The Java Platform

O'Reilly Book Excerpts: Java in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

The Java Platform

Java Platform Overview

Table 1-1 summarizes the key packages of the Java platform that are covered in this book.

Table 1-1. Key packages of the Java platform

Package	Description
`java.beans`	The JavaBeans component model for reusable, embeddable software components.
`java.beans.beancontext`	Additional classes that define bean context objects that hold and provide services to the JavaBeans objects they contain.
`java.io`	Classes and interfaces for input and output. Although some of the classes in this package are for working directly with files, most are for working with streams of bytes or characters.
`java.lang`	The core classes of the language, such as `String`, `Math`, `System`, `Thread`, and `Exception`.
`java.lang.ref`	Classes that define weak references to objects. A weak reference is one that does not prevent the referent object from being garbage-collected.
`java.lang.reflect`	Classes and interfaces that allow Java programs to reflect on themselves by examining the constructors, methods, and fields of classes.
`java.math`	A small package that contains classes for arbitrary-precision integer and floating-point arithmetic.
`java.net`	Classes and interfaces for networking with other systems.
`java.nio`	Buffer classes for the New I/O API.
`java.nio.channels`	Channel and selector interfaces and classes for high-performance, nonblocking I/O.
`java.nio.charset`	Character set encoders and decoders for converting Unicode strings to and from bytes.
`java.security`	Classes and interfaces for access control and authentication. Supports cryptographic message digests and digital signatures.
`java.security.acl`	A package that supports access control lists. Deprecated and unused as of Java 1.2.
`java.security.cert`	Classes and interfaces for working with public-key certificates.
`java.security.interfaces`	Interfaces used with DSA and RSA public-key encryption.
`java.security.spec`	Classes and interfaces for transparent representations of keys and parameters used in public-key cryptography.
`java.text`	Classes and interfaces for working with text in internationalized applications.
`java.util`	Various utility classes, including the powerful collections framework for working with collections of objects.
`java.util.jar`	Classes for reading and writing JAR files.
`java.util.logging`	A flexible logging facility.
`java.util.prefs`	An API to read and write user and system preferences.
`java.util.regex`	Text pattern matching using regular expressions.
`java.util.zip`	Classes for reading and writing ZIP files.
`javax.crypto`	Classes and interfaces for encryption and decryption of data.
`javax.crypto.interfaces`	Interfaces that represent the Diffie-Hellman public/private keys used in the Diffie-Hellman key agreement protocol.
`javax.crypto.spec`	Classes that define transparent representations of keys and parameters used in cryptography.
`javax.net`	Defines factory classes for creating sockets and server sockets. Enables the creation of socket types other than the default.
`javax.net.ssl`	Classes for encrypted network communication using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
`javax.security.auth`	The top-level package for the JAAS API for authentication and authorization.
`javax.security.auth.callback`	Classes that facilitate communication between a low-level login module and a user through a user interface.
`javax.security.auth.kerberos`	Utility classes to support network authentication using the Kerberos protocol.
`javax.security.auth.login`	The `LoginContext` and related classes for user authentication.
`javax.security.auth.spi`	Defines the `LoginModule` interface that is implemented by pluggable user-authentication modules.
`javax.security.auth.x500`	Utility classes that represent X.500 certificate information.
`javax.xml.parsers`	A high-level API for parsing XML documents using pluggable DOM and SAX parsers.
`javax.xml.transform`	A high-level API for transforming XML documents using a pluggable XSLT transformation engine and for converting XML documents between streams, DOM trees, and SAX events.
`javax.xml.transform.dom`	Concrete XML transformation classes for DOM.
`javax.xml.transform.sax`	Concrete XML transformation classes for SAX.
`javax.xml.transform.stream`	Concrete XML transformation classes for XML streams.
`org.ietf.jgss`	The Java binding of the Generic Security Services API, which defines a single API for underlying security mechanisms such as Kerberos.
`org.w3c.dom`	Interfaces defined by the World Wide Web Consortium to represent an XML document as a DOM tree.
`org.xml.sax`	Classes and interfaces for parsing XML documents using the event-based SAX (Simple API for XML) API.
`org.xml.sax.ext`	Extension classes for the SAX API.
`org.xml.sax.helpers`	Utility classes for the SAX API.

Table 1-1 does not list all the packages in the Java platform, only those documented in this book. (And it omits a few "spi" packages that are documented in this book but are of interest only to low-level "service providers.") Java also defines numerous packages for graphics and graphical user interface programming and for distributed, or enterprise, computing. The graphics and GUI packages are java.awt and javax.swing and their many subpackages. These packages, along with the java.applet package, are documented in Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell (O'Reilly). The enterprise packages of Java include java.rmi, java.sql, javax.jndi, org.omg.CORBA, org.omg.CosNaming, and all of their subpackages. These packages, as well as several standard extensions to the Java platform, are documented in Java Enterprise in a Nutshell (O'Reilly).

