Mzumbe University (MU)

CSS 121: Computer Programming with Java

Kilima, Frank Godlove

Programmes: BSc. ITS I, BSc. ICTM I, BSc. ICTB I & BSc. MICT EDU I
Email ID: [email protected]

June 4, 2024

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Code of conduct

▶ Observe the following code of conduct;

• Be in class on time. Late comers will not be allowed in.
• Mute or switch off your mobile phones while in class.
• All communications concerning CSS 121 lectures, tutorials,
notes, assignments, tests etc. will be done via CRs.
• Any excuse for not attending lecture or tutorial sessions
should be communicated at the beginning of the lecture/tutorial
via CR.
• Use English for all communications concerning CSS 121.
• Strictly adhere to the University academic timetable and
deadlines.
• No substitute assignment/test will be given to any students who
will fail to write them without good reasons.
• Read all references provided.
• Violation of academic integrity will not be tolerated, but
dealt with severely in accordance to MU academic regulations.
• Any communications via emails, including submission of
assignments, MUST be done via student's respective MU email
(@mustudent.ac.tz) and not otherwise.

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Code of Conduct - Cont’d

▶ Course assessment:
• Quiz - Many.
• 2 Assignments @ 10%.
• 2 tests @ 15%.
• University Examination (UE) - 50%.
▶ Marks for assignments, tests or UE can not be compromised or
negotiated for.
▶ Hope to enjoy your maximum cooperation.

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Brainstorming

▶ What is computer program?

▶ What is computer programming?
▶ What is computer programming language?
▶ How do we write computer programs?

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Main contents
• Recommended books
• Introduction to computer programming
• Computer programming languages
• Java
• Identifiers
• Reserved words
• comments
• Data types
• Variables
• Java classes
• Method main ()
• Arithmetic operators
• Method println()
• Method
• Programming errors
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Recommended References (Books)

1. Ivor Horton, Ivor Horton’s Beginning Java, 7e, John Wiley & Sons
inc., 2011.
2. Herbert Schildt, Java The Complete Reference, 9e, McGraw Hill,
2014.
3. Herbert Schildt, Java A Beginner’s Guide , McGraw Hill, 2018.
4. Y. Daniel Liang, Introduction To Java Programming, 9e, Pearson
Prentice Hall, 2011.
5. Paul Deitel & Harvey Deitel, Java How To Program, 11e,
Pearson, 2017.
6. Rich Raposa, Java in 60 Minutes A Day, 7e, Wiley Publishing
Inc., 2003.

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Introduction to computer programming

▶ Computer program: A special set of stored instructions which

control the operations of computer hardware.
▶ Computer hardware such as CPU, RAM, keyboard etc. are
responsible for carrying out computer operations, and
therefore need to be instructed.
▶ Computer programs provide instructions to computer's CPU,
which in turn sends signals to respective hardware to execute
desired operations.
▶ Programs give computers ability to carry out all the tasks
(functions) they perform.
▶ Computer program is synonymously known as computer software.

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Introduction to computer programming

▶ A process of developing computer programs.

▶ It is a multidisciplinary field, which may combine knowledge,
skills and experience from other fields including
mathematics, arts, computer security, database management,
computer networking, linguistics, sciences, AI.
▶ Diversity in professions involved in the development of any
computer program is determined by the purpose of the program
being developed.
▶ Software development team: A team of all people involved
in developing a certain program (software).

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Computer programming language

▶ It is a formal language consisting of a set of rules

(syntax), vocabulary, constructs and utility tools (software)
which provide a way of creating computer programs.
▶ There are hundreds of computer programming languages, each
with its own syntax, vocabulary, features, strengths as well
as weaknesses.
▶ Computer programmers: Also known as software developers are
computer experts who develop (create) professional computer
programs.

