return -1;
else
return i;
} // end find()
One place where correctness and robustness are important -- and especially difficult -- is in the processing
of input data, whether that data is typed in by the user, read from a file, or received over a network. Files
and networking will be covered in the next chapter, which will make essential use of material that will be
covered in the next two sections of this chapter. For now, let's look at an example of processing user input.
Examples in this textbook use my TextIO class for reading input from the user. This class has built-in
error handling. For example, the function TextIO.getDouble() is guaranteed to return a legal value of
type double. If the user's input is not a legal value, then TextIO will ask the user to re-enter it. However,
this approach can be clumsy and unsatisfactory, especially when the user is entering complex data. In the
following example, I'll do my own error-checking.
Sometimes, it's useful to be able to look ahead at what's coming up in the input without actually reading it.
For example, a program might need to know whether the next item in the input is a number or a word. For
this purpose, the TextIO class includes the function TextIO.peek(). This function returns a char
which is the next character in the user's input, but it does not actually read that character. If the next thing in
the input is the end-of-line, then TextIO.peek() returns the new-line character, '\n'.
Often, what we really need to know is the next non-blank character in the user's input. Before we can test
this, we need to skip past any spaces (and tabs). Here is a function that does this. It uses TextIO.peek()
to look ahead, and it reads characters until the next character in the input is either an end-of-line or some
non-blank character. (The function TextIO.getAnyChar() reads and returns the next character in the
user's input, even if that character is a space. By contrast, the more common TextIO.getChar() would
skip any blanks and then read and return the next non-blank character. We can't use TextIO.getChar()
here since the object is to skip the blanks without reading the next non-blank character.)
static void skipBlanks() {
// Reads past any blanks and tabs in the input.
// Postcondition: The next character in the input is an
// end-of-line or a non-blank character.
char ch;
ch = TextIO.peek();
while (ch == ' ' || ch == '\t') {
ch = TextIO.getAnyChar();
ch = TextIO.peek();
}
} // end skipBlanks()
An example in Section 3.5 allowed the user to enter length measurements such as "3 miles" or "1 foot". It
would then convert the measurement into inches, feet, yards, and miles. But people commonly use
combined measurements such as "3 feet 7 inches". Let's improve the program so that it allows inputs of this
form.
More specifically, the user will input lines containing one or more measurements such as "1 foot" or "3
miles 20 yards 2 feet". The legal units of measure are inch, foot, yard, and mile. The program will also
recognize plurals (inches, feet, yards, miles) and abbreviations (in, ft, yd, mi). Let's write a subroutine that
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will read one line of input of this form and compute the equivalent number of inches. The main program
uses the number of inches to compute the equivalent number of feet, yards, and miles. If there is any error
in the input, the subroutine will print an error message and return the value -1. The subroutine assumes that
the input line is not empty. The main program tests for this before calling the subroutine and uses an empty
line as a signal for ending the program.
Ignoring the possibility of illegal inputs, a pseudocode algorithm for the subroutine is
inches = 0 // This will be the total number of inches
while there is more input on the line:
read the numerical measurement
read the units of measure
add the measurement to inches
return inches
We can test whether there is more input on the line by checking whether the next non-blank character is the
end-of-line character. But this test has a precondition: Before we can test the next non-blank character, we
have to skip over any blanks. So, the algorithm becomes
inches = 0
skipBlanks()
while TextIO.peek() is not '\n':
read the numerical measurement
read the unit of measure
add the measurement to inches
skipBlanks()
return inches
Note the call to skipBlanks() at the end of the while loop. This subroutine must be executed before
the computer returns to the test at the beginning of the loop. More generally, if the test in a while loop has
a precondition, then you have to make sure that this precondition holds at the end of the while loop, before
the computer jumps back to re-evaluate the test.
What about error checking? Before reading the numerical measurement, we have to make sure that there is
really a number there to read. Before reading the unit of measure, we have to test that there is something
there to read. (The number might have been the last thing on the line. An input such as "3", without a unit
of measure, is illegal.) Also, we have to check that the unit of measure is one of the valid units: inches, feet,
yards, or miles. Here is an algorithm that includes error-checking:
inches = 0
skipBlanks()
while TextIO.peek() is not '\n':
if the next character is not a digit:
report an error and return -1
Let measurement = TextIO.getDouble();
skipBlanks() // Precondition for the next test!!
if the next character is end-of-line:
report an error and return -1
Let units = TextIO.getWord()
if the units are inches:
add measurement to inches
else if the units are feet:
add 12*measurement to inches
else if the units are yards:
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add 36*measurement to inches
else if the units are miles:
add 12*5280*measurement to inches
else:
report an error and return -1
skipBlanks()
return inches
As you can see, error-testing adds significantly to the complexity of the algorithm. Yet this is still a fairly
simple example, and it doesn't even handle all the possible errors. For example, if the user enters a
numerical measurement such as 1e400 that is outside the legal range of values of type double, then the
program will fall back on the default error-handling in TextIO. You can try it in the applet at the end of
this section. Something even more interesting happens if the measurement is "1e308 miles". The number
1e308 is legal, but the corresponding number of inches is outside the legal range of values. As mentioned in
the previous section, the computer will get the value Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY when it does the
computation. You might try this in the applet below to see what kind of output you get.
Here is the subroutine written out in Java:
static double readMeasurement() {
// Reads the user's input measurement from one line of input.
// Precondition: The input line is not empty.
// Postcondition: If the user's input is legal, the measurement
// is converted to inches and returned. If the
// input is not legal, the value -1 is returned.
// The end-of-line is NOT read by this routine.
double inches; // Total number of inches in user's measurement.
double measurement; // One measurement,
// such as the 12 in "12 miles"
String units; // The units specified for the measurement,
// such as "miles"
char ch; // Used to peek at next character in the user's input.
inches = 0; // No inches have yet been read.
skipBlanks();
ch = TextIO.peek();
/* As long as there is more input on the line, read a measurement and
add the equivalent number of inches to the variable, inches. If an
error is detected during the loop, end the subroutine immediately
by returning -1. */
while (ch != '\n') {
/* Get the next measurement and the units. Before reading
anything, make sure that a legal value is there to read. */
if ( ! Character.isDigit(ch) ) {
TextIO.putln(
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"Error: Expected to find a number, but found " + ch);
return -1;
}
measurement = TextIO.getDouble();
skipBlanks();
if (TextIO.peek() == '\n') {
TextIO.putln(
"Error: Missing unit of measure at end of line.");
return -1;
}
units = TextIO.getWord();
units = units.toLowerCase();
/* Convert the measurement to inches and add it to the total. */
if (units.equals("inch")
|| units.equals("inches") || units.equals("in")) {
inches += measurement;
}
else if (units.equals("foot")
|| units.equals("feet") || units.equals("ft")) {
inches += measurement * 12;
}
else if (units.equals("yard")
|| units.equals("yards") || units.equals("yd")) {
inches += measurement * 36;
}
else if (units.equals("mile")
|| units.equals("miles") || units.equals("mi")) {
inches += measurement * 12 * 5280;
}
else {
TextIO.putln("Error: \"" + units
+ "\" is not a legal unit of measure.");
return -1;
}
/* Look ahead to see whether the next thing on the line is
the end-of-line. */
skipBlanks();
ch = TextIO.peek();
} // end while
return inches;
} // end readMeasurement()
The source code for the complete program can be found in the file LengthConverter2.java. Here is an applet
that simulates the program:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
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Java Programing: Section 9.2
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 9.3
Section 9.3
Exceptions and the try...catch Statement
GETTING A PROGRAM TO WORK UNDER IDEAL circumstances is usually a lot easier than making
the program robust. A robust program can survive unusual or "exceptional" circumstances without crashing.
One approach to writing robust programs is to anticipate the problems that might arise and to include tests
in the program for each possible problem. For example, a program will crash if it tries to use an array
element A[i], when i is not within the declared range of indices for the array A. A robust program must
anticipate the possibility of a bad index and guard against it. This could be done with an if statement:
if (i < 0 || i >= A.length) {
... // Do something to handle the out-of-range index, i
}
else {
... // Process the array element, A[i]
}
There are some problems with this approach. It is difficult and sometimes impossible to anticipate all the
possible things that might go wrong. It's not always clear what to do when an error is detected. Furthermore,
trying to anticipate all the possible problems can turn what would otherwise be a straightforward program
into a messy tangle of if statements.
Java (like its cousin, C++) provides a neater, more structured alternative method for dealing with errors that
can occur while a program is running. The method is referred to as exception-handling. The word
"exception" is meant to be more general than "error." It includes any circumstance that arises as the
program is executed which is meant to be treated as an exception to the normal flow of control of the
program. An exception might be an error, or it might just be a special case that you would rather not have
clutter up your elegant algorithm.
When an exception occurs during the execution of a program, we say that the exception is thrown. When
this happens, the normal flow of the program is thrown off-track, and the program is in danger of crashing.
However, the crash can be avoided if the exception is caught and handled in some way. An exception can
be thrown in one part of a program and caught in a different part. An exception that is not caught will
generally cause the program to crash. (More exactly, the thread that throws the exception will crash. In a
multithreaded program, it is possible for other threads to continue even after one crashes.)
By the way, since Java programs are executed by a Java interpreter, having a program crash simply means
that it terminates abnormally and prematurely. It doesn't mean that the Java interpreter will crash. In effect,
the interpreter catches any exceptions that are not caught by the program. The interpreter responds by
terminating the program. (In the case of an applet, only the current operation -- such as the response to a
button -- will be terminated. Parts of the applet might continue to function even when other parts are
non-functional because of exceptions.) In many other programming languages, a crashed program will often
crash the entire system and freeze the computer until it is restarted. With Java, such system crashes should
be impossible -- which means that when they happen, you have the satisfaction of blaming the system rather
than your own program.
When an exception occurs, the thing that is actually "thrown" is an object. This object can carry information
(in its instance variables) from the point where the exception occurs to the point where it is caught and
handled. This information always includes the subroutine call stack, which is a list of the subroutines that
were being executed when the exception was thrown. (Since one subroutine can call another, several
subroutines can be active at the same time.) Typically, an exception object also includes an error message
describing what happened to cause the exception, and it can contain other data as well. The object thrown
by an exception must be an instance of the standard class java.lang.Throwable or of one of its
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Java Programing: Section 9.3
subclasses. In general, each different type of exception is represented by its own subclass of Throwable.
Throwable has two direct subclasses, Error and Exception. These two subclasses in turn have many
other predefined subclasses. In addition, a programmer can create new exception classes to represent new
types of exceptions.
Most of the subclasses of the class Error represent serious errors within the Java virtual machine that
should ordinarily cause program termination because there is no reasonable way to handle them. You
should not try to catch and handle such errors. An example is the ClassFormatError, which occurs
when the Java virtual machine finds some kind of illegal data in a file that is supposed to contain a
compiled Java class. If that class was being loaded as part of the program, then there is really no way for the
program to proceed.
On the other hand, subclasses of the class Exception represent exceptions that are meant to be caught. In
many cases, these are exceptions that might naturally be called "errors," but they are errors in the program
or in input data that a programmer can anticipate and possibly respond to in some reasonable way.
(However, you should avoid the temptation of saying, "Well, I'll just put a thing here to catch all the errors
that might occur, so my program won't crash." If you don't have a reasonable way to respond to the error,
it's usually best just to terminate the program, because trying to go on will probably only lead to worse
things down the road -- in the worst case, a program that gives an incorrect answer without giving you any
indication that the answer might be wrong!)
The class Exception has its own subclass, RuntimeException. This class groups together many
common exceptions such as: ArithmeticException, which occurs for example when there is an
attempt to divide an integer by zero, ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException, which occurs when an
out-of-bounds index is used in an array, and NullPointerException, which occurs when there is an
attempt to use a null reference in a context when an actual object reference is required. A
RuntimeException generally indicates a bug in the program, which the programmer should fix.
RuntimeExceptions and Errors share the property that a program can simply ignore the possibility
that they might occur. ("Ignoring" here means that you are content to let your program crash if the
exception occurs.) For example, a program does this every time it uses an array reference like A[i]
without making arrangements to catch a possible ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException. For all other
exception classes besides Error, RuntimeException, and their subclasses, exception-handling is
"mandatory" in a sense that I'll discuss below.
The following diagram is a class hierarchy showing the class Throwable and just a few of its subclasses.
Classes that require mandatory exception-handling are shown in red.
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Java Programing: Section 9.3
To catch exceptions in a Java program, you need a try statement. The idea is that you tell the computer to
"try" to execute some commands. If it succeeds, all well and good. But if an exception is thrown during the
execution of those commands, you can catch the exception and handle it. For example,
try {
double determinant = M[0][0]*M[1][1] - M[0][1]*M[1][0];
System.out.println("The determinant of M is " + determinant);
}
catch ( ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e ) {
System.out.println("M is the wrong size to have a determinant.");
}
The computer tries to execute the block of statements following the word "try". If no exception occurs
during the execution of this block, then the "catch" part of the statement is simply ignored. However, if
an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException occurs, then the computer jumps immediately to the block
of statements labeled "catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e)". This block of
statements is said to be an exception handler for ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException. By handling
the exception in this way, you prevent it from crashing the program.
You might notice that there is another possible source of error in this try statement. If the value of the
variable M is null, then a NullPointerException will be thrown when the attempt is made to
reference the array. In the above try statement, NullPointerExceptions are not caught, so they will
be processed in the ordinary way (by terminating the program, unless the exception is handled elsewhere).
You could catch NullPointerExceptions by adding another catch clause to the try statement:
try {
double determinant = M[0][0]*M[1][1] - M[0][1]*M[1][0];
System.out.println("The determinant of M is " + determinant);
}
catch ( ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e ) {
System.out.println("M is the wrong size to have a determinant.");
}
catch ( NullPointerException e ) {
System.out.print("Programming error! M doesn't exist: " + );
System.out.println( e.getMessage() );
}
This example shows how to use multiple catch clauses in one try block. It also shows what that little "e"
is doing in the catch clauses. The e is actually a variable name. (You can use any name you like.) Recall
that when an exception occurs, it is actually an object that is thrown. Before executing a catch clause, the
computer sets this variable to refer to the exception object that is being caught. This object contains
information about the exception. For example, an error message describing the exception can be retrieved
using the object's getMessage() method, as is done in the above example. Another useful method in
every exception object, e, is e.printStackTrace(). This method will print out the list of subroutines
that were being executed when the exception was thrown. This information can help you to track down the
part of your program that caused the error.
Note that both ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException and NullPointerException are
subclasses of RuntimeException. It's possible to catch all RuntimeExceptions with a single
catch clause. For example:
try {
double determinant = M[0][0]*M[1][1] - M[0][1]*M[1][0];
System.out.println("The determinant of M is " + determinant);
}
catch ( RuntimeException e ) {
System.out.println("Sorry, an error has occurred.");
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e.printStackTrace();
}
Since any object of type ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException or of type
NullPointerException is also of type RuntimeException, this will catch array index errors and
null pointer errors as well as any other type of runtime exception. This shows why exception classes are
organized into a class hierarchy. It allows you the option of casting your net narrowly to catch only a
specific type of exception. Or you can cast your net widely to catch a wide class of exceptions.
The example I've given here is not particularly realistic. You are not very likely to use exception-handling
to guard against null pointers and bad array indices. This is a case where careful programming is better than
exception handling: Just be sure that your program assigns a reasonable, non-null value to the array M.
You would certainly resent it if the designers of Java forced you to set up a try...catch statement every
time you wanted to use an array! This is why handling of potential RuntimeExceptions is not
mandatory. There are just too many things that might go wrong! (This also shows that exception-handling
does not solve the problem of program robustness. It just gives you a tool that will in many cases let you
approach the problem in a more organized way.)
The syntax of a try statement is a little more complicated than I've indicated so far. The syntax can be
described as
try {
statements
}
optional-catch-clauses
optional-finally-clause
Note that this is a case where a block of statements, enclosed between { and }, is required. You need the {
and } even if they enclose just one statement. The try statement can include zero or more catch clauses
and, optionally, a finally clause. (The try statement must include either a finally clause or at least
one catch clause.) The syntax for a catch clause is
catch ( exception-class-name variable-name ) {
statements
}
and the syntax for a finally clause is
finally {
statements
}
The semantics of the finally clause is that the block of statements in the finally clause is guaranteed
to be executed as the last step in the execution of the try statement, whether or not any exception occurs and
whether or not any exception that does occur is caught and handled. The finally clause is meant for
doing essential cleanup that under no circumstances should be omitted.
There are times when it makes sense for a program to deliberately throw an exception. This is the case
when the program discovers some sort of exceptional or error condition, but there is no reasonable way to
handle the error at the point where the problem is discovered. The program can throw an exception in the
hope that some other part of the program will catch and handle the exception.
To throw an exception, use a throw statement. The syntax of the throw statement is
throw exception-object ;
The exception-object must be an object belonging to one of the subclasses of Throwable. Usually, it will
in fact belong to one of the subclasses of Exception. In most cases, it will be a newly constructed object
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created with the new operator. For example:
throw new ArithmeticException("Division by zero");
The parameter in the constructor becomes the error message in the exception object. (You might find this
example a bit odd, because you might expect the system itself to throw an ArithmeticException
when an attempt is made to divide by zero. So why should a programmer bother to throw the exception?
The answer is a little surprising: If the numbers that are being divided are of type int, then division by
zero will indeed throw an ArithmeticException. However, no arithmetic operations with
floating-point numbers will ever produce an exception. Instead, the special value Double.NaN is used to
represent the result of an illegal operation.)
An exception can be thrown either by the system or by a throw statement. The exception is processed in
exactly the same way in either case. Suppose that the exception is thrown inside a try statement. If that
try statement has a catch clause that handles that type of exception, then the computer jumps to the
catch clause and executes it. The exception has been handled. After handling the exception, the computer
executes the finally clause of the try statement, if there is one. It then continues normally with the rest
of the program which follows the try statement. If the exception is not immediately caught and handled,
the processing of the exception will continue.
When an exception is thrown during the execution of a subroutine and the exception is not handled in the
same subroutine, then that subroutine is terminated (after the execution of any pending finally clauses).
Then the routine that called that subroutine gets a chance to handle the exception. That is, if the subroutine
was called inside a try statement that has an appropriate catch clause, then that catch clause will be
executed and the program will continue on normally from there. Again, if that routine does not handle the
exception, then it also is terminated and the routine that called it gets the next shot at the exception. The
exception will crash the program only if it passes up through the entire chain of subroutine calls without
being handled.
A subroutine that might generate an exception can announce this fact by adding the clause "throws
exception-class-name" to the header of the routine. For example:
static double root(double A, double B, double C)
throws IllegalArgumentException {
// Returns the larger of the two roots of
// the quadratic equation A*x*x + B*x + C = 0.
// (Throws an exception if A == 0 or B*B-4*A*C < 0.)
if (A == 0) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("A can't be zero.");
}
else {
double disc = B*B - 4*A*C;
if (disc < 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Discriminant < zero.");
return (-B + Math.sqrt(disc)) / (2*A);
}
}
As discussed in the previous section, The computation in this subroutine has the preconditions that A != 0
and B*B-4*A*C >= 0. The subroutine throws an exception of type IllegalArgumentException
when either of these preconditions is violated. When an illegal condition is found in a subroutine, throwing
an exception is often a reasonable response. If the program that called the subroutine knows some good way
to handle the error, it can catch the exception. If not, the program will crash -- and the programmer will
know that the program needs to be fixed.
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Java Programing: Section 9.3
Mandatory Exception Handling
In the preceding example, declaring that the subroutine root() can throw an
IllegalArgumentException is just a courtesy to potential readers of this routine. This is because
handling of IllegalArgumentExceptions is not "mandatory". A routine can throw an
IllegalArgumentException without announcing the possibility. And a program that calls that
routine is free either to catch or to ignore the exception, just as a programmer can choose either to catch or
to ignore an exception of type NullPointerException.
For those exception classes that require mandatory handling, the situation is different. If a subroutine can
throw such an exception, that fact must be announced in a throws clause in the routine definition. Failing
to do so is a syntax error that will be reported by the compiler.
On the other hand, suppose that some statement in a program can generate an exception that requires
mandatory handling. The statement could be a throw statement, which throws the exception directly, or it
could be a call to a subroutine that can throw the exception. In either case, the exception must be handled.
This can be done in one of two ways. One possibility is to place the statement is a try statement that has a
catch clause that handles the exception. The other possibility is to declare that the subroutine that contains
the statement can throw the exception. This is done by adding a "throws" clause to the subroutine
heading. If the throws clause is used, then any other routine that calls the subroutine will be responsible for
handling the exception. If you don't handle the possible exception in one of these two ways, it will be
considered a syntax error, and the compiler will not accept your program.
Exception-handling is mandatory for any exception class that is not a subclass of either Error or
RuntimeException. Exceptions that require mandatory handling generally represent conditions that are
outside the control of the programmer. For example, they might represent bad input or an illegal action
taken by the user. A robust program has to be prepared to handle such conditions. The design of Java makes
it impossible for programmers to ignore such conditions.
Among the exceptions that require mandatory handling are several that can occur when using Java's
input/output routines. This means that you can't even use these routines unless you understand something
about exception-handling. The next chapter deals with input/output and uses exception-handling
extensively.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 9.4
Section 9.4
Programming with Exceptions
EXCEPTIONS CAN BE USED to help write robust programs. They provide an organized and structured
approach to robustness. Without exceptions, a program can become cluttered with if statements that test
for various possible error conditions. With exceptions, it becomes possible to write a clean implementation
of an algorithm that will handle all the normal cases. The exceptional cases can be handled elsewhere, in a
catch clause of a try statement.
Writing New Exception Classes
When a program encounters an exceptional condition and has no way of handling it immediately, the
program can throw an exception. In some cases, it makes sense to throw an exception belonging to one of
Java's predefined classes, such as IllegalArgumentException or IOException. However, if
there is no standard class that adequately represents the exceptional condition, the programmer can define a
new exception class. The new class must extend the standard class Throwable or one of its subclasses. In
general, the new class will extend RuntimeException (or one of its subclasses) if the programmer does
not want to require mandatory exception handling. To create a new exception class that does require
mandatory handling, the programmer can extend one of the other subclasses of Exception or can extend
Exception itself.
Here, for example, is a class that extends Exception, and therefore requires mandatory exception
handling when it is used:
public class ParseError extends Exception {
public ParseError(String message) {
// Constructor. Create a ParseError object containing
// the given message as its error message.
super(message);
}
}
The class contains only a constructor that makes it possible to create a ParseError object containing a
given error message. (The statement "super(message)" calls a constructor in the superclass,
Exception. See Section 5.5.) Of course the class inherits the getMessage() and
printStackTrace() routines from its superclass. If e refers to an object of type ParseError, then
the function call e.getMessage() will retrieve the error message that was specified in the constructor.
But the main point of the ParseError class is simply to exist. When an object of type ParseError is
thrown, it indicates that a certain type of error has occurred. (Parsing, by the way, refers to figuring out the
meaning of a string. A ParseError would indicate, presumably, that some string being processed by the
program does not have the expected form.)
A throw statement can be used in a program to throw an error of type ParseError. The constructor for
the ParseError object must specify an error message. For example:
throw new ParseError("Encountered an illegal negative number.");
or
throw new ParseError("The word '" + word
+ "' is not a valid file name.");
If the throw statement does not occur in a try statement that catches the error, then the subroutine that
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contains the throw statement must declare that it can throw a ParseError. It does this by adding the
clause "throws ParseError" to the subroutine heading. For example,
void getUserData() throws ParseError {
. . .
}
This would not be required if ParseError were defined as a subclass of RuntimeException instead
of Exception, since in that case exception handling for ParseErrors would not be mandatory.
A routine that wants to handle ParseErrors can use a try statement with a catch clause that catches
ParseErrors. For example:
try {
getUserData();
processUserData();
}
catch (ParseError pe) {
. . . // Handle the error
}
Note that since ParseError is a subclass of Exception, a catch clause of the form "catch
(Exception e)" would also catch ParseErrors, along with any other object of type Exception.
Sometimes, it's useful to store extra data in an exception object. For example,
class ShipDestroyed extends RuntimeException {
Ship ship; // Which ship was destroyed.
int where_x, where_y; // Location where ship was destroyed.
ShipDestroyed(String message, Ship s, int x, int y) {
// Constructor: Create a ShipDestroyed object
// carrying an error message and the information
// that the ship s was destroyed at location (x,y)
// on the screen.
super(message);
ship = s;
where_x = x;
where_y = y;
}
}
Here, a ShipDestroyed object contains an error message and some information about a ship that was
destroyed. This could be used, for example, in a statement:
if ( userShip.isHit() )
throw new ShipDestroyed("You've been hit!", userShip, xPos, yPos);
Note that the condition represented by a ShipDestroyed object might not even be considered an error. It
could be just an expected interruption to the normal flow of a game. Exceptions can sometimes be used to
handle such interruptions neatly.
Exceptions in Subroutines and Classes
The ability to throw exceptions is particularly useful in writing general-purpose subroutines and classes that
are meant to be used in more than one program. In this case, the person writing the subroutine or class often
has no reasonable way of handling the error, since that person has no way of knowing exactly how the
subroutine or class will be used. In such circumstances, a novice programmer is often tempted to print an
error message and forge ahead, but this is almost never satisfactory since it can lead to unpredictable results
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down the line. Printing an error message and terminating the program is almost as bad, since it gives the
program no chance to handle the error.
The program that calls the subroutine or uses the class needs to know that the error has occurred. In
languages that do not support exceptions, the only alternative is to return some special value or to set the
value of some variable to indicate that an error has occurred. For example, the readMeasurement()
function in Section 2 returns the value -1 if the user's input is illegal. However, this only works if the main
program bothers to test the return value. And in this case, using -1 as a signal that an error has occurred
makes it impossible to allow negative measurements. Exceptions are a cleaner way for a subroutine to react
when it encounters an error.
It is easy to modify the readMeasurement() subroutine to use exceptions instead of a special return
value to signal an error. My modified subroutine throws a ParseError when the user's input is illegal,
where ParseError is the subclass of Exception that was defined earlier in this section. (Arguably, it
might be more reasonable to avoid defining a new class by using the standard exception class
IllegalArgumentException instead.) The changes from the original version are shown in red:
static double readMeasurement() throws ParseError {
// Reads the user's input measurement from one line of input.
// Precondition: The input line is not empty.
// Postcondition: The measurement is converted to inches and
// returned. However, if the input is not legal,
// a ParseError is thrown.
// Note: The end-of-line is NOT read by this routine.
double inches; // Total number of inches in user's measurement.
double measurement; // One measurement,
// such as the 12 in "12 miles."
String units; // The units specified for the measurement,
// such as "miles."
char ch; // Used to peek at next character in the user's input.
inches = 0; // No inches have yet been read.
skipBlanks();
ch = TextIO.peek();
/* As long as there is more input on the line, read a measurement and
add the equivalent number of inches to the variable, inches. If an
error is detected during the loop, end the subroutine immediately
by throwing a ParseError. */
while (ch != '\n') {
/* Get the next measurement and the units. Before reading
anything, make sure that a legal value is there to read. */
if ( ! Character.isDigit(ch) ) {
throw new ParseError(
"Expected to find a number, but found " + ch);
}
measurement = TextIO.getDouble();
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skipBlanks();
if (TextIO.peek() == '\n') {
throw new ParseError(
"Missing unit of measure at end of line.");
}
units = TextIO.getWord();
units = units.toLowerCase();
/* Convert the measurement to inches and add it to the total. */
if (units.equals("inch")
|| units.equals("inches") || units.equals("in")) {
inches += measurement;
}
else if (units.equals("foot")
|| units.equals("feet") || units.equals("ft")) {
inches += measurement * 12;
}
else if (units.equals("yard")
|| units.equals("yards") || units.equals("yd")) {
inches += measurement * 36;
}
else if (units.equals("mile")
|| units.equals("miles") || units.equals("mi")) {
inches += measurement * 12 * 5280;
}
else {
throw new ParseError("\"" + units
+ "\" is not a legal unit of measure.");
}
/* Look ahead to see whether the next thing on the line is
the end-of-line. */
skipBlanks();
ch = TextIO.peek();
} // end while
return inches;
} // end readMeasurement()
In the main program, this subroutine is called in a try statement of the form
try {
inches = readMeasurement();
}
catch (ParseError e) {
. . . // Handle the error.
}
The complete program can be found in the file LengthConverter3.java. From the user's point of view, this
program has exactly the same behavior as the program LengthConverter2 from Section 2, so I will not
include an applet version of the program here. Internally, however, the programs are different, since
LengthConverter3 uses exception-handling.
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Assertions
Recall that a precondition is a condition that must be true at a certain point in a program, for the execution
of the program to continue correctly from that point. In the case where there is a chance that the
precondition might not be satisfied, it's a good idea to insert an if statement to test it. But then the question
arises, What should be done if the precondition does not hold? One option is to throw an exception. This
will terminate the program, unless the exception is caught and handled elsewhere in the program.
The programming languages C and C++ have a facility for adding assertions to a program. These assertions
take the form assert(condition), where condition is a boolean-valued expression. This condition
expresses a precondition that must hold at that point in the program. When the computer encounters an
assertion during the execution of the program, it evaluates the condition. If the condition is false, the
program is terminated. Otherwise, the program continues normally. Assertions of this form are not available
in Java, but something similar can be done with exceptions. The Java equivalent of assert(condition)
is:
if (condition == false)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Assertion Failed.");
Of course, you could use a better error message. And it would be better style to define a new exception
class instead of using the standard class IllegalArgumentException.
Assertions are most useful during testing and debugging. Once you release your program, you don't really
want it to crash. Still, many programs are released with a main program that says, essentially
try {
.
. // Run the program.
.
}
catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("An unexpected internal error has occurred.");
System.out.println("Please submit a bug report to the programmer.");
System.out.println("Details of the error:"):
e.printStackTrace();
}
If a program contains a large number of assertions, they might slow the program down significantly. One
advantage of assertions in C and C++ is that they can be "turned off." That is, if the program is compiled in
one way, then the assertions are included in the compiled code. If the program is compiled in another way,
the assertions are not included. During debugging, the first type of compilation is used. The release version
of the program is compiled with assertions turned off. The release version will be more efficient, because
the computer won't have to evaluate all the assertions. The nice part is that the source code doesn't have to
be modified to produce the release version.
There is something similar that might work in Java, depending on how smart your compiler is. Suppose that
you define a constant
static final boolean DEBUG = true;
and express your assertions as:
if (DEBUG == true && condition == false)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Assertion Failed.");
Since DEBUG is true, the value of "DEBUG == true && condition == false" is the same as the
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Java Programing: Section 9.4
value of condition, so this if statement still works as a test of the precondition. Now suppose you are
finished debugging. Before you compile the release version of the program, change the definition of DEBUG
to
static final boolean DEBUG = false;
Now, the value of "DEBUG == true && condition == false" has to be false, and a smart
compiler can tell this at compilation time. Given that the condition in the if statement is known to be false,
a smart compiler will not even bother to include the if statement in the compiled code, since it would not
be executed in any case. So, the compiled code for the release version will be shorter and more efficient
than the debugging version. And you only had to change one line in the source code!
End of Chapter 9
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 9 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 9
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 9 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 9.1: Write a program that uses the following subroutine, from Section 3, to solve equations
specified by the user.
static double root(double A, double B, double C)
throws IllegalArgumentException {
// Returns the larger of the two roots of
// the quadratic equation A*x*x + B*x + C = 0.
// (Throws an exception if A == 0 or B*B-4*A*C < 0.)
if (A == 0) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("A can't be zero.");
}
else {
double disc = B*B - 4*A*C;
if (disc < 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Discriminant < zero.");
return (-B + Math.sqrt(disc)) / (2*A);
}
}
Your program should allow the user to specify values for A, B, and C. It should call the subroutine to
compute a solution of the equation. If no error occurs, it should print the root. However, if an error occurs,
your program should catch that error and print an error message. After processing one equation, the
program should ask whether the user wants to enter another equation. The program should continue until
the user answers no.
See the solution!
Exercise 9.2: As discussed in Section 1, values of type int are limited to 32 bits. Integers that are too large
to be represented in 32 bits cannot be stored in an int variable. Java has a standard class,
java.math.BigInteger, that addresses this problem. An object of type BigInteger is an integer
that can be arbitrarily large. (The maximum size is limited only by the amount of memory on your
computer.) Since BigIntegers are objects, they must be manipulated using instance methods from the
BigInteger class. For example, you can't add two BigIntegers with the + operator. Instead, if N and
M are variables that refer to BigIntegers, you can compute the sum of N and M with the function call
N.add(M). The value returned by this function is a new BigInteger object that is equal to the sum of N
and M.
The BigInteger class has a constructor new BigInteger(str), where str is a string. The string
must represent an integer, such as "3" or "39849823783783283733". If the string does not represent a legal
integer, then the constructor throws a NumberFormatException.
There are many instance methods in the BigInteger class. Here are a few that you will find useful for
this exercise. Assume that N and M are variables of type BigInteger.
N.add(M) -- a function that returns a BigInteger representing the sum of N and M.
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N.multiply(M) -- a function that returns a BigInteger representing the result of
multiplying N times M.
N.divide(M) -- a function that returns a BigInteger representing the result of dividing
N by M.
N.signum() -- a function that returns an ordinary int. The returned value represents the
sign of the integer N. The returned value is 1 if N is greater than zero. It is -1 if N is less than
zero. And it is 0 if N is zero.
N.equals(M) -- a function that returns a boolean value that is true if N and M have the
same integer value.
N.toString() -- a function that returns a String representing the value of N.
N.testBit(k) -- a function that returns a boolean value. The parameter k is an integer.
The return value is true if the k-th bit in N is 1, and it is false if the k-th bit is 0. Bits are
numbered from right to left, starting with 0. Testing "if (N.testBit(0))" is an easy
way to check whether N is even or odd. N.testBit(0) is true if and only if N is an odd
number.
For this exercise, you should write a program that prints 3N+1 sequences with starting values specified by
the user. In this version of the program, you should use BigIntegers to represent the terms in the
sequence. You can read the user's input into a String with the TextIO.getln() function. Use the
input value to create the BigInteger object that represents the starting point of the 3N+1 sequence.
Don't forget to catch and handle the NumberFormatException that will occur if the user's input is not
a legal integer! You should also check that the input number is greater than zero.
If the user's input is legal, print out the 3N+1 sequence. Count the number of terms in the sequence, and
print the count at the end of the sequence. Exit the program when the user inputs an empty line.
See the solution!
Exercise 9.3: A Roman numeral represents an integer using letters. Examples are XVII to represent 17,
MCMLIII for 1953, and MMMCCCIII for 3303. By contrast, ordinary numbers such as 17 or 1953 are
called Arabic numerals. The following table shows the Arabic equivalent of all the single-letter Roman
numerals:
M 1000 X 10
D 500 V 5
C 100 I 1
L 50
When letters are strung together, the values of the letters are just added up, with the following exception.
When a letter of smaller value is followed by a letter of larger value, the smaller value is subtracted from
the larger value. For example, IV represents 5 - 1, or 4. And MCMXCV is interpreted as M + CM + XC +
V, or 1000 + (1000 - 100) + (100 - 10) + 5, which is 1995. In standard Roman numerals, no more than thee
consecutive copies of the same letter are used. Following these rules, every number between 1 and 3999 can
be represented as a Roman numeral made up of the following one- and two-letter combinations:
M 1000 X 10
CM 900 IX 9
D 500 V 5
CD 400 IV 4
C 100 I 1
XC 90
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Java Programing: Chapter 9 Exercises
L 50
XL 40
Write a class to represent Roman numerals. The class should have two constructors. One constructs a
Roman numeral from a string such as "XVII" or "MCMXCV". It should throw a
NumberFormatException if the string is not a legal Roman numeral. The other constructor constructs
a Roman numeral from an int. It should throw a NumberFormatException if the int is outside the
range 1 to 3999.
In addition, the class should have two instance methods. The method toString() returns the string that
represents the Roman numeral. The method toInt() returns the value of the Roman numeral as an int.
At some point in your class, you will have to convert an int into the string that represents the
corresponding Roman numeral. One way to approach this is to gradually "move" value from the Arabic
numeral to the Roman numeral. Here is the beginning of a routine that will do this, where number is the
int that is to be converted:
String roman = "";
int N = number;
while (N >= 1000) {
// Move 1000 from N to roman.
roman += "M";
N -= 1000;
}
while (N >= 900) {
// Move 900 from N to roman.
roman += "CM";
N -= 900;
}
.