Strings and Characters

Strings of text are a fundamental and commonly used data type. In Java, however, strings are not a primitive type, like char, int, and float. Instead, strings are represented by the java.lang.String class, which defines many useful methods for manipulating strings. String objects are immutable: once a String object has been created, there is no way to modify the string of text it represents. Thus, each method that operates on a string typically returns a new String object that holds the modified string.

This code shows some of the basic operations you can perform on strings:


// Creating strings
String s = "Now";               // String objects have a special literal syntax
String t = s + " is the time."; // Concatenate strings with + operator
String t1 = s + " " + 23.4;     // + converts other values to strings
t1 = String.valueOf('c');       // Get string corresponding to char value
t1 = String.valueOf(42);        // Get string version of integer or any value
t1 = object.toString();         // Convert objects to strings with toString()

// String length
int len = t.length();           // Number of characters in the string: 16

// Substrings of a string
String sub = t.substring(4);    // Returns char 4 to end: "is the time."
sub = t.substring(4, 6);        // Returns chars 4 and 5: "is"
sub = t.substring(0, 3);        // Returns chars 0 through 2: "Now"
sub = t.substring(x, y);        // Returns chars between pos x and y-1
int numchars = sub.length();    // Length of substring is always (y-x)

// Extracting characters from a string
char c = t.charAt(2);           // Get the 3rd character of t: w
char[] ca = t.toCharArray();    // Convert string to an array of characters
t.getChars(0, 3, ca, 1);        // Put 1st 3 chars of t into ca[1]-ca[3]

// Case conversion
String caps = t.toUpperCase();  // Convert to uppercase
String lower = t.toLowerCase(); // Convert to lowercase

// Comparing strings
boolean b1 = t.equals("hello");         // Returns false: strings not equal
boolean b2 = t.equalsIgnoreCase(caps);  // Case-insensitive compare: true
boolean b3 = t.startsWith("Now");       // Returns true
boolean b4 = t.endsWith("time.");       // Returns true
int r1 = s.compareTo("Pow");            // Returns < 0: s comes before "Pow"
int r2 = s.compareTo("Now");            // Returns 0: strings are equal
int r3 = s.compareTo("Mow");            // Returns > 0: s comes after "Mow"
r1 = s.compareToIgnoreCase("pow");      // Returns < 0 (Java 1.2 and later)

// Searching for characters and substrings
int pos = t.indexOf('i');         // Position of first 'i': 4
pos = t.indexOf('i', pos+1);      // Position of the next 'i': 12
pos = t.indexOf('i', pos+1);      // No more 'i's in string, returns -1
pos = t.lastIndexOf('i');         // Position of last 'i' in string: 12
pos = t.lastIndexOf('i', pos-1);  // Search backwards for 'i' from char 11

pos = t.indexOf("is");            // Search for substring: returns 4
pos = t.indexOf("is", pos+1);     // Only appears once: returns -1
pos = t.lastIndexOf("the ");      // Search backwards for a string
String noun = t.substring(pos+4); // Extract word following "the"

// Replace all instances of one character with another character
String exclaim = t.replace('.', '!');  // Works only with chars, not substrings

// Strip blank space off the beginning and end of a string
String noextraspaces = t.trim();

// Obtain unique instances of strings with intern() 
String s1 = s.intern();        // Returns s1 equal to s
String s2 = "Now".intern();    // Returns s2 equal to "Now"
boolean equals = (s1 == s2);   // Now can test for equality with ==

The Character Class

As you know, individual characters are represented in Java by the primitive char type. The Java platform also defines a Character class, which defines useful class methods for checking the type of a character and for converting the case of a character. For example:


char[] text;  // An array of characters, initialized somewhere else
int p = 0;    // Our current position in the array of characters
// Skip leading whitespace
while((p < text.length) && Character.isWhitespace(text[p])) p++;  
// Capitalize the first word of text
while((p < text.length) && Character.isLetter(text[p])) {
  text[p] = Character.toUpperCase(text[p]);
  p++;
}

The StringBuffer Class

Since String objects are immutable, you cannot manipulate the characters of an instantiated String. If you need to do this, use a java.lang.StringBuffer instead:


// Create a string buffer from a string
StringBuffer b = new StringBuffer("Mow");

// Get and set individual characters of the StringBuffer
char c = b.charAt(0);        // Returns 'M': just like String.charAt()
b.setCharAt(0, 'N');         // b holds "Now": can't do that with a String!

