Chapter 2: Objects and Primitive Data

Presentation slides for

Java Software Solutions

Foundations of Program Design
Third Edition
Presented by

Ali Kassem

Java Software Solutions is published by Addison-Wesley

Presentation slides are copyright 2002 by John Lewis and William Loftus. All rights reserved.
Instructors using the textbook may use and modify these slides for pedagogical purposes.
Objects and Primitive Data
 Now we can explore some more fundamental programming
concepts
 Chapter 2 focuses on:
• predefined objects
• primitive data
• the declaration and use of variables
• expressions and operator precedence
• creating and using objects
• class libraries
• Java applets
• drawing shapes

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Introduction to Objects
 An object represents something with which we can interact
in a program
 An object provides a collection of services that we can tell it
to perform for us
 The services are defined by methods in a class that defines
the object
 A class represents a concept, and an object represents the
embodiment of a class
 A class can be used to create multiple objects

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Objects and Classes

A class An object
(the concept) (the realization)

Bank John’s Bank Account

Account Balance: $5,257

Bill’s Bank Account

Balance: $1,245,069
Multiple objects
from the same class
Mary’s Bank Account
Balance: $16,833

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Inheritance
 One class can be used to derive another via inheritance

 Classes can be organized into inheritance hierarchies

Account

Charge Bank
Account Account

Savings Checking
Account Account

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Using Objects
 The System.out object represents a destination to which
we can send output
 In the Lincoln program, we invoked the println
method of the System.out object:

System.out.println ("Whatever you are, be a good one.");

object method
information provided to the method
(parameters)

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The print Method
 The System.out object provides another service as well

 The print method is similar to the println method,

except that it does not advance to the next line

 Therefore anything printed after a print statement will

appear on the same line

 See Countdown.java (page 65)

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Abstraction
 An abstraction hides (or suppresses) the right details at the
right time
 An object is abstract in that we don't have to think about
its internal details in order to use it
 For example, we don't have to know how the println
method works in order to invoke it
 A human being can manage only seven (plus or minus 2)
pieces of information at one time
 But if we group information into chunks (such as objects)
we can manage many complicated pieces at once
 Classes and objects help us write complex software
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Character Strings
 Every character string is an object in Java, defined by the
String class
 Every string literal, delimited by double quotation marks,
represents a String object
 The string concatenation operator (+) is used to append one
string to the end of another
 It can also be used to append a number to a string
 A string literal cannot be broken across two lines in a
program
 See Facts.java (page 68)

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String Concatenation
 The plus operator (+) is also used for arithmetic addition

 The function that the + operator performs depends on the

type of the information on which it operates
 If both operands are strings, or if one is a string and one is
a number, it performs string concatenation
 If both operands are numeric, it adds them

 The + operator is evaluated left to right

 Parentheses can be used to force the operation order

 See Addition.java (page 70)

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Escape Sequences
 What if we wanted to print a double quote character?
 The following line would confuse the compiler because it
would interpret the second quote as the end of the string

System.out.println ("I said "Hello" to you.");

 An escape sequence is a series of characters that represents

a special character
 An escape sequence begins with a backslash character (\),
which indicates that the character(s) that follow should be
treated in a special way

System.out.println ("I said \"Hello\" to you.");

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Escape Sequences
 Some Java escape sequences:

Escape Sequence Meaning

\b backspace
\t tab
\n newline
\r carriage return
\" double quote
\' single quote
\\ backslash

 See Roses.java (page 71)

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Variables
 A variable is a name for a location in memory

 A variable must be declared by specifying the variable's

name and the type of information that it will hold

data type variable name

int total;

int count, temp, result;

Multiple variables can be created in one declaration

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Variables
 A variable can be given an initial value in the declaration

int sum = 0;
int base = 32, max = 149;

 When a variable is referenced in a program, its current

value is used

 See PianoKeys.java (page 73)

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Assignment
 An assignment statement changes the value of a variable
 The assignment operator is the = sign

total = 55;