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Computer programming languages: Types

▶ Two major types of computer programming languages are:

• Low level computer programming languages - READ
• High level computer programming languages - READ

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High level computer programming languages

▶ They use words and symbols from human languages like English
rather than mnemonic codes.
▶ Computer programs are written using human like languages
which are more convenient to use.
▶ They form the bulk of today's computer programming languages.
▶ They constantly evolve to incorporate new features in order
to improve their security, performance, suitability,
usability etc.
▶ Examples of high level programming languages are BASIC,
COBOL, Pascal, FORTRAN, C, C++, Java, Python and Perl.
▶ High level programming languages allow programmers to use
vocabulary of reasonable terms instead of sequence of binary
digits.
▶ They also allow programmers to name storage locations of the
computer rather than remembering them.

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High level computer programming languages
▶ Each high level programming language has its own specific and
limited set of vocabulary and rules (syntax).
▶ A set of rules of a programming language is called syntax.
▶ Learning a programming language means learning a set of
vocabulary, syntax and programming logic of that language.
▶ Programming logic involves writing program's statements in
the correct order to produce the desired output (result).
▶ You may use programming language's syntax correctly but fail
to observe the logic.
▶ Using high level programming language like Java, programmers
write series of executable statements, similar to English
statements for a program to carry out a specific task.
▶ Special computer software called compilers and interpreters
are used to translate program's statements from high level
programming language into machine code for computer's CPU to
execute the instructions specified in statements.

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High level computer programming languages

▶ Compilers and interpreters generate error messages each time

they encounter an invalid statement or violation of the
language's syntax or vocabulary.
▶ Errors resulting from invalid programming statements or
misuse of the language are called syntax errors.
▶ Locating and fixing these syntax errors and other types of
errors is called debugging.
▶ Programs written in compiled languages like C++ do execute
faster, while those written in interpreted languages like
Visual Basic (VB) are easier to develop.
▶ Java is both a compiled and interpreted language.
▶ It uses a compiler to translate the program into bytecode,
and an interpreter to read the bytecode line by line at
runtime (execution).

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High level computer programming languages:
Strengths

▶ High portability: Largely machine independent and therefore

portable. A high level program can be run on different types
of platforms (Operating system and CPU) with little or no
modifications.
▶ Contains fewer code: Program statements are fewer than their
equivalent machine language programs.
▶ User friendly: They look very similar to human (natural)
languages like English.
▶ Easier to learn and more human understandable: Because they
are user friendly, learning is as easy as learning a human
language.
▶ Easier to debug and maintain: It is easier to find errors
from programs and remove them.

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High level computer programming languages:
Weaknesses

▶ Less performance: This is because they need to be compiled

(translated) or/and interpreted into appropriate machine
language for each CPU platform before they are executed.
▶ Need for translators: Translators (compilers and
interpreters) must be installed in order to compile and
translate high level programs into their machine language
equivalents.

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Java: Brief background

▶ It was built upon the rich legacy inherited from C and C++.
▶ Invented by James Gosling, Cris Warth, Patrick Naughton, Ed
Frank and Mike Sheridon at Sun Microsystems in 1991.
▶ It was originally known as Oak, but renamed Java and first
released in public in 1995.
▶ Older programming languages like C++ were designed to be
compiled for a specific computer architecture (CPU).
▶ Since its first release, Java has continued to evolve
significantly.
▶ The current Java version is Java 21, which is a Long-term
support (LTS) released in September 2023.
▶ Other Java LTS versions are Java 8, Java 11, Java 17.

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Motives for inventing Java

▶ The primary motivation for its invention was the development

of platform-independent language for developing software to
be embedded in various consumer electronic devices.
▶ This compelled James Gosling and his colleagues to work on
cross-platform computer programming language.
▶ At the same time, World Wide Web (WWW) was also invented.
▶ Had the WWW not taken shape at the time Java was invented,
Java might have remained a useful but an obscure (unknown)
language.
▶ With the discovery of WWW, Java was propelled to the
forefront of computer language design because WWW too
demanded portable programs.