// Append to a StringBuffer
b.append(' ');               // Append a character
b.append("is the time.");    // Append a string
b.append(23);                // Append an integer or any other value

// Insert Strings or other values into a StringBuffer
b.insert(6, "n't");          // b now holds: "Now isn't the time.23"

// Replace a range of characters with a string (Java 1.2 and later) 
b.replace(4, 9, "is");       // Back to "Now is the time.23"

// Delete characters
b.delete(16, 18);            // Delete a range: "Now is the time"
b.deleteCharAt(2);           // Delete 2nd character: "No is the time"
b.setLength(5);              // Truncate by setting the length: "No is"

// Other useful operations
b.reverse();                 // Reverse characters: "si oN"
String s = b.toString();     // Convert back to an immutable string
s = b.substring(1,2);        // Or take a substring: "i"
b.setLength(0);              // Erase buffer; now it is ready for reuse

The CharSequence Interface

In Java 1.4, both the String and the StringBuffer classes implement the new java.lang.CharSequence interface, which is a standard interface for querying the length of and extracting characters and subsequences from a readable sequence of characters. This interface is also implemented by the java.nio.CharBuffer interface, which is part of the New I/O API that was introduced in Java 1.4. CharSequence provides a way to perform simple operations on strings of characters regardless of the underlying implementation of those strings. For example:


/** 
 * Return a prefix of the specified CharSequence that starts at the first
 * character of the sequence and extends up to (and includes) the first 
 * occurrence of the character c in the sequence. Returns null if c is 
 * not found. s may be a String, StringBuffer, or java.nio.CharBuffer.
 */
public static CharSequence prefix(CharSequence s, char c) {
  int numChars = s.length();           // How long is the sequence?
  for(int i = 0; i < numChars; i++) {  // Loop through characters in sequence
    if (s.charAt(i) == c)              // If we find c,
      return s.subSequence(0,i+1);     // then return the prefix subsequence
  }
  return null;                         // Otherwise, return null
}

Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions

In Java 1.4 and later, you can perform textual pattern matching with regular expressions. Regular expression support is provided by the Pattern and Matcher classes of the java.util.regex package, but the String class defines a number of convenient methods that allow you to use regular expressions even more simply. Regular expressions use a fairly complex grammar to describe patterns of characters. The Java implementation uses the same regex syntax as the Perl programming language. See the java.util.regex.Pattern class in for a summary of this syntax or consult a good Perl programming book for further details. For a complete tutorial on Perl-style regular expressions, see Mastering Regular Expressions (O'Reilly).

The simplest String method that accepts a regular expression argument is matches(); it returns true if the string matches the pattern defined by the specified regular expression:


// This string is a regular expression that describes the pattern of a typical
// sentence. In Perl-style regular expression syntax, it specifies
// a string that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period,
// a question mark, or an exclamation point.
String pattern = "^[A-Z].*[\\.?!]$";  
String s = "Java is fun!";
s.matches(pattern);    // The string matches the pattern, so this returns true.

The matches() method returns true only if the entire string is a match for the specified pattern. Perl programmers should note that this differs from Perl's behavior, in which a match means only that some portion of the string matches the pattern. To determine if a string or any substring matches a pattern, simply alter the regular expression to allow arbitrary characters before and after the desired pattern. In the following code, the regular expression characters .* match any number of arbitrary characters:


s.matches(".*\\bJava\\b.*"); // True if s contains the word "Java" anywhere
                             // The b specifies a word boundary

If you are already familiar with Perl's regular expression syntax, you know that it relies on the liberal use of backslashes to escape certain characters. In Perl, regular expressions are language primitives, and their syntax is part of the language itself. In Java, however, regular expressions are described using strings and are typically embedded in programs using string literals. The syntax for Java string literals also uses the backslash as an escape character, so to include a single backslash in the regular expression, you must use two backslashes. Thus, in Java programming, you will often see double backslashes in regular expressions.

In addition to matching, regular expressions can be used for search-and-replace operations. The replaceFirst() and replaceAll() methods search a string for the first substring or all substrings that match a given pattern and replace the string or strings with the specified replacement text, returning a new string that contains the replacements. For example, you could use this code to ensure that the word "Java" is correctly capitalized in a string s:


s.replaceAll("(?i)\\bjava\\b",// Pattern: the word "java", case-insensitive
             "Java");         // The replacement string, correctly capitalized

