Ebook Learning Java

 Learning Java Copyright Table of Contents Index Full Description About the Author Reviews Examples Reader reviews Errata Learning Java Pat Niemeyer Jonathan Knudsen Publisher: O'Reilly First Edition May 2000 ISBN: 1-56592-718-4, 722 pages For programmers either just migrating to Java or already working steadily in the forefront of Java development, L arning Java gives a clear, systematic overview of the Java 2 Standard Edition. It covers the essentials of hot topics like Swing and JFC; describes new tools for signing applets; and shows how to write networked clients and servers, servlets, and JavaBeans as state-of-the-art user interfaces. Includes a CD-ROM containing example code and JBuilder for Windows and Solaris. Learning Java Preface New Developments Audience Using This Book Getting Wired Conventions Used in This Book How to Contact Us Acknowledgments 1. Yet Another Language? 1.1 Enter Java 1.2 A Virtual Machine 1.3 Java Compared with Other Languages 1.4 Safety of Design 1.5 Safety of Implementation 1.6 Application and User-Level Security 1.7 Java and the World Wide Web 1.8 Java as a General Application Language 1.9 A Java Road Map 2. A First Application 2.1 HelloJava1 2.2 HelloJava2: The Sequel 2.3 HelloJava3: The Button Strikes! 2.4 HelloJava4: Netscape's Revenge 3. Tools of the Trade 3.1 The Java Interpreter 3.2 Policy Files 3.3 The Class Path 3.4 The Java Compiler 3.5 Java Archive (JAR) Files 4. The Java Language 4.1 Text Encoding 4.2 Comments 4.3 Types 4.4 Statements and Expressions 4.5 Exceptions 4.6 Arrays 5. Objects in Java 5.1 Classes 5.2 Methods 5.3 Object Creation 5.4 Object Destruction 6. Relationships Among Classes 6.1 Subclassing and Inheritance 6.2 Interfaces 6.3 Packages and Compilation Units 6.4 Visibility of Variables and Methods 6.5 Arrays and the Class Hierarchy 6.6 Inner Classes 7. Working with Objects and Classes 7.1 The Object Class 7.2 The Class Class 7.3 Reflection 8. Threads 8.1 Introducing Threads 8.2 Threads in Applets 8.3 Synchronization 8.4 Scheduling and Priority 8.5 Thread Groups 9. Basic Utility Classes 9.1 Strings 9.2 Math Utilities 9.3 Dates 9.4 Timers 9.5 Collections 9.6 Properties 9.7 The Security Manager 9.8 Internationalization 10. Input/Output Facilities 10.1 Streams 10.2 Files 10.3 Serialization 10.4 Data Compression 11. Network Programming with Sockets and RMI 11.1 Sockets 11.2 Datagram Sockets 11.3 Simple Serialized Object Protocols 11.4 Remote Method Invocation (RMI) 12. Programming for the Web 12.1 Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) 12.2 The URL Class 12.3 Web Browsers and Handlers 12.4 Talking to CGI Programs and Servlets 12.5 Implementing Servlets 13. Swing 13.1 Components 13.2 Containers 13.3 Events 13.4 Event Summary 13.5 Multithreading in Swing 14. Using Swing Components 14.1 Buttons and Labels 14.2 Checkboxes and Radio Buttons 14.3 Lists and Combo Boxes 14.4 Borders 14.5 Menus 14.6 The PopupMenu Class 14.7 The JScrollPane Class 14.8 The JSplitPane Class 14.9 The JTabbedPane Class 14.10 Scrollbars and Sliders 14.11 Dialogs 15. More Swing Components 15.1 Text Components 15.2 Trees 15.3 Tables 15.4 Desktops 15.5 Pluggable Look-and-Feel 15.6 Creating Custom Components 16. Layout Managers 16.1 FlowLayout 16.2 GridLayout 16.3 BorderLayout 16.4 BoxLayout 16.5 CardLayout 16.6 GridBagLayout 16.7 Nonstandard Layout Managers 16.8 Absolute Positioning 17. Drawing with the 2D API 17.1 The Big Picture 17.2 The Rendering Pipeline 17.3 A Quick Tour of Java 2D 17.4 Filling Shapes 17.5 Stroking Shape Outlines 17.6 Using Fonts 17.7 Displaying Images 17.8 Using Drawing Techniques 17.9 Printing 18. Working with Images and Other Media 18.1 Implementing an ImageObserver 18.2 Using a MediaTracker 18.3 Producing Image Data 18.4 Filtering Image Data 18.5 Working with Audio 18.6 Working with Movies 19. Java Beans 19.1 What's a Bean? 19.2 Building Beans 19.3 Hand-Coding with Beans 19.4 Putting Reflection to Work 19.5 BeanContext and BeanContextServices 19.6 The Java Activation Framework 19.7 Enterprise JavaBeans 20. Applets 20.1 The JApplet Class 20.2 The Tag 20.3 Using the Java Plug-in 20.4 Using Digital Signatures 21. Glossary A. Content and Protocol Handlers A.1 Writing a Content Handler A.2 Writing a Protocol Handler B. BeanShell: Simple Java Scripting B.1 Running BeanShell B.2 Java Statements and Expressions B.3 BeanShell Commands B.4 Scripted Methods and Objects B.5 Learning More . . . Colophon Preface This book is about the Java™ language and programming environment. If you've been at all active on the Internet in the past few years, you've heard a lot about Java. It's one of the most exciting developments in the history of the Internet, rivaling the creation of the World Wide Web. Java became the darling of the Internet programming community as soon as the