. // Continue with other values from the above table.
.
(You can save yourself a lot of typing in this routine if you use arrays in a clever way to represent the data
in the above table.)
Once you've written your class, use it in a main program that will read both Arabic numerals and Roman
numerals entered by the user. If the user enters an Arabic numeral, print the corresponding Roman numeral.
If the user enters a Roman numeral, print the corresponding Arabic numeral. (You can tell the difference by
using TextIO.peek() to peek at the first character in the user's input. If that character is a digit, then the
user's input is an Arabic numeral. Otherwise, it's a Roman numeral.) The program should end when the user
inputs an empty line. Here is an applet that simulates my solution to this problem:
See the solution!
Exercise 9.4: The file Expr.java defines a class, Expr, that can be used to represent mathematical
expressions involving the variable x. The expression can use the operators +, -, *, /, and ^, where ^
represents the operation of raising a number to a power. It can use mathematical functions such as sin,
cos, abs, and ln. See the source code file for full details. The Expr class uses some advanced techniques
which have not yet been covered in this textbook. However, the interface is easy to understand. It contains
only a constructor and two public methods.
The constructor new Expr(def) creates an Expr object defined by a given expression. The parameter,
def, is a string that contains the definition. For example, new Expr("x^2") or new
Expr("sin(x)+3*x"). If the parameter in the constructor call does not represent a legal expression,
then the constructor throws an IllegalArgumentException. The message in the exception describes
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Java Programing: Chapter 9 Exercises
the error.
If func is a variable of type Expr and num is of type double, then func.value(num) is a function
that returns the value of the expression when the number num is substituted for the variable x in the
expression. For example, if Expr represents the expression 3*x+1, then func.value(5) is 3*5+1, or
16. If the expression is undefined for the specified value of x, then the special value Double.NaN is
returned.
Finally, func.getDefinition() returns the definition of the expression. This is just the string that
was used in the constructor that created the expression object.
For this exercise, you should write a program that lets the user enter an expression. If the expression
contains an error, print an error message. Otherwise, let the user enter some numerical values for the
variable x. Print the value of the expression for each number that the user enters. However, if the
expression is undefined for the specified value of x, print a message to that effect. You can use the
boolean-valued function Double.isNaN(val) to check whether a number, val, is Double.NaN.
The user should be able to enter as many values of x as desired. After that, the user should be able to enter a
new expression. Here is an applet that simulates my solution to this exercise, so that you can see how it
works:
See the solution!
Exercise 9.5: This exercises uses the class Expr, which was described in Exercise 9.4. For this exercise,
you should write an applet that can graph a function, f(x), whose definition is entered by the user. The
applet should have a text-input box where the user can enter an expression involving the variable x, such as
x^2 or sin(x-3)/x. This expression is the definition of the function. When the user presses return in the
text input box, the applet should use the contents of the text input box to construct an object of type Expr.
If an error is found in the definition, then the applet should display an error message. Otherwise, it should
display a graph of the function. (Note: A TextField generates an ActionEvent when the user presses
return.)
The applet will need a canvas for displaying the graph. To keep things simple, the canvas should represent a
fixed region in the xy-plane, defined by -5 <= x <= 5 and -5 <= y <= 5. To draw the graph,
compute a large number of points and connect them with line segments. (This method does not handle
discontinuous functions properly; doing so is very hard, so you shouldn't try to do it for this exercise.) My
applet divides the interval -5 <= x <= 5 into 300 subintervals and uses the 301 endpoints of these
subintervals for drawing the graph. Note that the function might be undefined at one of these x-values. In
that case, you have to skip that point.
A point on the graph has the form (x,y) where y is obtained by evaluating the user's expression at the
given value of x. You will have to convert these real numbers to the integer coordinates of the
corresponding pixel on the canvas. The formulas for the conversion are:
a = (int)( (x + 5)/10 * width );
b = (int)( (5 - y)/10 * height );
where a and b are the horizontal and vertical coordinates of the pixel, and width and height are the
width and height of the canvas.
Here is my solution to this exercise:
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 9 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 9
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 9 of this on-line Java textbook. You
should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: What does it mean to say that a program is robust?
Question 2: Why do programming languages require that variables be declared before they are used? What
does this have to do with correctness and robustness?
Question 3: What is "Double.NaN"?
Question 4: What is a precondition? Give an example.
Question 5: Explain how preconditions can be used as an aid in writing correct programs.
Question 6: Java has a predefined class called Throwable. What does this class represent? Why does it
exist?
Question 7: Write a subroutine that prints out a 3N+1 sequence starting from a given integer, N. The
starting value should be a parameter to the subroutine. If the parameter is less than or equal to zero, throw
an IllegalArgumentException. If the number in the sequence becomes too large to be represented
as a value of type int, throw an ArithmeticException.
Question 8: Some classes of exceptions require mandatory exception handling. Explain what this means.
Question 9: Consider a subroutine processData that has the header
static void processData() throws IOException
Write a try...catch statement that calls this subroutine and prints an error message if an
IOException occurs.
Question 10: Why should a subroutine throw an exception when it encounters an error? Why not just
terminate the program?
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 10 Index
Chapter 10
Advanced Input/Output
COMPUTER PROGRAMS ARE ONLY USEFUL if they interact with the rest of the world in some way.
This interaction is referred to as input/output, or I/O. Up until now, the only type of interaction that has
been covered in this textbook is interaction with the user, through either a graphical user interface or a
command-line interface. But the user is only one possible source of information and only one possible
destination for information. In this chapter, we'll look at others, including files and network connections. In
Java, input/output involving files and networks is based on streams, which are objects that support the same
sort of I/O commands that you have already used to communicate with the user in a command-line
interface. In fact, standard output (System.out) and standard input (System.in) are examples of
streams.
Working with files and networks requires familiarity with exceptions, which were introduced in the
previous chapter. Many of the subroutines that are used can throw exceptions that require mandatory
exception handling. This generally means calling the subroutine in a try...catch statement that can
deal with the exception if one occurs. Some of the examples in this chapter will also use advanced
techniques from Chapter 7, such as threads, Frames, and nested classes.
Contents of Chapter 10:
● Section 1: Streams, Readers, and Writers
● Section 2: Files
● Section 3: Programming with Files
● Section 4: Networking
● Section 5: Programming Networked Applications
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Next Chapter | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 10.1
Section 10.1
Streams, Readers, and Writers
WITHOUT THE ABILITY TO INTERACT WITH the rest of the world, a program would be useless.
The interaction of a program with the rest of the world is referred to as input/output or I/O. Historically, one
of the hardest parts of programming language design has been coming up with good facilities for doing
input and output. A computer can be connected to many different types of input and output devices. If a
programming language had to deal with each type of device as a special case, the complexity would be
overwhelming. One of the major achievements in the history of programming has been to come up with
good abstractions for representing I/O devices. In Java, the I/O abstractions are called streams. This section
is an introduction to streams, but it is not meant to cover them in full detail. See the official Java
documentation for more information.
When dealing with input/output, you have to keep in mind that there are two broad categories of data:
machine-formatted data and human-readable data. Machine-formatted data is represented in the same way
that data is represented inside the computer, that is, as strings of zeros and ones. Human-readable data is in
the form of characters. When you read a number such as 3.141592654, you are reading a sequence of
characters and interpreting them as a number. The same number would be represented in the computer as a
bit-string that you would find unrecognizable.
To deal with the two broad categories of data representation, Java has two broad categories of streams: byte
streams for machine-formatted data and character streams for human-readable data. There are many
predefined classes that represent streams of each type.
Every object that outputs data to a byte stream belongs to one of the subclasses of the abstract class
OutputStream. Objects that read data from a byte stream belong to subclasses of InputStream. If
you write numbers to an OutputStream, you won't be able to read the resulting data yourself. But the
data can be read back into the computer with an InputStream. The writing and reading of the data will
be very efficient, since there is no translation involved: the bits that are used to represent the data inside the
computer are simply copied to and from the streams.
For reading and writing human-readable character data, the main classes are Reader and Writer. All
character stream classes are subclasses of one of these. If a number is to be written to a Writer stream, the
computer must translate it into a human-readable sequence of characters that represents that number.
Reading a number from a Reader stream into a numeric variable also involves a translation, from a
character sequence into the appropriate bit string. (Even if the data you are working with consists of
characters in the first place, such as words from a text editor, there might still be some translation.
Characters are stored in the computer as 16-bit Unicode values. For people who use Western alphabets,
character data is generally stored in files in ASCII code, which uses only 8 bits per character. The Reader
and Writer classes take care of this translation, and can also handle non-western alphabets in countries
that use them.)
It's usually easy to decide whether to use byte streams or character streams. If you want the data to be
human-readable, use character streams. Otherwise, use byte streams. I should note that Java 1.0 did not
have character streams, and that for ASCII-encoded character data, byte streams are largely interchangeable
with character streams. In fact, the standard input and output streams, System.in and System.out, are
byte streams rather than character streams. However, as of Java 1.1, you should use Readers and
Writers rather than InputStreams and OutputStreams when working with character data.
The standard stream classes discussed in this section are defined in the package java.io, along with
several supporting classes. You must import the classes from this package if you want to use them in
your program. That means putting the directive "import java.io.*;" at the beginning of your source
file. Streams are not used in Java's graphical user interface, which has its own form of I/O. But they are
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Java Programing: Section 10.1
necessary for working with files and for doing communication over a network. They can be also used for
communication between two concurrently running threads, and there are stream classes for reading and
writing data stored in the computer's memory.
The beauty of the stream abstraction is that it is as easy to write data to a file or to send data over a network
as it is to print information on the screen.
The basic I/O classes Reader, Writer, InputStream, and OutputStream provide only very
primitive I/O operations. For example, the InputStream class declares the instance method
public int read() throws IOException
for reading one byte of data (a number in the range 0 to 255) from an input stream. If the end of the input
stream is encountered, the read() method will return the value -1 instead. If some error occurs during the
input attempt, an IOException is thrown. Since IOException is an exception class that requires
mandatory exception-handling, this means that you can't use the read() method except inside a try
statement or in a subroutine that is itself declared with a "throws IOException" clause. (Exceptions
and try...catch statements were covered in Chapter 9.)
The InputStream class also defines methods for reading several bytes of data in one step into an array of
bytes. However, InputStream provides no convenient methods for reading other types of data, such as
int or double, from a stream. This is not a problem because you'll never use an object of type
InputStream itself. Instead, you'll use subclasses of InputStream that add more convenient input
methods to InputStream's rather primitive capabilities. Similarly, the OutputStream class defines a
primitive output method for writing one byte of data to an output stream, the method
public void write(int b) throws IOException
but again, in practice, you will almost always use higher-level output operations defined in some subclass of
OutputStream.
The Reader and Writer classes provide very similar low-level read and write operations. But in
these character-oriented classes, the I/O operations read and write char values rather than bytes. In
practice, you will use sub-classes of Reader and Writer, as discussed below.
One of the neat things about Java's I/O package is that it lets you add capabilities to a stream by "wrapping"
it in another stream object that provides those capabilities. The wrapper object is also a stream, so you can
read from or write to it -- but you can do so using fancier operations than those available for basic streams.
For example, PrintWriter is a subclass of Writer that provides convenient methods for outputting
human-readable character representations of all of Java's basic data types. If you have an object belonging
to the Writer class, or any of its subclasses, and you would like to use PrintWriter methods to output
data to that Writer, all you have to do is wrap the Writer in a PrintWriter object. You do this by
constructing a new PrintWriter object, using the Writer as input to the constructor. For example, if
charSink is of type Writer, then you could say
PrintWriter printableCharSink = new PrintWriter(charSink);
When you output data to printableCharSink, using PrintWriter's advanced data output
methods, that data will go to exactly the same place as data written directly to charSink. You've just
provided a better interface to the same output stream. For example, this allows you to use PrintWriter
methods to send data to a file or over a network connection.
For the record, the output methods of the PrintWriter class include:
public void print(String s) // Methods for outputting
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public void print(char c) // standard data types
public void print(int i) // to the stream, in
public void print(long l) // human-readable form.
public void print(float f)
public void print(double d)
public void print(boolean b)
public void println() // Output a carriage return to the stream.
public void println(String s) // These methods are identical
public void println(char c) // to the previous set,
public void println(int i) // except that the output
public void println(long l) // value is followed by
public void println(float f) // a carriage return.
public void println(double d
public void println(boolean b)
Note that none of these methods will ever throw an IOException. Instead, the PrintWriter class
includes the method
public boolean checkError()
which will return true if any error has been encountered while writing to the stream. The PrintWriter
class catches any IOExceptions internally, and sets the value of an internal error flag if one occurs. The
checkError() method can be used to check the error flag. This allows you to use PrintWriter
methods without worrying about catching exceptions. On the other hand, to write a fully robust program,
you should call checkError() to test for possible errors every time you use a PrintWriter method.
When you use PrintWriter methods to output data to a stream, the data is converted into the sequence
of characters that represents the data in human-readable form. Suppose you want to output the data in
byte-oriented, machine-formatted form? The java.io package includes a byte-stream class,
DataOutputStream that can be used for writing data values to streams in internal, binary-number
format. DataOutputStream bears the same relationship to OutputStream that PrintWriter bears
to Writer. That is, whereas OutputStream only has methods for outputting bytes,
DataOutputStream has methods writeDouble(double x) for outputting values of type
double, writeInt(int x) for outputting values of type int, and so on. Furthermore, you can wrap
any OutputStream in a DataOutputStream so that you can use the higher level output methods on
it. For example, if byteSink is of type OutputStream, you could say
DataOutputStream dataSink = new DataOutputStream(byteSink);
to wrap byteSink in a DataOutputStream, dataSink.
For input of machine-readable data, such as that created by writing to a DataOutputStream, java.io
provides the class DataInputStream. You can wrap any InputStream in a DataInputStream
object to provide it with the ability to read data of various types from the byte-stream. The methods in the
DataInputStream for reading binary data are called readDouble(), readInt(), and so on. Data
written by a DataOutputStream is guaranteed to be in a format that can be read by a
DataInputStream. This is true even if the data stream is created on one type of computer and read on
another type of computer. The cross-platform compatibility of binary data is a major aspect of Java's
platform independence.
Still, the fact remains that much I/O is done in the form of human-readable characters. In view of this, it is
surprising that Java does not provide a standard character input class that can read character data in a
manner that is reasonably symmetrical with the character output capabilities of PrintWriter.
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Java Programing: Section 10.1
Fortunately, Java's object-oriented nature makes it possible to write such a class and then use it in exactly
the same way as if it were a standard part of the language.
Following this model, I have written a class called TextReader that allows convenient input of data that
was written in human-readable character format. The source code for this class is available if you want to
read it. A TextReader can be used as a wrapper for an existing input stream. The constructor
public TextReader(Reader dataSource)
creates an object that can be used to read data from the given Reader, dataSource, using the
convenient input methods of the TextReader class. The methods in my TextReader class are similar
to the static input methods in my TextIO class, except that TextReaders can be used to read from any
input stream, whereas TextIO can only be used to read from the standard input stream, System.in.
Instance methods in the TextReader class include:
public char peek() // Look at the next character in the stream,
// without removing it from the stream. If
// the characters in the stream have all
// been read, then the character '\0' is
// returned. If the next character in the
// stream is a carriage return, then a '\n'
// is returned.
public char getAnyChar() // Reads the next character from the
// stream. It can be a whitespace
// character. If all the characters
// in the stream have been read, an
// error occurs.
public void skipWhiteSpace() // Read and discard whitespace
// characters (space, return, tab),
// until a non-whitespace character
// is seen.
public boolean eoln() // Discards spaces or tabs in the stream,
// then tests whether the next char is
// the end of the current line (or the
// end of the data in the stream).
public boolean eof() // Discards any whitespace characters, then
// returns true if all the characters
// in the stream have been read.
public char getChar() // These routines read values of the
public byte getByte() // specified types. In each case,
public short getShort() // the computer skips any whitespace
public int getInt() // characters before trying to read a
public long getLong() // value of the specified type.
public float getFloat() // An error occurs if a value of the
public double getDouble() // correct type is not found. For
public String getWord() // the getWord() routine, a word is
public boolean getBoolean() // considered to be any string of
// non-blank characters. For
// getBoolean(), the input can be any
// of the strings "true", "false", "t",
// "f", "yes", "no", "y", "n", "1",
// or "0", ignoring case.
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Java Programing: Section 10.1
public String getAlpha() // This is similar to getWord(), except
// that it returns a string consisting
// of letters only. It is also special
// in that it skips over any non-letters
// before reading a word, rather than
// just skipping over white space.
public String getln(); // Reads characters up to the end of the
// current line of input. Then reads
// and discards the carriage return.
// Note that this routine does NOT skip
// leading whitespace characters, and
// that the value returned might be the
// empty string.
public char getlnChar(); // These routines are provided as a
public byte getlnByte(); // convenience. They are equivalent
public short getlnShort(); // to the above routines, except that
public int getlnInt(); // after successfully reading a value
public long getlnLong(); // of the specified type, the computer
public float getlnFloat(); // reads and discards any remaining
public double getlnDouble(); // characters on the same line.
public String getlnString();
public boolean getlnBoolean();
public String getlnAlpha();
For convenience, I also make it possible to wrap an InputStream in a TextReader object, in the same
way that it is possible to wrap a Reader object in a TextReader. For example, since System.in is of
type InputStream, you could say:
TextReader in = new TextReader(System.in);
The TextReader, in, could then be used in much the same way as the TextIO class. For example, you
could use in.getInt() to read an integer from standard input or use in.getBoolean() to read a
boolean value. The only difference would be that the TextReader does not handle errors in the input in
the same way as TextIO. In an exactly symmetrical way, you can wrap an OutputStream in a
PrintWriter if you want to write character data to the stream.
There remains the question of what happens when an error occurs while one of the input routines in the
TextReader class is being executed. Whoever designed the PrintWriter class decided not to throw
exceptions when errors occur. When I designed TextReader, I decided to give you a choice. By default,
a routine that encounters an error will throw an exception belonging to the class TextReader.Error.
This is a static nested class declared inside the TextReader class. (For information on nested classes, see
Section 7.6.) TextReader.Error is a subclass of the RuntimeException class. You can catch the
error in a try...catch statement and handle it, if you want. Recall that the compiler does not force you
to use try and catch to deal with RuntimeExceptions. However, if one occurs and is not caught, it
will crash your program. If you prefer not to work with exceptions at all, you can turn off this behavior by
calling the TextReader instance method
public void checkIO(boolean throwExceptions)
with its parameter set to false. In that case, when an error occurs during input, no exception will be
thrown. Instead, the value of an internal error flag will be set, and the program will continue. If you use this
option, it is your responsibility to check for errors after each input operation. You can do this with the
instance method
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public boolean checkError()
This method returns true if the most recent input operation on the TextReader produced an error, and
it returns false if that operation completed successfully. It is probably easier to write robust programs by
catching and handling exceptions than by continually checking for possible errors. With both options
available, you can experiment with both styles of exception-handling and see which one you prefer.
The classes PrintWriter, TextReader, DataInputStream, and DataOutputStream allow
you to easily input and output all of Java's primitive data types. But what happens when you want to read
and write objects? Traditionally, you would have to come up with some way of encoding your object as a
sequence of data values belonging to the primitive types, which can then be output as bytes or characters.
This is called serializing the object. On input, you have to read the serialized data and somehow reconstitute
a copy of the original object. For complex objects, this can all be a major chore. However, you can get Java
to do all the work for you by using the classes ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream.
These are subclasses of InputStream and Outputstream that can be used for writing and reading
serialized objects.
ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream are wrapper classes that can be wrapped around
arbitrary InputStreams and OutputStreams. This makes it possible to do object input and output on
any byte-stream. The methods for object I/O are readObject(), in ObjectInputStream, and
writeObject(Object obj), in ObjectOutputStream. Both of these methods can throw
IOExceptions. Note that readObject() returns a value of type Object, which generally has to be
type-cast to a more useful type.
ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream only work with objects that implement an
interface named Serializable. Furthermore, all of the instance variables in the object must be
serializable. However, there is little work involved in making an object serializable, since the
Serializable interface does not declare any methods. It exists only as a marker for the compiler, to tell
it that the object is meant to be writable and readable. You only need to add the words "implements
Serializable" to your class definitions. Many of Java's standard classes are already declared to be
serializable, including all the component classes in the AWT. This means, in particular, that GUI
components can be written to ObjectOutputStreams and read from ObjectInputStreams.
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Java Programing: Section 10.2
Section 10.2
Files
THE DATA AND PROGRAMS IN A COMPUTER'S MAIN MEMORY survive only as long as the
power is on. For more permanent storage, computers use files, which are collections of data stored on a
hard disk, on a floppy disk, on a CD-ROM, or on some other type of storage device. Files are organized into
directories (sometimes called "folders"). A directory can hold other directories, as well as files. Both
directories and files have names that are used to identify them.
Programs can read data from existing files. They can create new files and can write data to files. In Java,
such input and output is done using streams. Human-readable character data is read from a file using an
object belonging to the class FileReader, which is a subclass of Reader. Similarly, data is written to a
file in human-readable format through an object of type FileWriter, a subclass of Writer. For files
that store data in machine format, the appropriate I/O classes are FileInputStream and
FileOutputStream. In this section, I will only discuss character-oriented file I/O using the
FileReader and FileWriter classes. However, FileInputStream and FileOutputStream
are used in an exactly parallel fashion. All these classes are defined in the java.io package.
It's worth noting right at the start that applets which are downloaded over a network connection are
generally not allowed to access files. This is a security consideration. You can download and run an applet
just by visiting a Web page with your browser. If downloaded applets had access to the files on your
computer, it would be easy to write an applet that would destroy all the data on a computer that downloads
it. To prevent such possibilities, there are a number of things that downloaded applets are not allowed to do.
Accessing files is one of those forbidden things. Standalone programs written in Java, however, have the
same access to your files as any other program. When you write a standalone Java application, you can use
all the file operations described in this section.
The FileReader class has a constructor which takes the name of a file as a parameter and creates an
input stream that can be used for reading from that file. This constructor will throw an exception of type
FileNotFoundException if the file doesn't exist. This exception type requires mandatory exception
handling, so you have to call the constructor in a try statement (or inside a routine that is declared to throw
FileNotFoundException). For example, suppose you have a file named "data.txt", and you want
your program to read data from that file. You could do the following to create an input stream for the file:
FileReader data; // (Declare the variable before the
// try statement, or else the variable
// is local to the try block and you won't
// be able to use it later in the program.)
try {
data = new FileReader("data.txt"); // create the stream
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
... // do something to handle the error -- maybe, end the program
}
The FileNotFoundException class is a subclass of IOException, so it would be acceptable to
catch IOExceptions in the above try...catch statement. More generally, just about any error that
can occur during input/output operations can be caught by a catch clause that handles IOException.
Once you have successfully created a FileReader, you can start reading data from it. But since
FileReaders have only the primitive input methods inherited from the basic Reader class, you will
probably want to wrap your FileReader in a TextReader object or in some other wrapper class. (The
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TextReader class is not a standard part of Java; it is described in the previous section.) To create a
TextReader for reading from a file named data.dat, you could say:
TextReader data;
try {
data = new TextReader(new FileReader("data.dat"));
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
... // handle the exception
}
Once you have a TextReader named data, you can read from it using such methods as
data.getInt() and data.getWord(), exactly as you would from any other TextReader.
Working with output files is no more difficult than this. You simply create an object belonging to the class
FileWriter. You will probably want to wrap this output stream in an object of type PrintWriter.
For example, suppose you want to write data to a file named "result.dat". Since the constructor for
FileWriter can throw an exception of type IOException, you should use a try statement:
PrintWriter result;
try {
result = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("result.dat"));
}
catch (IOException e) {
... // handle the exception
}
If no file named result.dat exists, a new file will be created. If the file already exists, then the current
contents of the file will be erased and replaced with the data that your program writes to the file. An
IOException might occur if, for example, you are trying to create a file on a disk that is
"write-protected," meaning that it cannot be modified.
After you are finished using a file, it's a good idea to close the file, to tell the operating system that you are
finished using it. (If you forget to do this, the file will ordinarily be closed automatically when the program
terminates or when the file stream object is garbage collected, but it's best to close a file as soon as you are
done with it.) You can close a file by calling the close() method of the associated stream. Once a file has
been closed, it is no longer possible to read data from it or write data to it, unless you open it again as a new
stream. (Note that for most stream classes, the close() method can throw an IOException, which
must be handled; however, both PrintWriter and TextReader override this method so that it cannot
throw such exceptions.)
As a complete example, here is a program that will read numbers from a file named data.dat, and will
then write out the same numbers in reverse order to another file named result.dat. It is assumed that
data.dat contains only one number on each line, and that there are no more than 1000 numbers
altogether. Exception-handling is used to check for problems along the way. Although the application is not
a particularly useful one, this program demonstrates the basics of working with files. (By the way, at the
end of this program, you'll find our first example of a finally clause in a try statement. When the
computer executes a try statement, the commands in its finally clause are guaranteed to be executed,
no matter what.)
import java.io.*;
// (The TextReader class must also be available to this program.)
public class ReverseFile {
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public static void main(String[] args) {
TextReader data; // Character input stream for reading data.
PrintWriter result; // Character output stream for writing data.
double[] number = new double[1000]; // An array to hold all
// the numbers that are
// read from the file.
int numberCt; // Number of items actually stored in the array.
try { // Create the input stream.
data = new TextReader(new FileReader("data.dat"));
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("Can't find file data.dat!");
return; // End the program by returning from main().
}
try { // Create the output stream.
result = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("result.dat"));
}
catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Can't open file result.dat!");
System.out.println(e.toString());
data.close(); // Close the input file.
return; // End the program.
}
try {
// Read the data from the input file.
numberCt = 0;
while (data.eof() == false) { // Read until end-of-file.
number[numberCt] = data.getlnDouble();
numberCt++;
}
// Output the numbers in reverse order.
for (int i = numberCt-1; i >= 0; i--)
result.println(number[i]);
System.out.println("Done!");
}
catch (TextReader.Error e) {
// Some problem reading the data from the input file.
System.out.println("Input Error: " + e.getMessage());
}
catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
// Must have tried to put too many numbers in the array.
System.out.println("Too many numbers in data file.");
System.out.println("Processing has been aborted.");
}
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finally {
// Finish by closing the files,
// whatever else may have happened.
data.close();
result.close();
}
} // end of main()
} // end of class
File Names, Directories, and File Dialogs
The subject of file names is actually more complicated than I've let on so far. To fully specify a file, you
have to give both the name of the file and the name of the directory where that file is located. A simple file
name like "data.dat" or "result.dat" is taken to refer to a file in a directory that is called the current directory
(or "default directory" or "working directory"). The current directory is not a permanent thing. It can be
changed by the user or by a program. Files not in the current directory must be referred to by a path name,
which includes both the name of the file and information about the directory where it can be found.
To complicate matters even further, there are two types of path names, absolute path names and relative
path names. An absolute path name uniquely identifies one file among all the files available to the
computer. It contains full information about which directory the file is in and what its name is. A relative
path name tells the computer how to locate the file, starting from the current directory.
Unfortunately, the syntax for file names and path names varies quite a bit from one type of computer to
another. Here are some examples:
● data.dat -- on any computer, this would be a file named data.dat in the current directory.
● /home/eck/java/examples/data.dat -- This is an absolute path name in the UNIX
operating system. It refers to a file named data.dat in a directory named examples, which is in turn
in a directory named java,....
● C:\eck\java\examples\data.dat -- An absolute path name on a DOS or Windows
computer.
● Hard Drive:java:examples:data.dat -- Assuming that "Hard Drive" is the name of a
disk drive, this would be an absolute path name on a Macintosh computer.
● examples/data.dat -- a relative path name under UNIX. "Examples" is the name of a
directory that is contained within the current directory, and data.data is a file in that directory. The
corresponding relative path names for Windows and Macintosh would be examples\data.dat
and examples:data.dat.
Similarly, the rules for determining which directory is the current directory are different for different types
of computers. It's reasonably safe to say, though, that if you stick to using simple file names only, and if the
files are stored in the same directory with the program that will use them, then you will be OK.
In many cases, however, you would like the user to be able to select the file that is going to be used for
input or output. If your program lets the user type in the file name, you will just have to assume that the user
understands how to work with files and directories. But in a graphical user interface, the user expects to be
able to select files using a file dialog box, which is a special window that a program can open when it wants
the user to select a file for input or output. Java provides a platform-independent method for using file
dialog boxes in the form of a class called FileDialog. This class is part of the package java.awt.
There are really two types of file dialog windows: one for selecting an existing file to be used for input, and
one for specifying a file for output. You can specify which type of file dialog you want in the constructor
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for the FileDialog object, which has the form
public FileDialog(Frame parent, String title, int mode)
where parent is presumably the main window of the program, title is meant to be a short string
describing the dialog box, and mode is one of the constants FileDialog.SAVE or
FileDialog.LOAD. Use FileDialog.SAVE if you want an output file, and use
FileDialog.LOAD if you want a file for input. You can actually omit the mode parameter, which is
equivalent to using FileDialog.LOAD.
Once you have a FileDialog object, you can use its show() method to make it appear on the screen. It
will stay on the screen until the user either selects a file or cancels the request. The instance method
getFile() can then be called to retrieve the name of the file selected by the user. If the user has canceled
the file dialog, then the String value returned by getFile() will be null. Since the user can select a
file that is not in the current directory, you will also need directory information, which can be retrieved by
calling the method getDirectory(). For example, if you want the user to select a file for output, and if
the main window for your application is mainWin, you could say:
FileDialog fd = new FileDialog(mainWin, "Select output file",
FileDialog.SAVE);
fd.show();
String fileName = fd.getFile();
String directory = fd.getDirectory();
if (fileName != null) { // (otherwise, the user canceled the request)
... // open the file, save the data, then close the file
}
Once you have the file name and directory information, you will have to combine them into a usable file
specification. The best way to do this is to create an object of type File. The File object can then be
used as a parameter in a constructor for a FileReader, FileWriter, FileInputStream, or
FileOutputStream. For example, the body of the if statement in the above example could include:
try {
File file = new File(directory, fileName);
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter(file));
... // write the data to the output stream, out
out.close();
}
catch { IOException e }
... // respond to the exception
}
The File class has other uses as well. An object of type File really represents a file name rather than a
file. The file to which the name refers might or might not exist. If it does exist, it might actually be a
directory rather than a regular file. A File object can be constructed from a directory and a file name, as in
the above example. The directory can be specified as a String or as an object of type File that refers to
a directory. A File object can also be created just from a file name, as in the constructor call new
File("data.txt"). In that case, the directory is assumed to be the current directory.
File objects contain several useful instance methods. Assuming that file is a variable of type File,
here are some of the methods that are available:
file.exists() -- This boolean-valued function returns true if the file named by the
File object already exists. You could use this method if you wanted to avoid overwriting
the contents of an existing file when you create a new FileWriter.
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file.isDirectory() -- This boolean-valued function returns true if the File
object refers to a directory. It returns false if it refers to a regular file or if no file with the
given name exists.
file.delete() -- Deletes the file, if it exists.
file.list() -- If the File object refers to a directory, this function returns an array of
type String[] containing the names of the files in this directory. Otherwise, it returns
null.
Here, for example, is a program that will list the names of all the files in a directory specified by the user:
import java.io.File;
public class DirectoryList {
/* This program lists the files in a directory specified by
the user. The user is asked to type in a directory name.
If the name entered by the user is not a directory, a
message is printed and the program ends.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
String directoryName; // Directory name entered by the user.
File directory; // File object referring to the directory.
String[] files; // Array of file names in the directory.
TextIO.put("Enter a directory name: ");
directoryName = TextIO.getln().trim();
directory = new File(directoryName);
if (directory.isDirectory() == false) {
if (directory.exists() == false)
TextIO.putln("There is no such directory!");
else
TextIO.putln("That file is not a directory.");
}
else {
files = directory.list();
TextIO.putln("Files in directory \"" + directory + "\":");
for (int i = 0; i < files.length; i++)
TextIO.putln(" " + files[i]);
}
} // end main()
} // end class DirectoryList
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 10.3
Section 10.3
Programming With Files
IN THIS SECTION, we look at several programming examples that work with files. The techniques that
we need were introduced in Section 1 and Section 2.
The first example is a program that makes a list of all the words that occur in a specified file. The user is
asked to type in the name of the file. The list of words is written to another file, which the user also
specifies. A word here just means a sequence of letters. The list of words will be output in alphabetical
order, with no repetitions. All the words will be converted into lower case, so that, for example, "The" and
"the" will count as the same word.
Since we want to output the words in alphabetical order, we can't just output the words as they are read
from the input file. We can store the words in an array, but since there is no way to tell in advance how
many words will be found in the file, we need a "dynamic array" which can grow as large as necessary.
Techniques for working with dynamic arrays were discussed in Section 8.3. The data is represented in the
program by two static variables:
static String[] words; // An array that holds the words.
static int wordCount; // The number of words currently
// stored in the array.
The program starts with an empty array. Every time a word is read from the file, it is inserted into the array
(if it is not already there). The array is kept at all times in alphabetical order, so the new word has to be
inserted into its proper position in that order. The insertion is done by the following subroutine:
static void insertWord(String w) {
int pos = 0; // This will be the position in the array
// where the word w belongs.
w = w.toLowerCase(); // Convert word to lower case.
/* Find the position in the array where w belongs, after all the
words that precede w alphabetically. If a copy of w already
occupies that position, then it is not necessary to insert
w, so return immediately. */
while (pos < wordCount && words[pos].compareTo(w) < 0)
pos++;
if (pos < wordCount && words[pos].equals(w))
return;
/* If the array is full, make a new array that is twice as
big, copy all the words from the old array to the new,
and set the variable, words, to refer to the new array. */
if (wordCount == words.length) {
String[] newWords = new String[words.length*2];
System.arraycopy(words,0,newWords,0,wordCount);
words = newWords;
}
/* Put w into its correct position in the array. Move any
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words that come after w up one space in the array to
make room for w. */
for (int i = wordCount; i > pos; i--)
words[i] = words[i-1];
words[pos] = w;
wordCount++;
} // end insertWord()
This subroutine is called by the main() routine of the program to process each word that it reads from the
file. If we ignore the possibility of errors, an algorithm for the program is
Get the file names from the user
Create a TextReader for reading from the input file
Create a PrintWriter for writing to the output file
while there are more words in the input file:
Read a word from the input file
Insert the word into the words array
For i from 0 to wordCount - 1:
Write words[i] to the output file
Most of these steps can generate IOExceptions, and so they must be done inside try...catch
statements. In this case, we'll just print an error message and terminate the program when an error occurs.
If in is the name of the TextReader that is being used to read from the input file, we can read a word
from the file with the function in.getAlpha(). But testing whether there are any more words in the file
is a little tricky. The function in.eof() will check whether there are any more non-whitespace characters
in the file, but that's not the same as checking whether there are more words. It might be that all the
remaining non-whitespace characters are non-letters. In that case, trying to read a word will generate an
error, even though in.eof() is false. The fix for this is to skip all non-letter characters before testing
in.eof(). The function in.peek() allows us to look ahead at the next character without reading it, to
check whether it is a letter. With this in mind, the while loop in the algorithm can be written in Java as:
while (true) {
while ( ! in.eof() && ! Character.isLetter(in.peek()) )
in.getAnyChar(); // Read the non-letter character.
if ( in.eof() ) // End if there is nothing more to read.
break;
insertWord( in.getAlpha() );
}
With error-checking added, the complete main() routine is as follows. If you want to see the program as a
whole, you'll find the source code in the file WordList.java.
public static void main(String[] args) {
TextReader in; // A stream for reading from the input file.
PrintWriter out; // A stream for writing to the output file.
String inputFileName; // Input file name, specified by the user.
String outputFileName; // Output file name, specified by the user.
words = new String[10]; // Start with space for 10 words.
wordCount = 0; // Currently, there are no words in array.
