9 Working with the Java

Class Library

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 Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the student should be able to:

● Explain object-oriented programming and some of its

concepts
● Differentiate between classes and objects
● Differentiate between instance variables/methods and class
(static) variables/methods
● Explain what methods are and how to call and pass
parameters to methods
● Identify the scope of a variable
● Cast primitive data types and objects
● Compare objects and determine the class of an objects
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 Introduction to OOP
● Object-Oriented programming or OOP
– Revolves around the concept of objects as the basic elements of
your programs.
– These objects are characterized by their properties and behaviors.

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 Introduction to OOP
● Example of objects

objects in the physical world can easily be modeled as

software objects using the properties as data and the
behaviors as methods

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 Encapsulation
● Encapsulation
– the method of hiding certain elements of the implementation of a
certain class.
– By placing a boundary around the properties and methods of our
objects, we can prevent our programs from having side effects
wherein programs have their variables changed in unexpected ways.

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 Classes and Objects
● Class
– can be thought of as a template, a prototype or a blueprint of an object
– is the fundamental structure in object-oriented programming

● Two types of class members:

– Fields (properties or attributes)
● specify the data types defined by the class
– Methods.
● specify the operations

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 Classes and Objects
● Object
– is composed of a set of data (properties) which are variables describing
the essential characteristics of the object, and consists of a set of
methods (behavior) that describes how an object behaves.
– An object is an instance of a class.

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 Classes and Objects
● To differentiate between classes and objects, let us discuss
an example:

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 Classes and Objects
● Classes provide the benefit of reusability.

● Software programmers can use a class over and over again

to create many objects.

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 Class Variables
● Classes consist of
– Instance variables
– Instance methods
– Class Variables (static member variables)
● variables that belong to the whole class.
● This means that they have the same value for all the objects in the same class.

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 Class Variables
● For example,

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 Class Instantiation
● To create an object or an instance of a class, we use the
new operator.
● For example, if you want to create an instance of the class
String, we write the following code,
String str2 = new String(“Hello world!”);
or also equivalent to,
String str2 = "Hello";

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 Class Instantiation
● The new operator
– allocates a memory for that object and returns a reference of that
memory location to you.
– When you create an object, you actually invoke the class'
constructor.

● The constructor
– is a method where you place all the initializations, it has the same
name as the class.

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 Methods
● Method
– is a separate piece of code that can be called by a main program or
any other method to perform some specific function.

● The following are characteristics of methods:

– It can return one or no values
– It may accept as many parameters it needs or no parameter at all.
Parameters are also called arguments.
– After the method has finished execution, it goes back to the method
that called it.

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 Why Use Methods?
● The heart of effective problem solving is in problem
decomposition.

● We can do this in Java by creating methods to solve a

specific part of the problem.

● Taking a problem and breaking it into small, manageable

pieces is critical to writing large programs.

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 Calling Instance Variables
● To illustrate how to call methods, let's use the String class
as an example.

● You can use the Java API documentation to see all the
available methods in the String class.

● Later on, we will create our own methods, but for now, let us
use what is available.

● To call an instance method, we write the following,

nameOfObject.nameOfMethod( parameters );

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 Calling Instance Variables
● Let's take two sample methods found in the class String,

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 Calling Instance Variables
● Using the methods,

String str1 = "Hello";

char x = str1.charAt(0); //will return the character H

//and store it to variable x

String str2 = "hello";

//this will return a boolean value true

boolean result = str1.equalsIgnoreCase( str2 );

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 Parameter Passing
● Pass-by-Value
– when a pass-by-value occurs, the method makes a copy of the value
of the variable passed to the method. The method cannot
accidentally modify the original argument even if it modifies the
parameters during calculations.
– all primitive data types when passed to a method are pass-by-value.

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Pass-by-Value

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 Parameter Passing
● Pass-by-Reference
– When a pass-by-reference occurs, the reference to an object is
passed to the calling method. This means that, the method makes a
copy of the reference of the variable passed to the method.
– However, unlike in pass-by-value, the method can modify the actual
object that the reference is pointing to, since, although different
references are used in the methods, the location of the data they are
pointing to is the same.

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Pass-by-Reference

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Pass-by-Reference

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 Calling Static Methods
● Static methods
– methods that can be invoked without instantiating a class (means
without invoking the new keyword).
– Static methods belong to the class as a whole and not to a certain
instance (or object) of a class.
– Static methods are distinguished from instance methods in a class
definition by the keyword static.