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Features of Java
▶ A simple computer programming language whose syntanx is
largely based on C and C++ programming languages.
▶ A multi-platform, class-based, object-oriented programming
(OOP), network centric language, general-purpose programming
language, fully-featured, and software platform.
▶ Capable of developing different types of robust applications
running on billions of devices including micro-computers,
mobile phones, servers, gaming consoles, medical devices etc.
▶ It is a very stable programming language with;
• Strong memory allocation
• Automatic garbage collection mechanism
• Powerful exception handling
• Type checking and checks for compile-time errors and run-time
errors by compiler and interpreter respectively.
▶ Contains hundreds of network features to provide massive
support for network and distributed based applications.
▶ Has a built-in ability to support many character sets e.g.
ASCII and Unicode.
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Features of Java
▶ Provides comprehensive tools for developing applications
with;
• An interactive Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• Extensive image processing, graphics programming, access to
relational databases and cryptography to name a few.
▶ It is a fast, highly secure and reliable programming language
with many built-in security features such as;
• Lack of memory pointers
• Sandboxing
• Null checking of references
• Explicit variable declaration
• Bounds checking of arrays
▶ Provides a rich set for data structures including lists,
queues and arrays.
▶ It supports multi-threading; It allows a program to have
different threads executing independently at the same time.
▶ It a programming language and software platform available for
all major operating systems including Windows, Linux and
MacOS, as well as all major hardware architectures.
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Features of Java
▶ Computer platform comprises of hardware type (CPU) and system
software (such as OS) of a particular computer.
▶ It is dynamic: Designed to adapt evolving environment,
libraries can add new methods and instance variables without
any problem.
▶ It is free and open source platform - i.e., its software
development kit such as JDK can be obtained freely without
paying for it, and there exist several free source code for
Java stack implementations.
▶ It is a multi-platform (also known as cross platform,
architectural neutral or platform independent) programming
language, enabling it to run on a wide range of computer
architectures with no or little modifications.
▶ The platform independence nature of Java enables development
of applications which are 'Write Once Run Anywhere (WORA)'
▶ Platform independence occurs because Java programs do not
execute directly on CPU, instead they execute on a runtime
environment called Java Virtual Machine.
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Features of Java
▶ Java program is first compiled by Java compiler (javac) into
a bytecode, which is subsequently executed (interpreted) by
Java virtual machine (JVM) (also known as Java interpreter)
for a specific hardware architecture.
▶ This means Java is both a compiled and interpreted language.
▶ JVM is part of Java runtime environment (JRE) - a layer of
software running on top of a computer's OS to provide
libraries and resources required to execute Java programs.
▶ While Java compiler and JVM are platform dependant, bytecode
produced by Java compiler and executed by JVM is platform
independent.
▶ Java bytecode can run on any architecture which supports JVM
without need to recompile.
▶ It is architecturally neutral (platform independent): Allows
creation of large scale applications that can run unchanged
on different computer platforms.
▶ The OOP feature allows the development of modular programs
and enhances code reusability, code security, clarity etc.
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Major applications of Java
▶ It is widely used for development of;
• Desktop applications: It can be used to write very powerful
standalone or network-based desktop applications
• Mobile operating systems and mobile applications such as
Android operating system and Android mobile applications
• Big data applications: Used for data science applications and
by data processing engines which process complex and massive
amounts of real-time datasets
• Server-side technologies and Internet applications: Used for
developing applications running on network servers and many
Internet/ web-based applications running on Internet
• Cloud computing: Because of its 'WORA' nature, it is highly
used for development of decentralized cloud-based applications
• Game applications: For developing various games including
mobile, computer and video games
• Artificial intelligence applications: Used for development of
machine learning applications to solve various classification,
object detection, natural language processing (NLP) tasks
• Internet of Things (IoT): Used to program sensors and hardware
in edge devices which connect to Internet independently
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Java: A compiled and interpreted language

▶ Source code is a program file made up of program statements

written in high level language using a text editor.
▶ Many high level programming languages' source code files are
compiled into object code files compatible with a specific
CPU's machine language.
▶ This is not the case with Java.
▶ Java compiler (javac) produces an output called bytecode
designed to be executed by Java interpreter (Java Virtual
Machine (JVM)).
▶ Bytecode is a binary representation into which a program
source code is converted by Java compiler.

