An Introduction to Java

Summary

We introduce the basics of the Java programming language and walk through the first simple program.

Prerequisites

Basic understanding of object-oriented concepts.

Expectations of object-oriented languages

Now that you know the basics of object-oriented programming, there are particular characteristics you should look for in any object-oriented language, including ways to define classes and objects, some protection mechanisms, and support for inheritance and polymorphism. Different languages naturally take different approaches to these issues, both in the syntax that describes how one writes programs and in the underlying semantics of how objects and classes relate.

There are also some things you may not have thought about, such as the way in which one invokes a “program” in the particular language. In some languages one simply adds new classes and objects to an existing “world”, often through a graphical user interface. Other languages require you to type commands in a textual user interface. Still others can “automatically” determine which objects to start (e.g., because an object is embedded in a Web page).

Classes, object creation, inheritance, subtype polymorphism, parametric polymorphism, and program instantiation are more subjects than we can cover in a short reading. Hence, in this reading we will focus on three basic issues in Java:

• How to set up a basic Java program.
• How to create and name objects.
• How to tell objects to do things.

Setting up Java programs: Your main class

Java provides a variety of mechanisms for indicating which objects provide the main components of your program. The simplest, and the one we will use for most of this course, is what we typically call a “Main Class”. Such a class is a class that typically contains only one method, called main. The main method contains a series of instructions to create objects and to tell those objects to do things.

That theory is fairly simple. The syntax, however, is daunting to many novice programmers. Here is a sketch of a typical Main class.

public class NAME_OF_CLASS {
  public static void main (String[] args) throws Exception {
    INSTRUCTIONS
  } // main(String[])
} // class NameOfClass

It is the programmer’s responsibility to choose an appropriate name for the class and the instructions for the task at hand. Tradition suggests that the name of a class begin with an upper-case letter and use mixed case. I expect that you will follow that convention.

What else is in this sketch? The outer braces enclose the contents of this class, in this case, just the main method. You will see braces enclosing other things in future readings. The inner braces enclose the instructions for the main method.

You’ll notice two slashes and a note after the end-braces. Text that begins with two slashes is a comment for the programmer or reader. My experience suggests that you should always comment your end braces to indicate what you’re ending. Such comments help you make sure that your code is structured appropriately and helps the reader more quickly parse your code. You may (and should) also insert comments to explain key parts of your code.

You can probably guess what purpose the words that preface NameOfClass serve. The public indicates that the class can be used by any program or user (or at least any program or user that has system permission to read the file containing the class). The class indicates that we’re defining a class.

The slew of stuff surrounding main is perhaps more confusing. If you are willing to live with “just write what you see above”, you need not learn the details right now. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section. However, if you’d like a quick overview, read on.

You might be able to guess that the public means that the method named main is generally accessible (again, provided the person or program attempting to access it has system permission to access the associated file).

The static indicates that the method can run without having an associated object created. You are probably used to running methods (procedures) without having associated objects. However, in Java, one typically associates a method call with a particular object that is to execute the method call. Hence, we must indicate that main is an exception to the rule.

In Java, all methods potentially return values. Programmers therefore have a responsibility to indicate what kind of value the methods return. (The designers of Java have found that programs behave more reliably if the compiler can tell the types of values and check to see that the programmer is using them consistently.) We don’t want to return any particular value from this method (we just want it to run), so we give it return type void.

The String[] args in parentheses provides the one parameter to the main method, all the strings typed on the command line. This parameter is an artifact of Java’s designers decision to emulate some key aspects of the C programming language. We will return to it after we learn more about arrays.

Finally, the throws Exception is our admission that our method can fail. Java expects programmers to indicate when and how their methods can fail. As you become a more careful and responsible programmer and can guarantee that your methods will not fail, you can potentially remove this line.