alpha version was released. Immediately, thousands of people were writing Java applets to add to their web pages. Interest in Java only grew with time, and support for Java in Netscape Navigator guaranteed it would be a permanent part of the Net scene. What, then, is Java? Java is a network programming language that was developed by Sun Microsystems. It's already in widespread use for creating animated and interactive web pages. However, this is only the start. The Java language and environment are rich enough to support entirely new kinds of applications, like dynamically extensible browsers and mobile agents. There are entirely new kinds of computer platforms being developed around Java (handheld devices and network computers) that download all their software over the network. In the coming years, we'll see what Java is capable of doing; fancy web pages are fun and interesting, but they certainly aren't the end of the story. If Java is successful (and that isn't a foregone conclusion), it could change the way we think about computing in fundamental ways. This book gives you a head start on a lot of Java fundamentals. Learning Java attempts to live up to its name by mapping out the Java language, its class libraries, programming techniques, and idioms. We'll dig deep into interesting areas and at least scratch the surface of the rest. Other titles in the O'Reilly & Associates Java Series will pick up where we leave off and provide more comprehensive information on specific areas and applications of Java. Whenever possible, we'll provide meaningful, realistic examples and avoid cataloging features. The examples are simple but hint at what can be done. We won't be developing the next great "killer app" in these pages, but we hope to give you a starting point for many hours of experimentation and tinkering that will lead you to learn more on your own. New Developments This book, Learning Java, is actually the third edition— reworked and retitled— of O'Reilly's popular Exploring Java. We've de-emphasized web-page applets this time around, reflecting their diminishing role over the past couple of years in creating "smart" web pages. Other technologies have filled in the gap: JavaScript on the client side, an Java servlets and Active Server Pages on the server side. We cover the most interesting features of Sun's newest release of Java, officially called Java 2 SDK Version 1.3. (In the old days, it would have been called "JDK," for "Java development kit;" we use the newer, officially blessed "SDK," for "software development kit," throughout this book.) These features include servlets, the Java Media Framework ( JMF), timers, the collections, 2D graphics, and image-processing APIs, using the Java security manager, and using Java 2 signed applets. Another important change, though not as recent as SDK 1.3, is the ascendancy of Java Swing as the main API for graphical user interface programming. Much of the material relating to AWT, Java's original GUI programming interface, has been recast and updated to use Swing facilities. Audience This book is for computer professionals, students, technical people, and Finnish hackers. It's for everyone who has a need for hands-on experience with the Java language with an eye toward building real applications. This book could also be considered a crash course in object-oriented programming; as you learn about Java, you'll also learn a powerful and practical approach to object-oriented software development. Superficially, Java looks like C or C++, so you'll be in the best position to use this book if you've some experience with one of these languages. If you do not, you might want to refer to books like O'Reilly's Practical C Programming for a more thorough treatment of basic C yntax. However, don't make too much of the syntactic similarities between Java and C or C++. In many respects, Java acts like more dynamic languages such as Smalltalk and Lisp. Knowledge of another object- oriented programming language should certainly help, although you may have to change some ideas and unlearn a few habits. Java is considerably simpler than languages like C++ and Smalltalk. Although we encourage you to take a broad view, you would have every right to be disappointed if we ignored the Web. A substantial part of this book does discuss Java as a language for World Wide Web applications, so you should be familiar with the basic ideas behind web browsers, servers, and web documents. Using This Book This book is organized roughly as follows: · Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 provide a basic introduction to Java concepts and a tutorial to give you a jump start on Java programming. · Chapter 3 discusses tools for developing with Java (the compiler, the interpreter, the JAR file package). It also covers