/* Get the input file name from the user and try to create the
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input stream. If there is a FileNotFoundException, print
a message and terminate the program. */
TextIO.put("Input file name? ");
inputFileName = TextIO.getln().trim();
try {
in = new TextReader(new FileReader(inputFileName));
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
TextIO.putln("Can't find file \"" + inputFileName + "\".");
return;
}
/* Get the output file name from the user and try to create the
output stream. If there is an IOException, print a message
and terminate the program. */
TextIO.put("Output file name? ");
outputFileName = TextIO.getln().trim();
try {
out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter(outputFileName));
}
catch (IOException e) {
TextIO.putln("Can't open file \"" +
outputFileName + "\" for output.");
TextIO.putln(e.toString());
return;
}
/* Read all the words from the input stream and insert them into
the array of words. Reading from a TextReader can result in
an error of type TextReader.Error. If one occurs, print an
error message and terminate the program. */
try {
while (true) {
// Skip past any non-letters in the input stream. If
// end-of-stream has been reached, end the loop.
// Otherwise, read a word and insert it into the
// array of words.
while ( ! in.eof() && ! Character.isLetter(in.peek()) )
in.getAnyChar();
if (in.eof())
break;
insertWord(in.getAlpha());
}
}
catch (TextReader.Error e) {
TextIO.putln("An error occurred while reading from input file.");
TextIO.putln(e.toString());
return;
}
/* Write all the words from the list to the output stream. */
for (int i = 0; i < wordCount; i++)
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out.println(words[i]);
/* Finish up by checking for an error on the output stream and
printing either a warning message or a message that the words
have been output to the output file. */
if (out.checkError() == true) {
TextIO.putln("Some error occurred while writing output.");
TextIO.putln("Output might be incomplete or invalid.");
}
else {
TextIO.putln(wordCount + " words from \"" + inputFileName +
"\" output to \"" + outputFileName + "\".");
}
} // end main()
Making a copy of a file is a pretty common operation, and most operating systems already have a command
for doing so. However, it is still instructive to look at a Java program that does the same thing. Many file
operations are similar to copying a file, except that the data from the input file is processed in some way
before it is written to the output file. All such operations can be done by programs with the same general
form.
Since the program should be able to copy any file, we can't assume that the data in the file is in
human-readable form. So, we have to use InputStream and OutputStream to operate on the file
rather than Reader and Writer. The program simply copies all the data from the InputStream to the
OutputStream, one byte at a time. If source is the variable that refers to the InputStream, then the
function source.read() can be used to read one byte. This function returns the value -1 when all the
bytes in the input file have been read. Similarly, if copy refers to the OutputStream, then
copy.write(b) writes one byte to the output file. So, the heart of the program is a simple while loop.
(As usual, the I/O operations can throw exceptions, so this must be done in a try...catch statement.)
while(true) {
int data = source.read();
if (data < 0)
break;
copy.write(data);
}
The file-copy command in an operating system such as DOS or UNIX uses command line arguments to
specify the names of the files. For example, the user might say "copy original.dat backup.dat"
to copy an existing file, original.dat, to a file named backup.dat. Command-line arguments can
also be used in Java programs. The command line arguments are stored in the array of strings, args, which
is a parameter to the main() routine. The program can retrieve the command-line arguments from this
array. For example, if the program is named CopyFile and if the user runs the program with the
command "java CopyFile work.dat oldwork.dat", then, in the program, args[0] will be the
string "work.dat" and args[1] will be the string "oldwork.dat". The value of args.length
tells the program how many command-line arguments were specified by the user.
My CopyFile program gets the names of the files from the command-line arguments. It prints an error
message and exits if the file names are not specified. To add a little interest, there are two ways to use the
program. The command line can simply specify the two file names. In that case, if the output file already
exists, the program will print an error message and end. This is to make sure that the user won't accidently
overwrite an important file. However, if the command line has three arguments, then the first argument
must be "-f" while the second and third arguments are file names. The -f is a command-line option,
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which is meant to modify the behavior of the program. The program interprets the -f to mean that it's OK
to overwrite an existing program. (The "f" stands for "force," since it forces the file to be copied in spite of
what would otherwise have been considered an error.) You can see in the source code how the command
line arguments are interpreted by the program:
import java.io.*;
public class CopyFile {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String sourceName; // Name of the source file,
// as specified on the command line.
String copyName; // Name of the copy,
// as specified on the command line.
InputStream source; // Stream for reading from the source file.
OutputStream copy; // Stream for writing the copy.
boolean force; // This is set to true if the "-f" option
// is specified on the command line.
int byteCount; // Number of bytes copied from the source file.
/* Get file names from the command line and check for the
presence of the -f option. If the command line is not one
of the two possible legal forms, print an error message and
end this program. */
if (args.length == 3 && args[0].equalsIgnoreCase("-f")) {
sourceName = args[1];
copyName = args[2];
force = true;
}
else if (args.length == 2) {
sourceName = args[0];
copyName = args[1];
force = false;
}
else {
System.out.println(
"Usage: java CopyFile <source-file> <copy-name>");
System.out.println(
" or java CopyFile -f <source-file> <copy-name>");
return;
}
/* Create the input stream. If an error occurs,
end the program. */
try {
source = new FileInputStream(sourceName);
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("Can't find file \"" + sourceName + "\".");
return;
}
/* If the output file already exists and the -f option was not
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specified, print an error message and end the program. */
File file = new File(copyName);
if (file.exists() && force == false) {
System.out.println(
"Output file exists. Use the -f option to replace it.");
return;
}
/* Create the output stream. If an error occurs,
end the program. */
try {
copy = new FileOutputStream(copyName);
}
catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Can't open output file \""
+ copyName + "\".");
return;
}
/* Copy one byte at a time from the input stream to the output
stream, ending when the read() method returns -1 (which is
the signal that the end of the stream has been reached). If any
error occurs, print an error message. Also print a message if
the file has been copied successfully. */
byteCount = 0;
try {
while (true) {
int data = source.read();
if (data < 0)
break;
copy.write(data);
byteCount++;
}
source.close();
copy.close();
System.out.println("Successfully copied "
+ byteCount + " bytes.");
}
catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Error occurred while copying. "
+ byteCount + " bytes copied.");
System.out.println(e.toString());
}
} // end main()
} // end class CopyFile
Both of the previous programs use a command-line interface, but graphical user interface programs can also
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manipulate files. Programs typically have an "Open" command that reads the data from a file and displays it
in a window and a "Save" command that writes the data from the window into a file. We can illustrate this
in Java with a simple text editor program. The window for this program uses a TextArea component to
display some text that the user can edit. It also has a menu bar, with a "File" menu that includes "Open" and
"Save" commands. Menus and windows for standalone programs were discussed in Section 7.7. The
program also uses file dialogs, which were introduced in Section 2.
When the user selects the Save command from the File menu, the program pops up a file dialog box where
the user specifies the file. The text from the TextArea is written to the file. All this is done in the
following instance method (where the variable, text, refers to the TextArea):
private void doSave() {
// Carry out the Save command by letting the user specify
// an output file and writing the text from the TextArea
// to that file.
FileDialog fd; // A file dialog that lets the user
// specify the file.
String fileName; // Name of file specified by the user.
String directory; // Directory that contains the file.
fd = new FileDialog(this,"Save Text to File",FileDialog.SAVE);
fd.show();
fileName = fd.getFile();
if (fileName == null) {
// The fileName is null if the user has canceled the file
// dialog. In this case, there is nothing to do, so quit.
return;
}
directory = fd.getDirectory();
try {
// Create a PrintWriter for writing to the specified
// file and write the text from the window to that stream.
File file = new File(directory, fileName);
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter(file));
String contents = text.getText();
out.print(contents);
out.close();
}
catch (IOException e) {
// Some error has occurred while opening or closing the file.
// Show an error message.
new MessageDialog(this, "Error: " + e.toString());
}
}
The MessageDialog class that is used at the end of this method pops up a dialog box to display the error
message to the user. In a GUI program, it wouldn't make much sense to write the error to standard output,
since the user is not likely to be paying attention to standard output, even if it is visible on the screen.
MessageDialog is not a standard part of Java. It is defined in the file MessageDialog.java.
(By the way, there is one problem with this method, with illustrates the difficulties of dealing with text files
on different computing platforms. The lines in a TextArea are separated by line feed characters, '\n'. This
is the standard for separating lines in the UNIX operating system, but both Macintosh and Windows have
different standards. Macintosh uses the carriage return character, '\r', as a line separater, while Windows
uses the two-character sequence "\r\n". The doSave() method writes the line feed characters from the
TextArea to the output file. On Macintosh and Windows computers, the output file will not be in the
proper format for a text file -- assuming that the implementation of PrintWriter in your version of Java
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doesn't take care of the problem. The TextReader class, which is used in the method that opens files, can
handle any of the three formats of text files.)
When the user selects the Open command, a dialog box allows the user to specify the file that is to be
opened. It is assumed that the file is a text file. Since TextAreas are not meant for displaying large
amounts of text, the number of lines read from the file is limited to one hundred at most. Before the file is
read, any text currently in the TextArea is removed. Then lines are read from the file and appended to the
TextArea one by one, with a line feed character at the end of each line. This process continues until one
hundred lines have been read or until the end of the input file is reached. If any error occurs during this
process, an error message is displayed to the user in a dialog box. Here is the complete method:
private void doOpen() {
// Carry out the Open command by letting the user specify
// the file to be opened and reading up to 100 lines from
// that file. The text from the file replaces the text
// in the TextArea.
FileDialog fd; // A file dialog that lets the user
// specify the file.
String fileName; // Name of file specified by the user.
String directory; // Directory that contains the file.
fd = new FileDialog(this,"Load File",FileDialog.LOAD);
fd.show();
fileName = fd.getFile();
if (fileName == null) {
// The fileName is null if the user has canceled the file
// dialog. In this case, there is nothing to do, so quit.
return;
}
directory = fd.getDirectory();
try {
// Read lines from the file until end-of-file is detected,
// or until 100 lines have been read. The lines are appended
// to the TextArea, with a line feed after each line. The
// test for end-of-file in the while loop is
// in.peek() != '\0' because calling in.eof() could skip
// over and discard any blank lines in the file. Blank lines
// should be copied to the TextArea just like any other lines.
File file = new File(directory, fileName);
TextReader in = new TextReader(new FileReader(file));
String line;
text.setText("");
int lineCt = 0;
while (lineCt < 100 && in.peek() != '\0') {
line = in.getln();
text.appendText(line + '\n');
lineCt++;
}
if (in.eof() == false) {
text.appendText(
"\n\n********** Text truncated to 100 lines! ***********\n");
}
in.close();
}
catch (Exception e) {
// Some error has occurred while opening or closing the file.
// Show an error message.
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new MessageDialog(this, "Error: " + e.toString());
}
}
The doSave() and doOpen() methods are the only part of the text editor program that deal with files. If
you would like to see the entire program, you will find the source code in the file TrivialEdit.java.
For a final example of files used in a complete program, you might want to look at
ShapeDrawWithFiles.java. This file defines one last version of the ShapeDraw program, which you last saw
in Section 7.7. This version has a "File" menu for saving and loading the patterns of shapes that are created
with the program. The program also serves as an example of using ObjectInputStream and
ObjectOutputStream, which were discussed at the end of Section 1. If you check, you'll see that the
Shape class in this version has been declared to be Serializable so that objects of type Shape can be
written to and read from object streams.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 10.4
Networking
AS FAR AS A PROGRAM IS CONCERNED, A NETWORK is just another possible source of input
data, and another place where data can be output. That does oversimplify things, because networks are still
not quite as easy to work with as files are. But in Java, you can do network communication using input
streams and output streams, just as you can use such streams to communicate with the user or to work with
files. Opening a network connection between two computers is a bit tricky, since there are two computers
involved and they have to somehow agree to open a connection. And when each computer can send data to
the other, synchronizing communication can be a problem. But the fundamentals are the same as for other
forms of I/O.
One of the standard Java packages is called java.net. This package includes several classes that can be
used for networking. Two different styles of network I/O are supported. One of these, which is fairly
high-level, is based on the World-Wide Web, and provides the sort of network communication capability
that is used by a Web browser when it downloads pages for you to view. The main class for this style of
networking is called URL. An object of type URL is an abstract representation of a Universal Resource
Locator, which is an address for an HTML document or other resource on the Web.
The second style of I/O is much more low-level, and is based on the idea of a socket. A socket is used by a
program to establish a connection with another program on a network. Two-way communication over a
network involves two sockets, one on each of the computers involved in the communication. Java uses a
class called Socket to represent sockets that are used for network communication. The term "socket"
presumably comes from an image of physically plugging a wire into a computer to establish a connection to
a network, but it is important to understand that a socket, as the term is used here, is simply an object
belonging to the class Socket. In particular, a program can have several sockets at the same time, each
connecting it to another program running on some other computer on the network. All these connections
use the same physical network connection.
This section gives a brief introduction to the URL and Socket classes, and shows how they relate to input
and output streams and to exceptions. The networking classes discussed in this section, including URL and
Socket, are defined in the package java.net.
The URL Class
The URL class is used to represent resources on the World-Wide Web. Every resource has an address,
which identifies it uniquely and contains enough information for a Web browser to find the resource on the
network and retrieve it. The address is called a "url" or "universal resource locator." See Section 6.2 for
more information.
An object belonging to the URL class represents such an address. If you have a URL object, you can use it to
open a network connection to the resource at that address. The URL class, and an associated class called
URLConnection, provide a large number of methods for working with such connections. One of the
methods in the URL class, getContent(), allows you retrieve the resource that the URL points to with a
single command. That is, if url is an object of type URL, then url.getContent() is an Object that
contains the text file, image, or other resource found on the Web at the given url. For example, if the
resource is a standard Web page in HTML format, then the Object returned by getContent() might
be a String that contains the actual HTML code that describes the page. Alternatively, since the type of
object that is returned can depend on the implementation of Java that you are using, the object might be an
InputStream or a Reader from which you can read the contents of the HTML page.
A url is ordinarily specified as a string, such as "http://math.hws.edu/eck/index.html". There
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are also relative url's. A relative url specifies the location of a resource relative to the location of another
url, which is called the base or context for the relative url. For example, if the context is given by the url
http://math.hws.edu/eck/, then the incomplete, relative url "index.html" would really refer to
http://math.hws.edu/eck/index.html.
An object of the class URL is not simply a string, but it can be constructed from a string representation of a
url. A URL object can also be constructed from another URL object, representing a context, and a string that
specifies a url relative to that context. These constructors have prototypes
public URL(String urlName) throws MalformedURLException
and
public URL(URL context, String relativeName)
throws MalformedURLException
Note that these constructors will throw an exception of type MalformedURLException if the specified
strings don't represent legal url's. The MalformedURLException class is a subclass of
IOException, and it requires mandatory exception handling. So of course you should call the constructor
inside a try statement and handle the potential MalformedURLException in a catch clause.
When you write an applet, there are two methods available that provide useful URL contexts. The method
getDocumentBase(), defined in the Applet class, returns an object of type URL. This URL represents
the location from which the HTML page that contains the applet was downloaded. This allows the applet to
go back and retrieve other files that are stored in the same location as that document. For example,
URL address = new URL(getDocumentBase(), "data.txt");
constructs a URL that refers to a file named data.txt on the same computer and in the same directory as
the web page on which the applet is running. Another method, getCodeBase() returns a URL that gives
the location of the applet class file (which is not necessarily the same as the location of the document).
Once you have a valid URL object, you can use the getContent() method to retrieve the data stored at
that url. Alternatively, you can use the method openStream() from the URL class to obtain an
InputStream from which you can read the data using any available input method. For example, if
address is an object of type URL, you could simply say
InputStream in = address.openStream();
to get the input stream. This method does all the work of opening a network connection. When you read
from the input stream, it does all the hard work of obtaining data over that connection. Ordinarily, you
would wrap the InputStream object in a DataInputStream or TextReader and do all your input
through that.
Various exceptions can be thrown as the attempt is made to open the connection and read data from it. Most
of these exception are of type IOException, and such errors must be caught and handled. But these
operations can also cause security exceptions. An object of type SecurityException is thrown when a
program attempts to perform some operation that it does not have permission to perform. For example, a
Web browser is typically configured to forbid an applet from making a network connection to any computer
other than the computer from which the applet was downloaded. If an applet attempts to connect to some
other computer, a SecurityException is thrown. A security exception can be caught and handled like
any other exception. It does not require mandatory exception handling.
To put this all together, let's consider an applet that reads data from a url over the network. The url's
getContent() method is used to retrieve the data. If the data is of type String, then the string is
displayed in a TextArea. If getContent() returns an input stream, then the data is read from that
stream and displayed. If getContent() returns any other type of object, then just the name of the class
to which the object belongs is displayed. The data is read by a separate thread. (Threads were discussed in
Section 7.5.) Here is the run() method that is executed by the thread to do the work. A few things here
will be unfamiliar to you, but you should be able to figure them out.
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public void run() {
// Loads the data in the url specified by an instance variable
// named urlName. The data is displayed in a TextArea named
// textDisplay. Exception handling is used to detect and respond
// to errors that might occur.
try {
/* Create the URL. This can throw a MalformedURLException. */
URL url = new URL(getDocumentBase(), urlName);
/* Get the object that represents the content of the URL. This
can throw an IOException or a SecurityException. */
Object content = url.getContent();
/* Display the content in the TextArea. If it is not of type
String, InputStream, or Reader, just display the name of the
class to which the content belongs. For an InputStream
or Reader, at most 10000 characters are read. For efficiency,
characters are read from a stream using a BufferedReader. */
if (content instanceof String) {
// Show the text in the TextArea.
textDisplay.setText((String)content);
}
else if (content instanceof InputStream
|| content instanceof Reader) {
// Read up to 10000 characters from the stream, and
// show them in the TextArea.
textDisplay.setText("Receiving data...");
BufferedReader in; // for reading from the URL stream
if (content instanceof InputStream) {
in = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader( (InputStream)content ) );
}
else if (content instanceof BufferedReader) {
in = (BufferedReader)content;
}
else {
in = new BufferedReader( (Reader)content );
}
char[] data = new char[10000]; // The characters read.
int index = 0; // Number of chars read.
while (true) {
// Read up to 10000 chars and store them in the array.
if (index == 10000)
break;
int ch = in.read();
if (ch == -1)
break;
data[index] = (char)ch;
index++;
}
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if (index == 0)
textDisplay.setText("Couldn't get any data!");
else
textDisplay.setText(new String(data,0,index));
in.close();
}
else {
// Set text area to show what type of data was read.
textDisplay.setText("Loaded data of type\n "
+ content.getClass().getName());
}
}
catch (MalformedURLException e) {
// Can be thrown when URL is created.
textDisplay.setText(
"\nERROR! Improper syntax given for the URL to be loaded.");
}
catch (SecurityException e) {
// Can be thrown when the connection is created.
textDisplay.setText("\nSECURITY ERROR! Can't access that URL.");
}
catch (IOException e) {
// Can be thrown while data is being read.
textDisplay.setText(
"\nINPUT ERROR! Problem reading data from that URL:\n"
+ e.toString());
}
finally {
// This part is done, no matter what, before the thread ends.
// Set up the user interface of the applet so the user can
// enter another URL.
loadButton.setEnabled(true);
inputBox.setEditable(true);
inputBox.selectAll();
inputBox.requestFocus();
}
} // end of run() method
And here is the working applet that uses this routine. When you press the "Load" button, the applet will try
to load data from the url specified in the text-input box. When the applet first starts up, it contains a url for
its own source code. If you click the Load button, it will try to load and display that source code. (If there is
a problem, and if you would still like to see the complete source code, you can find it in the file
URLExampleApplet.java.)
Sorry, your browser
doesn't support Java.
You can also try to use this applet to look at the HTML source code for this very page. Just type s4.html
into the input box at the bottom of the applet and then click on the Load button. You might want to
experiment with generating other urls and seeing what types of errors can occur. For example, entering
"bogus.html" is likely to generate a FileNotFoundException, since no document of that name
exists in the directory that contains this page. As another example, you can probably generate a
SecurityException by trying to connect to http://www.whitehouse.gov. (Not because it's an
official secret -- any url that does not lead back to the same computer from which the applet was loaded will
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generate a security exception.)
Sockets, Clients, and Servers
Communication over the Internet is based on a pair of protocols called the Internet Protocol and the
Transmission Control Protocol, which are collectively referred to as TCP/IP. (In fact, there is a more basic
communication protocol called UDP that can be used instead of TCP in certain applications. UDP is
supported in Java, but for this discussion, I'll stick to the full TCP/IP, which provides reliable two-way
communication between networked computers.)
For two programs to communicate using TCP/IP, each program must create a socket, as discussed earlier in
this section, and those sockets must be connected. Once such a connection is made, communication takes
place using input streams and output streams. Each program has its own input stream and its own output
stream. Data written by one program to its output stream is transmitted to the other computer. There, it
enters the input stream of the program at the other end of the network connection. When that program reads
data from its input stream, it is receiving the data that was transmitted to it over the network.
The hard part, then, is making a network connection in the first place. Two sockets are involved. To get
things started, one program must create a socket that will wait passively until a connection request comes in
from another socket. The waiting socket is said to be listening for a connection. On the other side of the
connection-to-be, another program creates a socket that sends out a connection request to the listening
socket. When the listening socket receives the connection request, it responds, and the connection is
established. Once that is done, each program can obtain an input stream and an output stream for the
connection. Communication takes place through these streams until one program or the other closes the
connection.
A program that creates a listening socket is sometimes said to be a server, and the socket is called a server
socket. A program that connects to a server is called a client, and the socket that it used to make a
connection is called a client socket. The idea is that the server is out there somewhere on the network,
waiting for a connection request from some client. The server can be thought of as offering some kind of
service, and the client gets access to that service by connecting to the server. This is called the client/server
model of network communication. In many actual applications, a server program can provide connections
to several clients at the same time. When a client connects to a server's listening socket, that socket does not
stop listening. Instead, it continues listening for additional client connections at the same time that the first
client is being serviced.
This client/server model, in which there is one server program that supports multiple clients, is a perfect
application for threads. A server program has one main thread that manages the listening socket. This thread
runs continuously as long as the server is in operation. Whenever the server socket receives a connection
request from a client, the main thread makes a new thread to handle the communications with that particular
client. This client thread will run only as long as the client stays connected. The server thread and any
active client threads all run simultaneously, in parallel. A server that works in this way is said to be
multithreaded. Client programs, on the other hand, tend to be simpler, having just one network connection
and just one thread (although there is nothing to stop a program from using several client sockets at the
same time, or even a mixture of client sockets and server sockets).
The URL class that was discussed at the beginning of this section uses a client socket behind the scenes to
do any necessary network communication. On the other side of that connection is a server program that
accepts a connection request from the URL object, reads a request from that object for some particular file
on the server computer, and responds by transmitting the contents of that file over the network back to the
URL object. After transmitting the data, the server closes the connection.
To implement TCP/IP connections, the java.net package provides two classes, ServerSocket and
Socket. A ServerSocket represents a listening socket that waits for connection requests from clients.
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A Socket represents one endpoint of an actual network connection. A Socket, then, can be a client
socket that sends a connection request to a server. But a Socket can also be created by a server to handle a
connection request from a client. This allows the server to create multiple sockets and handle multiple
connections. (A ServerSocket does not itself participate in connections; it just listens for connection
requests and creates Sockets to handle the actual connections.)
To use Sockets and ServerSockets, you need to know about internet addresses. After all, a client
program has to have some way to specify which computer, among all those on the network, it wants to
communicate with. Every computer on the Internet has an IP address which identifies it uniquely among all
the computers on the net. Many computers can also be referred to by domain names such as math.hws.edu
or www.whitehouse.gov. (See Section 1.7.) Now, a single computer might have several programs doing
network communication at the same time, or one program communicating with several other computers. To
allow for this possibility, a port number is used in addition to the Internet address. A port number is just a
16-bit integer. A server does not simply listen for connections -- it listens for connections on a particular
port. A potential client must know both the Internet address of the computer on which the server is running
and the port number on which the server is listening. A Web server, for example, generally listens for
connections on port 80; other standard Internet services also have standard port numbers. (The standard port
numbers are all less than 1024. If you create your own server programs, you should use port numbers
greater than 1024.)
When you construct a ServerSocket object, you have to specify the port number on which the server
will listen. The specification for the constructor is
public ServerSocket(int port) throws IOException
As soon as the ServerSocket is established, it starts listening for connection requests. The accept()
method in the ServerSocket class accepts such a request, establishes a connection with the client, and
returns a Socket that can be used for communication with the client. The accept() method has the
form
public Socket accept() throws IOException
When you call the accept() method, it will not return until a connection request is received (or until
some error occurs). The method is said to block while waiting for the connection. While the method is
blocked, the thread that called the method can't do anything else. However, other threads in the same
program can proceed. (This is why a server needs a separate thread just to wait for connection requests.)
The ServerSocket will continue listening for connections until it is closed, using its close() method,
or until some error occurs.
Suppose that you want a server to listen on port 1728. Each time the server receives a connection request, it
should create a new thread to handle the connection with the client. Suppose that you've written a method
createServiceThread(Socket) that creates such a thread. Then a simple version of the run()
method for the main server thread would be:
public run() {
try {
ServerSocket server = new ServerSocket(1728);
while (true) {
Socket connection = server.accept();
createServiceThread(connection);
}
}
catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Server shut down with error: " + e);
}
}
On the client side, a client socket is created using a constructor in the Socket class. To connect to a server
on a known computer and port, you would use the constructor
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public Socket(String computer, int port) throws IOException
The first parameter can be either an IP number or a domain name. This constructor will block until the
connection is established or until an error occurs. (This means that even when you write a client program,
you might want to use a separate thread to handle the connection, so that the program can continue to
respond to user inputs while the connection is being established. Otherwise, the program will just freeze for
some indefinite period of time.) Once the connection is established, you can use the methods
getInputStream() and getOutputStream() to obtain streams that can be used for
communication over the connection. Keeping all this in mind, here is the outline of a method for working
with a client connection:
void doClientConnection(String computerName, int listeningPort) {
// ComputerName should give the name or ip number of the
// computer where the server is running, such as
// math.hws.edu. ListeningPort should be the port
// on which the server listens for connections, such as 1728.
Socket connection;
InputStream in;
OutputStream out;
try {
connection = new Socket(computerName,listeningPort);
in = connection.getInputStream();
out = connection.getOutputStream();
}
catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println(
"Attempt to create connection failed with error: " + e);
return;
}
.
. // Use the streams, in and out, to communicate with server.
.
try {
connection.close();
// (Alternatively, you might depend on the server
// to close the connection.)
}
catch (IOException e) {
}
} // end doClientConnection()
All this makes network communication sound easier than it really is. (And if you think it sounded hard, then
it's even harder.) If networks were completely reliable, things would be almost as easy as I've described.
The problem, though, is to write robust programs that can deal with network and human error. I won't go
into detail here -- partly because I don't really know enough about serious network programming in Java
myself. However, what I've covered here should give you the basic ideas of network programming, and it is
enough to write some simple network applications. (Just don't try to write a replacement for Netscape.)
We'll look at some examples in the next section.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 10.5
Programming Networked Applications
SOCKETS AND CLIENT/SERVER programming were introduced in the previous section in a mostly
theoretical way. This section presents a few complete programming examples. All but one of the examples
in this section are standalone programs, so you won't see them running on this Web page. If you want to run
these programs, you will have to compile the source code and run them with a Java interpreter.
The first example consists of two programs. One is a simple client and the other is a matching server. The
client makes a connection to the server, reads one line of text from the server, and displays that text on the
screen. The text sent by the server consists of the current date and time on the computer where the server is
running. In order to open a connection, the client must know the computer on which the server is running
and the port on which it is listening. The server listens on port number 32007. The port number could be
anything between 1025 and 65535, as long the server and the client use the same port. Port numbers
between 1 and 1024 are reserved for standard services and should not be used for other servers. The name
or IP number of the computer on which the server is running must be specified as a command-line
parameter. For example, if the server is running on a computer named math.hws.edu, then you would
typically run the client with the command "java DataClient math.hws.edu". (You might need to replace the
"java" command with another command if you are using a different Java interpreter.) Here is the complete
client program:
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class DateClient {
static final int LISTENING_PORT = 32007;
public static void main(String[] args) {
String computer; // Name of the computer to connect to.
Socket connection; // A socket for communicating with
// that computer.
Reader incoming; // Stream for reading data from
// the connection.
/* Get computer name from command line. */
if (args.length > 0)
computer = args[0];
else {
// No computer name was given. Print a message and exit.
System.out.println("Usage: java DateClient <server>");
return;
}
/* Make the connection, then read and display a line of text. */
try {
connection = new Socket( computer, LISTENING_PORT );
incoming = new InputStreamReader( connection.getInputStream() );
while (true) {
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int ch = incoming.read();
if (ch == -1 || ch == '\n' || ch == '\r')
break;
System.out.print( (char)ch );
}
System.out.println();
incoming.close();
}
catch (IOException e) {
TextIO.putln("Error: " + e);
}
// end main()
} // end class DateClient
Note that all the communication with the server is done in a try...catch. This will catch the
IOExceptions that can be generated when the connection is opened or closed and when characters are
read from the stream. The stream that is used for input is a basic Reader, which includes the input
operation incoming.read(). This function reads one character from the stream and returns its Unicode
code number. If the end-of-stream has been reached, then the value -1 is returned instead. The while loop
reads characters and copies them to standard output until an end-of-stream or end-of-line is seen. An end of
line is marked by one of the characters '\n' or '\r', depending on the type of computer on which the server is
running.
In order for this program to run without error, the server program must be running on the computer to which
the client tries to connect. By the way, it's possible to run the client and the server program on the same
computer. For example, you can open two command windows, start the server in one window and then run
the client in the other window. To make things like this easier, most computers will recognize the IP
number 127.0.0.1 as referring to "this computer". That is, the command "java DateClient
127.0.0.1" will tell the DateClient program to connect to a server running on the same computer.
Most computers will also recognize the name "localhost" as a name for "this computer".
The server program that corresponds to the DateClient client program is called DateServe. The
DateServe program creates a ServerSocket to listen for connection requests on port 32007. After the
port is created, the server will enter an infinite loop in which it accepts and processes connections. This will
continue until the program is killed in some way -- for example by typing a CONTROL-C in the command
window where the server is running. In the previous section, I noted that a server typically opens a separate
thread to handle each connection. However, in this simple example, the server just calls a subroutine. In the
subroutine, any Exception that occurs is caught, so that it will not crash the server. The subroutine
creates a PrintWriter stream for sending data over the connection. It writes the current date and time to
this stream and then closes the connection. (The standard class java.util.Date is used to obtain the
current time. An object of type Date represents a particular date and time. The default constructor, "new
Date()", creates an object that represents the time when the object is created.) The complete server
program is as follows:
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.Date;
public class DateServe {
static final int LISTENING_PORT = 32007;
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public static void main(String[] args) {
ServerSocket listener; // Listens for incoming connections.
Socket connection; // For communication with the
// connecting program.
/* Accept and process connections forever, or until
some error occurs. (Note that errors that occur
while communicating with a connected program are
caught and handled in the sendDate() routine, so
they will not crash the server.)
*/
try {
listener = new ServerSocket(LISTENING_PORT);
TextIO.putln("Listening on port " + LISTENING_PORT);
while (true) {
connection = listener.accept();
sendDate(connection);
}
}
catch (Exception e) {
TextIO.putln("Sorry, the server has shut down.");
TextIO.putln("Error: " + e);
return;
}
} // end main()
static void sendDate(Socket client) {
// The parameter, client, is a socket that is
// already connected to another program. Get
// an output stream for the connection, send the
// current date, and close the connection.
try {
System.out.println("Connection from " +
client.getInetAddress().toString() );
Date now = new Date(); // The current date and time.
PrintWriter outgoing; // Stream for sending data.
outgoing = new PrintWriter( client.getOutputStream() );
outgoing.println( now.toString() );
outgoing.flush(); // Make sure the data is actually sent!
client.close();
}
catch (Exception e){
System.out.println("Error: " + e);
}
} // end sendDate()
} //end class DateServe
If you run DateServe in a command-line interface, it will sit and wait for connection requests and report
them as they are received. To make the DateServe service permanently available on a computer, the
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program really should be run as a daemon. A daeman is a program that runs continually on a computer,
independently of any user. The computer can be configured to start the daemon automatically as soon as the
computer boots up. It then runs in the background, even while the computer is being used for other
purposes. For example, a computer that makes pages available on the World Wide Web runs a daemon that
listens for requests for pages and responds by transmitting the pages. It's just a souped-up analog of the
DateServe program! However, the question of how to set up a program as a daemon is not one I want to
go into here. For testing purposes, it's easy enough to start the program by hand, and, in any case, my
examples are not really robust enough or full-featured enough to be run as serious servers. (By the way, the
word "daemon" is just an alternative spelling of "demon" and is usually pronounced the same way.)
Note that after calling out.println() to send a line of data to the client, the server program calls
out.flush(). The flush() method is available in every output stream class. Calling it ensures that
data that has been written to the stream is actually sent to its destination. You should call this function every
time you use an output stream to send data over a network connection. If you don't do so, it's possible that
the stream will collect data until it has a large batch of data to send. This is done for efficiency, but it can
impose unacceptable delays when the client is waiting for the transmission. It is even possible that some of
the data might remain untransmitted when the socket is closed, so it is especially important to call
flush() before closing the connection. This is one of those unfortunate cases where different
implementations of Java can behave differently. If you fail to flush your output streams, it is possible that
your network application will work on some types of computers but not on others.
In the DateServe example, the server transmits information and the client reads it. It's also possible to
have two-way communication between client and server. As a first example, we'll look at a client and server
that allow a user on each end of the connection to send messages to the other user. The program works in a
command-line interface where the users type in their messages. In this example, the server waits for a
connection from a single client and then closes down its listener so that no other clients can connect. After
the client and server are connected, both ends of the connection work in much the same way. The user on
the client end types a message, and it is transmitted to the server, which displays it to the user on that end.
Then the user of the server types a message that is transmitted to the client. Then the client user types
another message, and so on. This continues until one user or the other enters "quit" when prompted for a
message. When that happens, the connection is closed and both programs terminate. The client program and
the server program are very similar. The techniques for opening the connections differ, and the client is
programmed to send the first message while the server is programmed to receive the first message. Here is
the server program. You can find the client program in the file CLChatClient.java. (The name "CLChat"
stands for command-line chat.)
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class CLChatServer {
static final int DEFAULT_PORT = 1728; // Port to listen on,
// if none is specified
// on the command line.
static final String HANDSHAKE = "CLChat"; // Handshake string.
// Each end of the connection sends this string
// to the other just after the connection is
// opened. This is done to confirm that the
// program on the other side of the connection
// is a CLChat program.
static final char MESSAGE = '0'; // This character is added to
// the beginning of each message
// that is sent.
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static final char CLOSE = '1'; // This character is sent to
// the connected program when
// the user quits.
public static void main(String[] args) {
int port; // The port on which the server listens.
ServerSocket listener; // Listens for a connection request.
Socket connection; // For communication with the client.
TextReader incoming; // Stream for receiving data from client.
PrintWriter outgoing; // Stream for sending data to client.
String messageOut; // A message to be sent to the client.
String messageIn; // A message received from the client.
/* First, get the port number from the command line,
or use the default port if none is specified. */
if (args.length == 0)
port = DEFAULT_PORT;
else {
try {
port = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
if (port < 0 || port > 65535)
throw new NumberFormatException();
}
catch (NumberFormatException e) {
TextIO.putln("Illegal port number, " + args[0]);
return;
}
}
/* Wait for a connection request. When it arrives, close
down the listener. Create streams for communication
and exchange the handshake. */
try {
listener = new ServerSocket(port);
TextIO.putln("Listening on port " + listener.getLocalPort());
connection = listener.accept();
listener.close();
incoming = new TextReader(connection.getInputStream());
outgoing = new PrintWriter(connection.getOutputStream());
outgoing.println(HANDSHAKE);
outgoing.flush();
messageIn = incoming.getln();
if (! messageIn.equals(HANDSHAKE) ) {
throw new IOException("Connected program is not CLChat!");
}
TextIO.putln("Connected. Waiting for the first message.\n");
}
catch (Exception e) {
TextIO.putln("An error occurred while opening connection.");
TextIO.putln(e.toString());
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return;
}
/* Exchange messages with the other end of the connection
until one side or the other closes the connection.