 The expression on the right is evaluated and the result is

stored in the variable on the left
 The value that was in total is overwritten
 You can assign only a value to a variable that is consistent
with the variable's declared type
 See Geometry.java (page 74)

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Constants
 A constant is an identifier that is similar to a variable
except that it holds one value while the program is active
 The compiler will issue an error if you try to change the
value of a constant during execution
 In Java, we use the final modifier to declare a constant

final int MIN_HEIGHT = 69;

 Constants:
• give names to otherwise unclear literal values
• facilitate updates of values used throughout a program
• prevent inadvertent attempts to change a value

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Primitive Data
 There are exactly eight primitive data types in Java

 Four of them represent integers:

• byte, short, int, long

 Two of them represent floating point numbers:

• float, double

 One of them represents characters:

• char

 And one of them represents boolean values:

• boolean

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Numeric Primitive Data
 The difference between the various numeric primitive types
is their size, and therefore the values they can store:

Type Storage Min Value Max Value

byte 8 bits -128 127

short 16 bits -32,768 32,767
int 32 bits -2,147,483,648 2,147,483,647
long 64 bits < -9 x 1018 > 9 x 1018

float 32 bits +/- 3.4 x 1038 with 7 significant digits

double 64 bits +/- 1.7 x 10308 with 15 significant digits

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Characters
 A char variable stores a single character from the
Unicode character set
 A character set is an ordered list of characters, and each
character corresponds to a unique number
 The Unicode character set uses sixteen bits per character,
allowing for 65,536 unique characters
 It is an international character set, containing symbols and
characters from many world languages
 Character literals are delimited by single quotes:
'a' 'X' '7' '$' ',' '\n'

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Characters
 The ASCII character set is older and smaller than Unicode,
but is still quite popular
 The ASCII characters are a subset of the Unicode
character set, including:

uppercase letters A, B, C, …
lowercase letters a, b, c, …
punctuation period, semi-colon, …
digits 0, 1, 2, …
special symbols &, |, \, …
control characters carriage return, tab, ...

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Boolean
 A boolean value represents a true or false condition

 A boolean also can be used to represent any two states, such

as a light bulb being on or off

 The reserved words true and false are the only valid
values for a boolean type
boolean done = false;

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Arithmetic Expressions
 An expression is a combination of one or more operands and their
operators
 Arithmetic expressions compute numeric results and make use of
the arithmetic operators:

Addition +
Subtraction -
Multiplication *
Division /
Remainder %

 If either or both operands associated with an arithmetic

operator are floating point, the result is a floating point
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Division and Remainder
 If both operands to the division operator (/) are integers,
the result is an integer (the fractional part is discarded)

14 / 3 equals? 4

8 / 12 equals? 0

 The remainder operator (%) returns the remainder after

dividing the second operand into the first

14 % 3 equals? 2

8 % 12 equals? 8

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Operator Precedence
 Operators can be combined into complex expressions

result = total + count / max - offset;

 Operators have a well-defined precedence which

determines the order in which they are evaluated

 Multiplication, division, and remainder are evaluated prior

to addition, subtraction, and string concatenation

 Arithmetic operators with the same precedence are

evaluated from left to right

 Parentheses can be used to force the evaluation order

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Operator Precedence
 What is the order of evaluation in the following
expressions?

a + b + c + d + e a + b * c - d / e
1 2 3 4 3 1 4 2

a / (b + c) - d % e
2 1 4 3

a / (b * (c + (d - e)))
4 3 2 1

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Assignment Revisited
 The assignment operator has a lower precedence than the
arithmetic operators

First the expression on the right hand

side of the = operator is evaluated

answer = sum / 4 + MAX * lowest;

4 1 3 2

Then the result is stored in the

variable on the left hand side

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Assignment Revisited
 The right and left hand sides of an assignment statement
can contain the same variable

First, one is added to the

original value of count

count = count + 1;

Then the result is stored back into count

(overwriting the original value)