● To call a static method, just type,

Classname.staticMethodName(params);

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 Calling Static Methods
● Examples of static methods, we've used so far in our
examples are,
//prints data to screen
System.out.println(“Hello world”);

//converts the String 10, to an integer

int i = Integer.parseInt(“10”);

//Returns a String representation of the integer argument as an

//unsigned integer base 16
String hexEquivalent = Integer.toHexString( 10 );

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 Scope of a Variable
● The scope
– determines where in the program the variable is accessible.
– determines the lifetime of a variable or how long the variable can
exist in memory.
– The scope is determined by where the variable declaration is placed
in the program.

● To simplify things, just think of the scope as anything

between the curly braces {...}. The outer curly braces are
called the outer blocks, and the inner curly braces are called
inner blocks.

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 Scope of a Variable
● A variable's scope is
– inside the block where it is declared, starting from the point where it
is declared, and in the inner blocks.

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 Example 1

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 Example 1
● The code we have here represents five scopes indicated by
the lines and the letters representing the scope.
● Given the variables i,j,k,m and n, and the five scopes
A,B,C,D and E, we have the following scopes for each
variable:
– The scope of variable i is A.
– The scope of variable j is B.
– The scope of variable k is C.
– The scope of variable m is D.
– The scope of variable n is E.

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 Example 2

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 Example 2
● In the main method, the scopes of the variables are,
– ages[] - scope A
– i in B - scope B
– i in C – scope C

● In the test method, the scopes of the variables are,

– arr[] - scope D
– i in E - scope E

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 Scope of a Variable
● When declaring variables, only one variable with a given
identifier or name can be declared in a scope.
● That means that if you have the following declaration,

{
int test = 10;
int test = 20;
}

your compiler will generate an error since you should have

unique names for your variables in one block.

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 Scope of a Variable
● However, you can have two variables of the same name, if
they are not declared in the same block. For example,
int test = 0;
System.out.print( test );
//..some code here
{
int test = 20;
System.out.print( test );
}

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 Coding Guidelines
● Avoid having variables of the same name declared inside
one method to avoid confusion.

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 Type Casting
● Type Casting
– Converting data type of one data to another data type

● To be discussed
– Casting data with primitive types
– Casting objects

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 Type Casting
● Type Casting
– Converting data type of one data to another data type

● To be discussed
– Casting data with primitive types
– Casting objects

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 Casting Primitive Types
● Casting between primitive types enables you to convert the
value of one data from one type to another primitive type.

● Commonly occurs between numeric types.

● There is one primitive data type that we cannot do casting

though, and that is the boolean data type.

● Types of Casting:
– Implicit Casting
– Explicit Casting

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 Implicit Casting
To illustrate implicit casting, let us give an example:

● Suppose we want to store an integer data to a variable of

data type double.

int numInt = 10;

double numDouble = numInt; //implicit cast

In this example, since the destination variable (double) holds

a larger value than what we will place inside it, the data is
implicitly casted to data type double.

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 Implicit Casting
● Another example:

int numInt1 = 1;
int numInt2 = 2;

//result is implicitly casted to type double

double numDouble = numInt1/numInt2;

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 Explicit Casting
● When we convert a data that has a large type to a smaller
type, we must use an explicit cast.

● Explicit casts take the following form:

(dataType)value

where,
dataType - is the name of the data type you're converting to
value -is an expression that results in the value of the source type

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 Explicit Casting Examples
● We want to typecast an int to a char value or vice versa.
A character can be used as an int because each character
has a corresponding numeric code that represents its
position in the character set.
– The character 'A' == 65

char valChar = 'A';

int valInt = valChar;
System.out.print(valInt);//explicit cast:output 65

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 Explicit Casting Examples
double valDouble = 10.12;
int valInt = (int)valDouble;

//convert valDouble to int type

double x = 10.2;
int y = 2;

int result = (int)(x/y); //typecast result of operation to int

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 Casting Objects
● Instances of classes also can be cast into instances of other
classes, with one restriction: The source and destination
classes must be related by inheritance; one class must be a
subclass of the other.

– We'll cover more about inheritance later.

● Casting objects is analogous to converting a primitive value

to a larger type, some objects might not need to be cast
explicitly.