important concepts such as embedding Java code in HTML support and object signing. · Chapter 4 through Chapter 8 describe the Java language itself. Chapter 8 covers the language's thread facilities, which should be of particular interest to advanced programmers. · Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 cover much of the core API. Chapter 9 describes basic utilities, and Chapter 10 covers I/O facilities. · Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 cover Java networking, including sockets, URLs, and remote method invocation (RMI). · Chapter 13 through Chapter 18 cover the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) and Swing, which provide graphical user interface (GUI) and image support. · Chapter 19 covers the JavaBeans™ component architecture. · Chapter 20 covers applets, the area in which Java saw its initial success. If you're like us, you don't read books from front to back. If you're really like us, you usually don't read the preface at all. However, on the off chance that you will see this in time, here are a few suggestions. If you are an experienced programmer who has to learn Java in the next five minutes, you are probably looking for the examples. You might want to start by glancing at the tutorial in Chapter 2. If that doesn't float your boat, you should at least look at the informatio in Ch pter 3, which tells you how to use the compiler and interpreter, and gives you the basics of a standalone Java application. This should get you started. Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 are essential if you are interested in writing advanced networked applications. This probably the most interesting and important part of Java. Chapter 13 though Chapter 19 discuss Java's graphics features and component architecture. You should read this carefully if you are interested in Java applications for the Web. Getting Wired There are many online sources for information about Java. Sun Microsystem's official web site for J ava topics is look here for the latest news, updates, and Java releases. This is where you'll find the Java Software Development Kit (SDK), which includes the compiler, the interpreter, and other tools. Another good source of Java information, including free applets, utility classes, and applications, is the Gamelan site, run by EarthWeb; its URL is You should also visit O'Reilly & Associates' Java site at There you'll find information about other books in O'Reilly's Java Series, and a pointer to the home page for Learning Java, where you'll find the source code examples for this book. The comp.lang.java newsgroup can be a good source of information and announcements, and a place to ask intelligent questions. Conventions Used in This Book The font conventions used in this book are quite simple. Italic is used for: · Unix pathnames, filenames, and program names · Internet addresses, such as domain names and URLs · New terms where they are d fined Boldface is used for: · Names of GUI buttons and menus Constant width is used for: · Anything that might appear in a Java program, including method names, variable names, and class names · Command lines and options that should be typed verbatim on the screen · Tags that might appear in an HTML document Constant width bold is used for: · In code examples, text that is typed by the user In the main body of text, we always use a pair of empty parentheses after a method name to distinguish methods from variables and other creatures. In the Java source listings, we follow the coding conventions most frequently used in the Java community. Class names begin with capital letters; variable and method names begin with lowercase. All the letters in the names of constants are capitalized. We don't use underscores to separate words in a long name; following common practice, we capitalize individual words (after the first) and run the words together. For example: thisIsAVariable , thisIsAMethod( ) , ThisIsAClass , and THISI SACONSTANT. How to Contact Us We have tested and verified all the information in this book to the best of our abilities, but you may find that features have changed or that we have let errors slip through the production of the book. Please let us know of any errors that you find, as well as suggestions for future editions, by writing to: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 101 Morris St. Sebastopol, CA 95472 1-800-998-9938 (in the U.S. or Canada) 1-707-829-0515 (international/local) 1-707-829-0104 (fax) You can also send messages electronically. To be put on our mailing list or to request a catalog, send email to: info@oreilly.com To ask technical questions or to comment on the book, send email to: bookquestions@oreilly.com We have a web site for the book, where we'll list examples, errata, and any plans for future