2009-2012

John Yeary

Java Class Design

Oracle Certied Professional, Java SE 7 Programmer Module 1

Module 1 - Objectives
Use access modiers: private, protected, and public. Override methods. Overload constructors and other methods appropriately. Use the instanceof operator and casting. Use virtual method invocation. Override methods from the Object class to improve the

functionality of your class.

Use package and import statements.

Access Modiers
public, protected, private, and package (default). public members (variables and methods) are visible to any

calling class. This is also known as The Public API.

protected members (variables and methods) are visible to

classes in the same package, or sub-classes of the declared class. is no access modifier called package. These members are only visible to classes in the same package. within the class.

package (default). Please note that this is convention there

private members (variables and methods) are only visible

Access Modiers (cont.)

Access modifiers are applicable to static and

instance variables and methods. The class will not compile if applied to a local variable.
It is a best practice to make instance variables

private, or protected (if you expect sub-classes) and provide accessors (getters) and mutators (setters).

Overriding Methods
A method must be implemented (overridden) if one these

conditions exist The class is implementing an interface. If the method is not overridden, the class must be declared as abstract. The class is extending an abstract class, and implementing abstract methods. If all of the methods of the abstract class are not implemented, the class must be declared abstract. specialization in the subclass.

A method of a superclass may be overridden to provide additional A class which contains a final method can sub-classed, but its

sub-class can not override the final method in super-class.

Overriding Methods (cont.)

You can not override static, or final methods. The access level on the overriding method can not be more restrictive

than the overridden method, but it may be less restrictive.

It must have the same arguments, and return type. The return type may be covariant. This means that the return type may

be a subtype of the original return type. thrown in the super-class method.

It may throw any unchecked (runtime) Exception which may not be It may throw more specific exceptions than declared in the superclass,

e.g., the super-class throws Exception, and the sub-class throws FileNotFoundException.

Constructor Overloading
Every class implicitly has a default no-name constructor if no

other constructor is provided. it is always called on instantiation.

A default no argument constructor is provided by the compiler if

no other constructor is provided.

A constructor consists of an access modifier and the class name. If a class declares a constructor which takes arguments, the sub-class

must provide a constructor that takes the same arguments, or call super() with the same arguments. with the same argument list to daisy chain construction.

Constructors may take any number of arguments, and may call this()

Constructor Overloading (cont.)

A call to super(), or this() must be the first call in the

constructor.
super() is called implicitly if not defined. Only one call to super(), or this() may be in any constructor.

Method Overloading
Overloaded methods must change the argument list It can have the same, or different return types. It can different access modifiers It can declare new, or broader exceptions. It may be overridden in the same class, or sub-classes. The reference type determines which overloaded method is

invoked, not the object type.

instanceof Operator
It will cause a compiler error if the comparison is done with

objects which are not in the same class hierarchy.

Returns true if the type could be cast to the reference type

without causing a ClassCastException, otherwise it is false.

The operand can be a reference type, or null.

Casting
In order to use an object where it is hidden by a super-

class reference, you must cast the object to the subclass.

List list = new ArrayList(); ((ArrayList)list).ensureCapacity(10);

Virtual Method Invocation

All method calls are virtual method calls in Java, unless they

are static.

Virtual method invocation is the technical term for

determining which method to invoke based on its class hierarchy. For example, If you call eat(); on the Animal interface. The concrete implementation of the method is called. It may be Dog.eat(); or Cat.eat();

Override methods of Object Class

The Object class contains four methods which are often

overridden:
clone(); equals();

hashCode(); toString();

The most common method which is overridden is the

toString() method. This should be a representation of the class.

Packaging and import Statements

Packaging is used for grouping of like classes, interfaces, and

enums. This may include ancillary classes which are used by the public API.

import statements are used to dierentiate classes which Classes in the same package do not need to be imported. Classes in the java.lang.* package do not need to be

may have the same name, but may have dierent methods.

imported.7.3

References
Java Language Specication, Java SE 7 Edition, James Gosling,

Bill Joy, Guy Steele, Gilad Bracha, and Alex Buckley.

Preparation for Java Programmer Language Certication Sun Certied Java Programmer for Java 6 Study Guide, Kathy

Sierra, and Bert Bates

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