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 Casting Objects
● To cast,

(classname)object

where,
classname, is the name of the destination class
object, is a reference to the source object

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 Casting Objects Example
● The following example casts an instance of the class
VicePresident to an instance of the class Employee;
VicePresident is a subclass of Employee with more
information, which here defines that the VicePresident has
executive washroom privileges.
Employee emp = new Employee();
VicePresident veep = new VicePresident();

// no cast needed for upward use

emp = veep;

// must cast explicitlyCasting

veep = (VicePresident)emp;

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Converting Primitive types to
Objects and vice versa
● One thing you can't do under any circumstance is cast from
an object to a primitive data type, or vice versa.

● As an alternative, the java.lang package includes classes

that correspond to each primitive data type: Float, Boolean,
Byte, and so on. We call them Wrapper classes.

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Converting Primitive types to
Objects and vice versa
● Wrapper classes
– Most of these classes have the same names as the data types,
except that the class names begin with a capital letter (Short instead
of short, Double instead of double, and the like)
– two classes have names that differ from the corresponding data
type: Character is used for char variables and Integer for int
variables.
– Using the classes that correspond to each primitive type, you can
create an object that holds the same value.

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Converting Primitive types to
Objects and vice versa
● Examples:
– The following statement creates an instance of the Integer class with the
integer value 7801 (primitive -> Object)
Integer dataCount = new Integer(7801);
– The following statement converts an Integer object to its primitive data type
int. The result is an int with value 7801
int newCount = dataCount.intValue();
– A common translation you need in programs is converting a String to a
numeric type, such as an int (Object->primitive)
String pennsylvania = "65000";
int penn = Integer.parseInt(pennsylvania);

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 Comparing Objects
● In our previous discussions, we learned about operators for
comparing values—equal, not equal, less than, and so on.
Most of these operators work only on primitive types, not on
objects.
● The exceptions to this rule are the operators for equality: ==
(equal) and != (not equal). When applied to objects, these
operators don't do what you might first expect. Instead of
checking whether one object has the same value as the
other object, they determine whether both sides of the
operator refer to the same object.

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 Comparing Objects
● Example:
1 class EqualsTest
2 {
3 public static void main(String[] arguments) {
4 String str1, str2;
5 str1 = "Free the bound periodicals.";
6 str2 = str1;
7 System.out.println("String1: " + str1);
8 System.out.println("String2: " + str2);
9 System.out.println("Same object? " + (str1 == str2));
10 str2 = new String(str1);
11 System.out.println("String1: " + str1);
12 System.out.println("String2: " + str2);
13 System.out.println("Same object? " + (str1 == str2));
14 System.out.println("Same value? " + str1.equals(str2));
15 }
16 }

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 Comparing Objects
● This program's output is as follows:
String1: Free the bound periodicals.
String2: Free the bound periodicals.
Same object? true
String1: Free the bound periodicals.
String2: Free the bound periodicals.
Same object? false
Same value? True

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 Comparing Objects
● NOTE on Strings:
– Given the code:

String str1 = “Hello”;

String str2 = “Hello”;
– These two references str1 and str2 will point to the same object.
– String literals are optimized in Java; if you create a string using a
literal and then use another literal with the same characters, Java
knows enough to give you the first String object back.
– Both strings are the same objects; you have to go out of your way to
create two separate objects.

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 Determining the class of an
object
● Want to find out what an object's class is? Here's the way to
do it.

● Suppose we have the following object:

SomeClassName key = new SomeClassName();

Now, we'll discuss two ways to know the type of the object
pointed to by the reference key.

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 getClass() method
● The getClass() method returns a Class object (where Class
is itself a class) that has a method called getName().

● In turn, getName() returns a string representing the name of

the class.

● For Example,

String name = key.getClass().getName();

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 instanceOf operator
● The instanceOf has two operands: a reference to an object
on the left and a class name on the right.

● The expression returns true or false based on whether the

object is an instance of the named class or any of that
class's subclasses.

● For Example,
boolean ex1 = "Texas" instanceof String; // true
Object pt = new Point(10, 10);
boolean ex2 = pt instanceof String; // false

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 Summary
● Classes and Objects
– Instance variables
– Class Variables
● Class Instantiation
● Methods
– Instance methods
– Passing Variables in Methods (Pass-by-value, Pass-by-reference)
– Static methods
● Scope of a variable
● Casting (object, primitive types)
● Converting Primitive Types to Objects and Vice Versa
● Comparing Objects
● Determining the Class of an Object
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