The replacement string passed to replaceAll() and replaceFirst() need not be a simple literal string; it may also include references to text that matched parenthesized subexpressions within the pattern. These references take the form of a dollar sign followed by the number of the subexpression. (If you are not familiar with parenthesized subexpressions within a regular expression, see java.util.regex.Pattern in .) For example, to search for words such as JavaBean, JavaScript, JavaOS, and JavaVM (but not Java or Javanese), and to replace the Java prefix with the letter J without altering the suffix, you could use code such as:


s.replaceAll("\\bJava([A-Z]\\w+)",  // The pattern
             "J$1");      // J followed by the suffix that matched the
                          // subexpression in parentheses: [A-Z]\\w+

The other new Java 1.4 String method that uses regular expressions is split(), which returns an array of the substrings of a string, separated by delimiters that match the specified pattern. To obtain an array of words in a string separated by any number of spaces, tabs, or newlines, do this:


String sentence = "This is a\n\ttwo-line sentence";
String[] words = sentence.split("[ \t\n\r]+");

An optional second argument specifies the maximum number of entries in the returned array.

The matches(), replaceFirst(), replaceAll(), and split() methods are suitable for when you use a regular expression only once. If you want to use a regular expression for multiple matches, you should explicitly use the Pattern and Matcher classes of the java.util.regex package. First, create a Pattern object to represent your regular expression with the static Pattern.compile() method. (Another reason to use the Pattern class explicitly instead of the String convenience methods is that Pattern.compile() allows you to specify flags such as Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE that globally alter the way the pattern matching is done.) Note that the compile() method can throw a PatternSyntaxException if you pass it an invalid regular expression string. (This exception is also thrown by the various String convenience methods.) The Pattern class defines split() methods that are similar to the String.split() methods. For all other matching, however, you must create a Matcher object with the matcher() method and specify the text to be matched against:


import java.util.regex.*;

Pattern javaword = Pattern.compile("\\bJava(\\w*)", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
Matcher m = javaword.matcher(sentence);
boolean match = m.matches();  // True if text matches pattern exactly

Once you have a Matcher object, you can compare the string to the pattern in various ways. One of the more sophisticated ways is to find all substrings that match the pattern:


String text = "Java is fun; JavaScript is funny.";
m.reset(text);  // Start matching against a new string
// Loop to find all matches of the string and print details of each match
while(m.find()) {
  System.out.println("Found '" + m.group(0) + "' at position " + m.start(0));
  if (m.start(1) < m.end(1)) System.out.println("Suffix is " + m.group(1));
}

See the Matcher class in for further details.

String Comparison

The compareTo() and equals() methods of the String class allow you to compare strings. compareTo() bases its comparison on the character order defined by the Unicode encoding, while equals() defines string equality as strict character-by-character equality. These are not always the right methods to use, however. In some languages, the character ordering imposed by the Unicode standard does not match the dictionary ordering used when alphabetizing strings. In Spanish, for example, the letters "ch" are considered a single letter that comes after "c" and before "d." When comparing human-readable strings in an internationalized application, you should use the java.text.Collator class instead:


import java.text.*;

// Compare two strings; results depend on where the program is run
// Return values of Collator.compare() have same meanings as String.compareTo()
Collator c = Collator.getInstance();       // Get Collator for current locale
int result = c.compare("chica", "coche");  // Use it to compare two strings

StringTokenizer

There are a number of other Java classes that operate on strings and characters. One notable class is java.util.StringTokenizer, which you can use to break a string of text into its component words:


String s = "Now is the time";
java.util.StringTokenizer st = new java.util.StringTokenizer(s);
while(st.hasMoreTokens()) {
  System.out.println(st.nextToken());
}

You can even use this class to tokenize words that are delimited by characters other than spaces:


String s = "a:b:c:d";
java.util.StringTokenizer st = new java.util.StringTokenizer(s, ":");

Numbers and Math

Java provides the byte, short, int, long, float, and double primitive types for representing numbers. The java.lang package includes the corresponding Byte, Short, Integer, Long, Float, and Double classes, each of which is a subclass of Number. These classes can be useful as object wrappers around their primitive types, and they also define some useful constants:


// Integral range constants: Integer, Long, and Character also define these
Byte.MIN_VALUE      // The smallest (most negative) byte value
Byte.MAX_VALUE      // The largest byte value
Short.MIN_VALUE     // The most negative short value
Short.MAX_VALUE     // The largest short value

// Floating-point range constants: Double also defines these
Float.MIN_VALUE     // Smallest (closest to zero) positive float value
Float.MAX_VALUE     // Largest positive float value

// Other useful constants
Math.PI             // 3.14159265358979323846
Math.E              // 2.7182818284590452354

Converting Numbers from and to Strings

A Java program that operates on numbers must get its input values from somewhere. Often, such a program reads a textual representation of a number and must convert it to a numeric representation. The various Number subclasses define useful conversion methods:


String s = "-42";
byte b = Byte.parseByte(s);             // s as a byte
short sh = Short.parseShort(s);         // s as a short
int i = Integer.parseInt(s);            // s as an int
long l = Long.parseLong(s);             // s as a long
float f = Float.parseFloat(s);          // s as a float (Java 1.2 and later)
f = Float.valueOf(s).floatValue();      // s as a float (prior to Java 1.2)
double d = Double.parseDouble(s);       // s as a double (Java 1.2 and later)
d = Double.valueOf(s).doubleValue();    // s as a double (prior to Java 1.2)

// The integer conversion routines handle numbers in other bases
byte b = Byte.parseByte("1011", 2);      // 1011 in binary is 11 in decimal
short sh = Short.parseShort("ff", 16);   // ff in base 16 is 255 in decimal

// The valueOf() method can handle arbitrary bases between 2 and 36
int i = Integer.valueOf("egg", 17).intValue();   // Base 17!

// The decode() method handles octal, decimal, or hexadecimal, depending
// on the numeric prefix of the string
short sh = Short.decode("0377").byteValue();   // Leading 0 means base 8
int i = Integer.decode("0xff").shortValue();   // Leading 0x means base 16
long l = Long.decode("255").intValue();        // Other numbers mean base 10

// Integer class can convert numbers to strings
String decimal = Integer.toString(42);
String binary = Integer.toBinaryString(42);
String octal = Integer.toOctalString(42);
String hex = Integer.toHexString(42);
String base36 = Integer.toString(42, 36);

Formatting Numbers

Numeric values are often printed differently in different countries. For example, many European languages use a comma to separate the integral part of a floating-point value from the fractional part (instead of a decimal point). Formatting differences can diverge even further when displaying numbers that represent monetary values. When converting numbers to strings for display, therefore, it is best to use the java.text.NumberFormat class to perform the conversion in a locale-specific way:


import java.text.*;

// Use NumberFormat to format and parse numbers for the current locale
NumberFormat nf = NumberFormat.getNumberInstance();  // Get a NumberFormat
System.out.println(nf.format(9876543.21)); // Format number for current locale
try {
  Number n = nf.parse("1.234.567,89");     // Parse strings according to locale
} catch (ParseException e) { /* Handle exception */ }

// Monetary values are sometimes formatted differently than other numbers
NumberFormat moneyFmt = NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance();
System.out.println(moneyFmt.format(1234.56)); // Prints $1,234.56 in U.S.

Mathematical Functions

The Math class defines a number of methods that provide trigonometric, logarithmic, exponential, and rounding operations, among others. This class is primarily useful with floating-point values. For the trigonometric functions, angles are expressed in radians. The logarithm and exponentiation functions are base e, not base 10. Here are some examples:


double d = Math.toRadians(27);       // Convert 27 degrees to radians
d = Math.cos(d);                     // Take the cosine
d = Math.sqrt(d);                    // Take the square root
d = Math.log(d);                     // Take the natural logarithm
d = Math.exp(d);                     // Do the inverse: e to the power d
d = Math.pow(10, d);                 // Raise 10 to this power
d = Math.atan(d);                    // Compute the arc tangent
d = Math.toDegrees(d);               // Convert back to degrees
double up = Math.ceil(d);            // Round to ceiling
double down = Math.floor(d);         // Round to floor
long nearest = Math.round(d);        // Round to nearest

Random Numbers

The Math class also defines a rudimentary method for generating pseudo-random numbers, but the java.util.Random class is more flexible. If you need very random pseudo-random numbers, you can use the java.security.SecureRandom class:


// A simple random number
double r = Math.random();     // Returns d such that: 0.0 <= d < 1.0      

// Create a new Random object, seeding with the current time
java.util.Random generator = new java.util.Random(System.currentTimeMillis());
double d = generator.nextDouble();   // 0.0 <= d < 1.0
float f = generator.nextFloat();     // 0.0 <= f < 1.0
long l = generator.nextLong();       // Chosen from the entire range of long
int i = generator.nextInt();         // Chosen from the entire range of int
i = generator.nextInt(limit);        // 0 <= i < limit (Java 1.2 and later)
boolean b = generator.nextBoolean(); // true or false (Java 1.2 and later)
d = generator.nextGaussian();        // Mean value: 0.0; std. deviation: 1.0
byte[] randomBytes = new byte[128];
generator.nextBytes(randomBytes);    // Fill in array with random bytes

// For cryptographic strength random numbers, use the SecureRandom subclass
java.security.SecureRandom generator2 = new java.security.SecureRandom();
// Have the generator generate its own 16-byte seed; takes a *long* time
generator2.setSeed(generator2.generateSeed(16));  // Extra random 16-byte seed
// Then use SecureRandom like any other Random object
generator2.nextBytes(randomBytes);   // Generate more random bytes