This server program waits for the first message from
the client. After that, messages alternate strictly
back and forth. */
try {
while (true) {
TextIO.putln("WAITING...");
messageIn = incoming.getln();
if (messageIn.length() > 0) {
// The first character of the message is a command.
// If the command is CLOSE, then the connection
// is closed. Otherwise, remove the command
// character from the message and proceed.
if (messageIn.charAt(0) == CLOSE) {
TextIO.putln("Connection closed at other end.");
connection.close();
break;
}
messageIn = messageIn.substring(1);
}
TextIO.putln("RECEIVED: " + messageIn);
TextIO.put("SEND: ");
messageOut = TextIO.getln();
if (messageOut.equalsIgnoreCase("quit")) {
// User wants to quit. Inform the other side
// of the connection, then close the connection.
outgoing.println(CLOSE);
outgoing.flush(); // Make sure the data is sent!
connection.close();
TextIO.putln("Connection closed.");
break;
}
outgoing.println(MESSAGE + messageOut);
outgoing.flush(); // Make sure the data is sent!
if (outgoing.checkError()) {
throw new IOException(
"Error ocurred while reading incoming message.");
}
}
}
catch (Exception e) {
TextIO.putln("Sorry, an error has occurred. Connection lost.");
TextIO.putln(e.toString());
System.exit(1);
}
} // end main()
} //end class CLChatServer
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This program is a little more robust than DateServe. For one thing, it uses a handshake to make sure that
a client who is trying to connect is really a CLChatClient program. A handshake is simply information
sent between client and server as part of setting up the connection. In this case, each side of the connection
sends a string to the other side to identify itself. The handshake is part of the protocol that I made up for
communication between CLChatClient and CLChatServer. When you design a client/server
application, the design of the protocol is an important consideration. Another aspect of the CLChat
protocol is that every line of text that is sent over the connection after the handshake begins with a character
that acts as a command. If the character is 1, the rest of the line is a message from one user to the other. If
the character is 0, the line indicates that a user has entered the "quit" command, and the connection is to be
shut down.
Remember that if you want to try out this program on a single computer, you can use two command-line
windows. In one, give the command "java CLChatServer" to start the server. Then, in the other, use the
command "java CLChatClient 127.0.0.1" to connect to the server that is running on the same machine.
There are several problems with the CLChat programs. For one thing, after a user enters a message, the
user must wait for a reply from the other side of the connection. It would be nice if the user could just keep
typing lines and see the other user's messages as they arrive. It's not easy to do this in a command-line
interface, but it's a natural application for a graphical user interface. My next example is a GUI chat
program. The class ConnectionWindow, which you will find in the source code file
ConnectionWindow.java, supports two-way chatting between two users over the Internet. The
ConnectionWindow class is fairly sophisticated, and I don't want to cover everything that it does, but I
will describe some of its functions. You should read the source code if you want to understand it
completely.
A ConnectionWindow has a text-input box where the user can type messages that are to be sent to the
partner on other side of the network connection. The user can send a message at any time by pressing return
in the text-input box. At the same time, the user on the other end of the connection can do the same thing.
How are these messages received? Each ConnectionWindow runs a separate thread that reads the
messages sent from the other side of the connection. (Both the sent and received messages are displayed to
the user in a large TextArea that acts as a transcript of the conversation.) Thus the sending and receiving
of messages are handled by different subroutines which are executed by different threads. The two
processes do not interfere with each other. The code for sending and receiving individual messages is
essentially the same as the code in the CLChat programs.
There remains the question of how a connection can be established between two ConnectionWindows.
As the ConnectionWindow class is designed, the connection must be established before the window is
opened. The connected Socket is passed as a parameter to the ConnectionWindow constructor. This
makes ConnectionWindow into a nicely reusable class that can be used in a variety of programs. The
simplest approach to establishing the connection uses a command-line interface, just as is done with the
CLChat programs. Once the connection has been established, a ConnectionWindow is opened on each
side of the conection, and the actual chatting takes place through the windows instead of the command line.
For this example, I've written a main() routine that can act as either the server or the client, depending on
the command line argument that it is given. If the first command line argument is "-s", the program will act
as a server. Otherwise, it assumes that the first argument specifies the computer where the server is running,
and it acts as a client. The code for doing this is:
try {
if (args[0].equalsIgnoreCase("-s")) {
// Act as a server. Wait for a connection.
ServerSocket listener = new ServerSocket(port);
System.out.println("Listening on port "
+ listener.getLocalPort());
connection = listener.accept();
listener.close();
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}
else {
// Act as a client. Request a connection with
// a server running on the computer specifed in args[0].
connection = new Socket(args[0],port);
}
out = new PrintWriter(connection.getOutputStream());
out.println(HANDSHAKE);
out.flush();
in = new TextReader(connection.getInputStream());
message = in.getln();
if (! message.equals(HANDSHAKE) ) {
throw new IOException(
"Connected program is not a ConnectionWindow");
}
System.out.println("Connected.");
}
catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Error opening connection.");
System.out.println(e.toString());
return;
}
ConnectionWindow w; // The window for this end of the connection.
w = new ConnectionWindow("ConnectionWindow", connection);
As it happens, I've taken the rather twisty approach of putting this main() routine in the
ConnectionWindow class! This means that you can run ConnectionWindow as a standalone
program. If you run it with the command "java ConnectionWindow -s", it will run as a server. To run it as a
client, use the command "java ConnectionWindow <server>", where <server> is the name or IP number of
the computer where the server is running. I say that this approach is twisty because the main() routine
could easily be in another class. It has nothing to do with the function of ConnectionWindow objects.
(This is an illustration of the separation between the static and the non-static parts of a class -- a discussion
that you might remember from earlier in this text.)
There is still a big problem with running ConnectionWindow in the way I've just described. Suppose I
want to set up a connection. How do I know who has a ConnectionWindow server running? If I start up
the server myself, how will anyone know about it? The CLChat programs have the same problem. What I
would like is a program that would show me a list of all the "chatters" who are available, and I would like
to be able to add myself to the list so that other people can tell that I am available to receive connections.
The problem is, who is going to keep the list and how will my program get a copy of the list?
This is a natural application for a server! We can have a server whose job is to keep a list of available
chatters. This server can be run as a daemon on a "well-known computer", so that it is always available at a
known location on the Internet. Then, a program anywhere on the Internet can contact the server to get the
list of chatters or to register a person on the list. That program acts as a client for the server.
In fact, I've written such a server program. It's called ConnectionBroker, and the source code is
available in the file ConnectionBroker.java. The main() routine of this server is similar to the main()
routine of the DateServe example that was given at the beginning of this section. That is, it runs in an
infinite loop in which it accepts connections and processes them. In this case, however, the processing of
each request is much more complicated and can take a long time, so the main() routine sets up a separate
thread to process each connection request. Once the connection is open, the server reads a command from
the client. It understands three types of commands:
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● A REGISTER command that adds a client to the list of available chatters. The server keeps this list
in an internal data structure. The connection remains open and the client waits for some other user to
request a connection with that client. Once a connection is made, the client is removed from the list
-- the server does not support multiple connections to the same chatter.
● A SEND_CLIENT_LIST command requests a copy of the list of available chatters. The server
responds by sending the list and closing the connection.
● A CONNECT command requests the server to set up a connection with one of the chatters in the list.
The server sets up the connection, and -- if no error occurs -- informs both parties that a connection
has been established. The two parties can then start sending messages to each other. (These
messages actually continue to pass through the server. The direct network connections are between
the server and the two clients. The server relays messages from each client to the other. It's done this
way so that a ConnectionBroker will work with applets as clients, as long as the applets are
loaded from the computer where the server is running. An applet is not ordinarily allowed to make
network connections, except to the computer from which it was loaded.)
To use a ConnectionBroker, you need a program that acts as a client for the ConnectionBroker
service. I have an applet that does this. The applet tries to connect to a ConnectionBroker server on the
computer from which the applet was loaded. If no such server is running on that computer, you will see an
error message at the top of the applet. It might say something like "Connection refused" or "Network not
reachable". If you have downloaded this on-line textbook and are reading the copy on your own computer,
you should be able to run the ConnectionBroker server on your computer and use the applet connect
to it. Here is the applet:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
If the applet does find a server, it will display the list of available chatters in the large area in the center of
the applet. If no chatters are available on the server, then you'll just see the message "No connections
available" at the top of the applet. If you want to establish a connection, click on one of the items in the list
of chatters and then click the "Connect" button. A ConnectionWindow will open which you can use to
chat with the selected chatter (unless some error occurs). As the applet runs, the list displayed in the applet
might become out of date, so a person in the list might no longer be available. To get a new, updated list
from the server, click the "Refresh" button.
If you want to add yourself to the list, enter your name or some other information about yourself in the
text-input box at the bottom of the applet, and click on the button labeled "Register me with this info:". The
text that you entered in the box appears in the list, and a window opens to await the incoming connection.
This window contains the message "Waiting for connection". If some user of the BrokeredChat applet
requests a connection with you, the window will display the message "Connected" and you can start
chatting with that person. You can close the connection window at any time. If you do this before a
connection request is received, this will remove you from the list of chatters on the server.
You can enter yourself multiple times in the list, if you want, and you can connect to multiple people on the
list. A separate ConnectionWindow will open for each connection. You can even connect with yourself,
so you can try out the applet even if you are the only user.
This networked chat application is still very much a demonstration system. That is, it is not robust enough
or full-featured enough to be used for serious applications. I tried to keep the interactions among the server,
the applet, and the connection windows simple enough to understand with a reasonable effort. If you are
interested in pursuing the topic of network programming, I suggest you start by reading the three source
code files for this example: the applet BrokeredChat.java, the server ConnectionBroker.java, and the
window ConnectionWindow.java.
By the way, the ConnectionBroker server does not require that the clients that connect to it be chat
programs. Once a connection relay has been set up between two clients, the server will happily transmit any
messages that are sent through it. The only rule that the server enforces is that if either client sends a
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Java Programing: Section 10.5
message that begins with the CLOSE command character, ']', then the connection will be closed. So the
ConnectionBroker could easily support, say, a game of checkers between two clients instead of a chat
session.
End of Chapter 10
[ Next Chapter | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 10 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 10
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 10 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 10.1: The WordList program from Section 10.3 reads a text file and makes an alphabetical list
of all the words in that file. The list of words is output to another file. Improve the program so that it also
keeps track of the number of times that each work occurs in the file. Write two lists to the output file. The
first list contains the words in alphabetical order. The number of times that the word occurred in the file
should be listed along with the word. Then write a second list to the output file in which the words are
sorted according to the number of times that they occurred in the files. The word that occurred most often
should be listed first.
See the solution!
Exercise 10.2: Write a program that will count the number of lines in each file that is specified on the
command line. Assume that the files are text files. Note that multiple files can be specified, as in "java
LineCounts file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt". Write each file name, along with the number
of lines in that file, to standard output. If an error occurs while trying to read from one of the files, you
should print an error message for that file, but you should still process all the remaining files.
See the solution!
Exercise 10.3: Section 8.4 presented a PhoneDirectory class as an example. A PhoneDirectory
holds a list of names and associated phone numbers. But a phone directory is pretty useless unless the data
in the directory can be saved permanently -- that is, in a file. Write a phone directory program that keeps its
list of names and phone numbers in a file. The user of the program should be able to look up a name in the
directory to find the associated phone number. The user should also be able to make changes to the data in
the directory. Every time the program starts up, it should read the data from the file. Before the program
terminates, if the data has been changed while the program was running, the file should be re-written with
the new data. Designing a user interface for the program is part of the exercise.
See the solution!
Exercise 10.4: For this exercise, you will write a network server program. The program is a simple file
server that makes a collection of files available for transmission to clients. When the server starts up, it
needs to know the name of the directory that contains the collection of files. This information can be
provided as a command-line argument. You can assume that the directory contains only regular files (that
is, it does not contain any sub-directories). You can also assume that all the files are text files.
When a client connects to the server, the server first reads a one-line command from the client. The
command can be the string "index". In this case, the server responds by sending a list of names of all the
files that are available on the server. Or the command can be of the form "get <file>", where <file> is a file
name. The server checks whether the requested file actually exists. If so, it first sends the word "ok" as a
message to the client. Then it sends the contents of the file and closes the connection. Otherwise, it sends
the word "error" to the client and closes the connection.
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Java Programing: Chapter 10 Exercises
Ideally, your server should start a separate thread to handle each connection request. However, if you don't
want to deal with threads you can just call a subroutine to handle the request. See the DirectoryList
example at the end of Section 10.2 for help with the problem of getting the list of files in the directory.
See the solution!
Exercise 10.5: Write a client program for the server from Exercise 10.4. Design a user interface that will let
the user do at least two things: Get a list of files that are available on the server and display the list on
standard output. Get a copy of a specified file from the server and save it to a local file (on the computer
where the client is running).
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 10 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 10
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 10 of this on-line Java textbook.
You should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: In Java, input/output is done using streams. Streams are an abstraction. Explain what this
means and why it is important.
Question 2: Java has two types of streams: character streams and byte streams. Why? What is the
difference between the two types of streams?
Question 3: What is a file? Why are files necessary?
Question 4: What is the point of the following statement?
out = new PrintWriter( new FileWriter("data.dat") );
Why would you need a statement that involves two different stream classes, PrintWriter and
FileWriter?
Question 5: The package java.io includes a class named URL. What does an object of type URL
represent, and how is it used?
Question 6: Explain what is meant by the client / server model of network communication.
Question 7: What is a Socket?
Question 8: What is a ServerSocket and how is it used?
Question 9: Network server programs are often multithreaded. Explain what this means and why it is true.
Question 10: Write a complete program that will display the first ten lines from a text file. The lines should
be written to standard output, System.out. The file name is given as the command-line argument
args[0]. You can assume that the file contains at least ten lines. Don't bother to make the program
robust.
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Chapter 11 Index
Chapter 11
Linked Data Structures and Recursion
IN THIS FINAL CHAPTER, we look at two advanced programming techniques, recursion and linked data
structures, and some of their applications. Both of these techniques are related to the seemingly paradoxical
idea of defining something in terms of itself. This turns out to be a remarkably powerful idea.
A subroutine is said to be recursive if it calls itself, either directly or indirectly. That is, the subroutine is
used in its own definition. Recursion can often be used to solve complex problems by reducing them to
simpler problems of the same type.
A reference to one object can be stored in an instance variable of another object. The objects are then said
to be "linked." Complex data structured can be built by linking objects together. An especially interesting
case occurs when an object contains a link to another object that belongs to the same class. In that case, the
class is used in its own definition. Several important types of data structures are built using classes of this
kind.
Contents of Chapter 11:
● Section 1: Recursion
● Section 2: Linking Objects
● Section 3: Stacks and Queues
● Section 4: Binary Trees
● Section 5: A Simple Recursive-descent Parser
● Programming Exercises
● Quiz on this Chapter
[ First Section | Previous Chapter | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 11.1
Section 11.1
Recursion
AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, you've probably been told that you can't define something in terms of
itself. Nevertheless, if it's done right, defining something at least partially in terms of itself can be a very
powerful technique. A recursive definition is one that uses the concept or thing that is being defined as part
of the definition. For example: An "ancestor" is either a parent or an ancestor of a parent. A "sentence" can
be, among other things, two sentences joined by a conjunction such as "and." A "directory" is a part of a
disk drive that can hold files and directories. In mathematics, a "set" is a collection of elements, which can
be other sets. A "statement" in Java can be a while statement, which is made up of the word "while", a
boolean-valued condition, and a statement.
Recursive definitions can describe very complex situations with just a few words. A definition of the term
"ancestor" without using recursion might go something like "a parent, or a grandparent, or a
great-grandparent, or a great-great-grandparent, and so on." But saying "and so on" is not very rigorous.
(I've often thought that recursion is really just a rigorous way of saying "and so on.") You run into the same
problem if you try to define a "directory" as "a file that is a list of files, where some of the files can be lists
of files, where some of those files can be lists of files, and so on." Trying to describe what a Java statement
can look like, without using recursion in the definition, would be difficult and probably pretty comical.
Recursion can be used as a programming technique. A recursive subroutine is one that calls itself, either
directly or indirectly. To say that a subroutine calls itself directly means that its definition contains a
subroutine call statement that calls the subroutine that is being defined. To say that a subroutine calls itself
indirectly means that it calls a second subroutine which in turn calls the first subroutine (either directly or
indirectly). A recursive subroutine can define a complex task in just a few lines of code. In the rest of this
section, we'll look at a variety of examples, and we'll see other examples in the remaining sections of this
chapter.
Let's start with an example that you've seen before: the binary search algorithm from Section 8.4. Binary
search is used to find a specified value in a sorted list of items (or, if it does not occur in the list, to
determine that fact). The idea is to test the element in the middle of the list. If that element is equal to the
specified value, you are done. If the specified value is less than the middle element of the list, then you
should search for the value in the first half of the list. Otherwise, you should search for the value in the
second half of the list. The method used to search for the value in the first or second half of the list is binary
search. That is, you look at the middle element in the half of the list that is still under consideration, and
either you've found the value you are looking for, or you have to apply binary search to one half of the
remaining elements. And so on! This is a recursive description, and we can write a recursive subroutine to
implement it.
Before we can do that, though, there are two considerations that we need to take into account. Each of these
illustrates an important general fact about recursive subroutines. First of all, the binary search algorithm
begins by looking at the "middle element of the list." But what if the list is empty? If there are no elements
in the list, then it is impossible to look at the middle element. In the terminology of Section 9.2, having a
non-empty list is a "precondition" for looking at the middle element, and this is a clue that we have to
modify the algorithm to take this precondition into account. What should we do if we find ourselves
searching for a specified value in an empty list? The answer is easy: We can say immediately that the value
does not occur in the list. An empty list is a base case for the binary search algorithm. A base case for a
recursive algorithm is a case that is handled directly, rather than by applying the algorithm recursively. The
binary search algorithm actually has another type of base case: If we find the element we are looking for in
the middle of the list, we are done. There is no need for further recursion.
The second consideration has to do with the parameters to the subroutine. The problem is phrased in terms
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of searching for a value in a list. In the original, non-recursive binary search subroutine, the list was given
as an array. However, in the recursive approach, we have to able to apply the subroutine recursively to just
a part of the original list. Where the original subroutine was designed to search an entire array, the
recursive subroutine must be able to search part of an array. The parameters to the subroutine must tell it
what part of the array to search. This illustrates a general fact that in order to solve a problem recursively, it
is often necessary to generalize the problem slightly.
Here is a recursive binary search algorithm that searches for a given value in part of an array of integers:
static int binarySearch(int[] A, int loIndex, int hiIndex, int value) {
// Search in the array A in positions from loIndex to hiIndex,
// inclusive, for the specified value. It is assumed that the
// array is sorted into increasing order. If the value is
// found, return the index in the array where it occurs.
// If the value is not found, return -1.
if (loIndex > hiIndex) {
// The starting position comes after the final index,
// so there are actually no elements in the specified
// range. The value does not occur in this empty list!
return -1;
}
else {
// Look at the middle position in the list. If the
// value occurs at that position, return that position.
// Otherwise, search recursively in either the first
// half or the second half of the list.
int middle = (loIndex + hiIndex) / 2;
if (value == A[middle])
return middle;
else if (value < A[middle])
return binarySearch(A, loIndex, middle - 1, value);
else // value must be > A[middle]
return binarySearch(A, middle + 1, hiIndex, value);
}
} // end binarySearch()
In this routine, the parameters loIndex and hiIndex specify the part of the array that is to be searched.
To search an entire array, it is only necessary to call binarySearch(A, 0, A.length - 1,
value). In the two base cases -- where there are no elements in the specified range of indices and when
the value is found in the middle of the range -- the subroutine can return an answer immediately, without
using recursion. In the other cases, it uses a recursive call to compute the answer and returns that answer.
Most people find it difficult at first to convince themselves that recursion actually works. The key is to note
two things that must be true for recursion to work properly: There must be one or more base cases, which
can be handled without using recursion. And when recursion is applied during the solution of a problem, it
must be applied to a problem that is in some sense smaller -- that is, closer to the base cases -- than the
original problem. The idea is that if you can solve small problems and if you can reduce big problems to
smaller problems, then you can solve problems of any size. Ultimately, of course, the big problems have to
be reduced, possibly in many, many steps, to the very smallest problems (the base cases). Doing so might
involve an immense amount of detailed bookkeeping. But the computer does that bookkeeping, not you! As
a programmer, you lay out the big picture: the base cases and the reduction of big problems to smaller
problems. The computer takes care of the details involved in reducing a big problem, in many steps, all the
way down to base cases. Trying to think through this reduction in detail is likely to drive you crazy, and
will probably make you think that recursion is hard. Whereas in fact, recursion is an elegant and powerful
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Java Programing: Section 11.1
method that is often the simplest approach to solving a complex problem.
A common error in writing recursive subroutines is to violate one of the two rules: There must be one or
more base cases, and when the subroutine is applied recursively, it must be applied to a problem that is
smaller than the original problem. If these rules are violated, the result can be an infinite recursion, where
the subroutine keeps calling itself over and over, without ever reaching a base case. Infinite recursion is
similar to an infinite loop. However, since each recursive call to the subroutine uses up some of the
computer's memory, a program that is stuck in an infinite recursion will run out of memory and crash before
long. (In Java, the program will crash with an exception of type StackOverflowError.)
Binary search can be implemented with a while loop, instead of with recursion, as was done in Section
8.4. Next, we turn to a problem that is easy to solve with recursion but difficult to solve without it. This is a
standard example known as "The Towers of Hanoi". The problem involves a stack of various-sized disks,
piled up on a base in order of decreasing size. The object is to move the stack from one base to another,
subject to two rules: Only one disk can be moved at a time, and no disk can ever be placed on top of a
smaller disk. There is a third base that can be used as a "spare". The situation for a stack of ten disks is
shown in the top half of the following picture. The situation after a number of moves have been made is
shown in the bottom half of the picture. These pictures are from the applet at the end of Section 10.5, which
displays an animation of the step-by-step solution of the problem.
The problem is to move ten disks from Stack 0 to Stack 1, subject to certain rules. Stack 2 can be used a
spare location. Can we reduce this to smaller problems of the same type, possibly generalizing the problem
a bit to make this possible? It seems natural to consider the size of the problem to be the number of disks to
be moved. If there are N disks in Stack 0, we know that we will eventually have to move the bottom disk
from Stack 0 to Stack 1. But before we can do that, according to the rules, the first N-1 disks must be on
Stack 2. Once we've moved the N-th disk to Stack 1, we must move the other N-1 disks from Stack 2 to
Stack 1 to complete the solution. But moving N-1 disks is the same type of problem as moving N disks,
except that it's a smaller version of the problem. This is exactly what we need to do recursion! The problem
has to be generalized a bit, because the smaller problems involve moving disks from Stack 0 to Stack 2 or
from Stack 2 to Stack 1, instead of from Stack 0 to Stack 1. In the recursive subroutine that solves the
problem, the stacks that serve as the source and destination of the disks have to be specified. It's also
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convenient to specify the stack that is to be used as a spare, even though we could figure that out from the
other two parameters. The base case is when there is only one disk to be moved. The solution in this case is
trivial: Just move the disk in one step. Here is a version of the subroutine that will print out step-by-step
instructions for solving the problem:
void TowersOfHanoi(int disks, int from, int to, int spare) {
// Solve the problem of moving the number of disks specified
// by the first parameter from the stack specified by the
// second parameter to the stack specified by the third
// parameter. The stack specified by the fourth parameter
// is available for use as a spare.
if (disks == 1) {
// There is only one disk to be moved. Just move it.
System.out.println("Move a disk from stack number "
+ from + " to stack number " + to);
}
else {
// Move all but one disk to the spare stack, then
// move the bottom disk, then put all the other
// disks on top of it.
TowersOfHanoi(disks-1, from, spare, to);
System.out.println("Move a disk from stack number "
+ from + " to stack number " + to);
TowersOfHanoi(disks-1, spare, to, from);
}
}
This subroutine just expresses the natural recursive solution. The recursion works because each recursive
call involves a smaller number of disks, and the problem is trivial to solve in the base case, when there is
only one disk. To solve the "top level" problem of moving N disks from Stack 0 to Stack 1, it should be
called with the command TowersOfHanoi(N,0,1,2). Here is an applet that uses this subroutine. You
can specify the number of disks. Be careful. The number of steps increases rapidly with the number of
disks.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
What this applet shows you is a mass of detail that you don't really want to think about! The difficulty of
following the details contrasts sharply with the simplicity and elegance of the recursive solution. Of course,
you really want to leave the details to the computer. It's much more interesting to watch the applet from
Section 10.5, which shows the solution graphically. That applet uses the same recursive subroutine, except
that the System.out.println statements are replaced by commands that show the image of the disk
being moved from one stack to another. You can find the complete source code in the file
TowersOfHanoi.java.
There is, by the way, a story that explains the name of this problem. According to this story, on the first day
of creation, a group of monks in an isolated tower near Hanoi were given a stack of 64 disks and were
assigned the task of moving one disk every day, according to the rules of the Towers of Hanoi problem. On
the day that they complete their task of moving all the disks from one stack to another, the universe will
come to an end. But don't worry. The number of steps required to solve the problem for N disks is 2N - 1,
and 264 - 1 days is over 50,000,000,000,000 years. We have a long way to go.
Turning next to an application that is perhaps more practical, we'll look at a recursive algorithm for sorting
an array. The selection sort and insertion sort algorithm algorithms, which were covered in Section 8.4, are
fairly simply, but they are rather slow when applied to large arrays. Faster sorting algorithms are available.
One of these is Quicksort, a recursive algorithm which turns out to be the fastest sorting algorithm in most
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situations.
The Quicksort algorithm is based on a simple but clever idea: Given a list of items, select any item from the
list. This item is called the pivot. (In practice, I'll just use the first item in the list.) Move all the items that
are smaller than the pivot to the beginning of the list, and move all the items that are larger than the pivot to
the end of the list. Now, put the pivot between the two groups of items. We'll refer to this procedure as
QuicksortStep.
QuicksortStep is not recursive. It is used as a subroutine by Quicksort. The speed of Quicksort depends on
having a fast implementation of QuicksortStep. Since it's not the main point of this discussion, I present one
without much comment.
static int quicksortStep(int[] A, int lo, int hi) {
// Apply QuicksortStep to the list of items in
// locations lo through hi in the array A. The value
// returned by this routine is the final position
// of the pivot item in the array.
int pivot = A[lo]; // Get the pivot value.
// The numbers hi and lo mark the endpoints of a range
// of numbers that have not yet been tested. Decrease hi
// and increase lo until they become equal, moving numbers
// bigger than pivot so that they lie above hi and moving
// numbers less than the pivot so that they lie below lo.
// When we begin, A[lo] is an available space, since it used
// to hold the pivot.
while (hi > lo) {
while (hi > lo && A[hi] > pivot) {
// Move hi down past numbers greater than pivot.
// These numbers do not have to be moved.
hi--;
}
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if (hi == lo)
break;
// The number A[hi] is less than pivot. Move it into
// the available space at A[lo], leaving an available
// space at A[hi].
A[lo] = A[hi];
lo++;
while (hi > lo && A[lo] < pivot) {
// Move lo up past numbers less than pivot.
// These numbers do not have to be moved.
lo++;
}
if (hi == lo)
break;
// The number A[lo] is greater than pivot. Move it into
// the available space at A[hi], leaving an available
// space at A[lo].
A[hi] = A[lo];
hi--;
} // end while
// At this point, lo has become equal to high, and there is
// an available space at that position. This position lies
// between numbers less than pivot and numbers greater than
// pivot. Put pivot in this space and return its location.
A[lo] = pivot;
return lo;
} // end QuicksortStep
With this subroutine in hand, Quicksort is easy. The Quicksort algorithm for sorting a list consists of
applying QuicksortStep to the list, then applying Quicksort recursively to the items that lie to the left of the
pivot and to the items that lie to the right of the pivot. Of course, we need base cases. If the list has only one
item, or no items, then the list is already as sorted as it can ever be, so Quicksort doesn't have to do anything
in these cases.
static void quicksort(int[] A, int lo, int hi) {
// Apply quicksort to put the array elements between
// position lo and position hi into increasing order.
if (hi <= lo) {
// The list has length one or zero. Nothing needs
// to be done, so just return from the subroutine.
return;
}
else {
// Apply quicksortStep and get the pivot position.
// Then apply quicksort to sort the items that
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// precede the pivot and the items that follow it.
int pivotPosition = quicksortStep(A, lo, hi);
quicksort(A, lo, pivotPosition - 1);
quicksort(A, pivotPosition + 1, hi);
}
}
As usual, we had to generalize the problem. The original problem was to sort an array, but the recursive
algorithm is set up to sort a specified part of an array. To sort an entire array, A, using the quickSort()
subroutine, you would call quicksort(A, 0, A.length - 1).
Here's an applet that shows a grid of little squares. The gray squares are "filled" and the white squares are
"empty." For the purposes of this applet, we define a "blob" to consist of a filled square and all the filled
squares that can be reached from it by moving up, down, left, and right through other filled squares. If you
click on any filled square in the applet, the computer will count the squares in the blob that contains it, and
it will change the color of those squares to red. Click on the "New Blobs" button to create a new random
pattern in the grid. The pop-up menu gives the approximate percentage of squares that will be filled in the
new pattern. The more filled squares, the larger the blobs. The button labeled "Count the Blobs" will tell
you how many different blobs there are in the pattern.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
Recursion is used in this applet to count the number of squares in a blob. Without recursion, this would be a
very difficult thing to program. Recursion makes it relatively easy, but it still requires a new technique,
which is also useful in a number of other applications.
The data for the grid of squares is stored in a two dimensional array of boolean values,
boolean[][] filled;
The value of filled[r][c] is true if the square in row r and in column c of the grid is filled. The
number of rows in the grid is stored in an instance variable named rows, and the number of columns is
stored in columns. The applet uses a recursive instance method named getBlobSize() to count the
number of squares in the blob that contains the square in a given row r and column c. If there is no filled
square at position (r,c), then the answer is zero. Otherwise, getBlobSize() has to count all the filled
squares that can be reached from the square at position (r,c). The idea is to use getBlobSize()
recursively to get the number of filled squares that can be reached from each of the neighboring positions,
(r+1,c), (r-1,c), (r,c+1), and (r,c-1). Add up these numbers, and add one to count the square
at (r,c) itself, and you get the total number of filled squares that can be reached from (r,c). Here is an
implementation of this algorithm, as stated. Unfortunately, it has a serious flaw: It leads to an infinite
recursion!
int getBlobSize(int r, int c) { // BUGGY, INCORRECT VERSION!!
// This INCORRECT method tries to count all the filled
// squares that can be reached from position (r,c) in the grid.
if (r < 0 || r >= rows || c < 0 || c >= columns) {
// This position is not in the grid, so there is
// no blob at this position. Return a blob size of zero.
return 0;
}
if (filled[r][c] == false) {
// This square is not part of a blob, so return zero.
return 0;
}
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Java Programing: Section 11.1
int size = 1; // Count the square at this position, then count the
// the blobs that are connected to this square
// horizontally or vertically.
size += getBlobSize(r-1,c);
size += getBlobSize(r+1,c);
size += getBlobSize(r,c-1);
size += getBlobSize(r,c+1);
return size;
} // end INCORRECT getBlobSize()
Unfortunately, this routine will count the same square more than once. In fact, it will try to count each
square infinitely often! Think of yourself standing at position (r,c) and trying to follow these
instructions. The first instruction tells you to move up one row. You do that and apply the same procedure.
As part of that procedure, you have to move down one row and apply the same procedure. That puts you
back at position (r,c). From there, you move up one row, and from there you move down one row....
Back and forth forever! We have to make sure that a square is only counted and processed once, so we don't
end up going around in circles. The solution is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs -- or on the computer a trail
of boolean variables -- to mark the squares that you've already visited. Once a square is marked as visitied,
it won't be processed again. The remaining, unvisited squares are reduced in number, so definite progress
has been made in reducing the size of the problem. Infinite recursion is avoided!
Another boolean array, visited[r][c], is used to keep track of which squares have already been
visited and processed. It is assumed that all the values in this array are set to false before
getBlobSize() is called. As getBlobSize() encounters unvisited squares, it marks them as visited
by setting the corresponding entry in the visited array to true. When getBlobSize() encounters a
square that is already visited, it doesn't count it or process it further. The technique of "marking" items as
they are encountered is one that used over and over in the programming of recursive algorithms. Here is the
corrected version of getBlobSize(), with changes shown in red:
int getBlobSize(int r, int c) {
// Counts the squares in the blob at position (r,c) in the
// grid. Squares are only counted if they are filled and
// unvisited. If this routine is called for a position that
// has been visited, the return value will be zero.
if (r < 0 || r >= rows || c < 0 || c >= columns) {
// This position is not in the grid, so there is
// no blob at this position. Return a blob size of zero.
return 0;
}
if (filled[r][c] == false || visited[r][c] == true) {
// This square is not part of a blob, or else it has
// already been counted, so return zero.
return 0;
}
visited[r][c] = true; // Mark the square as visited so that
// we won't count it again during the
// following recursive calls.
int size = 1; // Count the square at this position, then count the
// the blobs that are connected to this square
// horizontally or vertically.
size += getBlobSize(r-1,c);
size += getBlobSize(r+1,c);
size += getBlobSize(r,c-1);
size += getBlobSize(r,c+1);
return size;
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Java Programing: Section 11.1
} // end getBlobSize()
In the applet, this method is used to determine the size of a blob when the user clicks on a square. After
getBlobSize() has performed its task, all the squares in the blob are still marked as visited. The
paint() method draws visited squares in red, which makes the blob visible. The getBlobSize()
method is also used for counting blobs. This is done by the following method, which includes comments to
explain how it works:
void countBlobs() {
// When the user clicks the "Count the Blobs" button, find the
// number of blobs in the grid and report the number in the
// message Label.
int count = 0; // Number of blobs.
/* First clear out the visited array. The getBlobSize() method
will mark every filled square that it finds by setting the
corresponding element of the array to true. Once a square
has been marked as visited, it will stay marked until all the
blobs have been counted. This will prevent the same blob from
being counted more than once. */
for (int r = 0; r < rows; r++)
for (int c = 0; c < columns; c++)
visited[r][c] = false;
/* For each position in the grid, call getBlobSize() to get the
size of the blob at that position. If the size is not zero,
count a blob. Note that if we come to a position that was part
of a previously counted blob, getBlobSize() will return 0 and
the blob will not be counted again. */
for (int r = 0; r < rows; r++)
for (int c = 0; c < columns; c++) {
if (getBlobSize(r,c) > 0)
count++;
}
repaint(); // Note that all the filled squares will be red,
// since they have all now been visited.
message.setText("The number of blobs is " + count);
} // end countBlobs()
You can find the complete source code for the applet in the file Blobs.java.
Among the decorative end-of-chapter applets in this text, there are two others that use recursion: The
maze-solving applet from the end of Section 8.5 and the pentominos applet from the end of Section 5 in this
chapter.
The Maze applet first builds a random maze. It then tries to solve the maze by finding a path through the
maze from the upper left corner to the lower right corner. This problem is actually very similar to the
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blob-counting problem. The recursive maze-solving routine starts from a given square, and it visits each
neighboring square and calls itself recursively from there. The recursion ends if the routine finds itself at the
lower right corner of the maze.
The Pentominos applet is an implementation of a classic puzzle. A pentomino is a connected figure made
up of five equal-sized squares. There are exactly twelve figures that can be made in this way, not counting
all the possible rotations and reflections of the basic figures. The problem is to place the twelve pentominos
on an 8-by-8 board in which four of the squares have already been marked as filled. The recursive solution
looks at a board that has already been partially filled with pentominos. The subroutine looks at each
remaining piece in turn. It tries to place that piece in the next available place on the board. If the piece fits,
it calls itself recursively to try to fill in the rest of the solution. If that fails, then the subroutine goes on to
the next piece. (By the way, if you click on the Pentominos applet, it will start over with a new, randomly
chosen problem.)
The Maze applet and the Pentominos applet are fun to watch, and they give nice visual representations of
recursion. We'll encounter other examples of recursion later in this chapter.
[ Next Section | Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
Section 11.2
Linking Objects
EVERY USEFUL OBJECT contains instance variables. When the type of an instance variable is given by
a class or interface name, the variable can hold a reference to another object. Such a reference is also called
a pointer, and we say that the variable points to the object. (Of course, any variable that can contain a
reference to an object can also contain the special value null, which points to nowhere.) When one object
contains an instance variable that points to another object, we think of the objects as being "linked" by the
pointer. Data structures of great complexity can be constructed by linking objects together.