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Java: A compiled and interpreted language

▶ Translating Java programs into bytecode makes it easier to

run programs in a wide range of environments because only
appropriate JVM needs to be implemented for each platform.
▶ Once appropriate JVM for a given platform is implemented, any
Java program can run on it.
▶ Although details of JVM differ from one CPU platform to
another, all JVMs understand the same bytecode.
▶ If Java programs were compiled to computer's native code,
then different versions of the same program would have to
exist for each CPU and then fail to be cross-platform.

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Java: A compiled and interpreted language

▶ Because Java programs are isolated from the OS, they are also
insulated from particular hardware on which they run.
▶ This isolation helps to protect Java programs against
malicious programs that access computer hardware through OS.
▶ Java is modelled after C and C++ language, and therefore
there is close similarity in the syntax and vocabulary
between the two languages.
▶ Despite this similarity, Java eliminates most of the
difficult-to-understand features inherent to C and C++, and
with few hardware implementation dependencies.

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A compiled language: E.g. C++

Figure 1: A compiled High level language like C++

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Java: A compiled and interpreted language

Figure 2: Compiled and interpreted language like Java

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Java: JRE and JDK

▶ Java comes shipped in two different ways;

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
• Java Development Kit(JDK).
▶ Java Runtime Environment (JRE):
• Consists of JVM, Java class library and functionalities to
start Java programs.
• You need JRE if you only need to run already compiled Java
programs.
• It does not contain any of the development tools bundled in the
JDK.
▶ Java Development Kit(JDK).
• In addition to the JRE components, it contains development
tools necessary for creating Java programs, and compiler for
compiling Java programs.
• If you need to develop Java programs, you need to install JDK
and not JRE.

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Major Java Editions

▶ There exists four major editions of Java;

• Java Standard Edition (JSE): For the development of desktop
applications.
• Java Enterprise Edition (JEE): For the development of web
applications.
• Java Micro Edition (JME): For development of mobile
applications.
• Java Cards: For development of smart card applications.
• JavaFX: Provides a modern, hardware-accelerated graphics and
media engine for developing rich desktop applications.
▶ We will start learning Java Standard Edition (JSE) which
enables us to learn Java Core and writing Java desktop
applications.
▶ This will require us to install standard Java Development Kit
(JDK).

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Requirements for writing Java applications

▶ A working computer installed with Windows, Linux or Mac OS.

▶ Well installed and configured Java's Software Development Kit
(SDK). I recommend Java Development Kit (JDK).
• How to download JDK.
• How to install JDK.
• How to configure JDK.
▶ Text editor. I recommend TextPad
▶ Integrated Development Environment (IDE). I recommend
NetBeans (but to be used later)
▶ Knowledge and skill on Java programming.

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Requirements for writing Java applications

▶ Text editors are good for introducing beginners to

programming
▶ However, they are only suitable for writing short and simple
programs.
▶ IDEs such as Netbeans and Eclipse are appropriate for writing
large and complex programs because of the numerous features
they offer including;
• Intelligent code suggestions
• Code completion
• Syntax checking
• Spell checking
• Framework integration
• Code replacement
• Code formatting

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Types of Java Programs

▶ There are three types of Java programs:

• Java applets: Java programs which are embedded into web pages.
• Java applications: These are stand alone Java applications.
• Java servlets: These are Java programs which are executed by a
Java enabled web server.
▶ Java applications are further divided into two categories:
• Console applications: Java applications which support
character output on the computer's command prompt, also called
command line interface (CLI).
• Windowed applications: Java applications with Graphical User
Interface (GUI) components such as menus, drop down boxes,
check boxes etc.
▶ We will start working with console programs and then later
with windowed applications.