Big Numbers

The java.math package contains the BigInteger and BigDecimal classes. These classes allow you to work with arbitrary-size and arbitrary-precision integers and floating-point values. For example:


import java.math.*;

// Compute the factorial of 1000
BigInteger total = BigInteger.valueOf(1);
for(int i = 2; i <= 1000; i++)
  total = total.multiply(BigInteger.valueOf(i));
System.out.println(total.toString());

In Java 1.4, BigInteger has a method to randomly generate large prime numbers, which is useful in many cryptographic applications:


BigInteger prime =
  BigInteger.probablePrime(1024,        // 1024 bits long
                           generator2); // Source of randomness; from 
                                        // preceding example

Dates and Times

Java uses several different classes for working with dates and times. The java.util.Date class represents an instant in time (precise down to the millisecond). This class is nothing more than a wrapper around a long value that holds the number of milliseconds since midnight GMT, January 1, 1970. Here are two ways to determine the current time:


long t0 = System.currentTimeMillis();      // Current time in milliseconds
java.util.Date now = new java.util.Date(); // Basically the same thing
long t1 = now.getTime();                   // Convert a Date to a long value

The Date class has a number of interesting-sounding methods, but almost all of them have been deprecated in favor of methods of the java.util.Calendar and java.text.DateFormat classes.

Formatting Dates with DateFormat

To print a date or a time, use the DateFormat class, which automatically handles locale-specific conventions for date and time formatting. DateFormat even works correctly in locales that use a calendar other than the common era (Gregorian) calendar in use throughout much of the world:


import java.util.Date;
import java.text.*;

// Display today's date using a default format for the current locale
DateFormat defaultDate = DateFormat.getDateInstance();
System.out.println(defaultDate.format(new Date()));

// Display the current time using a short time format for the current locale
DateFormat shortTime = DateFormat.getTimeInstance(DateFormat.SHORT);
System.out.println(shortTime.format(new Date()));

// Display date and time using a long format for both
DateFormat longTimestamp = 
  DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.FULL, DateFormat.FULL);
System.out.println(longTimestamp.format(new Date()));

// Use SimpleDateFormat to define your own formatting template
// See java.text.SimpleDateFormat for the template syntax
DateFormat myformat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy.MM.dd");  
System.out.println(myformat.format(new Date()));
try {   // DateFormat can parse dates too
  Date leapday = myformat.parse("2000.02.29"); 
}
catch (ParseException e) { /* Handle parsing exception */ }

Date Arithmetic with Calendar

The Date class and its millisecond representation allow only a very simple form of date arithmetic:


long now = System.currentTimeMillis();         // The current time
long anHourFromNow = now + (60 * 60 * 1000);   // Add 3,600,000 milliseconds

To perform more sophisticated date and time arithmetic and manipulate dates in ways humans (rather than computers) typically care about, use the java.util.Calendar class:


import java.util.*;                     

// Get a Calendar for current locale and time zone
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();  

// Figure out what day of the year today is
cal.setTime(new Date());                        // Set to the current time
int dayOfYear = cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR);  // What day of the year is it?

// What day of the week does the leap day in the year 2000 occur on?
cal.set(2000, Calendar.FEBRUARY, 29);           // Set year, month, day fields
int dayOfWeek = cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK);  // Query a different field

// What day of the month is the 3rd Thursday of May, 2001?
cal.set(Calendar.YEAR, 2001);                      // Set the year
cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.MAY);             // Set the month
cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, Calendar.THURSDAY);  // Set the day of week
cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK_IN_MONTH, 3);         // Set the week
int dayOfMonth = cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);   // Query the day in month

// Get a Date object that represents 30 days from now
Date today = new Date();                   // Current date
cal.setTime(today);                        // Set it in the Calendar object
cal.add(Calendar.DATE, 30);                // Add 30 days
Date expiration = cal.getTime();           // Retrieve the resulting date

Arrays

The java.lang.System class defines an arraycopy() method that is useful for copying specified elements in one array to a specified position in a second array. The second array must be the same type as the first, and it can even be the same array:


char[] text = "Now is the time".toCharArray();
char[] copy = new char[100];
// Copy 10 characters from element 4 of text into copy, starting at copy[0]
System.arraycopy(text, 4, copy, 0, 10);

// Move some of the text to later elements, making room for insertions
System.arraycopy(copy, 3, copy, 6, 7);