Something interesting happens when an object contains an instance variable that can refer to another object
of the same type. In that case, the definition of the object's class is recursive. Such recursion arises naturally
in many cases. For example, consider a class designed to represent employees at a company. Suppose that
every employee except the boss has a supervisor, who is another employee of the company. Then the
Employee class would naturally contain an instance variable of type Employee that points to the
employee's supervisor:
class Employee {
// An object of type Employee holds data about
// one employee.
String name; // Name of the employee.
Employee supervisor; // The employee's supervisor.
.
. // (Other instance variables and methods.)
.
} // end class Employee
If emp is a variable of type Employee, then emp.supervisor is another variable of type Employee.
If emp refers to the boss, then the value of emp.supervisor should be null to indicate the fact that the
boss has no supervisor. If we wanted to print out the name of the employee's supervisor, for example, we
could use the following Java statement:
if ( emp.supervisor == null) {
System.out.println( emp.name " is the boss!" );
}
else {
System.out.print( "The supervisor of " + emp.name + " is " );
System.out.println( emp.supervisor.name );
}
Now, suppose that we want to know how many levels of supervisors there are between a given employee
and the boss. We just have to follow the chain of command through a series of supervisor links, and
count how many steps it takes to get to the boss:
if ( emp.supervisor == null ) {
System.out.println( emp.name " is the boss!" );
}
else {
Employee runner; // For "running" up the chain of command.
runner = emp.supervisor;
if ( runner.supervisor == null) {
System.out.println( emp.name
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
+ " reports directly to the boss." );
}
else {
int count = 0;
while ( runner.supervisor != null ) {
count++; // Count
runner = runner.supervisor;
}
System.out.println( "There are " + count
+ " supervisors between " + emp.name
+ " and the boss." );
}
}
As the while loop is executed, runner points in turn to the original employee, emp, then to emp's
supervisor, then to the supervisor of emp's supervisor, and so on. The count variable is incremented
each time runner "visits" a new employee. The loop ends when runner.supervisor is null, which
indicates that runner has reached the boss. At that point, count has counted the number of steps
between emp and the boss.
In this example, the supervisor variable is quite natural and useful. In fact, data structures that are built
by linking objects together are so useful that they are a major topic of study in computer science. We'll be
looking at a few typical examples. In this section and the next, we'll be looking at linked lists. A linked list
consists of a chain of objects of the same type, linked together by pointers from one object to the next. This
is much like the chain of supervisors between emp and the boss in the above example. It's possible to have
more complex situations, in which one object can contain links to several other objects. We'll look at an
example of this in Section 4.
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
For the rest of this section, linked lists will be constructed out of objects belonging to the class Node which
is defined as follows:
class Node {
String item;
Node next;
}
The term node is often used to refer to one of the objects in a linked data structure. Objects of type Node
can be chained together as shown in the top part of the above picture. The last node in such a list can always
be identified by the fact that the instance variable next in the last node holds the value null instead of a
pointer to another node.
Although the Nodes in this example are very simple, we can use them to illustrate the common operations
on linked lists. Typical operations include deleting nodes from the list, inserting new nodes into the list, and
searching for a specified String among the items in the list. We will look at subroutines to perform all
of these operations. The subroutines are used in the following applet, which demonstrates the three types of
operation. In this applet, you start with an empty list, so you have to add some strings to it before you can
do anything else. The "find" operation just tells you whether a specified string is in the list.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
The applet uses a class, named StringList, to do the list operations. An object of type StringList
represents a linked list of Nodes. We'll be looking at a few aspects of this class in detail. The complete
source code can be found in the file StringList.java. (A standalone program that does the same thing as the
applet can be found in the file ListDemo.java. This program is pretty straightforward, so I won't consider it
further.)
For a linked list to be used in a program, that program needs a variable that refers to the first node in the
list. It only needs a pointer to the first node since all the other nodes in the list can be accessed by starting at
the first node and following links along the list from one node to the next. In the sample program, an object
of type StringList has an instance variable named head that serves this purpose. The variable head is
of type Node, and it points to the first node in a linked list. If the list is empty, the value of head is null.
Suppose we want to know whether a specified string, searchItem, occurs somewhere in the list. We
have to compare searchItem to each item in the list. To do this, we use a variable of type Node to
"run" along the list and look at each node. Our only access to the list is through the variable head, so we
start by getting a copy of the value in head:
Node runner = head; // Start at the first node.
We need a copy because we are going to change the value of runner. We can't change the value of head,
or we would lose our only access to the list! The variable runner will point to each node of the list in turn.
To move from one node to the next, it is only necessary to say runner = runner.next. We'll know
that we've reached the end of the list when runner becomes equal to null. All this is done in the instance
method find() from the StringList class:
public boolean find(String searchItem) {
// Returns true if the specified item is in the list, and
// false if it is not in the list.
Node runner; // A pointer for traversing the list.
runner = head; // Start by looking at the head of the list.
// (head is an instance variable.)
while ( runner != null ) {
// Go through the list looking at the string in each
// node. If the string is the one we are looking for,
// return true, since the string has been found.
if ( runner.item.equals(searchItem) )
return true;
runner = runner.next; // Move on to the next node.
}
// At this point, we have looked at all the items in the list
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
// without finding searchItem. Return false to indicate that
// the item does not exist in the list.
return false;
} // end find()
The pattern that is used in this routine occurs over and over: If head is a variable that refers to a linked list,
then to process all the nodes in the list, do
runner = head;
while ( runner != null ) {
.
. // Process the node that runner points to.
.
runner = runner.next;
}
It is possible that the list is empty, that is, that the value of head is null. We should be careful that this
case is handled properly. In the above code, if head is null, then the body of the while loop is never
executed at all, so no nodes are processed. This is exactly what we want when the list is empty.
The problem of inserting a new item into the list is more difficult. (In fact, it's probably the most difficult
operation on linked data structures that you'll encounter in this chapter.) In the StringList class, the
items in the nodes of the linked list are kept in increasing order. When a new item is inserted into the list,
it must be inserted at the correct position according to this ordering. This means that, usually, we will have
to insert the new item somewhere in the middle of the list, between two existing nodes. To do this, it's
convenient to have two variables of type Node, which refer to the existing nodes that will lie on either side
of the new node. In the following illustration, these variables are previous and runner. Another
variable, newNode, refers to the new node. In order to do the insertion, the link from previous to
runner must be "broken," and new links from previous to newNode and from newNode to runner
must be added:
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
The command "previous.next = newNode;" can be used to make previous.next point to the
new node, instead of to the node indicated by runner. And the command "newNode.next =
runner" will set newNode.next to point to the correct place. However, before we can use these
commands, we need to set up runner and previous as shown in the illustration. The idea is to start at
the first node of the list, and then move along the list past all the items that are less than the new item.
While doing this, we have to be aware of the danger of "falling off the end of the list." That is, we can't
continue if runner reaches the end of the list and becomes null. If insertItem is the item that is to
be inserted, and if we assume that it does, in fact, belong somewhere in the middle of the list, then the
following code would correctly position previous and runner:
Node runner, previous;
previous = head; // Start at the beginning of the list.
runner = head.next;
while ( runner != null && runner.item.compareTo(insertItem) < 0 ) {
previous = runner; // "previous = previous.next" would also work
runner = runner.next;
}
(This uses the compareTo() instance method from the String class to test whether the item in the node
is less than the item that is being inserted. See Section 2.3.)
This is fine, except that the assumption that the new node is inserted into the middle of the list is not always
valid. It might be that insertItem is less than the first item of the list. In that case, the new node must be
inserted at the head of the list. This can be done with the instructions
newNode.next = head; // Make newNode.next point to the old head.
head = newNode; // Make newNode the new head of the list.
It is also possible that the list is empty. In that case, newNode will become the first and only node in the
list. This can be accomplished simply by setting head = newNode. The following insert() method
from the StringList class covers all of these possibilities:
public void insert(String insertItem) {
// Add insertItem to the list. It is allowed to add
// multiple copies of the same item.
Node newNode; // A Node to contain the new item.
newNode = new Node();
newNode.item = insertItem; // (N.B. newNode.next is null.)
if ( head == null ) {
// The new item is the first (and only) one in the list.
// Set head to point to it.
head = newNode;
}
else if ( head.item.compareTo(insertItem) >= 0 ) {
// The new item is less than the first item in the list,
// so it has to be inserted at the head of the list.
newNode.next = head;
head = newNode;
}
else {
// The new item belongs somewhere after the first item
// in the list. Search for its proper position and insert it.
Node runner; // A node for traversing the list.
Node previous; // Always points to the node preceding runner.
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
runner = head.next; // Start by looking at the SECOND position.
previous = head;
while (runner != null && runner.item.compareTo(insertItem) < 0) {
// Move previous and runner along the list until runner
// falls off the end or hits a list element that is
// greater than or equal to insertItem. When this
// loop ends, runner indicates the position where
// insertItem must be inserted.
previous = runner;
runner = runner.next;
}
newNode.next = runner; // Insert newNode after previous.
previous.next = newNode;
}
} // end insert()
If you were paying close attention to the above discussion, you might have noticed that there is one special
case which is not mentioned. What happens if the new node has to be inserted at the end of the list? This
will happen if all the items in the list are less than the new item. In fact, this case is already handled
correctly by the subroutine, in the last part of the if statement. If insertItem is less than all the items in
the list, then the while loop will end when runner has traversed the entire list and become null.
However, when that happens, previous will be left pointing to the last node in the list. Setting
previous.next = newNode adds newNode onto the end of the list. Since runner is null, the
command newNode.next = runner sets newNode.next to null. This is the correct value that is
needed to mark the end of the list.
The delete operation is similar to insert, although a little simpler. There are still special cases to consider.
When the first node in the list is to be deleted, then the value of head has to be changed to point to what
was previously the second node in the list. Since head.next refers to the second node in the list, this can
be done by setting head = head.next. (Once again, you should check that this works when
head.next is null, that is, when there is no second node in the list. In that case, the list becomes
empty.)
If the node that is being deleted is in the middle of the list, then we can set up previous and runner
with runner pointing to the node that is to be deleted and with previous pointing to the node that
precedes that node in the list. Once that is done, the command "previous.next = runner.next;"
will delete the node. The deleted node will be garbage collected.
Here is the complete code for the delete() method:
public boolean delete(String deleteItem) {
// If the specified string occurs in the list, delete it.
// Return true if the string was found and deleted. If the
// string was not found in the list, return false. (If the
// item exists multiple times in the list, this method
// just deletes the first one.)
if ( head == null ) {
// The list is empty, so it certainly
// doesn't contain deleteItem.
return false;
}
else if ( head.item.equals(deleteItem) ) {
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Java Programing: Section 11.2
// The string is the first item of the list. Remove it.
head = head.next;
return true;
}
else {
// The string, if it occurs at all, is somewhere beyond the
// first element of the list. Search the list.
Node runner; // A node for traversing the list.
Node previous; // Always points to the node preceding runner.
runner = head.next; // Start by looking at the SECOND list node.
previous = head;
while (runner != null && runner.item.compareTo(deleteItem) < 0) {
// Move previous and runner along the list until runner
// falls off the end or hits a list element that is
// greater than or equal to deleteItem. When this
// loop ends, runner indicates the position where
// deleteItem must be, if it is in the list.
previous = runner;
runner = runner.next;
}
if ( runner != null && runner.item.equals(deleteItem) ) {
// Runner points to the node that is to be deleted.
// Remove it by changing the pointer in the previous node.
previous.next = runner.next;
return true;
}
else {
// The item does not exist in the list.
return false;
}
}
} // end delete()
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
Section 11.3
Stacks and Queues
A LINKED LIST is a particular type of data structure, made up of objects linked together by pointers. In
the previous section, we used a linked list to store an ordered list of Strings, and we implemented
insert, delete, and find operations on that list. However, we could easily have stored the list of
Strings in an array or Vector, instead of in a linked list. We could still have implemented insert,
delete, and find operations on the list. The implementations of these operations would have been
different, but their interfaces and logical behavior would still be the same.
The term abstract data type, or ADT, refers to a set of possible values and a set of operations on those
values, without any specification of how the values are to be represented or how the operations are to be
implemented. An "ordered list of strings" can be defined as an abstract data type. Any sequence of
Strings that is arranged in increasing order is a possible value of this data type. The operations on the
data type include inserting a new string, deleting a string, and finding a string in the list. There are often
several different ways to implement the same abstract data type. For example, the "ordered list of strings"
ADT can be implemented as a linked list or as an array. A program that only depends on the abstract
definition of the ADT can use either implementation, interchangeably. In particular, the implementation of
the ADT can be changed without affecting the program as a whole. This can make the program easier to
debug and maintain, so ADT's are an important tool in software engineering.
In this section, we'll look at two common abstract data types, stacks and queues. Both stacks and queues are
often implemented as linked lists, but that is not the only possible implementation. You should think of the
rest of this section partly as a discussion of stacks and queues and partly as a case study in ADTs.
A stack consists of a sequence of items, which should be thought of piled one on top of the other like a
physical stack of boxes or cafeteria trays. Only the top item on the stack is accessible at any given time. It
can be removed from the stack with an operation called pop. An item lower down on the stack can only be
removed after all the items on top of it have been popped off the stack. A new item can be added to the top
of the stack with an operation called push. We can make a stack of any type of items. If, for example, the
items are values of type int, then the push and pop operations can be implemented as instance methods
void push (int newItem) -- Add newItem to top of stack.
int pop() -- Remove the top int from the stack and return it.
It is an error to try to pop an item from an empty stack, so it is important to be able to tell whether a stack is
empty. We need another stack operation to do the test, implemented as an instance method
boolean isEmpty() -- Returns true if the stack is empty
This describes a "stack of ints" as an abstract data type. This ADT can be implemented in several ways, but
however it is implemented, its behavior must correspond to the abstract mental image of a stack.
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
In the linked list implementation of a stack, the top of the stack is actually the node at the head of the list. It
is easy to add and remove nodes at the front of a linked list -- much easier than inserting and deleting nodes
in the middle of the list. Here is a class that implements the "stack of ints" ADT using a linked list. (It uses
a static nested class to represent the nodes of the linked list. See Section 7.6 for a discussion of nested
classes. If the nesting bothers you, you could replace it with a separate Node class.)
public class StackOfInts {
private static class Node {
// An object of type Node holds one of the
// items in the linked list that represents the stack.
int item;
Node next;
}
private Node top; // Pointer to the Node that is at the top of
// of the stack. If top == null, then the
// stack is empty.
public void push( int N ) {
// Add N to the top of the stack.
Node newTop; // A Node to hold the new item.
newTop = new Node();
newTop.item = N; // Store N in the new Node.
newTop.next = top; // The new Node points to the old top.
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top = newTop; // The new item is now on top.
}
public int pop() {
// Remove the top item from the stack, and return it.
// Note that this routine will throw a NullPointerException
// if an attempt is made to pop an item from an empty
// stack. (It would be better style to define a new
// type of Exception to throw in this case.)
int topItem = top.item; // The item that is being popped.
top = top.next; // The previous second item is now on top.
return topItem;
}
public boolean isEmpty() {
// Returns true if the stack is empty. Returns false
// if there are one or more items on the stack.
return (top == null);
}
} // end class StackOfInts
You should make sure that you understand how the push and pop operations operate on the linked list.
Drawing some pictures might help. Note that the linked list is part of the private implementation of the
StackOfInts class. A program that uses this class doesn't even need to know that a linked list is being
used.
Now, it's pretty easy to implement a stack as an array instead of as a linked list. Since the number of items
on the stack varies with time, a counter is needed to keep track of how many spaces in the array are actually
in use. If this counter is called top, then the items on the stack are stored in positions 0, 1, ..., top-1 in
the array. The item in position 0 is on the bottom of the stack, and the item in position top-1 is on the top
of the stack. Pushing an item onto the stack is easy: Put the item in position top and add 1 to the value of
top. If we don't want to put a limit on the number of items that the stack can hold, we can use the dynamic
array techniques from Section 8.3. Note that the typical picture of the array would show the stack "upside
down", with the top of the stack at the bottom of the array. This doesn't matter. The array is just an
implementation of the abstract idea of a stack, and as long as the stack operations work the way they are
supposed to, we are OK. Here is a second implementation of the StackOfInts class, using a dynamic
array:
public class StackOfInts {
private int[] items = new int[10]; // Holds the items on the stack.
private int top = 0; // The number of items currently on the stack.
public void push( int N ) {
// Add N to the top of the stack.
if (top == items.length) {
// The array is full, so make a new, larger array and
// copy the current stack items into it.
int[] newArray = new int[ 2*items.length ];
System.arraycopy(items, 0, newArray, 0, items.length);
items = newArray;
}
items[top] = N; // Put N in next available spot.
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
top++; // Number of items goes up by one.
}
public int pop() {
// Remove the top item from the stack, and return it.
// Note that this routine will throw an
// ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if an attempt is
// made to pop an item from an empty stack.
// (It would be better style to define a new
// type of Exception to throw in this case.)
int topItem = items[top - 1] // Top item in the stack.
top--; // Number of items on the stack goes down by one.
return topItem;
}
public boolean isEmpty() {
// Returns true if the stack is empty. Returns false
// if there are one or more items on the stack.
return (top == 0);
}
} // end class StackOfInts
Once again, the implentation of the stack (as an array) is private to the class. The two versions of the
StackOfInts class can be used interchangeably. If a program uses one version, it should be possible to
substitute the other version without changing the program. Unfortunately, though, there is one detail in
which the classes behave differently: When an attempt is made to pop an item from an empty stack, the first
version of the class will generate a NullPointerException while the second will generate an
ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException. It would be better to define a new
EmptyStackException class and use it in both versions. In fact, the original description of the "stack
of ints" ADT should have specified exactly what happens when an attempt is made to pop an item from an
empty stack. This is just the sort of small detail that is often left out of interface specifications, causing no
end of problems!
Queues are similar to stacks in that a queue consists of a sequence of items, and there are restrictions about
how items can be added to and removed from the list. However, a queue has two ends, called the front and
the back of the queue. Items are always added to the queue at the back and removed from the queue at the
front. The operations of adding and removing items are called enqueue and dequeue. An item that is added
to the back of the queue will remain on the queue until all the items in front of it have been removed. This
should sound familiar. A queue is like a "line" or "queue" of customers waiting for service. Customers are
serviced in the order in which they arrive on the queue.
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
A queue can hold items of any type. For a queue of ints, the enqueue and dequeue operations can be
implemented as instance methods in a "QueueOfInts" class. We also need an instance method for
checking whether the queue is empty:
void enqueue(int N) -- Add N to the back of the queue.
int dequeue() -- Remove the item at the front and return it.
boolean isEmpty() -- Return true if the queue is empty.
A queue can be implemented as a linked list or as an array. An efficient array implementation is a little
trickier than the array implementation of a stack, so I won't give it here. In the linked list implementation,
the first item of the list is the front of the queue. Dequeueing an item from the front of the queue is just like
popping an item off a stack. The back of the queue is at the end of the list. Enqueueing an item involves
setting a pointer in the last node on the current list to point to a new node that contains the item. To do this,
we'll need a command like "tail.next = newNode;", where tail is a pointer to the last node in the
list. If head is a pointer to the first node of the list, it would always be possible to get a pointer to the last
node of the list by saying:
Node tail; // This will point to the last node in the list.
tail = head; // Start at the first node.
while (tail.next != null) {
tail = tail.next;
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
}
// At this point, tail.next is null, so tail points to
// the last node in the list.
However, it would be very inefficient to do this over and over every time an item is enqueued. For the sake
of efficiency, we'll keep a pointer to the last node in an instance variable. We just have to be careful to
update the value of this variable whenever a new node is added to the end of the list. Given all this, writing
the QueueOfInts class is not very difficult:
public class QueueOfInts {
private static class Node {
// An object of type Node holds one of the items
// in the linked list that represents the queue.
int item;
Node next;
}
private Node head = null; // Points to first Node in the queue.
// The queue is empty when head is null.
private Node tail = null; // Points to last Node in the queue.
void enqueue( int N ) {
// Add N to the back of the queue.
Node newTail = new Node(); // A Node to hold the new item.
newTail.item = N;
if (head == null) {
// The queue was empty. The new Node becomes
// the only node in the list. Since it is both
// the first and last node, both head and tail
// point to it.
head = newTail;
tail = newTail;
}
else {
// The new node becomes the new tail of the list.
// (The head of the list is unaffected.)
tail.next = newTail;
tail = newTail;
}
}
int dequeue() {
// Remove and return the front item in the queue.
// Note that this can throw a NullPointerException.
int firstItem = head.item;
head = head.next; // The previous second item is now first.
if (head == null) {
// The queue has become empty. The Node that was
// deleted was the tail as well as the head of the
// list, so now there is no tail. (Actually, the
// class would work fine without this step.)
tail = null;
}
return firstItem;
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
}
boolean isEmpty() {
// Return true if the queue is empty.
return (head == null);
}
} // end class QueueOfInts
Queues are typically used in a computer (as in real life) when only one item can be processed at a time, but
several items can be waiting for processing. For example:
● In a Java program that has multiple threads, the threads that want processing time on the CPU are
kept in a queue. When a new thread is started, it is added to the back of the queue. A thread is
removed from the front of the queue, given some processing time, and then -- if it has not terminated
-- is sent to the back of the queue to wait for another turn.
● Events such as keystrokes and mouse clicks are stored in a queue called the "event queue". A
program removes events from the event queue and processes them. It's possible for several more
events to occur while one event is being processed, but since the events are stored in a queue, they
will always be processed in the order in which they occurred.
● A ServerSocket, as covered in Section 10.4, has an associated queue which contains connection
requests that have been received but not yet serviced. The ServerSocket's accept() method
gets the next connection request from the front of this queue.
Queues are said to implement a FIFO policy: First In, First Out. Or, as it is more commonly expressed, first
come, first served. Stacks, on the other hand implement a LIFO policy: Last In, First Out. The item that
comes out of the stack is the last one that was put in. Just like queues, stacks can be used to hold items that
are waiting for processing (although in applications where queues are typically used, a stack would be
considered "unfair").
To get a better handle on the difference between stacks and queues, consider the applet shown below. When
you click on a white square in the grid, the applet will gradually mark all the squares in the grid, starting
from the one where you click. To understand how the applet does this, think of yourself in the place of the
applet. When the user clicks a square, you are handed an index card. The location of the square -- its row
and column -- is written on the card. You put the card in a pile, which then contains just that one card.
Then, you repeat the following: If the pile is empty, you are done. Otherwise, take an index card from the
pile. The index card specifies a square. Look at each horizontal and vertical neighbor of that square. If the
neighbor has not already been encountered, write its location on an index card and put the card in the pile.
While a square is in the pile, waiting to be processed, it is colored red. When a square is taken from the pile
and processed, its color changes to gray. Eventually, all the squares have been processed and the procedure
ends. In the index card analogy, the pile of cards contains all the red squares.
The applet can use your choice of three methods: Stack, Queue, and Random. In each case, the same
general procedure is used. The only difference is how the "pile of index cards" is managed. For a stack,
cards are added and removed at the top of the pile. For a queue, cards are added to the bottom of the pile
and removed from the top. In the random case, the card to be processed is picked at random from among the
cards in the pile. The order of processing is very different in these three cases.
You should experiment with the applet to see how it all works. Try to understand how stacks and queues are
being used. Try starting from one of the corner squares. While the process is going on, you can click on
other white squares, and they will be added to the pile. When you do this with a stack, you should notice
that the square you click is processed immediately, and all the red squares that were already waiting for
processing have to wait. On the other hand, if you do this with a queue, the square that you click will wait
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
its turn. The source code for this applet can be found in the file DepthBreadth.java.
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
Queues seem very natural because they occur so often in real life, but there are times when stacks are
appropriate and even essential. For example, consider what happens when a routine calls a subroutine. The
first routine is suspended while the subroutine is executed, and it will continue only when the subroutine
returns. Now, suppose that the subroutine calls a second subroutine, and the second subroutine calls a third,
and so on. Each subroutine is suspended while the subsequent subroutines are executed. The computer has
to keep track of all the subroutines that are suspended. It does this with a stack.
When a subroutine is called, an activation record is created for that subroutine. The activation record
contains information relevant to the execution of the subroutine, such as its local variables and parameters.
The activation record for the subroutine is placed on a stack. It will be removed from the stack and
destroyed when the subroutine returns. If the subroutine calls another subroutine, the activation record of
the second subroutine is pushed onto the stack, on top of the activation record of the first subroutine. The
stack can continue to grow as more subroutines are called, and it shrinks as those subroutines return.
As another example, stacks can be used to evaluate postfix expressions. An ordinary mathematical
expression such as 2+(15-12)*17 is called an infix expression. In an infix expression, an operator comes
in between its two operands, as in "2 + 2". In a postfix expression, an operator comes after its two
operands, as in "2 2 +". The infix expression "2+(15-12)*17" would be written in postfix form as
"2 15 12 - 17 * +". The "-" operator in this expression applies to the two operands that precede it,
namely "15" and "12". The "*" operator applies to the two operands that precede it, namely "15 12 -"
and "17". And the "+" operator applies to "2" and "15 12 - 17 *". These are the same computations
that are done in the original infix expression.
Now, suppose that we want to process the expression "2 15 12 - 17 * +", from left to right, and find
its value. The first item we encounter is the 2, but what can we do with it? At this point, we don't know
what operator, if any, will be applied to the 2 or what the other operand might be. We have to remember the
2 for later processing. We do this by pushing it onto a stack. Moving on to the next item, we see a 15,
which is pushed onto the stack on top of the 2. Then the 12 is added to the stack. Now, we come to the
operator, "-". This operation applies to the two operands that preceded it in the expression. We have saved
those two operands on the stack. So, to process the "-" operator, we pop two numbers from the stack, 12
and 15, and compute 15 - 12 to get the answer 3. This 3 will be used for later processing, so we push it
onto the stack, on top of the 2, which is still waiting there. The next item in the expression is a 17, which is
processed by pushing it onto the stack, on top of the 3. To process the next item, "*", we pop two numbers
from the stack. The numbers are 17 and the 3 that represents the value of "15 12 -". These numbers are
multiplied, and the result, 51 is pushed onto the stack. The next item in the expression is a "+" operator,
which is processed by popping 51 and 2 from the stack, adding them, and pushing the result, 53, onto the
stack. Finally, we've come to the end of the expression. The number on the stack is the value of the entire
expression, so all we have to do is pop the answer from the stack, and we are done! The value of the
expression is 53.
Although it's easier for people to work with infix expressions, postfix expressions have some advantages.
For one thing, postfix expressions don't require parentheses or precedence rules. The order in which
operators are applied is determined entirely by the order in which they occur in the expression. This allows
the algorithm for evaluating postfix expressions to be fairly straightforward:
Start with an empty stack
for each item in the expression:
if the item is a number:
Push the number onto the stack
else if the item is an operator:
Pop the operands from the stack // Can generate an error
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
Apply the operator to the operands
Push the result onto the stack
else
There is an error in the expression
Pop a number from the stack
if the stack is not empty:
There is an error in the expression
else:
The last number that was popped is the value of the expression
Errors in an expression can be detected easily. For example, in the expression "2 3 + *", there are not
enough operands for the "*" operation. This will be detected in the algorithm when an attempt is made to
pop the second operand for "*" from the stack, since the stack will be empty. The opposite problem occurs
in "2 3 4 +". There are not enough operators for all the numbers. This will be detected when the 2 is left
still sitting in the stack at the end of the algorithm.
This algorithm is demonstrated in the sample program PostfixEval.java, which lets you type in postfix
expressions made up of non-negative real numbers and the operators "+", "-", "*", "/", and "^". The "^"
represents exponentiation. That is, "2 3 ^" is evaluated as 23. The program prints out a message as it
processes each item in the expression. The stack class used in the program is defined in the file
NumberStack.java. The NumberStack class is identical to the first StackOfInts class, given above,
except that it has been modified to store values of type double instead of values of type int.
Here is an applet that simulates the PostfixEval program:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
The only interesting aspect of this program is the method that implements the postfix evaluation algorithm.
It is a direct implementation of the pseudocode algorithm given above:
static void readAndEvaluate() {
// Read one line of input and process it as a postfix expression.
// If the input is not a legal postfix expression, then an error
// message is displayed. Otherwise, the value of the expression
// is displayed. It is assumed that the first character on
// the input line is a non-blank. (This is checked in the
// main() routine.)
NumberStack stack; // For evaluating the expression.
stack = new NumberStack(); // Make a new, empty stack.
TextIO.putln();
while (TextIO.peek() != '\n') {
if ( Character.isDigit(TextIO.peek()) ) {
// The next item in input is a number. Read it and
// save it on the stack.
double num = TextIO.getDouble();
stack.push(num);
TextIO.putln(" Pushed constant " + num);
}
else {
// Since the next item is not a number, the only thing
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
// it can legally be is an operator. Get the operator
// and perform the operation.
char op; // The operator, which must be +, -, *, /, or ^.
double x,y; // The operands, from the stack.
double answer; // The result, to be pushed onto the stack.
op = TextIO.getChar();
if (op != '+' && op != '-' && op != '*'
&& op != '/' && op != '^') {
// The character is not one of the legal operations.
TextIO.putln("\nIllegal operator found in input: " + op);
return;
}
if (stack.isEmpty()) {
TextIO.putln(
" Stack is empty while trying to evaluate " + op);
TextIO.putln("\nNot enough numbers in expression!");
return;
}
y = stack.pop();
if (stack.isEmpty()) {
TextIO.putln(
" Stack is empty while trying to evaluate " + op);
TextIO.putln("\nNot enough numbers in expression!");
return;
}
x = stack.pop();
switch (op) {
case '+': answer = x + y; break;
case '-': answer = x - y; break;
case '*': answer = x * y; break;
case '/': answer = x / y; break;
default: answer = Math.pow(x,y); // (op must be '^'.)
}
stack.push(answer);
TextIO.putln(" Evaluated " + op + " and pushed " + answer);
}
skipSpaces(); // Skips past any blanks in the intput, before
// going back to the start of the while loop to
// test TextIO.peek() again.
} // end while
// If we get to this point, the input has been read successfully.
// If the expression was legal, then the value of the expression is
// on the stack, and it is the only thing on the stack.
if (stack.isEmpty()) { // Impossible if input is really non-empty.
TextIO.putln("No expression provided.");
return;
}
double value = stack.pop(); // Value of the expression.
TextIO.putln(" Popped " + value + " at end of expression.");
if (stack.isEmpty() == false) {
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Java Programing: Section 11.3
TextIO.putln(" Stack is not empty.");
TextIO.putln("\nNot enough operators for all the numbers!");
return;
}
TextIO.putln("\nValue = " + value);
} // end readAndEvaluate()
Postfix expressions are often used internally by computers. In fact, the Java virtual machine is a "stack
machine" which uses the stack-based approach to expression evaluation that we have been discussing. The
algorithm can easily be extended to handle variables, as well as constants. When a variable is encountered
in the expression, the value of the variable is pushed onto the stack. It also works for operators with more or
fewer than two operands. As many operands as are needed are popped from the stack and the result is
pushed back on to the stack. For example, the unary minus operator, which is used in the expression "-x",
has a single operand. We will continue to look at expressions and expression evaluation in the next two
sections.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Section 11.4
Section 11.4
Binary Trees
WE HAVE SEEN in the two previous sections how objects can be linked into lists. When an object
contains two pointers to objects of the same type, structures can be created that are much more complicated
than linked lists. In this section, we'll look at one of the most basic and useful structures of this type: binary
trees. Each of the objects in a binary tree contains two pointers, typically called left and right. In
addition to these pointers, of course, the nodes can contain other types of data. For example, a binary tree of
integers could be made up of objects of the following type:
class TreeNode {
int item; // The data in this node.
TreeNode left; // Pointer to the left subtree.
TreeNode right; // Pointer to the right subtree.
}
The left and right pointers in a TreeNode can
be null or can point to other objects of type
TreeNode. A node that points to another node is
said to be the parent of that node, and the node it
points to is called a child. In the picture at the right,
for example, node 3 is the parent of node 6, and
nodes 4 and 5 are children of node 2. Not every
linked structure made up of tree nodes is a binary
tree. A binary tree must have the following
properties: There is exactly one node in the tree
which has no parent. This node is called the root of
the tree. Every other node in the tree has exactly one
parent. Finally, there can be no loops in a binary tree.
That is, it is not possible to follow a chain of pointers
starting at some node and arriving back at the same
node.
A node that has no children is called a leaf. A leaf
node can be recognized by the fact that both the left
and right pointers in the node are null. In the
standard picture of a binary tree, the root node is
shown at the top and the leaf nodes at the bottom --
which doesn't show much respect with the analogy to
real trees. But at least you can see the branching,
tree-like structure that gives a binary tree its name.
Consider any node in a binary tree. Look at that node
together with all its descendents (that is, its children, the children of its children, and so on). This set of
nodes forms a binary tree, which is called a subtree of the original tree. For example, in the picture, nodes 2,
4, and 5 form a subtree. This subtree is called the left subtree of the root. Similarly, nodes 3 and 6 make up
the right subtree of the root. We can consider any non-empty binary tree to be made up of a root node, a left
subtree, and a right subtree. Either or both of the subtrees can be empty. This is a recursive definition,
matching the recursive definition of the TreeNode class. So it should not be a surprise that recursive
subroutines are often used to process trees.
Consider the problem of counting the nodes in a binary tree. As an exercise, you might try to come up with
a non-recursive algorithm to do the counting. The heart of problem is keeping track of which nodes remain
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Java Programing: Section 11.4
to be counted. It's not so easy to do this, and in fact it's not even possible without an auxiliary data structure
such as a stack or queue. With recursion, however, the algorithm is almost trivial. Either the tree is empty or
it consists of a root and two subtrees. If the tree is empty, the number of nodes is zero. (This is the base case
of the recursion.) Otherwise, use recursion to count the nodes in each subtree. Add the results from the
subtrees together, and add one to count the root. This gives the total number of nodes in the tree. Written
out in Java:
static int countNodes( TreeNode root ) {
// Count the nodes in the binary tree to which
// root points, and return the answer.
if ( root == null )
return 0; // The tree is empty. It contains no nodes.
else {
int count = 1; // Start by counting the root.
count += countNodes(root.left); // Add the number of nodes
// in the left subtree.
count += countNodes(root.right); // Add the number of nodes
// in the right subtree.
return count; // Return the total.
}
} // end countNodes()
Or, consider the problem of printing the items in a binary tree. If the tree is empty, there is nothing to do. If
the tree is non-empty, then it consists of a root and two subtrees. Print the item in the root and use recursion
to print the items in the subtrees. Here is a subroutine that prints all the items on one line of output:
static void preorderPrint( TreeNode root ) {
// Print all the items in the tree to which root points.
// The item in the root is printed first, followed by the
// items in the left subtree and then the items in the
// right subtree.
if ( root != null ) { // (Otherwise, there's nothing to print.)
System.out.print( root.item + " " ); // Print the root item.
preorderPrint( root.left ); // Print items in left subtree.
preorderPrint( root.right ); // Print items in right subtree.
}
} // end preorderPrint()
This routine is called "preorderPrint" because it uses a preorder traversal of the tree. In a preorder traversal,
the root node of the tree is processed first, then the left subtree is traversed, then the right subtree. In a
postorder traversal, the left subtree is traversed, then the right subtree, and then the root node is processed.
And in an inorder traversal, the left subtree is traversed first, then the root node is processed, then the right
subtree is traversed. Printing subroutines that use postorder and inorder traversal differ from
preorderPrint only in the placement of the statement that outputs the root item:
static void postorderPrint( TreeNode root ) {
// Print all the items in the tree to which root points.
// The items in the left subtree are printed first, followed
// by the items in the right subtree and then the item in the
// root node.
if ( root != null ) { // (Otherwise, there's nothing to print.)
postorderPrint( root.left ); // Print items in left subtree.
postorderPrint( root.right ); // Print items in right subtree.
System.out.print( root.item + " " ); // Print the root item.
}
} // end postorderPrint()
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Java Programing: Section 11.4
static void inorderPrint( TreeNode root ) {
// Print all the items in the tree to which root points.