editions. You can access this page at: For more information about this book and others, see the O'Reilly web site: Chapter 1. Yet Another Language? The greatest challenges and most exciting opportunities for software developers today lie in harnessing the power of networks. Applications created today, whatever their intended scope or audience, will almost certainly be run on machines linked by a global network of computing resources. The increasing importance of networks is placing new demands on existing tools and fueling the demand for a rapidly growing list of completely new kinds of applications. We want software that works— consistently, anywhere, on any platform— and that plays well with other applications. We want dynamic applications that take advantage of a connected world, capable of accessing disparate and distributed information sources. We want truly distributed software that can be extended and upgraded seamlessly. We want intelligent applications— like autonomous agents that can roam the Net for us, ferreting out information and serving as electronic emissaries. We know, to some extent, what we want. So why don't we have it? The problem has been that the tools for building these applications have fallen short. The requirements of speed and portability have been, for the most part, mutually exclusive, and security has been largely ignored or misunderstood. There are truly portable languages, but they are mostly bulky, interpreted, and slow. These languages are popular as much for their high-l vel functionality as for their portability. And there are fast languages, but they usually provide speed by binding themselves to particular platforms, so they can meet the portability issue only halfway. There are even a few recent safe languages, but they are primarily offshoots of the portable languages and suffer from the same problems. 1.1 Enter Java The Java™ programming language, developed at Sun Microsystems under the guidance of Net luminaries James Gosling and Bill Joy, is designed to be a machine-independent programming language that is both safe enough to traverse networks and powerful enough to replace native executable code. Java addresses the issues raised here and may help us start building the kinds of applications we want. Initially, most of the enthusiasm for Java centered around its capabilities for building embedded applications for the World Wide Web; these applications are called app ets. Applets could be independent programs in themselves, or sophisticated frontends to programs running on a server. More recently, interest has shifted to other areas. With Java 2, Java has the most sophisticated toolkit for building graphical user interfaces; this development has allowed J va to become a popular platform for developing traditional application software. Java has also become an important platform for server-side applications, using the servlet interface, and for enterprise applications using technologies like Enterpris JavaBeans™. And Java is the platform of choice for modern distributed applications. This book shows you how to use Java to accomplish real programming tasks, such as building networked applications and creating functional user interfaces. There's still a chap er devoted to applets; they may become more important again when the Java 2 (and subsequent) versions of the Java platform are more widely distributed in web browsers. 1.1.1 Java's Origins The seeds of Java were planted in 1990 by Sun Microsystems patriarch and chief researcher, Bill Joy. Since Sun's inception in the early '80s, it has steadily pushed one idea: "The network is the computer." At the time though, Sun was competing in a relatively small workstation market, while Microsoft was beginning its domination of the more mainstream, Intel-bas d PC world. When Sun missed the boat on the PC revolution, Joy retreated to Aspen, Colorado, to work on advanced research. He was committed to accomplishing complex tasks with simple software, and founded the aptly named Sun Aspen Smallworks. Of the original members of the small team of programmers assembled in Aspen, James Gosling is the one who will be remembered as the father of Java. Gosling first made a name for himself in the early '80s as the author of G sling Emacs, the first version of the popular Emacs editor that was written in C and ran under Unix. Gosling Emacs became popular, but was soon eclipsed by a free version, GNU Emacs, written by Emacs's original designer. By that time, Gosling had moved on to design Sun's NeWS window system, which briefly contended with the X Window System for control of the Unix graphical user interface (GUI) desktop in 1987. While some people would argue that NeWS was superior to X, NeWS lost out because Sun kept it proprie ary and didn't publish source code