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Data Conversions
 Sometimes it is convenient to convert data from one type to
another
 For example, we may want to treat an integer as a floating
point value during a computation
 Conversions must be handled carefully to avoid losing
information
 Widening conversions are safest because they tend to go
from a small data type to a larger one (such as a short to
an int)
 Narrowing conversions can lose information because they
tend to go from a large data type to a smaller one (such as
an int to a short)
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Data Conversions
 In Java, data conversions can occur in three ways:
• assignment conversion
• arithmetic promotion
• casting

 Assignment conversion occurs when a value of one type is

assigned to a variable of another
• Only widening conversions can happen via assignment

 Arithmetic promotion happens automatically when

operators in expressions convert their operands

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Widening & Narrowing Conversions
 Widening Conversion From To
byte short, int, long, float, or double
short int, long, float, or double
char int, long, float, or double
int long, float, or double
long float, or double
float double
 Narrowing conversion
From To
byte char
short byte, or char
char byte, or short
int byte, short or char
long byte, short or char, or int
float byte, short, char, int, or long
double byte, short, char, int, long, or float
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Data Conversions
 Casting is the most powerful, and dangerous, technique for
conversion
• Both widening and narrowing conversions can be accomplished by
explicitly casting a value
• To cast, the type is put in parentheses in front of the value being
converted

 For example, if total and count are integers, but we

want a floating point result when dividing them, we can
cast total:
result = (float) total / count;

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Creating Objects
 A variable holds either a primitive type or a reference to an
object

 A class name can be used as a type to declare an object

reference variable
String title;

 No object is created with this declaration

 An object reference variable holds the address of an object

 The object itself must be created separately

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Creating Objects
 Generally, we use the new operator to create an object

title = new String ("Java Software Solutions");

This calls the String constructor, which is

a special method that sets up the object

 Creating an object is called instantiation

 An object is an instance of a particular class

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Creating Objects
 Because strings are so common, we don't have to use the
new operator to create a String object
title = "Java Software Solutions";

 This is special syntax that works only for strings

 Once an object has been instantiated, we can use the dot

operator to invoke its methods
title.length()

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String Methods
 The String class has several methods that are useful for
manipulating strings

 Many of the methods return a value, such as an integer or a

new String object

 See the list of String methods on page 89 and in Appendix

M

 See StringMutation.java (page 90)

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Class Libraries
 A class library is a collection of classes that we can use when
developing programs

 The Java standard class library is part of any Java

development environment

 Its classes are not part of the Java language , but we rely on
them heavily

 The System class and the String class are part of the
Java standard class library

 Other class libraries can be obtained through third party

vendors, or you can create them yourself
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Packages
 The classes of the Java standard class library are organized
into packages
 Some of the packages in the standard class library are:

Package Purpose
java.lang General support – Default library
java.io Input/Output functions
java.applet Creating applets for the web
java.awt Graphics and graphical user interfaces
javax.swing Additional graphics capabilities and components
java.net Network communication
java.util Utilities
java.sql Interact with databases
java.security Enforce security restrictions
javax.xml.parsers XML document processing
java.math Perform calculation Ali Kassem 37
The import Declaration
 When you want to use a class from a package, you could
use its fully qualified name
java.util.Random

 Or you can import the class, and then use just the class
name
import java.util.Random;

 To import all classes in a particular package, you can use

the * wildcard character
import java.util.*;

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The import Declaration
 All classes of the java.lang package are imported
automatically into all programs

 That's why we didn't have to import the System or

String classes explicitly in earlier programs

 The Random class is part of the java.util package

 It provides methods that generate pseudorandom numbers

 See RandomNumbers.java (page 97)

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Class Methods
 Some methods can be invoked through the class name,
instead of through an object of the class

 These methods are called class methods or static methods

 The Math class contains many static methods, providing

various mathematical functions, such as absolute value,
trigonometry functions, square root, etc.
temp = Math.cos(90) + Math.sqrt(delta);

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The Keyboard Class
 The Keyboard class is NOT part of the Java standard
class library
 It is provided by the authors of the textbook to make
reading input from the keyboard easy
 Details of the Keyboard class are explored in Chapter 5

