I'm just starting to learn and the books say that I can use "pre-coded" classes and objects. How do I call these classes/objects in the beginning of my program? I understand basically what they are, and the idea that I can use these classes/objects in place of writing fresh code every time, but I cannot seem to figure out where I find these things and how I implement them.
You certainly talk about the Java classes that come in JRE/JDK.
Those are used by including the jar in your classpath and provides the "default" java classes.
Like String in java.util package.
If you want to look at them, in the JDK you'll find the sources of these class.
"Pre-coded", or pre-written Java classes, are pretty much the same concept as the Java API - someone has written the code for you, was kind enough to document how you can use the code, and you may create instances (as necessary) through the prescribed way.
Say, for instance, I want an ArrayList holding Strings. I would then code ArrayList<String> words = new ArrayList<String>(). You wouldn't have to go through the process of writing a dynamic self-expanding vector.
Related
Is there a way to make a collection of class files/objects and then have them used in an interactive main file? So let's say I want to make a program to store information interactively where different classes are designed to hold different information. Then I would have an interactive main file where I made instances of these classes which would collectively hold the information I want stored. And then any changes or anything I do in this interactive main file is then saved.
I understand that this might be a very odd inquiry and maybe some other program might be useful for this. If so, feel free to point me in the right direction.
Here are two solutions that are good for the purpose you mentioned in your comment.
The first one is called Serialization. This let's you save your java object to your hard drive, and retrieve it later.
The second, (and in this case, more preferable option in my opinion), is using a Database.
A database is a compliment to your program, that stores data. You can then use "Queries" to access this data, and update it. Almost every database software is compatible with java.
I would look into MySQL
The reason I think a database would be better for your purpose is that they are already highly optimized, and are designed to have multiple people accessing and writing to them at once. If you wanted just want one person to use this program at a time however, serialization might be easier to implement.
Absolutely! Your main class would use the standard input (perhaps Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);) and output (System.out.println()). To interact with your other classes, most simply, just put them in the same folder (if you are interested take a look at Java packages). If you have a Dog class in the same folder as your main class, you can freely create Dog objects in your main class. I hope this helps!
As a side note, because you mentioned storing information with different classes, you might be interested in the Java Collections Framework.
I need to create a map of our domain classes simple names to their fully canonical names. I want to do this only for classes that are under our package structure, and that implement Serializable.
In serialization we use the canonical names of classes alot --it's a good default behaviour as its a very conservative approach, but our model objects are going to move around between packages, and I don't want that to represent a breaking change requiring migration scripts, so I'd like this map. I've already tooled our serializer to use this map, now I just need a good strategy for populating it. Its been frustrating.
First alternative: have each class announce itself statically
the most obvious and most annoying: edit each class in question to include the code
static{
Bootstrapper.classAliases.put(
ThisClass.class.getSimpleName(),
ThisClass.class.getCanonicalName()
);
}
I knew I could do this from the get-go, I started on it, and I really hate it. There's no way this is going to be maintained properly, new classes will be introduced, somebody will forget to add this line, and I'll get myself in trouble.
Second alternative: read through the jar
traverse the jar our application is in, load each class, and see if it should be added to this map. This solution smelled pretty bad -- I'm disturbing the normal loading order and I'm coupled tightly to a particular deployment scheme. Gave up on this fairly quickly.
Third alternative: use java.lang.Instrumentation
requires me to run java with a java agent. More specifics about deployment.
Fourth alternative: hijack class loaders
My first idea was to see if I could add a listener to the class loaders, and then listen for my desired classes being loaded, adding them to this map as they're loaded into the JVM. strictly speaking this isn't doing this statically, but its close enough.
After discovering the tree-like nature of class loaders, and the various different schemes used by the different threads and different libraries, I thought that implementing this solution would be both too complicated and lead to bugs.
Fifth alternative: leverage the build system & a properties file
This one seems like one of the better solutions but I don't have the ant skill to do it. My plan would be to search each file for the pattern
//using human readable regex
[whitespace]* package [whitespace]* com.mycompany [char]*;
[char not 'class']*
class [whitespace]+ (<capture:"className">[nameCharacter]+) [char not '{']* implements [char not '{'] Serializable [char not '{'] '{'
//using notepad++'s regex
\s*package\s+([A-Za-z\._]*);.*class\s+(\w+)\s+implements\s+[\w,_<>\s]*Serializable
and then write out each matching entry in the form [pathFound][className]=[className] to a properties file.
Then I add some fairly simple code to load this properties file into a map at runtime.
am I missing something obvious? Why is this so difficult to do? I know that the lazy nature of java classes means that the language is antithetical to code asking the question "what classes are there", and I guess my problem is a derivative of this question, but still, I'm surprised at how much I'm having to scratch my brain to do this.
So I suppose my question is 2 fold:
how would you go about making this map?
If it would be with your build system, what is the ant code needed to do it? Is this worth converting to gradle for?
Thanks for any help
I would start with your fifth alternative. So, there is a byte code manipulation project called - javassist which lets you load .class files and deal with them using java objects. For example, you can load a "Foo.class" and start asking it things like give me your package, public methods etc.
Checkout the ClassPool & CtClass objects.
List<CtClass> classes = new ArrayList<>();
// Using apache commons I/O you can use a glob pattern to populate ALL_CLASS_FILES_IN_PROJECT
for (File file : ALL_CLASS_FILES_IN_PROJECT) {
ClassPool default = ClassPool.getDefault();
classes.add(default.makeClass(new FileInputStream(file.getPath())));
}
The classes list will have all the classes ready for you to now deal with. You can add this to a static block in some entry point class that always gets loaded.