// The items in the left subtree are printed first, followed
// by the item in the root node, followed by the items in
// the right subtree.
if ( root != null ) { // (Otherwise, there's nothing to print.)
inorderPrint( root.left ); // Print items in left subtree.
System.out.print( root.item + " " ); // Print the root item.
inorderPrint( root.right ); // Print items in right subtree.
}
} // end inorderPrint()
Each of these subroutines can be applied to the binary tree shown in the illustration at the beginning of this
section. The order in which the items are printed differs in each case:
preorderPrint outputs: 1 2 4 5 3 6
postorderPrint outputs: 4 5 2 6 3 1
inorderPrint outputs: 4 2 5 1 3 6
In preorderPrint, for example, the item at the root of the tree, 1, is output before anything else. But
the preorder printing also applies to each of the subtrees of the root. The root item of the left subtree, 2, is
printed before the other items in that subtree, 4 and 5. As for the right subtree of the root, 3 is output before
6. A preorder traversal applies at all levels in the tree. The other two traversal orders can be analyzed
similarly.
Binary Sort Trees
One of the examples in Section 2 was a linked list of strings, in which the strings were kept in increasing
order. While a linked list works well for a small number of strings, it becomes inefficient for a large number
of items. When inserting an item into the list, searching for that item's position requires looking at, on
average, half the items in the list. Finding an item in the list requires a similar amount of time. If the strings
are stored in a sorted array instead of in a linked list, then searching becomes more efficient because binary
search can be used. (See Section 8.4.) However, inserting a new item into the array is still inefficient since
it means moving, on average, half of the items in the array to make a space for the new item. A binary tree
can be used to store an ordered list of strings, or other items, in a way that makes both searching and
insertion efficient. A binary tree used in this way is called a binary sort tree.
A binary sort tree is a binary tree with the following property: For every node in the tree, the item in that
node is greater than every item in the left subtree of that node, and it is less than or equal to all the items in
the right subtree of that node. Here for example is a binary sort tree containing items of type String. (In
this picture, I haven't bothered to draw all the pointer variables. Non-null pointers are shown as arrows.)
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Binary sort trees have this useful property: An inorder traversal of the tree will process the items in
increasing order. In fact, this is really just another way of expressing the definition. For example, if an
inorder traversal is used to print the items in the tree shown above, then the items will be in alphabetical
order. The definition of an inorder traversal guarantees that all the items in the left subtree of "judy" are
printed before "judy", and all the items in the right subtree of "judy" are printed after "judy". But the binary
sort tree property guarantees that the items in the left subtree of "judy" are precisely those that precede
"judy" in alphabetical order, and all the items in the right subtree follow "judy" in alphabetical order. So, we
know that "judy" is output in its proper alphabetical position. But the same argument applies to the subtrees.
"Bill" will be output after "alice" and before "fred" and its descendents. "Fred" will be output after "dave"
and before "jane" and "joe". And so on.
Suppose that we want to search for a given item in a binary search tree. Compare that item to the root item
of the tree. If they are equal, we're done. If the item we are looking for is less than the root item, then we
need to search the left subtree of the root -- the right subtree can be eliminated because it only contains
items that are greater than or equal to the root. Similarly, if the item we are looking for is greater than the
item in the root, then we only need to look in the right subtree. In either case, the same procedure can then
be applied to search the subtree. Inserting a new item is similar: Start by searching the tree for the position
where the new item belongs. When that position is found, create a new node and attach it to the tree at that
position.
Searching and inserting are efficient operations on a binary search tree, provided that the tree is close to
being balanced. A binary tree is balanced if for each node, the left subtree of that node contains
approximately the same number of nodes as the right subtree. In a perfectly balanced tree, the two numbers
differ by at most one. Not all binary trees are balanced, but if the tree is created randomly, there is a high
probability that the tree is approximately balanced. During a search of any binary sort tree, every
comparison eliminates one of two subtrees from further consideration. If the tree is balanced, that means
cutting the number of items still under consideration in half. This is exactly the same as the binary search
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algorithm from Section 8.4, and the result is a similarly efficient algorithm.
The sample program SortTreeDemo.java is a demonstration of binary sort trees. The program includes
subroutines that implement inorder traversal, searching, and insertion. We'll look at the latter two
subroutines below. The main() routine tests the subroutines by letting you type in strings to be inserted
into the tree. Here is an applet that simulates this program:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
In this program, nodes in the binary tree are represented using the following class, including a simple
constructor that makes creating nodes easier:
class TreeNode {
// An object of type TreeNode represents one node
// in a binary tree of strings.
String item; // The data in this node.
TreeNode left; // Pointer to left subtree.
TreeNode right; // Pointer to right subtree.
TreeNode(String str) {
// Constructor. Make a node containing str.
item = str;
}
} // end class TreeNode
A static member variable of type TreeNode points to the binary sort tree that is used by the program:
static TreeNode root; // Pointer to the root node in the tree.
// When the tree is empty, root is null.
A recursive subroutine named treeContains is used to search for a given item in the tree. This routine
implements the search algorithm for binary trees that was outlined above:
static boolean treeContains( TreeNode node, String item ) {
// Return true if item is one of the items in the binary
// sort tree to which node points. Return false if not.
if ( node == null ) {
// Tree is empty, so it certainly doesn't contain item.
return false;
}
else if ( item.equals(node.item) ) {
// Yes, the item has been found in the root node.
return true;
}
else if ( item.compareTo(node.item) < 0 ) {
// If the item occurs, it must be in the left subtree.
// So, return the result of searching the left subtree.
return treeContains( node.left, item );
}
else {
// If the item occurs, it must be in the right subtree.
// So, return the result of searching the right subtree.
return treeContains( node.right, item );
}
} // end treeContains()
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When this routine is called in the main() routine, the first parameter is the static member variable root,
which points to the root of the entire binary sort tree.
It's worth noting that recursion is not really essential in this case. A simple, non-recursive algorithm for
searching a binary sort tree just follows the rule: Move down the tree until you find the item or reach a null
pointer. Since the search follows a single path down the tree, it can be implemented as a while loop. Here
is non-recursive version of the search routine:
static boolean treeContainsNR( TreeNode root, String item ) {
// Return true if item is one of the items in the binary
// sort tree to which root points. Return false if not.
TreeNode runner; // For "running" down the tree.
runner = root; // Start at the root node.
while (true) {
if (runner == null) {
// We've fallen off the tree without finding item.
return false;
}
else if ( item.equals(node.item) ) {
// We've found the item.
return true;
}
else if ( item.compareTo(node.item) < 0 ) {
// If the item occurs, it must be in the left subtree,
// So, advance the runner down one level to the left.
runner = runner.left;
}
else {
// If the item occurs, it must be in the right subtree.
// So, advance the runner down one level to the right.
runner = runner.right;
}
} // end while
} // end treeContainsNR();
The subroutine for inserting a new item into the tree turns out to be more similar to the non-recursive search
routine than to the recursive. The insertion routine has to handle the case where the tree is empty. In that
case, the value of root must be changed to point to a node that contains the new item:
root = new TreeNode( newItem );
But this means, effectively, that the root can't be passed as a parameter to the subroutine, because it is
impossible for a subroutine to change the value stored in an actual parameter. (I should note that this is
something that is possible in other languages.) Recursion uses parameters in an essential way. There are
ways to work around the problem, but the easiest thing is just to use a non-recursive insertion routine that
accesses the static member variable root directly. One difference between inserting an item and searching
for an item is that we have to be careful not to fall off the tree. That is, we have to stop searching just
before runner becomes null. When we get to an empty spot in the tree, that's where we have to insert
the new node:
static void treeInsert(String newItem) {
// Add the item to the binary sort tree to which the global
// variable "root" refers. (Note that root can't be passed as
// a parameter to this routine because the value of root might
// change, and a change in the value of a formal parameter does
// not change the actual parameter.)
if ( root == null ) {
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// The tree is empty. Set root to point to a new node
// containing the new item.
root = new TreeNode( newItem );
return;
}
TreeNode runner; // Runs down the tree to find a place for newItem.
runner = root; // Start at the root.
while (true) {
if ( newItem.compareTo(runner.item) < 0 ) {
// Since the new item is less than the item in runner,
// it belongs in the left subtree of runner. If there
// is an open space at runner.left, add a node there.
// Otherwise, advance runner down one level to the left.
if ( runner.left == null ) {
runner.left = new TreeNode( newItem );
return; // New item has been added to the tree.
}
else
runner = runner.left;
}
else {
// Since the new item is greater than or equal to the
// item in runner, it belongs in the right subtree of
// runner. If there is an open space at runner.right,
// add a new node there. Otherwise, advance runner
// down one level to the right.
if ( runner.right == null ) {
runner.right = new TreeNode( newItem );
return; // New item has been added to the tree.
}
else
runner = runner.right;
}
} // end while
} // end treeInsert()
Expression Trees
Another application of trees is to store mathematical expressions such as 15*(x+y) or sqrt(42)+7 in a
convenient form. Let's stick for the moment to expressions made up of numbers and the operators +, -, *,
and /. Consider the expression 3*((7+1)/4)+(17-5). This expression is made up of two
subexpressions, 3*((7+1)/4) and (17-5), combined with the operator "+". When the expression is
represented as a binary tree, the root node holds the operator +, while the subtrees of the root node
represent the subexpressions 3*((7+1)/4) and (17-5). Every node in the tree holds either a number or
an operator. A node that holds a number is a leaf node of the tree. A node that holds an operator has two
subtrees representing the operands to which the operator applies. The tree is shown in the illustration below.
I will refer to a tree of this type as an expression tree.
Given an expression tree, it's easy to find the value of the expression that it represents. Each node in the tree
has an associated value. If the node is a leaf node, then its value is simply the number that the node
contains. If the node contains an operator, then the associated value is computed by first finding the values
of its child nodes and then applying the operator to those values. The process is shown by the red arrows in
the illustration. The value computed for the root node is the value of the expression as a whole. There are
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other uses for expression trees. For example, a postorder traversal of the tree will output the postfix form of
the expression.
An expression tree contains two types of nodes: nodes that contain numbers and nodes that contain
operators. Furthermore, we might want to add other types of nodes to make the trees more useful, such as
nodes that contain variables. If we want to work with expression trees in Java, how can we deal with this
variety of nodes? One way -- which will be frowned upon by object-oriented purists -- is to include an
instance variable in each node object to record which type of node it is:
class ExpNode { // A node in an expression tree.
static final int NUMBER = 0, // Possible values for kind.
OPERATOR = 1;
int kind; // Which type of node is this?
double number; // The value in a node of type NUMBER.
char op; // The operator in a node of type OPERATOR.
ExpNode left; // Pointers to subtrees,
ExpNode right; // in a node of type OPERATOR.
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ExpNode( double val ) {
// Constructor for making a node of type NUMBER.
kind = NUMBER;
number = val;
}
ExpNode( char op, ExpNode left, ExpNode right ) {
// Constructor for making a node of type OPERATOR.
kind = OPERATOR;
this.op = op;
this.left = left;
this.right = right;
}
} // end class ExpNode
Given this definition, the following recursive subroutine will find the value of an expression tree:
static double getValue( ExpNode node ) {
// Return the value of the expression represented by
// the tree to which node refers. Node must be non-null.
if ( node.kind == NUMBER ) {
// The value of a NUMBER node is the number it holds.
return node.number;
}
else { // The kind must be OPERATOR.
// Get the values of the operands and combine them
// using the operator.
double leftVal = getValue( node.left );
double rightVal = getValue( node.right );
switch ( node.op ) {
case '+': return leftVal + rightVal;
case '-': return leftVal - rightVal;
case '*': return leftVal * rightVal;
case '/': return leftVal / rightVal;
default: return Double.NaN; // Bad operator.
}
}
} // end getValue()
Although this approach works, a more object-oriented approach is to note that since there are two types of
nodes, there should be two classes to represent them, ConstNode and BinOpNode. To represent the
general idea of a node in an expression tree, we need another class, ExpNode. Both ConstNode and
BinOpNode will be subclasses of ExpNode. Since any actual node will be either a ConstNode or a
BinOpNode, ExpNode should be an abstract class. (See Section 5.4.) Since one of the things we want to
do with nodes is find their values, each class should have an instance method for finding the value:
abstract class ExpNode {
// Represents a node of any type in an expression tree.
abstract double value(); // Return the value of this node.
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} // end class ExpNode
class ConstNode extends ExpNode {
// Represents a node that holds a number.
double number; // The number in the node.
ConstNode( double val ) {
// Constructor. Create a node to hold val.
number = val;
}
double value() {
// The value is just the number that the node holds.
return number;
}
} // end class ConstNode
class BinOpNode extends ExpNode {
// Represents a node that holds an operator.
char op; // The operator.
ExpNode left; // The left operand.
ExpNode right; // The right operand.
BinOpNode( char op, ExpNode left, ExpNode right ) {
// Constructor. Create a node to hold the given data.
this.op = op;
this.left = left;
this.right = right;
}
double value() {
// To get the value, compute the value of the left and
// right operands, and combine them with the operator.
double leftVal = left.value();
double rightVal = right.value();
switch ( op ) {
case '+': return leftVal + rightVal;
case '-': return leftVal - rightVal;
case '*': return leftVal * rightVal;
case '/': return leftVal / rightVal;
default: return Double.NaN; // Bad operator.
}
}
} // end class BinOpNode
Note that the left and right operands of a BinOpNode are of type ExpNode, not BinOpNode. This
allows the operand to be either a ConstNode or another BinOpNode -- or any other type of ExpNode
that we might eventually create. Since every ExpNode has a value() method, we can call
left.value() to compute the value of the left operand. If left is in fact a ConstNode, this will call
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the value() method in the ConstNode class. If it is in fact a BinOpNode, then left.value() will
call the value() method in the BinOpNode class. Each node knows how to compute its own value.
Although it might seem more complicated at first, the object-oriented approach has some advantages. For
one thing, it doesn't waste memory. In the original ExpNode class, only some of the instance variables in
each node were actually used, and we needed an extra instance variable to keep track of the type of node.
More important, though, is the fact that new types of nodes can be added more cleanly, since it can be done
by creating a new subclass of ExpNode rather than by modifying an existing class.
We'll return to the topic of expression trees in the next section, where we'll see how to create an expression
tree to represent a given expression.
[ Next Section | Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Section 11.5
A Simple Recursive-descent Parser
I HAVE ALWAYS been fascinated by language -- both natural languages like English and the artificial
languages that are used by computers. There are many difficult questions about how languages can convey
information, how they are structured, and how they can be processed. Natural and artificial languages are
similar enough that the study of programming languages, which are pretty well understood, can give some
insight into the much more complex and difficult natural languages. And programming languages raise
more than enough interesting issues to make them worth studying in their own right. How can it be, after
all, that computers can be made to "understand" even the relatively simple languages that are used to write
programs? Computers, after all, can only directly use instructions expressed in very simple machine
language. Higher level languages must be translated into machine language. But the translation is done by a
compiler, which is just a program. How could such a translation program be written?
Natural and artificial languages are similar in that they have a structure known as grammar or syntax.
Syntax can be expressed by a set of rules that describe what it means to be a legal sentence or program. For
programming languages, syntax rules are often expressed in BNF (Backus-Naur Form), a system that was
developed by computer scientists John Backus and Peter Naur in the late 1950s. Interestingly, an equivalent
system was developed independently at about the same time by linguist Noam Chomsky to describe the
grammar of natural language. BNF cannot express all possible syntax rules. For example, it can't express
the fact that a variable must be defined before it is used. Furthermore, it says nothing about the meaning or
semantics of the langauge. The problem of specifying the semantics of a language -- even of an artificial
programming langauge -- is one that is still far from being completely solved. However, BNF does express
the basic structure of the language, and it plays a central role in the design of translation programs.
In English, terms such as "noun", "transitive verb," and "propositional phrase" are syntactic categories that
describe building blocks of sentences. Similarly, "statement", "number," and "while loop" are syntactic
categories that describe building blocks of Java programs. In BNF, a syntactic category is written as a word
enclosed between "<" and ">". For example: <noun>, <verb-phrase>, or <while-loop>. A rule in
BNF specifies the structure of an item in a given syntactic category, in terms of other syntactic categories
and/or basic symbols of the language. For example, one BNF rule for the English language might be
<sentence> ::= <noun-phrase> <verb-phrase>
The symbol "::=" is read "can be", so this rule says that a <sentence> can be a <noun-phrase>
followed by a <verb-phrase>. (The term is "can be" rather than "is" because there might be other rules
that specify other possible forms for a sentence.) This rule can be thought of as a recipe for a sentence: If
you want to make a sentence, make a noun-phrase and follow it by a verb-phrase. Noun-phrase and
verb-phrase must, in turn, be defined by other BNF rules.
In BNF, a choice between alternatives is represented by the symbol "|", which is read "or". For example, the
rule
<verb-phrase> ::= <intransitive-verb> |
( <transitive-verb> <noun-phrase> )
says that a <verb-phrase> can be a <intransitive-verb>, or it can be or a
<transitive-verb> followed by a <noun-phrase>. Note also that parentheses can be used for
grouping. To express the fact that an item is optional, it can be enclosed between "[" and "]". An optional
item that can be repeated one or more times is enclosed between "[" and "]...". And a symbol that is an
actual part of the language that is being described is enclosed in quotes. For example,
<noun-phrase> ::= <common-noun> [ "that" <verb-phrase> ] |
<common-noun> [ <propositional-phrase> ]...
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says that a <noun-phrase> can be a <common-noun>, optionally followed by the literal word "that"
and a <verb-phrase>, or it can be a <common-noun> followed by zero or more
<propositional-phrase>'s. Obviously, we can describe very complex structures in this way. The
real power comes from the fact that BNF rules can be recursive. In fact, the two preceding rules, taken
together, are recursive. A <noun-phrase> is defined partly in terms of <verb-phrase>, while
<verb-phrase> is defined partly in terms of <noun-phrase>. For example, a <noun-phrase>
might be "the rat that ate the cheese", since "ate the cheese" is a <verb-phrase>. But then we can,
recursively, make the more complex <noun-phrase> "the cat that caught the rat that ate the cheese" out
of the <common-noun> "the cat", the word "that" and the <verb-phrase> "caught the rat that ate the
cheese". Building from there, we can make the <noun-phrase> "the dog that chased the cat that caught
the rat that ate the cheese". The recursive structure of language is one of the most fundamental properties of
language, and the ability of BNF to express this recursive structure is what makes it so useful.
BNF can be used to describe the syntax of a programming language such as Java in a formal and precise
way. For example, a <while-loop> can be defined as
<while-loop> ::= "while" "(" <condition> ")" <statement>
This says that a <while-loop> consists of the word "while", followed by a left parenthesis, followed by
a <condition>, followed by a right parenthesis, followed by a <statement>. Of course, it still
remains to define what is meant by a condition and by a statement. Since a statement can be, among other
things, a while loop, we can already see the recursive structure of the Java language. The exact
specification of an if statement, which is hard to express clearly in words, can be given as
<if-statement> ::=
"if" "(" <condition> ")" <statement>
[ "else" "if" "(" <condition> ")" <statement> ]...
[ "else" <statement> ]
This rule makes it clear that the "else" part is optional and that there can be, optionally, one or more
"else if" parts.
In the rest of this section, I will show how a BNF grammar for a language can be used as a guide for
constructing a parser. A parser is a program that determines the grammatical structure of a phrase in the
language. This is the first step to determining the meaning of the phrase -- which for a programming
language means translating it into machine language. Although we will look at only a simple example, I
hope it will be enough to convince you that compilers can in fact be written and understood by mortals and
to give you some idea of how that can be done.
The parsing method that we will use is called recursive descent parsing. It is not the only possible parsing
method, or the most efficient, but it is the one most suited for writing compilers by hand (rather than with
the help of so called "parser generator" programs). In a recursive descent parser, every rule of the BNF
grammar is the model for a subroutine. Not every BNF grammar is suitable for recursive descent parsing.
The grammar must satisfy a certain property. Essentially, while parsing a phrase, it must be possible to tell
what syntactic category is coming up next just by looking at the next item in the input. Many grammars are
designed with this property in mind.
I should also mention that many variations of BNF are in use. The one that I've described here is one that is
well-suited for recursive descent parsing.
When we try to parse a phrase that contains a syntax error, we need some way to respond to the error. A
convenient way of doing this is to throw an exception. I'll use an exception class called ParseError,
defined as follows:
class ParseError extends Exception {
// Represents a syntax error detected while parsing.
ParseError(String message) {
// Construct a ParseError object containing the
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// given string as its error message.
super(message); // (Call constructor from superclass.)
}
}
Another general point is that our BNF rules don't say anything about spaces between items, but in reality we
want to be able to insert spaces between items at will. To allow for this, I'll always call the following
routine before trying to look ahead to see what's coming up next in input:
static void skipBlanks() {
// Skip over blanks and tabs in standard input.
while ( TextIO.peek() == ' ' || TextIO.peek() == '\t' )
TextIO.getAnyChar();
}
Let's start with a very simple example. A "fully parenthesized expression" can be specified in BNF by the
rules
<expression> ::= <number> |
"(" <expression> <operator> <expression> ")"
<operator> ::= "+" | "-" | "*" | "/"
where <number> refers to any positive real number. An example of a fully parenthesized expression is
"(((34-17)*8)+(2*7))". Since every operator corresponds to a pair of parentheses, there is no
ambiguity about the order in which the operators are to be applied. Suppose we want a program that will
read and evaluate such expressions. We'll read the expressions from standard input, using TextIO. To
apply recursive descent parsing, we need a subroutine for each rule in the grammar. Corresponding to the
rule for <operator>, we get a subroutine that reads an operator. The operator can be a choice of any of
four things. Any other input will be an error.
static char getOperator() throws ParseError {
// If the next character in input is one of the legal operators,
// read it and return it. Otherwise, throw a ParseError.
skipBlanks(); // Skip past any blanks and tabs.
char op = TextIO.peek(); // Look ahead at the next character.
if ( op == '+' || op == '-' || op == '*' || op == '/' ) {
TextIO.getAnyChar(); // Read the character.
return op;
}
else if (op == '\n')
throw new ParseError("Missing operator at end of line.");
else
throw new ParseError("Missing operator. Found \"" +
op + "\" instead of +, -, *, or /.");
} // end getOperator()
I've tried to give a reasonable error message, depending on whether the next character is an end-of-line or
something else. I use TextIO.peek() to look ahead at the next character before I read it, and I call
skipBlanks() before testing TextIO.peek() in order to ignore any blanks that separate items. I will
follow this same pattern in every case.
When we come to the subroutine for <expression>, things are a little more interesting. The rule says
that an expression can be either a number or an expression enclosed in parentheses. We can tell which it is
by looking ahead at the next character. If the character is a digit, we have to read a number. If the character
is a "(", we have to read the "(", followed by an expression, followed by an operator, followed by another
expression, followed by a ")". If the next character is anything else, there is an error. Note that we need
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recursion to read the nested expressions. The routine doesn't just read the expression. It also computes and
returns its value. This requires semantical information that is not specified in the BNF rule.
static double expressionValue() throws ParseError {
// Read an expression from the current line of input and
// return its value.
skipBlanks();
if ( Character.isDigit(TextIO.peek()) ) {
// The next item in input is a number, so the expression
// must consist of just that number. Read and return
// the number.
return TextIO.getDouble();
}
else if ( TextIO.peek() == '(' ) {
// The expression must be of the form
// "(" <expression> <operator> <expression> ")"
// Read all these items, perform the operation, and
// return the result.
TextIO.getAnyChar(); // Read the "("
double leftVal = expressionValue(); // First expression.
char op = getOperator(); // The operator.
double rightVal = expressionValue(); // Second expression.
skipBlanks();
if ( TextIO.peek() != ')' ) {
// According to the rule, there must be a ")" here.
// Since it's missing, throw a ParseError.
throw new ParseError("Missing right parenthesis.");
}
TextIO.getAnyChar(); // Read the ")"
switch (op) { // Apply the operator and return the result.
case '+': return leftVal + rightVal;
case '-': return leftVal - rightVal;
case '*': return leftVal * rightVal;
case '/': return leftVal / rightVal;
default: return 0; // (Actually, this can't occur.)
}
}
else {
throw new ParseError("Encountered unexpected character, \"" +
TextIO.peek() + "\" in input.");
}
} // end expressionValue()
I hope that you can see how this routine corresponds to the BNF rule. Where the rule uses "|" to give a
choice between alternatives, there is an if statement in the routine to determine which choice to take.
Where the rule contains a sequence of items, "(" <expression> <operator> <expression> ")",
there is a sequence of statements in the subroutine to read each item in turn.
When expressionValue() is called to evaluate the expression (((34-17)*8)+(2*7)), it sees the
"(" at the beginning of the input, so the else part of the if statement is executed. The "(" is read. Then the
first recursive call to expressionValue() reads and evaluates the subexpression ((34-17)*8), the
call to getOperator() reads the "+" operator, and the second recursive call to expressionValue()
reads and evaluates the second subexpression (2*7). Finally, the ")" at the end of the expression is read.
Of course, reading the first subexpression, ((34-17)*8), involves further recursive calls to the
expressionValue() routine, but it's better not to think too deeply about that! Rely on the recursion to
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Java Programing: Section 11.5
handle the details.
You'll find a complete program that uses these routines in the file SimpleParser1.java.
Fully parenthesized expressions aren't very natural for people to use. But with ordinary expressions, we
have to worry about the question of operator precedence, which tells us, for example, that the "*" in the
expression "5+3*7" is applied before the "+". The complex expression "3*6+8*(7+1)/4-24" should
be seen as made up of three "terms", 3*6, 8*(7+1)/4, and 24, combined with "+" and "-" operators. A
term, on the other hand, can be made up of several factors combined with "*" and "/" operators. For
example, 8*(7+1)/4 contains the factors 8, (7+1) and 4. This example also shows that a factor can be
either a number or an expression in parentheses. To complicate things a bit more, we allow for leading
minus signs in expressions, as in "-(3+4)" or "-7". (Since a <number> is a positive number, this is the
only way we can get negative numbers. It's done this way to avoid "3 * -7", for example.) This structure
can be expressed by the BNF rules
<expression> ::= [ "-" ] <term> [ ( "+" | "-" ) <term> ]...
<term> ::= <factor> [ ( "*" | "/" ) <factor> ]...
<factor> ::= <number> | "(" <expression> ")"
The first rule uses the "[ ]..." notation, which says that the items that it encloses can occur zero, one,
two, or more times. This means that an <expression> can begin, optionally, with a "-". Then there must
be a <term> which can optionally be followed by one of the operators "+" or "-" and another <term>,
optionally followed by another operator and <term>, and so on. In a subroutine that reads and evaluates
expressions, this repetition is handled by a while loop. An if statement is used at the beginning of the
loop to test whether a leading minus sign is present:
static double expressionValue() throws ParseError {
// Read an expression from the current line of input and
// return its value.
skipBlanks();
boolean negative; // True if there is a leading minus sign.
negative = false;
if (TextIO.peek() == '-') {
TextIO.getAnyChar(); // Read the "-"
negative = true;
}
double val; // Value of the expression.
val = termValue();
if (negative)
val = -val; // Apply the leading "-" operator.
skipBlanks();
while ( TextIO.peek() == '+' || TextIO.peek() == '-' ) {
// There is a "+" or "-" followed by another term.
// Read the next term and add it to or subtract it from
// the value of previous terms in the expression.
char op = TextIO.getAnyChar(); // Read the operator.
double nextVal = termValue(); // Read the next term.
if (op == '+')
val += nextVal;
else
val -= nextVal;
skipBlanks();
}
return val;
} // end expressionValue()
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Java Programing: Section 11.5
The subroutine for <term> is very similar to this, and the subroutine for <factor> is similar to the
example given above for fully parenthesized expressions. A complete program that reads and evaluates
expressions based on the above BNF rules can be found in the file SimpleParser2.java.
Now, so far, we've only evaluated expressions. What does that have to do with translating programs into
machine language? Well, instead of actually evaluating the expression, it would be almost as easy to
generate the machine language instructions that are needed to evaluate the expression. If we are working
with a "stack machine", these instructions would be stack operations such as "push a number" or "apply a +
operation". The program SimpleParser3.java can both evaluate the expression and print a list of stack
machine operations for evaluating the expression. Here is an applet that simulates the program:
Sorry, but your browser
doesn't support Java.
It's quite a jump from this program to a recursive descent parser that can read a program written in Java and
generate the equivalent machine language code -- but the conceptual leap is not huge.
The SimpleParser3 program doesn't actually generate the stack operations directly as it parses an
expression. Instead, it builds an expression tree, as discussed in the previous section, to represent the
expression. The expression tree is then used to find the value and to generate the stack operations. The tree
is made up of nodes belonging to classes ConstNode and BinOpNode that are similar to those given in
the previous section. Another class, UnaryMinusNode, has been introduced to represent the unary minus
operation. I've added a method, printStackCommands(), to each class. This method is responsible for
printing out the stack operations that are necessary to evaluate an expression. Here for example is the new
BinOpNode class from SimpleParser3.java:
class BinOpNode extends ExpNode {
// An expression node representing a binary operator.
char op; // The operator.
ExpNode left; // The expression for its left operand.
ExpNode right; // The expression for its right operand.
BinOpNode(char op, ExpNode left, ExpNode right) {
// Construct a BinOpNode containing the specified data.
this.op = op;
this.left = left;
this.right = right;
}
double value() {
// The value is obtained by evaluating the left and right
// operands and combining the values with the operator.
double x = left.value();
double y = right.value();
switch (op) {
case '+': return x + y;
case '-': return x - y;
case '*': return x * y;
case '/': return x / y;
default: return Double.NaN; // Bad operator!
}
}
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Java Programing: Section 11.5
void printStackCommands() {
// To evaluate the expression on a stack machine, first do
// whatever is necessary to evaluate the left operand,
// leaving the answer on the stack. Then do the same thing
// for the right operand. Then apply the operator (which
// means popping the operands, applying the operator, and
// pushing the result).
left.printStackCommands();
right.printStackCommands();
TextIO.putln(" Operator " + op);
}
} // end class BinOpNode
It's also interesting to look at the new parsing subroutines. Instead of computing a value, each subroutine
builds an expression tree. For example, the subroutine corresponding to the rule for <expression>
becomes
static ExpNode expressionTree() throws ParseError {
// Read an expression from the current line of input and
// return an expression tree representing the expression.
skipBlanks();
boolean negative; // True if there is a leading minus sign.
negative = false;
if (TextIO.peek() == '-') {
TextIO.getAnyChar();
negative = true;
}
ExpNode exp; // The expression tree for the expression.
exp = termTree(); // Start with a tree for first term.
if (negative) {
// Build the tree that corresponds to applying a
// unary minus operator to the term we've
// just read.
exp = new UnaryMinusNode(exp);
}
skipBlanks();
while ( TextIO.peek() == '+' || TextIO.peek() == '-' ) {
// Read the next term and combine it with the
// previous terms into a bigger expression tree.
char op = TextIO.getAnyChar();
ExpNode nextTerm = termTree();
// Create a tree that applies the binary operator
// to the previous tree and the term we just read.
exp = new BinOpNode(op, exp, nextTerm);
skipBlanks();
}
return exp;
} // end expressionTree()
In some real compilers, the parser creates a tree to represent the program that is being parsed. This tree is
called a parse tree. Parse trees are somewhat different in form from expression trees, but the purpose is the
same. Once you have the tree, there are a number of things you can do with it. For one thing, it can be used
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to generate machine language code. But there are also techniques for examining the tree and detecting
certain types of programming errors, such as an attempt to reference a local variable before it has been
assigned a value. (The Java compiler, of course, will reject the program if it contains such an error.) It's also
possible to manipulate the tree to optimize the program. In optimization, the tree is transformed to make the
program more efficient before the code is generated.
AND SO WE END UP back where we started in Chapter 1, looking at programming languages,
compilers, and machine language. But looking at them, I hope, with a lot more understanding and a much
wider perspective. Behind you are all the basics of programming. Ahead are advanced concepts, techniques,
and applications that can take a lifetime to explore and master. I hope that you have enjoyed the journey!
End of Chapter 11
[ Previous Section | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programming, Chapter 11 Exercises
Programming Exercises
For Chapter 11
THIS PAGE CONTAINS programming exercises based on material from Chapter 11 of this on-line Java
textbook. Each exercise has a link to a discussion of one possible solution of that exercise.
Exercise 11.1: The DirectoryList program, given as an example at the end of Section 10.2, will print
a list of files in a directory specified by the user. But some of the files in that directory might themselves be
directories. And the subdirectories can themselves contain directories. And so on. Write a modified version
of DirectoryList that will list all the files in a directory and all its subdirectories, to any level of
nesting. You will need a recursive subroutine to do the listing. The subroutine should have a parameter of
type File. You will need the constructor from the File class that has the form
public File( File dir, String fileName )
// Constructs the File object representing a file
// named fileName in the directory specified by dir.
See the solution!
Exercise 11.2: Make a new version of the sample program WordList.java, from Section 10.3, that stores
words in a binary sort tree instead of in an array.
See the solution!
Exercise 11.3: Suppose that linked lists of integers are made from objects belonging to the class
class ListNode {
int item; // An item in the list.
ListNode next; // Pointer to the next node in the list.
}
Write a subroutine that will make a copy of a list, with the order of the items of the list reversed. The
subroutine should have a parameter of type ListNode, and it should return a value of type ListNode.
The original list should not be modified.
You should also write a main() routine to test your subroutine.
See the solution!
Exercise 11.4: Section 11.4 explains how to use recursion to print out the items in a binary tree in various
orders. That section also notes that a non-recursive subroutine can be used to print the items, provided that a
stack or queue is used as an auxiliary data structure. Assuming that a queue is used, here is an algorithm for
such a subroutine:
Add the root node to an empty queue
while the queue is not empty:
Get a node from the queue
Print the item in the node
if node.left is not null:
add it to the queue
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Java Programming, Chapter 11 Exercises
if node.right is not null:
add it to the queue
Write a subroutine that implements this algorithm, and write a program to test the subroutine. Note that you
will need a queue of TreeNodes, so you will need to write a class to represent such queues.
See the solution!
Exercise 11.5: In Section 11.4, I say that "if the [binary sort] tree is created randomly, there is a high
probability that the tree is approximately balanced." For this exercise, you will do an experiment to test
whether that is true.
The depth of a node in a binary tree is the length of the path from the root of the tree to that node. That is,
the root has depth 0, its children have depth 1, its grandchildren have depth 2, and so on. In a balanced tree,
all the leaves in the tree are about the same depth. For example, in a perfectly balanced tree with 1023
nodes, all the leaves are at depth 9. In an approximately balanced tree with 1023 nodes, the average depth of
all the leaves should be not too much bigger than 9.
On the other hand, even if the tree is approximately balanced, there might be a few leaves that have much
larger depth than the average, so we might also want to look at the maximum depth among all the leaves in
a tree.
For this exercise, you should create a random binary sort tree with 1023 nodes. The items in the tree can be
real numbers, and you can create the tree by generating 1023 random real numbers and inserting them into
the tree, using the usual insert() method for binary sort trees. Once you have the tree, you should
compute and output the average depth of all the leaves in the tree and the maximum depth of all the leaves.
To do this, you will need three recursive subroutines: one to count the leaves, one to find the sum of the
depths of all the leaves, and one to find the maximum depth. The latter two subroutines should have an
int-valued parameter, depth, that tells how deep in the tree you've gone. When you call the routine
recursively, the parameter increases by 1.
See the solution!
Exercise 11.6: The parsing programs in Section 11.5 work with expressions made up of numbers and
operators. We can make things a little more interesting by allowing the variable "x" to occur. This would
allow expression such as "3*(x-1)*(x+1)", for example. Make a new version of the sample program
SimpleParser3.java that can work with such expressions. In your program, the main() routine can't simply
print the value of the expression, since the value of the expression now depends on the value of x. Instead,
it should print the value of the expression for x=0, x=1, x=2, and x=3.
The original program will have to be modified in several other ways. Currently, the program uses classes
ConstNode, BinOpNode, and UnaryMinusNode to represent nodes in an expression tree. Since
expressions can now include x, you will need a new class, VariableNode, to represent an occurrence of
x in the expression.
In the original program, each of the node classes has an instance method, "double value()", which
returns the value of the node. But in your program, the value can depend on x, so you should replace this
method with one of the form "double value(double xValue)", where the parameter xValue is
the value of x.