Naming objects

What kinds of things belong in the body of main (and in any other methods you decide to write)? A few basic things. First, you often include declarations of names for objects. The declaration of a name provides the type of object the name will refer to and the text of the name. The general form is

TYPE NAME;

For example, I might say that pen will name objects in class java.io.PrintWriter with

    java.io.PrintWriter pen;

Similarly, I might say that i is an integer (in Java-ese, an int) with

    int i;

Note that the semicolon at the end of the declaration is necessary. You will receive strange errors if you fail to include that semicolon.

Once you have declared the name for a kind of value, you can make that name refer to a particular value using the assignment operator (an equals sign).

    NAME = EXPRESSION;

Creating new objects

In many cases, particularly at the beginning of the main method, the expression at the right-hand side of the assignment creates a new object. The form of an expression that creates a new object is most typically

new NAME_OF_CLASS(PARAMETERS)

What class names can you use? You can use any class that you’ve defined (none, yet), any class that someone has provided for you or that you’ve downloaded, or any class that comes as part of a standard Java installation.

What parameters do you give when you create a new object? It depends on the kind of object you’re creating. You will need to check the documentation for the object to determine what parameters are appropriate.

Using named objects

You’ve created an object. You’ve named that object. What else can you do with the object? You can tell it to do something. (Some programmers say that this is “calling a method” others say it is “sending a message to the object”.) The typical form is

    NAME.METHOD(PARAMETERS);

Useful classes

For many of your programs, you will find the following classes useful:

java.lang.String

Sequences of alphanumeric characters. You can represent strings explicitly by surrounding the characters with double-quote marks.

java.io.PrintWriter

The simplest mechanism for output in Java. PrintWriter objects provide print and println methods. You can create PrintWriter object that print to the terminal (or to “standard output”) with new java.io.PrintWriter(System.out, true). You can create new PrintWriter objects s that write to a file with new java.io.PrintWriter(FILE).

java.io.File

Files for use in PrintWriter and similar objects. You can create a new File object with new java.io.File(PATH_TO_FILE). For now, you will not use files directly. Instead, you will create them as parameters for PrintWriter objects and other classes.

java.io.BufferedReader

One of the simpler mechanisms for input. You will often create BufferedReader objects in a multi-step process, first creating a Reader object and then building a BufferedReader from it. For standard input, you can use new java.io.BufferedReader(new java.io.InputStreamReader(System.in)). For a file, you can use new java.io.BufferedReader(new java.io.FileReader(FILE)). BufferedReader objects provide a read() method to read a single character and a readLine() method to read a full line of text. They also provide some more sophisticated procedures for marking points in the input and backing up to those points.

java.util.Scanner

A more sophisticated input mechanism. Scanner objectss “tokenize” the input, most frequently at spaces, and let you read in a token at a time as a particular type. You can build a new Scanner object that reads from standard input with new java.util.Scanner(System.in). You can also read from a file or even from a string. The next() operation returns the next token as a string. The nextInt(), nextDouble(), and nextFloat() methods return the next token in the obvious type. What happens if the next token is the wrong type? We’ll try it and find out.

Putting it all together: Your first program

We now know all the basic components of a Java program, so we can write a typical “first program” which writes a greeting to the screen. (This one is slightly more complex than one you may have seen previously, but it also does a better job of revealing some basic Java issues.)

public class First {
  public static void main (String[] args) throws Exception {
    // Describe the two names of objects used in the program.
    java.io.PrintWriter pen;
    java.lang.String greeting;
    // Create objects and associate the names with those objects.
    pen = new java.io.PrintWriter(System.out, true);
    greeting = "Hello";
    // Tell one object to do something.
    pen.println(greeting);
  } // main(String[])
} // class First

Self checks

Check 1: Similarities to C

List three or so ways in which Java seems similar to C.

Check 2: Differences from C

List three or so ways in which Java seems different than C.

Check 3: Formatting Java code

I expect you to follow common practices for formatting Java code. Summarize a few practices you observe for formatting the code above.