If this doesn't work for you, the next bet is to use the javaagent to do this. Its not that hard to do it, but it will have some implication on your deployment (the agent lib jar should be made available & the -javaagent added to the startup args).
I am converting the PHP plugin to ColdFusion. In PHP, there are used OO concepts so classes and objects are used.
How I can convert those classes to ColdFusion class and create objects for those classes.
Also I have created Java class and using <cfobject> tag, I have created object, but I need ColdFusion classes and created objects.
Please let me know if you have any ideas.
ColdFusion does have classes and objects and follows limited OOPS principles. You can do inheritance, interfaces. Polymorphic functions is still not allowed.
Classes in ColdFusion are called as Components. CFC -> ColdFusion component. Depending on the ColdFusion version, you can write them in script mode or in tag mode.
You can refer to the documentation for CF8 about creating component and their objects.
The createObject() method you have mentioned is one way of creating different type of objects. The other ways are to use <cfinvoke> or <cfobject>
Hope this helps. Just read the docs in detail and they will help you every time.
Realistically you should be able to solve this by reading the docs a bit more thoroughly than you already have. However this question is fairly easily answered. Firstly let me disabuse you of something though:
there is no option to create classes in coldfusion without using the
java,com and corba
This is just you not reading properly. Even on the page you link to (cfobject, which is pointing to an obsolete version of ColdFusion btw), the third link it provides "component object" discusses instantiating native CFML "classes" ("components" in CFML parlance, for some reason). It's perhaps not clear from top-level browsing that a "component" is a "class", but if you're learning something, you should be doing more than top-level browsing.
You are approaching your learning from a very odd angle: reading up on how to instantiate an object is not the direction you ought to be taking if you want to find out how to define the class the object will be an instance of. It kinda suggests a gap in your knowledge of OO (which could make this work a challenge for you).
Anyway, of course CFML allows for the definition of classes and the usage thereof, natively in the language. And has been able to do so since v6.0 (although this was not really production-ready until 6.1, due to some poor implementation decisions), over a decade ago.
The answer to your broader question, can be found by reading the docs starting with "Building and Using ColdFusion Components". But the basic form is:
// Foo.cfc
component {
public Foo function init(/* args here */){
// code here
}
// etc
}
And that sort of thing.
New to OOP, eager to learn good habits.
I want to make a vectorMap class. A vectorMap will have a few properties and contain a number of polyLine objects, which in turn will each will have a few properties and consist of a number of xyPoint objects.
The user will mostly interact with vectorMap objects, but may occasionally want to use polyLine and xyPoint objects outside the context of vectorMap.
Does this mean I should create three separate public classes? Would this mean three separate class modules in VBA, and in Java, three separate .java files?
My procedural gut tells me that it would be untidy to have three separate source code files for three small and simple classes with only a few lines of code each. I'm used to source code files containing packages with many functions. At this rate, a VBA project will contain tens of class modules. But maybe that's just the way it's done in OOP...
The above will be implemented in VBA and Java, so any examples in either/both of these are most welcome.
what do you mean "simple small classes"? My opinion is you should use a fresh file for each class which is testable. if (for instance) XyPoint is just a touple containing 2 elements, it will be a good idea to put it as a subclass of PolyLine.
However, as far as I see it - PolyLine and VectorMap should be in separate files, since you cannot really tell A is important only to B, and both are testable.
also, when using subclasses in java, notice their types (static/non-static,anonymous..) and choose wisely which is preferred.
p.s. a strong convention in Java is that class names start is a capital letters.
p.s.2: I assume this is done for educational purposes, otherwise you should (as #Ingo said) use built in classes, and not to reinvent the wheel...
I've been working on a fairly simple project for a class. I knew it was supposed to be written in Java, and I read enough of the Assignment description to have an idea what I was supposed to be doing, so I set about creating a nice, object-oriented solution ('cause it's Java, right?). When I finally get to reading the nitty-gritty details of the assignment, I come upon this little gem: The whole thing is supposed to be submitted as a single class file. It's too late to rewrite the whole thing now, so I tried to work around it by making all my classes static inner classes of the primary class. To my chagrin, I discovered that eclipse, at least by default, compiles the inner classes to separate class files still. I unfortunately don't know much about Java compiler settings, but I'm hoping theres a way to get them all compiled to one .class file. Is is it possible, or must I simply turn in what I've got with a note and take whatever my TA decides to dock me for it?
I'm afraid there is no such option. Each class is defined in its own class file. Even anonymous classes are defined in ParentClass$1.class
What I would suggest is to put a huge comment/documentation on why you think it is not good to put everything in one class. Of course it depends on the person "on the other end".
If one file, rather than one class is required, simply make a jar file.
If you are feeling brave you could create a jar for your application, encode it as a string in a your toplevelclass which extends a classloader and use this classloader to load the classes from the decoded jar file.
This is so crazy and shows so much knowledge of the Java platform it has to be worth extra credits.
As a TA, if a student send me a single java file, with an object-oriented design and nested classes, I would love it!
If the TA wanted the simplest solution to the problem and you over-engineered it, than it's of course another story.
Note that if the TA does not like nested classes and think they are bad, point him to NewSpeak and Gilad Bracha's posts. He's been involved in the Java Language Specification, he is an authority in the field and came up with a language entirely based on class nesting!
That said, should this be a single file, or single class file. If the former you can of course ZIP/JAR it, if the latter a little chat with the TA would be the way to go.