Finally, the parsing subroutines in your program will have to take into account the fact that expressions can
contain x. There is just one small change in the BNF rules for the expressions: A <factor> is allowed to
be the variable x:
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Java Programming, Chapter 11 Exercises
<factor> ::= <number> | <x-variable> | "(" <expression> ")"
where <x-variable> can be either a lower case or an upper case "X". This change in the BNF requires
a change in the factorTree() subroutine.
See the solution!
Exercise 11.7: This exercise builds on the previous exercise, Exercise 11.6. To understand it, you should
have some background in Calculus. The derivative of an expression that involves the variable x can be
defined by a few recursive rules:
● The derivative of a constant is 0.
● The derivative of x is 1.
● If A is an expression, let dA be the derivative of A. Then the derivative of -A is -dA.
● If A and B are expressions, let dA be the derivative of A and let dB be the derivative of B. Then
1. The derivative of A+B is dA+dB.
2. The derivative of A-B is dA-dB.
3. The derivative of A*B is A*dB + B*dA.
4. The derivative of A/B is (B*dA - A*dB) / (B*B).
For this exercise, you should modify your program from the previous exercise so that it can compute the
derivative of an expression. You can do this by adding a derivative-computing method to each of the node
classes. First, add another abstract method to the ExpNode class:
abstract ExpNode derivative();
Then implement this method in each of the four subclasses of ExpNode. All the information that you need
is in the rules given above. In your main program, you should print out the stack operations that define the
derivative, instead of the operations for the original expression. Note that the formula that you get for the
derivative can be much more complicated than it needs to be. For example, the derivative of 3*x+1 will be
computed as (3*1+0*x)+0. This is correct, even though it's kind of ugly.
As an alternative to printing out stack operations, you might want to print the derivative as a fully
parenthesized expression. You can do this by adding a printInfix() routine to each node class. The
problem of deciding which parentheses can be left out without altering the meaning of the expression is a
fairly difficult one, which I don't advise you to attempt.
(There is one curious thing that happens here: If you apply the rules, as given, to an expression tree, the
result is no longer a tree, since the same subexpression can occur at multiple points in the derivative. For
example, if you build a node to represent B*B by saying "new BinOpNode('*',B,B)", then the left
and right children of the new node are actually the same node! This is not allowed in a tree. However, the
difference is harmless in this case since, like a tree, the structure that you get has no loops in it. Loops, on
the other hand, would be a disaster in most of the recursive subroutines that we have written to process
trees, since it would lead to infinite recursion.)
See the solution!
[ Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programming, Chapter 11 Quiz
Quiz Questions
For Chapter 11
THIS PAGE CONTAINS A SAMPLE quiz on material from Chapter 11 of this on-line Java textbook.
You should be able to answer these questions after studying that chapter. Sample answers to all the quiz
questions can be found here.
Question 1: Explain what is meant by a recursive subroutine.
Question 2: Consider the following subroutine:
static void printStuff(int level) {
if (level == 0) {
System.out.print("*");
}
else {
System.out.print("[");
printStuff(level - 1);
System.out.print(",");
printStuff(level - 1);
System.out.println("]");
}
}
Show the output that would be produced by the subroutine calls printStuff(0), printStuff(1),
printStuff(2), and printStuff(3).
Question 3: Suppose that a linked list is formed from objects that belong to the class
class ListNode {
int item; // An item in the list.
ListNode next; // Pointer to next item in the list.
}
Write a subroutine that will find the sum of all the ints in a linked list. The subroutine should have a
parameter of type ListNode and should return a value of type int.
Question 4: What are the three operations on a stack?
Question 5: What is the basic difference between a stack and a queue?
Question 6: What is an activation record? What role does a stack of activation records play in a computer?
Question 7: Suppose that a binary tree is formed from objects belonging to the class
class TreeNode {
int item; // One item in the tree.
TreeNode left; // Pointer to the left subtree.
TreeNode right; // Pointer to the right subtree.
}
Write a recursive subroutine that will find the sum of all the nodes in the tree. Your subroutine should have
a parameter of type TreeNode, and it should return a value of type int.
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Java Programming, Chapter 11 Quiz
Question 8: What is a postorder traversal of a binary tree?
Question 9: Suppose that a <multilist> is defined by the BNF rule
<multilist> ::= <word> | "(" [ <multilist> ]... ")"
where a <word> can be any sequence of letters. Give five different <multilist>'s that can be
generated by this rule. (This rule, by the way, is almost the entire syntax of the programming language
LISP! LISP is known for its simple syntax and its elegant and powerful semantics.)
Question 10: Explaining what is meant by parsing a computer program.
[ Answers | Chapter Index | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Appendix 1 Index
Appendix 1
From Java to C++
WHEN I WROTE THE FIRST VERSION OF THESE NOTES in 1996, Java was still a very new
programming language. Although it had already caused a lot of excitement, it's long-term prospects were
not entirely clear. Now, in the year 2000, I think it is clear that Java is an important language and will
remain so for the long term. However, it is true at least for now that most "serious" programming is done in
C and C++. Fortunately, these languages share a lot of features with Java. The older language, C, has no
object-oriented features. C++ is a much larger language, which extends C with classes, objects, and other
features. This chapter serves as a brief introduction to C++ for someone who already knows Java. The
coverage here is very incomplete, and is meant only as a starting point for learning about C++.
You'll find that a lot of the basics ("programming in the small") are almost identical in Java and C++.
However, both the programming philosophy and the large-scale structure of programs ("programming in
the large") in C++ are quite different from Java.
In the first and second editions of this text, this material on C++ was a full-fledged chapter in the text
proper, rather than an appendix. It changed very little between the first and second editions, and is
completely unchanged (except for section titles) between the second edition and the third.
Contents of this Appendix:
● Section 1: C++ Programming Fundamentals
● Section 2: Pointers and Arrays in C++
● Section 3: Classes and Objects in C++
[ First Section | Main Index ]
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Java Programing: Appendix 1, Section 1
Appendix 1, Section 1
C++ Programming Fundamentals
WHEN I DECIDED TO TEACH COMPUTER SCIENCE 124 with Java rather than C++, it was with the
knowledge that most students would still have to learn C++ eventually. This is because C++ is still the
major programming language for professional programmers. In addition, it has a number of language
features that Java lacks and that computer science students should be familiar with. However, it was my
feeling that Java would be a superior language for an introductory course, and that in any case much of
what could be covered in an introductory Java programming course would also apply to C++. After two
years of teaching Java and teaching C++ to students who had studied Java as their first programming
language, I think I can say that my experience has confirmed or even exceeded expectations. I might even
go so far as to advise someone whose only goal is to learn C++ to start with Java.
Before beginning, I should note that recently, after eight years of work, a new standard version of C++ has
been released. This new version makes several important changes to the language. It also adds a large,
standard collection of classes called the Standard Template Library. In this chapter, I am talking about the
older version of C++. For example, I say below that C++ has no standard String class. However, in the new
version, the Standard Template Library does provide such a class. (Of course, until everyone actually makes
the switch to the new version, the C++ String class is still not really standardized.)
But before discussing C++, let me mention some of the things that it does not have (even in the new
version). First of all, there is no platform-independent GUI support in C++. A typical first course in C++
might not even mention windows, graphics, or events. In addition, standard C++ does not have built-in
support for threads or asynchronous programming. Nor does it have a standard interface for network
programming. Of course, classes can be written to provide these features in C++. But since they are not
standardized, such classes tend to be platform-dependent so that what you learn about one type of computer
doesn't automatically apply to other computers. They also tend to be more complicated than the versions
available in Java. By using Java, I was able to include these important features of modern computing
environments in a natural way.
But enough propaganda about Java. The rest of this chapter is a very brief overview of C++.
Program Structure
The first thing to know about C++ is that you can write entire, complicated programs without ever using
classes or objects. Whereas in Java everything, even a program's main() routine, must be contained inside
classes, C++ allows free-standing subroutines and variable declarations. The main() routine, in particular,
cannot be a member of a class.
C++ variables and subroutines that are defined outside classes are similar to static variables and subroutines
in Java. For example, they exist for the whole time that the program is running. In C++, such variables and
routines are said to be global or to have global scope. They can be used "globally" inside any subroutine
and even in methods that belong to classes.
However, no variable, class, or subroutine can be use in a C++ program unless it has been declared earlier
in the same file. (This is different from Java, which allows you to use a variable or subroutine that is not
declared until later in the program; of course, Java even allows you to use classes that are defined in other
files, and it will go off and search for them when necessary.) This might seem to require the entire program
to be in one big file, with the main() routine at the end, but that is not the case. To avoid this, C++ uses
header files. A header file contains declarations of variables, subroutines, and classes that are actually
defined in other files. C++ distinguishes carefully between declarations and definitions. The declaration of
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Java Programing: Appendix 1, Section 1
a subroutine, for example, gives only its name, its return type, and its parameter list. The definition of a
subroutine also includes the code that defines the routine. A subroutine or variable must be declared before
it is used in a source code file, but its definition can come later or even in another file. A header file
contains only the declaration, which gives enough information to the compiler for it to check whether the
subroutine or variable is being used legally.
There are many standard header files that declare useful subroutines and classes. For example, the header
file math.h defines mathematical functions such as sin(x) and sqrt(x). (By convention, the name of
a header file ends with ".h".) Another standard header file, iostream.h, defines stream classes that can
be used for doing input and output. To get access to the declarations in a header file, a program must
include the header file. This is done with a #include statement at the beginning of the program. For
example, a program that starts with the statements
#include <math.h>
#include <iostream.h>
will be able to use the mathematical functions and the stream classes. The #include statement is very
similar to the import statement in Java. For example, saying #include <iostream.h< in C++ is
similar to saying import java.io.* in Java. It's often a chore just determining which header files your
program needs.
When you write a large program in C++ and you want to break it up into several pieces, you will generally
have to write two files for each piece: one file that actually defines some subroutines and classes, plus a
header file that declares the same subroutines and classes. Other files that need access to those subroutines
and classes must #include the header file to get access to them.
Types and Variables
C++ has standard types named short, int, long, float, double, and char that are similar to Java's
primitive types with the same name. In C++, however, the exact meaning of these types is not completely
standardized. I can't tell you the range of legal values for ints, for example, because the legal range is
different on different systems. There is no standard byte data type, but char really plays the same role,
since a char in C++ is considered to be simply an 8-bit integer.
C++ does not really have a standard String type that is equivalent to the String type in Java. C++ does
have some support for strings, but they are more difficult to use and they require a knowledge of pointers
and arrays. I'll discuss them in the next section. It is possible to write a String class in C++ that is very
similar to Java's class, and most C++ programmers would probably have access to such a class by
#including a String.h header file. However, you can't depend on this since it's not a standard part of
the language.
Most versions of C++ (including the new standard) use bool as the name of the boolean type, and the
names true and false are used for the values of type bool. However, in C++, true and false are
names for the integers 1 and 0. In fact, an integer can be used wherever a bool value is expected, such as
in an if statement. Any non-zero integer is considered to be true, while zero is false. So, to test
whether the integer N is non-zero, you could say "if (N)..."
I should note that there is a lot more to say about types in C++, since C++ has several different ways to
define new types. Like Java, C++ has class types and array types. But it also has things called pointer types,
structs, enumerated types, and function types. The later three types of types, I won't even mention again.
Variables are declared and initialized in C++ in much the same way as in Java. C++ has global variables
(declared outside subroutines and classes), instance variables in classes (both static and non-static), and
local variables (declared inside subroutines or methods). As in Java, local variables can be declared at any
point in a routine, and are valid only for the block in which they are declared. One big difference is that in
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C++, a variable can actually contain an object, whereas in Java, a variable can only contain a reference to
an object. I'll discuss this further in Section 3.
Control Structures, Assignment Statements, and Expressions
Fortunately, there is very little to say about control structures in C++. Except for a few minor details that
you will probably never encounter in practice, they are the same as in Java. That is, C++ has if statements,
for statements, while loops, do loops, and switch statements that work the same way as their
counterparts in Java. Also, you can use break statements and continue statements in C++, just as in
Java.
The same goes for assignment statements and expressions. All the operators are the same: +, -, *, /, %, ++,
&&, ||, =, +=, and so on. One difference, already noted above, is that the mathematical functions are not
contained in a Math class. Thus, instead of saying y = Math.sqrt(x), you would say simply y =
sqrt(x) (On the other hand, if you want to use the sqrt() function in C++, you have to #include the
header file math.h at the beginning of your program. Whereas the Math class is automatically imported
into every Java program, the math.h header file is not automatically included in a C++ program.)
Input and Output
Like Java, C++ has a standard input stream and a standard output stream for doing console input/output.
The C++ versions are actually much more well-developed than the Java versions, but the syntax for using
them is a bit strange. The standard input stream is called cin, and the standard output stream is called
cout. (The "c" in these names stands for "console.") To use these streams in a program, you must
#include the header file iostream.h.
The syntax for reading a value from the standard input stream into a variable named x is:
cin >> x;
(The double-arrow operation is meant to indicate the direction of flow of information.) Output is similar,
except that the direction of the arrows is reversed. For example,
cout << x;
will output the value of the variable x to the console, and
cout << "Hello World!\n";
will output the message "Hello World!". The new line character, '\n', outputs a carriage return at the end of
the message. You can string several output items into a single statement, like this:
cout << "The square root of " << x << " is " << sqrt(x);
You can do the same thing with cin.
The standard I/O streams are instances of general stream classes called ostream and istream, which
are analogous to Java's PrintStream and to my TextInputStream, respectively.
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Subroutines
Subroutine definitions look pretty much the same in C++ as in Java, except of course that they are not
necessarily found inside classes. The access modifiers public, private, and protected cannot be
used outside classes. The static modifier can be used both inside and outside classes, but outside a class,
it has a completely different meaning than it does inside a class. (It means that the subroutine is for use only
in the file in which it is defined. The word static is grossly overused in C++, with several very different
meanings in different contexts.)
Subroutine call statements and function invocations are also just about identical in Java and in C++.
Every program must have exactly one main() subroutine, and just as in Java, the system runs the program
by calling its main() routine. The exact form of the main routine is not entirely standardized, and often
several forms are acceptable. In some cases, for example, the main routine has return type void, while in
other cases, it has return type int. (The int that is returned by the main routine is sent back to the system
-- which called that routine -- as a status code to indicate whether the program completed successfully or
ended in error.) On a given system, either or both of these formats might be acceptable.
Exception Handling
Although exception handling is not really a " programming fundamental," I mention it in this section
because it is another area in which Java and C++ are very similar. C++ uses try, catch, and throw in
the same way as Java. However, C++ does not allow a finally clause in a try statement, and it does not
have the large number of predefined exception classes that Java has. Since exception handling is a recent
addition to C++, it is still not completely well-integrated into the language. Many of the standard
subroutines, for example, were written before exception handing was introduced, and they use older,
alternative ways to deal with errors.
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Java Programing: Appendix 1, Section 2
Appendix 1, Section 2
Pointers and Arrays in C++
A POINTER IS JUST THE ADDRESS OF SOME location in memory. In Java, pointers play an important role
behind the scenes in the form of references to objects. A Java variable of object type stores a reference to an object,
which is just a pointer giving the address of that object in memory. When you use an object variable in a program,
the computer automatically follows the pointer stored in that variable in order to find the actual object in memory.
Since all this happens automatically, behind the scenes, you really don't have to worry much about the fact that
objects are referenced through pointers.
In C++, everything about pointers becomes explicit. Some variables can store pointers, but only variables that are of
special pointer types. When you use a pointer variable, the computer does not follow the pointer automatically -- if
you want the computer to follow the pointer, you have to use a special notation to tell it to do so. You can create a
new object for a pointer variable to point to, using a "new" operator that is similar to the new operator in Java. But
where Java will dispose of such objects automatically when you are done with them, in C++ you are responsible for
keeping track of objects created with the new operator and disposing of them when they are no longer needed.
Another operator, named delete is provided for doing this. All-in-all, working with explicit pointers is fairly
difficult and error-prone, and it is generally considered to be one of the advanced aspects of programming.
Unfortunately, in C++ there are some pretty basic things that you can't do without using pointers (not unless you use
other advanced features of the language or use a class that someone else has written for you).
Suppose that T is the name of a type in C++. Then there is a pointer type named T* which represents variables that
can hold pointers to objects of type T. C++ allows pointers to values of any type, not just objects. For example, there
is a type int* that represents pointers to integers. A variable of type int* holds the address of a location in
memory; an integer value is stored at that location. Suppose that T is some type and that ptr is a variable of type
T*. When you use ptr in a program, you are referring to the actual pointer, that is, the memory address that is
contained in the variable ptr. To refer to the value that is stored at that address, you would use the notation *ptr.
C++ uses the predefined constant NULL -- all upper case -- as the value of a pointer that doesn't point to anything. It
is an error to refer to *ptr if the value of ptr is NULL.
The notation for defining a variable, ptr, of type T* is:
T *ptr;
Thus, to declare iptr as a variable of type pointer-to-int, you would say:
int *iptr;
The notation "T *ptr" is meant to suggest that the value of *ptr is of type T. But note that the variable that is
being declared is ptr, not *ptr.
The type of a subroutine parameter can be a pointer type. For example, here is a subroutine that will swap the integer
values stored in two memory locations. Its parameters are of type pointer-to-int:
void swap(int *x, int *y) {
int temp;
temp = *x; // copy the value pointed to by x into temp
*x = *y; // copy the value pointed to by y into the
// location pointed to by x
*y = temp; // copy the value in temp into the location
// pointed to by y
}
At the end of this subroutine, x and y still point to the same memory locations, but the values in those locations
have been swapped.
This becomes more interesting once you know about the unary address operator, which is written as &. Suppose that
x is any variable. Then &x is a notation that stands for the memory address of x. That is, &x is a pointer that points
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to x. Consider the following C++ program segment:
int x = 7; // x is an integer variable with initial value 7
int *iptr; // iptr is a variable that can hold a pointer to an int
iptr = &x; // iptr now holds a pointer to x, so that now
// x and *iptr refer to the very same memory location
*iptr += 3; // adds 3 to the value stored in location *iptr
cout << x; // print out the value of x, which is 10
Because *iptr and x refer to the same memory location, adding 3 to *iptr is really the same as adding 3 to the
value of x. So the output value of x in this example is 7 + 3.
Suppose that we combine the address operator with the swap() routine defined above. Consider this example:
int a,b;
a = 17;
b = 42;
swap(&a, &b);
The subroutine call is legal because &a and &b are pointers to integers. That is, they are of type int*, and that is
the same type as the formal parameters of the subroutine. The end result of this example is that the original values of
a and b are swapped. So the final value of a is 42, and the final value of b is 17. Believe it or not, using pointers
and addresses like this is a very common way to write subroutines that can alter the values of variables. (In the C
programming language, it's the only way. C++ provides a somewhat more sightly alternative, which is discussed
below. Note that in Java, it is impossible to write a subroutine that performs the same task as swap(), since there is
no such thing as a pointer-to-int in Java. Of course, you can do similar things with objects and references to objects,
in Java as well as in C++.)
Pointers are probably used most often with classes, but I will put off that discussion to the next section.
References and Passing Parameters by Reference
In C++, it is possible to write a subroutine that can change the value stored in a variable, when that variable is
passed to the subroutine as an actual parameter. Here is a variation of the swap routine that does this:
void swap(int& x, int& y) {
int temp = x;
x = y;
y = temp;
}
The type int& which is specified in this subroutine for the formal parameters x and y is called a reference type. If
T is any type in C++, then you can form a reference type, T&. You can actually declare variables using reference
types, but I have never seen any practical use for them except for formal parameters and occasionally as the return
type of a function. When a formal parameter is declared using a reference type, the parameter is said to be passed by
reference. The effect of passing a parameter by reference is to allow the subroutine to change the value of the actual
parameter. Thus, if the subroutine swap() is defined as above, using pass-by-reference, then the subroutine call
statement swap(a,b) will interchange the values stored in the variables a and b. On the other hand, consider the
subroutine
void failsToSwap(int x, int y) {
int temp = x;
x = y;
y = temp;
}
In this case, a subroutine call statement failsToSwap(a,b) will have no effect at all on the values stored in a
and b. The values of the actual parameters a and b are copied into the formal parameters x and y when the
subroutine is called. The subroutine interchanges the values of x and y, but this has no effect on what's stored in a
and b. In the failsToSwap() subroutine, the parameters are said to be passed by value.
When a parameter is passed by reference, then what's passed to the subroutine is really a reference, or pointer, back
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to the actual parameter. The effect is similar to what was done in the first version of swap(), which passed pointers
explicitly. But in pass-by-reference, the pointers are handled implicitly.
In Java, all parameters are passed by value, and so there is no way to write a subroutine that will swap the values
stored in two integer variables. More generally, in Java, no subroutine can ever change the value stored in a variable
that is passed to the subroutine as an actual parameter. This is kind of a shock to programmers who are used to other
languages. (Be careful: when an object variable is passed as a parameter in Java, the value stored in the variable is a
reference to an object. The values of instance variables in that object can be changed by the subroutine, even though
the reference stored in the variable cannot be changed. When the subroutine ends, the variable will still refer to the
same location in memory, but the values in the object stored at that location might have changed. In a sense, then,
objects are passed by reference in Java, even though variables are not.)
Arrays
Arrays in C++ are superficially similar to arrays in Java. An array is just an indexed list of values, where the index
goes from 0 up to some maximum. But in C++, an array variable is considered to be nothing more than a pointer to
the first element in the array. In fact, array variables and pointer variables can be used interchangeably. For example,
if list is an array variable, then you can use either list[0] or *list to refer to the first item in the array. And
you can use an assignment statement to copy the value of an array variable into a pointer variable.
Arrays can be created in C++ using the new operator, just as in Java. For example, to create an array of 100 ints,
you could say either
int list[] = new int[100];
or
int *list = new int[100];
(Note, however, that the notation for declaring an array variable is "int list[]", not "int[] list". In Java, either notation
would be allowed, but I prefer the latter.)
It is also possible to create arrays without using the new operator:
int list[100]; // declares an array of 100 ints
The main difference is that arrays created with the new operator should eventually be disposed of with the delete
operator, in order to avoid memory leaks. Arrays created with the second notation do not have to be -- and in fact
cannot be -- deleted. Most beginning C++ programmers would probably use arrays for quite a while before they
even learn about the new operator.
Although an array in C++ has some fixed length, the computer does not keep track of that length in any way, and
there is nothing to stop you from trying to refer to array locations that don't even exist. Thus, arrays -- like pointers
in general -- are a common source of bugs in C++ programs.
Strings as Arrays of Characters
Strings in C++ are considered to be arrays of characters. A string, therefore, has type char[]. Since array types
and pointer types are considered to be equivalent, we could also consider a string to be of type char*, that is
pointer to char.
Since a string in C++ is just as array of characters, strings can be manipulated using array notation. For example, if
str is a string variable, then str[i] refers to the i-th character in the string. You can change one of the
characters in a string by using an assignment statement to the appropriate array element. For example, if str is the
string "bit", then the assignment statement str[1]='e' changes the value of str to "bet". (In Java, the i-th
character of a string str is referred to as str.charAt(i), and there is no way to change the characters in a
string.)
In C++, there is no String class, and strings are not objects. So there are no class methods for operating on strings.
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Instead, a large number of subroutines for working with strings are available through a standard header file,
string.h.
Since strings are arrays and since the computer does not keep track of the lengths of arrays, the computer does not
know how long a string is. However, by convention, strings in C++ are assumed to end with a null character (the
character with ASCII code zero). The null character is not really considered to be part of the string. It's there just as
an end-of-string marker. This convention is used when a string variable is initialized. For example, if you say
char *greeting = "Hello World";
the computer creates an array of 12 characters, not just 11, to hold the string. The characters in greeting[0]
through greeting[10] are the characters 'H' through 'd' in the string that you've specified. The computer adds a
null character in the last location, greeting[11], to mark the end of the string.
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Java Programing: Appendix 1, Section 3
Appendix 1, Section 3
Classes and Objects in C++
C++ IS BASED ON AN EARLIER PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE called C. The main distinguishing feature
of C++ is its support for object-oriented programming with classes and objects. (Although, in fact, C++ adds
many other features to C as well.)
Classes in Java are modeled on classes in C++, but with many differences. The most obvious of these is due to
the distinction between declaration and definition in C++. (See Section 1.) In C++, a class has two distinct
components, which can be -- and most often are -- placed in different files. First of all, there is the class
declaration, which is similar to a class in Java except that it omits the definitions of the methods. The class
declaration contains only what are called prototypes for the methods. It also declares any variables that belong to
the class. The class declaration is generally placed in a header file so that it can be used easily by other parts of
the program. The second component of the class consists of the actual definitions of the class's methods. These
definitions are separate from the class declaration, and usually occur in a separate file.
Here, for example, is a simple C++ class declaration:
class SimpleCalc {
// A class for computing some statistics about
// a list of numbers; the numbers are entered
// into the data set one-by-one by calling the
// method enter().
int count; // Number of items that have been entered.
double sum; // The sum of items that have been entered.
double sqSum; // The sum of the squares of all the items
// that have been entered so far.
public: // The following members of the class are
// visible from outside the class.
SimpleCalc(); // Constructor
void enter(double dataItem); // Adds dataItem to the data set.
int getCount(); // Returns the number of items that
// have been entered into the data set.
double getMean(); // Gets the average of the items that
// have been entered so far.
double getSD(); // Gets the standard deviation.
void clear(); // Clears the data set, resets count to zero.
}; // end of declaration of class SimpleCalc
This should look mostly familiar from Java, except for the omission of the bodies of the methods. The syntax for
the "public" modifier is a bit different. Instead of being applied to individual items, the modifiers public,
private and protected apply to groups of items. In the above example, all the methods that follow
"public:" are public. Items at the beginning of a class, before any access modifier is specified, are private
by default. (Also note the semicolon at the end of the class declaration, which is absolutely required. Making this
semicolon optional was one of the things that the designers of Java did right.)
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You can apply the "static" modifier to individual methods and variables in a class, with the same meaning as
in Java. Unfortunately, neither static nor instance variables can be given initial values in a class declaration. (This
is one of Java's more substantial improvements on C++.) Instance variables should be initialized in a constructor.
There is a way to do initialization of static variables, but it has to be done outside the class declaration, as part of
the definition of the class.
By the way, in addition to constructors, a C++ class can contain a special method called a destructor. Just as a
constructor is called automatically by the system when an object is first created, a destructor is called by the
system when the object is destroyed. For an object created with the new operator, this happens when the object is
explicitly deleted with the delete operator. For objects that are not created with the new operator, the system is
responsible for making sure that the object is destroyed at the appropriate time.
The purpose of a destructor is to do any cleanup that is necessary when the object is destroyed (beyond
reclaiming the memory that is occupied by the object, which is being done in any case). For example, the
destructor might close files that were opened in the constructor. Or if the constructor created an object with the
new operator, the destructor can apply the delete operator to that object.
The name for a destructor is the same as the name of the class, preceded by the character '~'. A destructor for the
SimpleCalc class would be named ~SimpleCalc. (Java does not have destructors. However, a class in Java
can contain a "finalizer()" method which serves a similar purpose.)
Now, let's say that the declaration of the class SimpleCalc is in a header file named SimpleCalc.h. To
complete the definition of the class, you would write another file -- probably called SimpleCalc.cpp or
SimpleCalc.cc -- to give the definition of each of the methods in the class. Here's what would go in that file:
#include "SimpleCalc.h"
#include "math.h"
SimpleCalc::SimpleCalc() {
count = 0; // initialize the instance variables
sum = 0;
sqSum = 0;
}
void SimpleCalc::enter(double dataItem) {
count++;
sum += dataItem;
sqSum += dataItem * dataItem;
}
int SimpleCalc::getCount() {
return count;
}
double SimpleCalc::getMean() {
return sum / count;
}
double SimpleCalc::getSD() {
double mean = getMean();
return sqrt( (1.0/count) * (sqSum - count * mean * mean) );
}
void SimpleCalc::clear() {
count = 0;
sum = 0;
sqSum = 0;
}
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The first line of the file might surprise you. To compile the definition of the class methods, the compiler must
know the complete declaration of the class. However, the C++ compiler never goes out and looks for information
-- if it needs to know something that's in another file, then that file must be explicitly #included. So in this
case, the header file SimpleCalc.h, which contains the declaration of the class, must be included.
The second line, which #includes math.h, is required since math.h declares the sqrt function, which is
used later in the file.
The rest of the file consists of definitions for the six methods of SimpleCalc, counting the constructor. The
only surprise here is that the name of each method is preceded by "SimpleCalc::". This identifies the
definition as a method in the class SimpleCalc, rather than an independent subroutine. (The same notation, by
the way, is used to access static members of a class. If SimpleCalc had a static variable named data, then
outside the class it would be called SimpleCalc::data.)
To finish up this example, here is a main program that uses the class, SimpleCalc. This would be in yet
another file, perhaps named main.cpp. Note that it includes the header file SimpleCalc.h, which declares
the class, but it does not include the definitions of the methods in the class, which are defined in the file
SimpleCalc.cpp. These definitions are inside the "black box," and the main program doesn't need to know
them. This program also uses the standard iostream.h header file to get access to the standard input and
output streams, cout and cin.
#include "SimpleCalc.h"
#include "iostream.h"
main() { // Main routine for the program.
// Reads a list of numbers input by the user and
// prints some simple statistics about the data.
SimpleCalc calc; // A SimpleCalc object to keep track
// of the data and compute the statistics.
double x; // A number entered by the user
cout << "Enter some numbers.\n";
cout << "Enter 0 to end.\n";
do {
cout << " ? ";
cin >> x;
if (x != 0)
calc.enter(x);
} while (x != 0);
cout << "You entered " << calc.getCount() << " numbers.\n";
cout << "The average is " << calc.getMean() << ".\n";
cout << "The standard deviation is " << calc.getSD() << ".\n";
}
One important note is that the SimpleCalc object is created without using the new operator. In C++, a variable
of object type, such as calc in this program, holds an object and not just a reference to an object. When such a
variable is declared, an object is constructed and is stored in the variable. If the constructor requires parameters,
they are provided as part of the variable declaration. For example, if the constructor in the class SimpleCalc
required a parameter of type int, the declaration of calc would take this form:
SimpleCalc calc(10);
This is very different from Java. To get behavior more similar to what happens in Java, you have to use pointers
to objects. For example, you could declare a variable pcalc that can hold a pointer to an object of type
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SimpleCalc:
SimpleCalc *pcalc;
In this case, just as in Java, this does not automatically create an object for pcalc to point to. For that you need
the new operator:
pcalc = new SimpleCalc();
One odd thing that happens in C++ is that when you use a pointer to refer to an object, the notation for referring
to instance variables and methods in the object also changes. Since *pcalc is the name of the object, you could
say "(*pcalc).clear()" to refer to the clear() method in the object *pcalc. (The parentheses are
necessary because *pcalc.clear() would be taken to mean *(pcalc.clear()). The '.' operation has higher
precedence than the '*' operation.) The notation (*pcalc).clear() is rarely used, however, because the
alternative notation "pcalc->clear()" is defined to mean the same thing. The operator "->" means "first
follow the pointer to find an object, then access a member of the object.
To have real object-oriented programming, of course, you have to have inheritance and polymorphism.
Inheritance is easy. Just as in Java, you can declare one class to be a subclass of another. For example, to declare
ComplexCalc to be a so-called "public" subclass of SimpleCalc, you would say:
class ComplexCalc : public SimpleCalc {
.
. // (additions and modification to stuff
. // that is inherited from SimpleCalc)
.
}
This would be equivalent to saying in Java that ComplexCalc extends SimpleCalc. Just as in Java,
ComplexCalc inherits everything that is contained in the definition of SimpleCalc and it can modify and
add to what it inherits. (There are also "private" and "protected" subclasses, but I won't try to explain them here.)
Polymorphism, unfortunately, is a bit murky in C++. First of all, polymorphism works only with pointer variables
and variables of reference type, never with variables that contain actual objects. A pointer variable can point to
objects belonging to some specified class or to a subclass of that class. So, you would expect a subroutine call
statement of the form ptr->doSomething() to be polymorphic. That is, you would expect that the
doSomething method that is called will depend on the type of object that ptr is actually pointing to at the
time the statement is executed. However, this will happen only for so-called virtual methods. You can declare a
method to be virtual by adding the modifier virtual to the declaration of the method. What you are saying
when you do this is that the method is meant to be polymorphic. If you think this is confusing, don't worry too
much about it -- I've talked to people who had studied C++ for quite a while and who still could not correctly
explain exactly what virtual means. Just remember that if you want to do real object-oriented programming in
C++, then you have to use pointers and virtual methods. You might also remember this as one more reason to
appreciate Java, where polymorphism is automatic and natural.
This has been just a brief introduction to classes in C++, which have many features that I haven't even mentioned.
More generally, C++ is a very large and complex language, which takes a long time to master. I certainly haven't
told you enough about it to enable you to write serious programs in C++, but I hope I've given you some of the its
general flavor and a sense of how it differs from Java.
End of Appendix 1
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Some Notes on Java Programming Environments
Appendix 2:
Some Notes on Java Programming Environments
EACH TIME I HAVE TAUGHT a course based on this textbook, I have used a different programming
environment: CodeWarrior for Macintosh, Visual J++ for Windows, and the JDK for Linux. Of the three
development environment environments, the JDK was by far the most successful. CodeWarrior and Visual
J++ are examples of integrated development environments. That is, they include a text editor, an interactive
debugger, a compiler, and tools for managing large programming projects. The problem with such
environments in an introductory course is their complexity, which can be overwhelming for a beginner who
is having trouble enough learning the basics of programming. The JDK (Java Development Kit) uses a
command-line interface, in which the user types commands to compile and run Java programs. Although
this interface is a bit alien to students who are used to working with a graphical user interface, I have not
run into any students who had difficulty understanding or using it. Another advantage of the JDK is that it is
free.
In this appendix, I'll give some information and opinion on Java programming environments for Windows,
Macintosh, and Linux/UNIX. I'll concentrate on free software, including the JDK. There is a lot of
redundancy among the sections on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/UNIX. You probably only need to read
one of these sections.
But first, let me describe the computing setup that I use in my courses, since that might be of interest to
other professors.
My department has a small computing lab of its own, with a mixture of Linux, Windows, and Macintosh
computers. The majority of the computers run Linux. The Linux computers use a graphical ("XDM") login
screen and the KDE desktop, which means that they work much the same as Windows or Macintosh from
the user's point of view. The lab is not large enough for introductory programming classes, but students can
log on to the Linux machines in the lab from any Windows computer on campus. For this, we use X-Win32,
from StarNet (www.starnet.com). Using X-Win32, students see the same login screen and desktop as they
see when they work on the machines directly in the lab. (Although X-Win32 is fairly expensive for
commercial use, StarNet has a very reasonable academic pricing policy.) Student home directories are on a
deparmental server, and are accessible from anywhere on campus. The Linux distribution that we use,
currently SuSE 6.1, provides many tools that we use in introductory programming and other courses,
including the JDK, text editors, C++, Lisp, Prolog, and OpenGL (in the form of Mesa).
Sources of Software and Information
If you work in Windows, I suggest that you take a look at burks.brighton.ac.uk. You'll find a large
collection of Windows software that is useful for students of computer science. The collection can be
purchased on a set of cheap CD's, and it is available on-line at http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/index.htm.
(Version 4 of this collection includes the second edition of this textbook. It also has a copy of JDK 1.1.6,
which is suitable for use with this textbook.)
The home site for Java, which was invented by Sun Microsystems, is java.sun.com. For version 1.1 of the
Java Development Kit see http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/. Version 1.2 is at
http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/. (This textbook requires JDK version 1.1 or higher. Version 1.2 is a
much larger download.)
For information about programming in Java on Macintosh computers, see http://developer.apple.com/java/.
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A good general source for Java programming information is www.gamelan.com.
Text Editors
Before you start writing programs, make sure that you have a good text editor. A programmer's text editor
is a very different thing from a word processor. Most important, it saves your work in plain text files and it
doesn't insert extra carriage returns beyond the ones you actually type. A good programmer's text editor will
do a lot more than this. Here are some features to look for:
● Syntax coloring. Shows comments, strings, keywords, etc., in different colors to make the program
easier to read and to help you find certain kinds of errors.