 The Keyboard class is part of a package called cs1

 It contains several static methods for reading particular

types of data
 See Echo.java (page 101)

 See Quadratic.java (page 102)

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Keyboard static methods
 Some methods of the Keyboard class
These methods returns a value of the indicated type obtained from
user keyboard input
Methods names
static boolean readBoolean()

static byte readByte()

static char readChar()

static double readDouble()

static float readFloat()

static int readInt()

static long readLong()

static short readShort()

static String readString() Ali Kassem 42

Formatting Output
 The NumberFormat class has static methods that return a
formatter object
getCurrencyInstance()

getPercentInstance()

 Each formatter object has a method called format that

returns a string with the specified information in the
appropriate format
 See Price.java (page 104)

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Formatting Output
 The DecimalFormat class can be used to format a
floating point value in generic ways

 For example, you can specify that the number should be

printed to three decimal places

 The constructor of the DecimalFormat class takes a

string that represents a pattern for the formatted number

 See CircleStats.java (page 107)

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Applets
 A Java application is a stand-alone program with a main
method (like the ones we've seen so far)
 A Java applet is a program that is intended to transported
over the Web and executed using a web browser
 An applet also can be executed using the appletviewer tool
of the Java Software Development Kit
 An applet doesn't have a main method

 Instead, there are several special methods that serve

specific purposes

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Applets
 The paint method, for instance, is executed automatically
and is used to draw the applet’s contents

 The paint method accepts a parameter that is an object of

the Graphics class

 A Graphics object defines a graphics context on which we

can draw shapes and text

 The Graphics class has several methods for drawing

shapes

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Applets
 The class that defines an applet extends the Applet class

 This makes use of inheritance, which is explored in more

detail in Chapter 7

 See Einstein.java (page 109)

 An applet is embedded into an HTML file using a tag that

references the bytecode file of the applet class

 The bytecode version of the program is transported across

the web and executed by a Java interpreter that is part of
the browser

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The HTML applet Tag

<html>

<head>
<title>The Einstein Applet</title>
</head>

<body>
<applet code="Einstein.class" width=350 height=175>
</applet>
</body>

</html>

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Drawing Shapes
 Let's explore some of the methods of the Graphics class
that draw shapes in more detail
 A shape can be filled or unfilled, depending on which
method is invoked
 The method parameters specify coordinates and sizes

 Recall from Chapter 1 that the Java coordinate system has

the origin in the top left corner
 Shapes with curves, like an oval, are usually drawn by
specifying the shape’s bounding rectangle
 An arc can be thought of as a section of an oval

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Drawing a Line
10 150 X

20

45

page.drawLine (10, 20, 150, 45);

or
page.drawLine (150, 45, 10, 20);
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Drawing a Rectangle
50 X

20

40

100

page.drawRect (50, 20, 100, 40);

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Drawing an Oval
175 X

20

80

bounding
rectangle
Y 50

page.drawOval (175, 20, 50, 80);

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The Color Class
 A color is defined in a Java program using an object
created from the Color class
 The Color class also contains several static predefined
colors, including:

Object RGB Value

Color.black 0, 0, 0
Color.blue 0, 0, 255
Color.cyan 0, 255, 255
Color.orange 255, 200, 0
Color.white 255, 255, 255
Color.yellow 255, 255, 0
Color.gray 128, 128, 128
Color.magneta 255, 0, 255
Color.red 255, 0, 0
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Color.green 0, 255, 0
The Color Class
 Every drawing surface has a background color

 Every graphics context has a current foreground color

 Both can be set explicitly

 See Snowman.java (page115)

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Exercises & examples
 Read the Key Concepts in page 118
 Try to resolve the self-review question in page 119
 Resolve the exercises in page 120
 Resolve the programming projects in page 123

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Summary
 Chapter 2 has focused on:
• predefined objects
• primitive data
• the declaration and use of variables
• expressions and operator precedence
• creating and using objects
• class libraries
• Java applets
• drawing shapes
• Exercises & examples

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