In Java 1.2 and later, the java.util.Arrays class defines useful array-manipulation methods, including methods for sorting and searching arrays:


import java.util.Arrays;

int[] intarray = new int[] { 10, 5, 7, -3 }; // An array of integers
Arrays.sort(intarray);                       // Sort it in place
int pos = Arrays.binarySearch(intarray, 7);  // Value 7 is found at index 2
pos = Arrays.binarySearch(intarray, 12);     // Not found: negative return value

// Arrays of objects can be sorted and searched too
String[] strarray = new String[] { "now", "is", "the", "time" };
Arrays.sort(strarray);      // { "is", "now", "the", "time" }

// Arrays.equals() compares all elements of two arrays
String[] clone = (String[]) strarray.clone();
boolean b1 = Arrays.equals(strarray, clone);  // Yes, they're equal

// Arrays.fill() initializes array elements
byte[] data = new byte[100];          // An empty array; elements set to 0
Arrays.fill(data, (byte) -1);         // Set them all to -1
Arrays.fill(data, 5, 10, (byte) -2);  // Set elements 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 to -2

Arrays can be treated and manipulated as objects in Java. Given an arbitrary object o, you can use code such as the following to find out if the object is an array and, if so, what type of array it is:


Class type = o.getClass();
if (type.isArray()) {
  Class elementType = type.getComponentType();
}

Collections

The Java collection framework is a set of important utility classes and interfaces in the java.util package for working with collections of objects. The collection framework defines two fundamental types of collections. A Collection is a group of objects, while a Map is a set of mappings, or associations, between objects. A Set is a type of Collection in which there are no duplicates, and a List is a Collection in which the elements are ordered. SortedSet and SortedMap are specialized sets and maps that maintain their elements in a sorted order. Collection, Set, List, Map, SortedSet, and SortedMap are all interfaces, but the java.util package also defines various concrete implementations, such as lists based on arrays and linked lists, and maps and sets based on hashtables or binary trees. (See the java.util package in for a complete list.) Other important interfaces are Iterator and ListIterator, which allow you to loop through the objects in a collection. The collection framework is new as of Java 1.2, but prior to that release you can use Vector and Hashtable, which are approximately the same as ArrayList and HashMap.

In Java 1.4, the Collections API has grown with the addition of the RandomAccess marker interface, which is implemented by List implementations that support efficient random access (i.e., it is implemented by ArrayList and Vector but not by LinkedList.) Java 1.4 also introduces LinkedHashMap and LinkedHashSet, which are hashtable-based maps and sets that preserve the insertion order of elements. Finally, IdentityHashMap is a hashtable-based Map implementation that uses the == operator to compare key objects rather than using the equals() method to compare them.

The following code demonstrates how you might create and perform basic manipulations on sets, lists, and maps:


import java.util.*;              

Set s = new HashSet();           // Implementation based on a hashtable
s.add("test");                   // Add a String object to the set
boolean b = s.contains("test2"); // Check whether a set contains an object
s.remove("test");                // Remove a member from a set

Set ss = new TreeSet();          // TreeSet implements SortedSet
ss.add("b");                     // Add some elements
ss.add("a");        
// Now iterate through the elements (in sorted order) and print them
for(Iterator i = ss.iterator(); i.hasNext();)
  System.out.println(i.next());

List l = new LinkedList();       // LinkedList implements a doubly linked list
l = new ArrayList();             // ArrayList is more efficient, usually
Vector v = new Vector();         // Vector is an alternative in Java 1.1/1.0
l.addAll(ss);                    // Append some elements to it
l.addAll(1, ss);                 // Insert the elements again at index 1
Object o = l.get(1);             // Get the second element
l.set(3, "new element");         // Set the fourth element
l.add("test");                   // Append a new element to the end
l.add(0, "test2");               // Insert a new element at the start
l.remove(1);                     // Remove the second element
l.remove("a");                   // Remove the element "a"
l.removeAll(ss);                 // Remove elements from this set
if (!l.isEmpty())                // If list is not empty,
  System.out.println(l.size());  // print out the number of elements in it
boolean b1 = l.contains("a");    // Does it contain this value?
boolean b2 = l.containsAll(ss);  // Does it contain all these values?
List sublist = l.subList(1,3);   // A sublist of the 2nd and 3rd elements
Object[] elements = l.toArray(); // Convert it to an array
l.clear();                       // Delete all elements

Map m = new HashMap();           // Hashtable an alternative in Java 1.1/1.0
m.put("key", new Integer(42));   // Associate a value object with a key object
Object value = m.get("key");     // Look up the value associated with a key
m.remove("key");                 // Remove the association from the Map
Set keys = m.keySet();           // Get the set of keys held by the Map

Converting to and from Arrays

Arrays of objects and collections serve similar purposes. It is possible to convert from one to the other:


Object[] members = set.toArray();         // Get set elements as an array
Object[] items = list.toArray();          // Get list elements as an array
Object[] keys = map.keySet().toArray();   // Get map key objects as an array
Object[] values = map.values().toArray(); // Get map value objects as an array

List l = Arrays.asList(a);                // View array as an ungrowable list
List l = new ArrayList(Arrays.asList(a)); // Make a growable copy of it

Collections Utility Methods

Just as the java.util.Arrays class defined methods to operate on arrays, the java.util.Collections class defines methods to operate on collections. Most notable are methods to sort and search the elements of collections:


Collections.sort(list);
int pos = Collections.binarySearch(list, "key"); // list must be sorted first

Here are some other interesting Collections methods:


Collections.copy(list1, list2); // Copy list2 into list1, overwriting list1
Collections.fill(list, o);      // Fill list with Object o
Collections.max(c);             // Find the largest element in Collection c
Collections.min(c);             // Find the smallest element in Collection c

Collections.reverse(list);      // Reverse list
Collections.shuffle(list);      // Mix up list

Set s = Collections.singleton(o); // Return an immutable set with one element o
List ul = Collections.unmodifiableList(list); // Immutable wrapper for list
Map sm = Collections.synchronizedMap(map);    // Synchronized wrapper for map

Types, Reflection, and Dynamic Loading

The java.lang.Class class represents data types in Java and, along with the classes in the java.lang.reflect package, gives Java programs the capability of introspection (or self-reflection); a Java class can look at itself, or any other class, and determine its superclass, what methods it defines, and so on.

Class Objects

There are several ways you can obtain a Class object in Java:


// Obtain the Class of an arbitrary object o
Class c = o.getClass();

// Obtain a Class object for primitive types with various predefined constants
c = Void.TYPE;          // The special "no-return-value" type
c = Byte.TYPE;          // Class object that represents a byte
c = Integer.TYPE;       // Class object that represents an int
c = Double.TYPE;        // etc; see also Short, Character, Long, Float 

// Express a class literal as a type name followed by ".class"
c = int.class;          // Same as Integer.TYPE
c = String.class;       // Same as "dummystring".getClass()
c = byte[].class;       // Type of byte arrays
c = Class[][].class;    // Type of array of arrays of Class objects

Reflecting on a Class

Once you have a Class object, you can perform some interesting reflective operations with it:


import java.lang.reflect.*;

Object o;                   // Some unknown object to investigate
Class c = o.getClass();     // Get its type

// If it is an array, figure out its base type
while (c.isArray()) c = c.getComponentType();

// If c is not a primitive type, print its class hierarchy
if (!c.isPrimitive()) {
  for(Class s = c; s != null; s = s.getSuperclass()) 
    System.out.println(s.getName() + " extends");
}

// Try to create a new instance of c; this requires a no-arg constructor
Object newobj = null;
try { newobj = c.newInstance(); }
catch (Exception e) { 
  // Handle InstantiationException, IllegalAccessException
}

// See if the class has a method named setText that takes a single String
// If so, call it with a string argument
try {
  Method m = c.getMethod("setText", new Class[] { String.class });
  m.invoke(newobj, new Object[] { "My Label" });
} catch(Exception e) { /* Handle exceptions here */ }

Dynamic Class Loading

Class also provides a simple mechanism for dynamic class loading in Java. For more complete control over dynamic class loading, however, you should use a java.lang.ClassLoader object, typically a java.net.URLClassLoader. This technique is useful, for example, when you want to load a class that is named in a configuration file instead of being hardcoded into your program:


// Dynamically load a class specified by name in a config file
String classname =                     // Look up the name of the class
    config.getProperty("filterclass",  // The property name
                       "com.davidflanagan.filters.Default"); // A default

try {
  Class c = Class.forName(classname);  // Dynamically load the class
  Object o = c.newInstance();          // Dynamically instantiate it
} catch (Exception e) { /* Handle exceptions */ }

The preceding code works only if the class to be loaded is in the class path. If this is not the case, you can create a custom ClassLoader object to load a class from a path (or URL) you specify yourself:


import java.net.*;
String classdir = config.getProperty("filterDirectory"); // Look up class path
trying {
  ClassLoader loader = new URLClassLoader(new URL[] { new URL(classdir) });
  Class c = loader.loadClass(classname);
}
catch (Exception e) { /* Handle exceptions */ }

Dynamic Proxies

Java 1.3 added the Proxy class and InvocationHandler interface to the java.lang.reflect package. Proxy is a powerful but infrequently used class that allows you to dynamically create a new class or instance that implements a specified interface or set of interfaces. It also dispatches invocations of the interface methods to an InvocationHandler object.

Pages: 1, 2, 3