● Function menu. A pop-up menu that lists the functions in your source code. Selecting a function
from this will take you directly to that function in the code.
● Autoindentation. When you indent one line, the editor will indent following lines to match, since
that's what you want more often than not when you are typing a program.
● Parenthesis matching. When you type a closing parenthesis the cursor jumps back to the matching
parenthesis momentarily so you can see where it is. Alternatively, there might be a command that
will hilite all the text between matching parentheses. The same thing works for brackets and braces.
● Indent Block and Unindent Block commands. These commands apply to a hilited block of text.
They will insert or remove spaces at the beginning of each line to increase or decrease the
indentation level of that block of text. When you make changes in your program, these commands
can help you keep the indentation in line with the structure of the program.
● Control of tabs. My advice is, don't use tab characters for indentation. A good editor can be
configured to insert multiple space characters when you press the tab key.
There are many free text editors that have some or all of these features.
For Linux and UNIX, I recommend nedit as a nice editor and one that will be comfortable for people who
are used to GUI programs for Windows and Macintosh. It has all the above features, except a function
menu. If you are using Linux, it is likely that nedit is included in your distribution, although it may not have
been installed by default. It can be downloaded from http://www.nedit.org/ for many UNIX platforms.
Features such as syntax coloring and autoindentation are not turned on by default. You can configure them
in the Options menu. Use the "Save Options" command to make the configuration permanent.
For Macintosh, I recommend BBEdit Lite from Bare Bones Software. BBEdit Lite is a free version of the
excellent text editor, BBEdit. It can be downloaded at http://www.barebones.com/free/bbedit_lite.html. You
can also ftp to ftp://ftp.barebones.com/pub/freeware/ and download BBEdit_Lite_4.6.hqx. This version
requires System 7 or higher. (You will need Stuffit Expander to extract the application from the hqx file.
You probably already have Stuffit Expander, since it comes with most Web browsers. If not, you can
download it from www.aladdinsys.com.) You might also want to download PopupFuncs_2.8.2.hqx from the
same ftp directory. PopupFuncs can be used to add pop-up function menus to BBEdit Lite. Unfortunately,
the free version of BBEdit does not do syntax coloring.
In Windows, I have used Editeur, but it is shareware rather than freeware. (However, I haven't used
Windows enough to have a strong recommendation for an editor.)
Java users on any platform who are using Java 1.3 might want to take a look at JEdit (http://www.jedit.org),
a free advanced programmers text editor written entirely in Java.
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Java for Windows 95 or NT (or later)
If you use the JDK on Windows 95/98, you will be working in DOS command windows, with a
command-line interface. A utility called "doskey", which is included in the standard Windows installation,
will make your life easier. To install it, add the line
doskey
to your autoexec.bat file. The change will take effect when you restart your computer. Once doskey is
installed, when you are working in a DOS command window, you can use the up arrow key to go back to
previous commands that you have typed in that window. Once the command is retrieved, you can edit it, if
you want. Then press return to issue the command again. Since you will often find yourself issuing the
same commands over and over as you compile and run your programs, this can save you a lot of typing.
Note: To edit your autoexec.bat file, select the "Run" command from the "Start" menu. Enter the command
sysedit in the dialog that pops up, and press return. This will open a window where you can edit system
configuration files, including autoexec.bat. Make your change, such as adding the "doskey" command
to this file, and save your changes.
You can download version 1.1 of the JDK for Windows at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/. You might
also want to pick up a copy of the documentation there. JDK 1.1.6 is also available on the Burks site
(http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/index.htm). You should be able to use a later version of the JDK with this
textbook, but not an earlier one. Follow the installation instructions. This will include modifying your
PATH to include the directory that contains the java compiler and interpreter. (On Windows 95/98, you will
have to edit your autoexec.bat file and restart your computer to do this. See the above note about
editing autoexec.bat. You have to add the path for the bin directory of the java installation to the end
of the line that starts "SET PATH=". If there is no such line in the autoexec.bat file, add one. The path
to the bin directory will be something like C:\jdk1.1.6\bin if you used the default JDK installation.
The line in the autoexec.bat file will have the form: "SET
PATH=%PATH%;maybe-other-paths;C:jdk.1.6\bin".)
Make a directory to hold your Java programs. (You might want to have a different subdirectory for each
program that you write.) Create your program with a text editor, or copy the program you want to compile
into your program directory. If the program needs any extra files, don't forget to get them as well. For
example, most of the programs in the early chapters of this textbook require the file TextIO.java. You
should copy this file into the same directory with the main program file that uses it. (Actually, you only
need the compiled file, TextIO.class, to be in the same directory as your program. So, once you have
compiled TextIO.java, you can just copy the class file to any directories where you need it.)
If you have downloaded a copy of this textbook, you can simply copy the files you need from the source
directory that is part of the download. If you haven't downloaded the textbook, you can open the source file
in a Web browser and the use the Web browser's "Save" command to save a copy of the file. Another way
to get Java source code off a Web browser page is to hilite the code on the page, use the browser's "Copy"
command to place the code on the Clipboard, and then "Paste" the code into your text editor. You can use
this last method when you want to get a segment of code out of the middle of a Web browser page.
To use the JDK, you will have to work in a DOS window, using a command-line interface. Open a DOS
Window and change to the directory that contains your Java source code files. (Tip: In Windows 95/98,
open a directory window for the directory, then select the "Run" command from the "Start" menu, enter
"command" in the dialog window that pops up, and press return. A DOS window will open that is all set for
working in the directory shown in the directory window.)
The "javac" command is used for compiling Java source code files. For example, to compile the Java source
code file named SourceFile.java, use the command
javac SourceFile.java
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You must be working in the directory that contains the file. If the source code file does not contain any
syntax errors, this command will produce one or more compiled class files. If the compiler finds any syntax
errors, it will list them. Note that not every message from the javac compiler is an error. In some cases, it
generates "warnings" that will not stop it from compiling the program. If the compiler finds errors in the
program, you can edit the source code file and try to compile it again. Note that you can keep the source
code file open in a text editor in one window while you compile the program in a DOS window. Then, it's
easy to go back to the editor to edit the file. However, when you do this, don't forget to save the
modifications that you make to the file before you try to compile it again! (Some text editors can be
configured to issue the compiler command for you, so you don't even have to leave the text editor to run the
compiler.)
If your program contains more than a few errors, most of them will scroll out of the window before you see
them. In Windows NT only, but not Windows 95/98, yoiu can save the errors in a file which you can
view later in a text editor. Use the command such as
javac SourceFile.java >& errors.txt
The ">& errors.txt" redirects the output from the compiler to the file, instead of to the DOS window. For
Windows 95/98 I've written a little Java program that will let you do much the same thing. See the source
code for that program, cef.java, for instructions.
It is possible to compile all the Java files in a directory at one time. Use the command "javac *.java".
(By the way, all these compilation commands only work if the classes you are compiling are in the "default
package". This means that they will work for any example from this textbook.)
Once you have your compiled class files, you are ready to run your application or applet. If you are running
a stand-alone application -- one that has a main() routine -- you can use the "java" command from the
JDK to run the application. If the class file that contains the main() routine is named Main.class, then
you can run the program with the command:
java Main
Note that this command uses the name of the class, "Main", not the full name of the class file, "Main.class".
This command assumes that the file "Main.class" is in the current directory, and that any other class files
used by the main program are also in that directory. You do not need the Java source code files to run the
program, only the compiled class files. (Again, all this assumes that the classes you are working with are in
the "default package".)
If your program is an applet, then you need an HTML file to run it. See Section 6.2 for information about
how to write an HTML file that includes an applet. As an example, the following code could be used in an
HTML file to run the applet "MyApplet.class":
<applet code="MyApplet.class" width=300 height=200>
</applet>
The "appletviewer" command from the JDK can then be used to view the applet. If the file name is
test.html, use the command
appletviewer test.html
This will only show the applet. It will ignore any text or images in the HTML file. In fact, all you really
need in the HTML file is a single applet tag, like the example shown above. The applet will be run in a
resizable window, but you should remember that many of the applet examples in this textbook assume that
the applet will not be resized. Note also that your applet can use standard output, System.out, to write
messages to the DOS window. This can be useful for debugging your applet.
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Of course, it's also possible to open the HTML file in a Web browser, such as Netscape or Internet
Explorer. One problem with this is that if you make changes to the applet, you have to actually quit the
browser and restart it in order to get the changes to take effect. The browser's Reload command might not
cause the modified applet to be reloaded.
Java for Macintosh
The Apple Computer company has a free Software Development Kit (SDK) for Java. This SDK includes
Apple's versions of the compiler from the JDK. To use the SDK, you also need to have a copy of the MRJ
(Macintosh Runtime for Java) installed on your computer. The MRJ includes a Java interpreter for running
Java applications and applets. If you have a recent version of the MacOS, the MRJ might already be
installed. If not, you can download it from Apple's Java Web site at http://www.apple.com/java/. The SDK
can be downloaded from the FTP directory at
ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Development_Kits/
At the time I am writing, the latest version is MRJ_SDK_2.2_Install.sit.hqx. For more links and full
information on developing Java programs on Macintosh, see http://developer.apple.com/java/.
You'll need access to three programs from the MRJ and SDK. I suggest that you make aliases to these
programs and leave the aliases on your desktop. (To make an alias, click once on the program icon to hilite
it. Choose the "Make Alias" command from the file menu. This will create an icon for the alias. Drag this
icon onto your desktop.) The programs you need are:
● Apple Applet Runner. You will find this in the "Mac OS Runtime For Java" folder inside a
sub-folder named "Apple Applet Runner".
● javac. This is part of the SDK. It is in a folder called "JDK Tools" which is itself inside a folder
called "Tools".
● JBindary. This is also part of the SDK. You'll find it inside a folder called "JBindary".
Make a folder to hold your Java programs. (You might want to have a different folder for each program that
you write.) Create your program with a text editor, or copy the program you want to compile into your
program folder. If the program needs any extra files, don't forget to get them as well. For example, most of
the programs in the early chapters of this textbook require the file TextIO.java. You should copy this
file into the same folder with the main program file that uses it.
If you have downloaded a copy of this textbook, you can simply copy the files you need from the source
folder that is part of the download. If you haven't downloaded the textbook, you can open the source file in
a Web browser and the use the Web browser's "Save" command to save a copy of the file. Another way to
get Java source code off a Web browser page is to hilite the code on the page, use the browser's "Copy"
command to place the code on the Clipboard, and then "Paste" the code into your text editor. You can use
this last method when you want to get a segment of code out of the middle of a Web browser page.
To compile a Java source code file drag the file onto the javac program icon (or an alias for this program).
If the file you are compiling depends on other source code files, select them all and drag them all onto the
javac icon. For example, if your program uses TextIO, you should drag both TextIO.java and the
source file for the main program onto the javac icon. (To select multiple files, hold down the Shift key as
you click on the second, third, ... files.) A dialog window will open. It should show the names of the source
code files in a box on the upper left. Click the "Do Javac" button in this window. This will do the
compilation. A message window will open with messages from the compiler. If your program contains any
syntax errors, they will be listed in the message window. You can then edit the file and try to compile it
again. Note that you can keep the text editor window and the javac window open at the same time. After
making changes to the program with the text editor, save your work and hit the "Do Javac" button again.
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Once you have the compiled class files, you can run your program. If the program is a stand-alone
application, with a main() routine, you can run it with JBindary. Drag the compiled class file that contains
the main() routine onto the JBindary icon (or an alias). Even if the main program depends on other
classes, you only have to drag one file onto the icon. (However, the other class files must be in the same
directory with the main class file.) A window should open that shows the name of your main class in a box
at the upper left. This window also has two pop-up menus for "redirecting" Standard Input and Standard
Output. For programs that use TextIO, make sure that both of these pop-up windows are set to the
"Message Window". Click the "Run" button to run your program. A separate "Message Window" will open
for doing standard input and output, if your program uses them.
If your program is an applet, then you need an HTML file to run it. See Section 6.2 for information about
how to write an HTML file that includes an applet. As an example, the following code could be used in an
HTML file to run the applet "MyApplet.class":
<applet code="MyApplet.class" width=300 height=200>
</applet>
To run the applet, drag the HTML file onto the Apple Applet Runner icon (or an alias).
This will only show the applet. It will ignore any text or images in the HTML file. In fact, all you really
need in the HTML file is a single applet tag, like the example shown above. The applet will be run in a
resizable window, but you should remember that many of the applet examples in this textbook assume that
the applet will not be resized. Note also that your applet can use standard output, System.out, to write
messages. These will appear in a separate "Message Window". This can be very useful for debugging.
Java for Linux/UNIX
Hopefully, Java is already installed on your UNIX or Linux system -- or at least is available on your
installation disks. For Solaris and some versions of Linux, you can download the JDK from
http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/. Version 1.1 of the JDK for Solaris, but not Linux, is available at
http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/. You can also check the Blackdown organization at
www.blackdown.org. They produced a port of Java to Linux.
Make a directory to hold your Java programs. (You might want to have a different subdirectory for each
program that you write.) Create your program with a text editor such as nedit, or copy the program you
want to compile into your program directory. If the program needs any extra files, don't forget to get them
as well. For example, most of the programs in the early chapters of this textbook require the file
TextIO.java. You should copy this file into the same directory with the main program file that uses it.
(Actually, you only need the compiled file, TextIO.class, to be in the same directory as your program.
So, once you have compiled TextIO.java, you can just copy the class file to any directories where you
need it.)
If you have downloaded a copy of this textbook, you can simply copy the files you need from the source
directory that is part of the download. If you haven't downloaded the textbook, you can open the source file
in a Web browser and the use the Web browser's "Save" command to save a copy of the file. Another way
to get Java source code off a Web browser page is to hilite the code on the page, use the browser's "Copy"
command to place the code on the Clipboard, and then "Paste" the code into your text editor. You can use
this last method when you want to get a segment of code out of the middle of a Web browser page.
You will need a command-line interface to work with the JDK commands. If you are working with a
graphical user interface, open an xterm (or other command-line window). Of course, you need the GUI to
run Java applets. Change to the directory that contains your Java source code files.
The "javac" command is used for compiling Java source code files. For example, to compile the Java source
code file named SourceFile.java, use the command
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javac SourceFile.java
You must be working in the directory that contains the file. If the source code file does not contain any
syntax errors, this command will produce one or more compiled class files. If the compiler finds any syntax
errors, it will list them. You should have some way of scrolling back to see the first errors in the list. Note
that not every message from the javac compiler is an error. In some cases, it generates "warnings" that will
not stop it from compiling the program. If the compiler finds errors in the program, you can edit the source
code file and try to compile it again. Note that you can keep the source code file open in a text editor in one
window while you compile it in another. Then, it's easy to go back to the editor to edit the file. However,
when you do this, don't forget to save the modifications that you make to the file before you try to compile
it again!
It is possible to compile all the Java files in a directory at one time. Use the command "javac *.java".
(By the way, all these compilation commands only work if the classes you are compiling are in the "default
package". This means that they will work for any example from this textbook.)
Once you have your compiled class files, you are ready to run your application or applet. If you are running
a stand-alone application -- one that has a main() routine -- you can use the "java" command from the
JDK to run the application. If the class file that contains the main() routine is named Main.class, then
you can run the program with the command:
java Main
Note that this command uses the name of the class, "Main", not the full name of the class file, "Main.class".
This command assumes that the file "Main.class" is in the current directory, and that any other class files
used by the main program are also in that directory. You do not need the Java source code files to run the
program, only the compiled class files. (Again, all this assumes that the classes you are working with are in
the "default package".)
If your program is an applet, then you need an HTML file to run it. See Section 6.2 for information about
how to write an HTML file that includes an applet. As an example, the following code could be used in an
HTML file to run the applet "MyApplet.class":
<applet code="MyApplet.class" width=300 height=200>
</applet>
The "appletviewer" command from the JDK can be used to view an applet from an HTML file. If the file
name is test.html, use the command
appletviewer test.html
This will only show the applet. It will ignore any text or images in the HTML file. In fact, all you really
need in the HTML file is a single applet tag, like the example shown above. The applet will be run in a
resizable window, but you should remember that many of the applet examples in this textbook assume that
the applet will not be resized. Note also that your applet can use standard output, System.out, to write
messages to the command-line window. This can be useful for debugging your applet.
[ Main Index ]
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Java Source Code
Introduction to Programming Using Java, Third Edition
Source Code
THIS PAGE CONTAINS LINKS to the source code for examples appearing in the free, on-line textbook
Introduction to Programming Using Java, which is available at http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/. You should
be able to compile these files and use them. Note however that some of these examples depend on other
classes, such as TextIO.class and MosaicFrame.class. To use examples that depend on other classes, you
will need to compile the source code for the required classes and place the compiled classes in the same
directory with the main class file. If you are using an integrated development environment such as
CodeWarrior or Visual J++, you can simply add any required source code files to your project. See
Appendix 2 for more information on Java programming environments and how to use them to compile and
run these examples.
Most of the solutions to end-of-chapter exercises are not listed on this page. Each end-of-chapter exercise
has its own Web page, which discusses its solution. The source code of a sample solution of each exercise
is given in full on the solution page for that exercise. If you want to compile the solution, you should be
able to cut-and-paste the solution out of a Web browser window and into a text editing program. (You can't
cut-and-paste from the HTML source of the solution page, since it contains extra HTML markup commands
that the Java compiler won't understand.)
Part 1: Text-oriented Examples from the Text
Many of the sample programs in the text are based on console-style input/output, where the computer and
the user type lines back and forth to each other. Some of these programs use the standard output object,
System.out, for output. Most of them use my non-standard class, TextIO for both input and output.
The programs are stand-alone applications, not applets, but I have written applets that simulate many of the
programs. These "console applets" appear on the Web pages that make up the text. The following list
includes links to the source code for each applet, as well as links to the source code of the programs that the
applets simulate. All of the console applets depend on classes defined in the files ConsoleApplet.java,
ConsolePanel.java, and ConsoleCanvas.java. Most of the standalone programs depend on the TextIO class,
which is defined in TextIO.java.
● ConsoleApplet.java, a basic class that does the HelloWorld program in Section 2.1. (The other
console applets, below, are defined as subclasses of ConsoleApplet.)
● Interest1Console.java, the first investment example, from Section 2.2. Simulates Interest.java.
● TimedComputationConsole.java, which does some simple computations and reports how long they
take, from Section 2.3. Simulates TimedComputation.java.
● PrintSquareConsole.java, the first example that does user input, from Section 2.4. Simulates
PrintSquare.java.
● Interest2Console.java, the second investment example, with user input, from Section 2.4. Simulates
Interest2.java.
● Interest3Console.java, the third investment example, from Section 3.1. Simulates Interest3.java.
● ThreeN1Console.java, the "3N+1" program from Section 3.2. Simulates ThreeN1.java
● ComputeAverageConsole.java, which finds the average of numbers entered by the user, from
Section 3.3. Simulates ComputeAverage.java
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● CountDivisorsConsole.java, which finds the number of divisors of an integer, from Section 3.4.
Simulates CountDivisors.java
● ListLettersConsole.java, which lists all the letters that occur in a line of text, from Section 3.4.
Simulates ListLetters.java
● LengthConverterConsole.java, which converts length measurements between various units of
measure, from Section 3.5. Simulates LengthConverter.java
● PrintProduct.java, which prints the product of two numbers from Section 3.7. (This was given as an
example of writing console applets, and it does not simulate any stand-alone program example.)
● GuessingGameConsole.java, the guessing game from Section 4.2. Simulates GuesingGame.java. A
slight variation of this program, which reports the number of games won by the user, is
GuesingGame2.java.
● RowsOfCharsConsole.java, a useless program that illustrates subroutines from Section 4.3.
Simulates RowsOfChars.java.
● TheeN2Console.java, an improved 3N+1 program from Section 4.4. Simulates ThreeN2.java
● RollTwoPairsConsole.java rolls two pairs of dice until the totals come up the same, from Section
5.2. Simulates RollTwoPairs.java. The applet and program use the class PairOfDice.java.
● HighLowConsole.java plays a simple card game, from Section 5.3. Simulates HighLow.java. The
applet and program use the classes Card.java and Deck.java. (The Deck class uses arrays, which are
not covered until Chapter 8.)
● BlackjackConsole.java lets the user play a game of Blackjack, from the exercises for Chapter 5.
Uses the classes Card.java, Hand.java, BlackjackHand.java and Deck.java.
● BirthdayProblemConsole.java is a small program that uses arrays, from Section 8.2. Simulates
BirthdayProblemDemo.java.
● ReverseIntsConsole.java demonstrates a dynamic array of ints by printing a list of input numbers in
reverse order, from Section 8.3. Simulates ReverseWithDynamicArray.java, which uses the
dynamic array class defined in DynamicArrayOfInt.java. A version of the program that uses an
ordinary array of ints is ReverseInputNumbers.java.
● LengthConverter2Console.java, an improved version of LengthConverterConsole.java. It converts
length measurements between various units of measure. From Section 9.2. Simulates
LengthConverter2.java
● LengthConverter3.java is a version of the previous program, LengthConverter2.java, which uses
exceptions to handle errors in the user's input. From the user's point of view, the behavior of
LengthConverter3 is identical to that of LengthConverter2, so I didn't include an applet version in
the text. From Section 9.4.
● ReverseFile.java, a program that reads a file of numbers and writes another file containing the same
numbers in reverse order. From Section 10.2. This file depends on TextReader.java. Since applets
cannot manipulate files, there is no applet version of this program.
● WordList.java, a program that makes a list of the words in a file and outputs the words to another
file. From Section 10.3. Depends on TextReader.java. There is no applet version of this program.
● CopyFile.java, a program that copies a file. The input and output files are specified as command line
arguments. From Section 10.3. There is no applet version of this program.
● Two pairs of command-line client/server network applications from Section 10.5: DateServe.java
and DateClient.java; CLChatServer.java and CLChatClient.java. There are no corresponding
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applets.
● TowersOfHanoiConsole.java, a console applet that gives a very simple demonstration of recursion,
from Section 11.1.
● ListDemoConsole.java demonstrates the list class that is defined in StringList.java, from Section
11.2. Simulates ListDemo.java.
● PostfixEvalConsole.java uses a stack to evaluate postfix expressions, from Section 11.3. The stack
class is defined in NumberStack.java. Simulates PostfixEval.java.
● SortTreeConsole.java demonstrates some subroutines that process binary sort trees, from Section
11.4. Simulates SortTreeDemo.java.
● SimpleParser3Console.java reads expressions entered by the user and builds expression trees to
represent them. From Section 11.5. Simulates SimpleParser3.java. Related programs, which
evaluate expression without building expression trees, are SimpleParser1.java and
SimpleParser2.java.
Part 2: Graphical Examples from the Text
● GUIDemo.java, a simple GUI demo applet from Section 1.6. (You won't be able to understand the
source code until you read Chapters 6 and 7.)
● StaticRects.java, a rather useless applet from Section 3.7 that just draws a set of nested rectangles.
● MovingRects.java, the sample animation applet from Section 3.7. (This depends on
SimpleAnimationApplet.java.)
● RandomMosaicWalk.java, a standalone program that displays a window full of colored squares with
a moving disturbance, from Section 4.6. (This depends on MosaicCanvas.java and Mosaic.java.)
The applet version of the random walk, which is shown on the web page, is
RandomMosaicWalkApplet.java. The source code for the applet uses some advanced techniques.
● RandomMosaicWalk2.java is a version of the previous program, RandomMosaicWalk.java,
modified to use a few named constants. From Section 4.7.
● ShapeDraw.java, the applet with dragable shapes, from Section 5.4. This file defines six classes.
You won't be able to understand everything in this file until you've read Chapters 6 and 7.
● HelloWorldApplet.java, the utterly basic first sample applet, from Section 6.1.
● ColoredHelloWorldApplet.java, the first sample applet that uses a button, from Section 6.1.
● ColorChooserApplet.java, an applet for investigating RGB and HSB colors. This applet uses some
techniques that are not covered until Chapter 7. From Section 6.3.
● RandomStrings.java, which draws randomly colored and positioned strings, from Section 6.3.
● ClickableRandomStrings.java, an extension of the previous applet in which the applet is redrawn
when the user clicks it with the mouse, from Section 6.4.
● SimpleStamper.java, a basic demo of MouseEvents, from Section 6.4.
● SimpleTrackMouse.java, which displays information about mouse events, from Section 6.4.
● SimplePaint.java, a first attempt at a paint program in which the user can select colors and draw
curves, from Section 6.4.
● KeyboardAndFocusDemo.java, which demos keyboard events, from Section 6.5.
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● SubKillerGame.java, a simple arcade-style game, from Section 6.5. This applet is based on
KeyboardAnimationApplet.java, which uses some advanced techniques.
● ColoredHelloWorldApplet2.java, an applet that introduces a simple layout, consisting of a drawing
canvas with a bar of control buttons, from Section 6.6. This applet depends on
ColoredHelloWorldCanvas.java.
● HighLowGUI.java, a simple card game, from Section 6.5. This file defines two classes used by the
applet. The program also depends on Card.java, Hand.java, and Deck.java
● SimplePaint2.java, a second attempt at a paint program in which the user can select colors and draw
curves, from Section 6.5. This file defines two classes that are used by the applet.
● HighLowGUI2.java, a version of the simple card game, HighLowGUI.java. This version gets
pictures of cards from an image file. From Section 7.1.
● DoubleBufferedDrag.java and NonDoubleBufferedDrag.java, two little applets that demonstrate
double buffering. In the first, double buffering is used to implement smooth dragging. From Section
7.1.
● RubberBand.java, a little applet illustrating rubber band cursors, implemented using XOR painting
mode, from Section 7.1.
● SimplePaint3.java, an improved paint program that uses XOR mode and an off-screen canvas, from
Section 7.1.
● LayoutDemo.java, which demos a variety of layout managers, from Section 7.2.
● EventDemo.java, which demonstrates various GUI components, from Section 7.3.
● ShapeDrawWithMenu.java, an extended version of ShapeDraw.java that uses a pop-up menu, from
Section 7.3.
● RGBColorChooser.java, a simplified version of ColorChooserApplet.java that lets the user select a
color with three scroll bars that control the RGB components, from Section 7.4.
● SimpleCalculator.java, which lets the user do arithmetic operations using TextFields and Buttons,
from Section 7.4.
● StopWatch.java and MirrorLabel.java, two small custom component classes, and
ComponentTest.java, an applet that tests them. From Section 7.4.
● NullLayoutDemo.java, which demonstrates how to do your component layout instead of using a
layout manager, from Section 7.4.
● BlinkingHelloWorld1.java, an applet that blinks a message when the user clicks on a button, from
Section 7.5. This is the first example of using a thread. This applet depends on
ColoredHelloWorldCanvas.java.
● BlinkingHelloWorld2.java, an applet that blinks a message when the user clicks on a button and
stops when the user clicks again, from Section 7.5. This is the first example of communication
between two threads. This applet depends on ColoredHelloWorldCanvas.java.
● ScrollingHelloWorld.java, an applet that scrolls a message, from Section 7.5. This is the first
example of using synchronization with the wait() and notify() methods.
● RandomColorGrid.java, which uses nested and anonymous classes, from Section 7.6.
● ShapeDrawFrame.java, another version of ShapeDraw that uses a Frame, with a menu bar, instead
of an applet. From Section 7.7. The ShapeDrawFrame class contains a main() routine and can
be run as an application. The applet ShapeDrawLauncher.java, merely displays a button. When you
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click on the button, a ShapeDrawFrame window is opened.
● MessageDialog.java, a class for displaying modal dialogs that contain a message and one, two, or
three buttons. From Section 7.7. The applet DialogDemoLauncher.java is a button that opens a
frame that runs a little demo of the MessageDialog class.
● RandomStringsWithArray.java, which draws randomly colored and positioned strings and uses an
array to remember what it has drawn, from Section 8.2.
● SimpleDrawRects.java, in which the user can place colored rectangles on a canvas and drag them
around, from Section 8.3. This simplified shape-drawing program is meant to illustrate the use of
vectors. The file also defines a reusable custom component, RainbowPalette.
● Checkers.java, which lets two people play checkers against each other, from Section 8.5. At 710
lines, this is a relatively large program.
● TrivialEdit.java, a standalone application which lets the user edit short text files, from Section 10.3.
This program depends on TextReader.java and MessageDialog.java.
● ShapeDrawWithFiles.java, a final version of ShapeDraw.java that uses files to save and reload the
designs created with the program. This version is an independent program, not as an applet. It
depends on the file MessageDialog.java. It is described at the end of Section 10.3.
● URLExampleApplet.java, an applet that reads data from a URL, from Section 10.4.
● ConnectionWindow.java, a Frame that supports chatting between two users over the network, from
Section 10.5. This class depends on TextReader.java.
● BrokeredChat.java, an applet that sets up chat connections that use the previous example,
ConnectionWindow.java. There is a server program, ConnectionBroker.java, which must be running
on the computer from which the Web page containing the applet was downloaded. (The server keeps
a list of available "chatters" for the applet.) From Section 10.5.
● Blobs.java, an applet that demonstrates recursion, from Section 11.1.
● DepthBreadth.java, an applet that uses stacks and queues, from Section 11.3.
Part 3: End-of-Chapter Applets
This section contains the source code for the applets that are used as decorations at the end of each chapter.
In general, you should not expect to be able to understand these applets at the time they occur in the text.
Many of them use rather advanced techniques. By the time you finish the course, you should know enough
to read the sources for these applets and hopefully learn something from them.
1. Moire.java, an animated design, shown at the end of Section 1.7. (You can use applet parameters to
control various aspects of this applet's behavior. Also note that you can click on the applet and drag
the pattern around by hand. See the source code for details.)
2. JavaPops.java, and applet that shows multi-colored "Java!"s, from the end of Section 2.5. (This
depends on SimpleAnimationApplet.java.)
3. MovingRects.java, the sample animation applet from Section 3.7. (This depends on
SimpleAnimationApplet.java.) This is also listed above, as one of the graphical examples from the
text.
4. RandomBrighten.java, showing a grid of colored squares that get more and more red as a wandering
disturbance visits them, from the end of Section 4.7. (Depends on MosaicCanvas.java.) (Another
applet that shows an animation based on MosaicCanvas.java is MosaicStrobeApplet.java, the applet
version of the solution to one of the exercises for Chapter 4.)
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5. SymmetricBrighten.java, a subclass of the previous example that makes a symmetric pattern, from
the end of Section 5.5. Depends on MosaicCanvas.java and RandomBrighten.java.
6. TrackLines.java, an applet with lines that track the mouse, from Section 6.7. This applet uses Java
1.0 style event handling.
7. KaleidaAnimate.java, an applet that shows symmetric, kaleidoscope-like animations, from Section
7.8. Depends on SimpleAnimationApplet.java.
8. Maze.java, an applet that creates a random maze and solves it, from Section 8.5.
9. SimpleCA.java, a Cellular Automaton applet, from the end of Section 9.4. This applet depends on
the file CACanvas.java. For more information on cellular automata see
http://math.hws.edu/xJava/CA/.
10. TowersOfHanoi.java, an animation of the solution to the Towers of Hanoi problem for a tower of
ten disks, from the end of Section 10.5.
11. LittlePentominosApplet.java, the pentominos applet from the end of Section 11.5. This file defines
two classes, LittlePentominosApplet and PentominosBoardCanvas. A pentomino is made up of five
connected squares. This applet solves puzzles that involve filling a board with pentominos. If you
click on the applet it will start a new puzzle. For more information see
http://math.hws.edu/eck/xJava/PentominosSolver/ where you'll also find the big brother of this little
applet. This applet uses the old-fashioned Java 1.0 style event-handling.
Part 4: Required Auxiliary Files
This section lists many of the extra source files that are required by various examples in the previous
sections, along with a description of each file. The files listed here are those which are general enough to be
useful in other programming projects.
● TextIO.java which defines a class containing some static methods for doing input/output. These
methods make it easier to use the standard input and output streams, System.in and System.out. The
TextIO class defined in this file will be useless on a system that does not implement standard
input. In that case, try using the following file instead.
● TextIO-GUI.java defines an alternative version of the TextIO class. It defines the same set of input
and output routines as the original version of TextIO. But instead of using standard I/O, it opens
its own window, and all the input/output is done in that window. Please read the comments at the
beginning of the file.
● ConsoleApplet.java, a class that can be used as a framework for writing applets that do console-style
input/output. To write such an applet, you have to define a subclass of ConsoleApplet. See the
source code for details. Many examples of applets created using ConsoleApplet are available above.
Any project that uses this class also requires ConsolePanel.java and ConsoleCanvas.java.
● ConsolePanel.java, a support class that is required by any project that uses ConsoleApplet.
● ConsoleCanvas.java, a support class that is required by any project that uses ConsoleApplet.
● SimpleAnimationApplet.java, a class that can be used as a framework for writing animated applets.
To use the framework, you have to define a subclass of SimpleAnimationApplet. Section 3.7 has an
example.
● KeyboardAnimationApplet.java, a class that can be used as a framework for writing animated
applets, which the user can interact with by using the keyboard. This framework can be used for
simple arcade-style games, such as the SubKiller game in Section 6.5. To use the framework, you
have to define a subclass of KeyboardAnimationApplet.
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● Mosaic.java which let's you write programs that work with a window full of rows and columns of
colored rectangles. MosaicFrame.java depends on MosaicCanvas.java. There is an example in
Section 4.6.
● MosaicCanvas.java, a subclass of the built-in Canvas class that implements a grid of colored
rectangles.
● MessageDialog.java, a class for displaying modal dialogs that contain a message and one, two, or
three buttons. From an example in Section 7.7.
● Expr.java, a class for working with mathematical expressions that can include the variable x and
mathematical functions such as sin and sqrt. This class was used in Exercise 9.4.
● TextReader.java, a class that can be used to read data from text files and other input streams. From
Section 10.1.
David Eck (eck@hws.edu), May 2000
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Java Programming: News
Introduction to Programming Using Java, Third Edition
Final "News" page for Version 3.1
THIS PAGE LISTS some news items about this textbook. No further changes or corrections will be made
in Version 3.1 of this textbook. A newer edition of the book is available on-line at
http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/.
News
● June,2004. A final corrected edition of Version 3.1 of this textbook has been released, incorporating
corrections that were made since the original release of Version 3.1. It is available at
http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes3/. There will be no further changes to this version of the
book. A list of changes made since the original Version 3.1 can be found in the old errata page.
The newest version of the book is always available at http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/.
● July 16, 2002. A new Fourth Edition has been released. The home page for the textbook
(http://math.hws.edu/javanotes/) now leads to the new edition. The Third Edition is permanently
archived at http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/javanotes3/.
● February 3, 2002. I would like to thank Steve Blanchard for pointing out many typographical,
spelling, and grammar errors in Chapters 1 through 10. I have corrected these in the on-line version
of the text (but I have not noted them in the errata section below, since there are too many of them).
● January 7, 2002. I recently finished teaching a course based on this book. You can find information
about the course at http://math.hws.edu/eck/cs124/. Lab worksheets from the course are now
available for download from that page.
● September 1, 2001. Grant Corry, a reader on the Internet, writes to inform me that synedit, a text
editor for Windows that I mentioned in Appendix 2, is no longer available (at least not on the Web
site that I gave). I've removed the reference to this editor from the Appendix. Grant Corry
recommends JCreator (http://www.jcreator.com/) for writing Java programs on Windows. JCreator
is available in both a free version and and a shareware "pro" version. JCreator, however, is a IDE
(integrated development environment, not a text editor. Readers who are using Java 1.3 might want
to take a look at JEdit (http://www.jedit.org), a programmers' text editor written in Java that has
many nice features.
● February 18, 2001. Version 3.1 of Introduction to Programming Using Java is released. It is a
minor upgrade of Version 3.0 that incorporates a few changes and corrections. The major change is
that modification and republication is now covered by the terms of the Open Publication License.
● February 15, 2001. A copy of this textbook has been added to Andamooka.org. Andamooka hosts
open content books. Readers can annotate the books and read other user's annotations.
● October 20, 2000. Burks 5, the fifth edition of a collection of computer-science software for
Windows, is now available on-line at http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/index.htm. An inexpensive
CD version of the site is also available. This includes a copy of this textbook at
http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/language/java/jnotes/index.htm.
● July 20, 2000. Sun, Inc., has listed this text on their "New to Java" page.
● May 24, 2000. The new third edition was completed and released today.
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[ Main Index ]
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