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Creating a first Java program: Steps

▶ Create a folder, separate from Java installation folder, to

store your program source code files.
▶ Start up your favourite text editor such as TextPad text
editor.
▶ Use text editor (TextPad) to create source (program) code in
Java (assuming that you know Java language ©).
▶ Save your source code (file) in the created folder with a
name that;
• has the same name as the class name (identifier).
• not be reserved word.
• observe other features of identifiers.
• A .java extension, for instance FirstProgram.java

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Creating a first Java program: Steps

▶ Start up a CMD window (if you are running Windows OS).

▶ Navigate to the folder in which you have stored your java
files.
• CMD commands: cd, \ and dir.
▶ Compile a program: javac program_name
▶ Run a program: java program_name
▶ In our case, as the program name is FirstProgram.java, to
compile it run the command;
javac FirstProgram.java
▶ To execute a compiled program, run the command;
java FirstProgram

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Things to Note

▶ In compiling Java programs, we run javac command on a Java

file having .java extension
▶ In executing a compiled program, run java on a bytecode file
(.class) but WITHOUT .class extension
▶ For the program to successfully compile, it must not contain
any syntax errors. If it does, it will not compile and
therefore you will not be able to run it.
▶ Java is a case sensitive programming language. Upper case
letters are not the same as lower case letters. For
instance, P is not the same as p.

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Identifiers

▶ It is a name given by a programmer to any part of the program

such as a class, method, or variable.
▶ Identifier can have different features depending on the type
of the identifier. General characteristics of identifiers
are;
i. It can be of any number of characters (size).
ii. It must start with an alphabetical letter, an underscore (_) or
a dollar sign ($).
iii. Cannot start with a numeric digit. Example 6FirstProgram is
invalid.
iv. The rest of an identifier can include any character except
those used as operators such as +, -, /, *, % or any special
character.
v. Must not include blank space or tabs in the middle of the name.
Example First Program is wrong but FirstProgram is valid.
vi. Must not include Java reserved words as they are reserved for
the Java language only.

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Reserved words

▶ It is any word that Java uses for special meaning and should
not be used by the programmer to name anything (i.e. as an
identifier).
▶ They are used by Java programming language itself for some
special purpose
▶ If used by a programmer as identifier, they will confuse
Java, syntax errors will be generated.
▶ Never use reserved words as identifiers in your program.
▶ Examples of reserved words are public, class, static, void.
▶ A comprehensive list of Java keywords is shown in Fig. 3

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Reserved words

Figure 3: Java reserved words (keywords)

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Comments
▶ Java compilers tend to ignore (do not execute) all comments
contained in the Program.
▶ Comments is a documentation provided by a programmer within a
program used to:
• Clarify some important points in Java programs.
• Emphasize something in a program.
• Change lines of code into comments so that they are not
executed.
• Explain something in the program, such as a function of a
program, class, variable etc.
▶ Two ways of writing comments in Java are using:
• Double forward slash (//) for each comment line.
• Putting /* at the beginning of the first comment line and */ at
the end of the last comment line.
▶ Comments are put anywhere in a program.
▶ Writing useful and good comments in a program is a good
programming practice.

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Data types
▶ Data type is a set of values having predefined
characteristics.
▶ For each data type, Java specifies the following;
• Range of values (minimum to maximum value)
• Operations to be performed to all values of a particular type
• Storage mechanism for each data type
▶ For instance, a byte data type has values ranging from -128
to 127, each byte value takes one byte (8 bits) in memory is
manipulated using arithmetic operations (+, -, *, /, %).
▶ Java is a statically typed language i.e., all data storage
locations (variables) must be declared before they are used.
▶ Java is a strongly typed language i.e., has its own
predefined built-in data types (specifically primitive data
types) and does not allow programmers to define their own
data types.
▶ Any data type value is stored in a variable declared to hold
a value of that particular type.
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Data types
▶ Assigning a value to a variable that is inconsistent with a
declared type generates a compile time error.
▶ To enhance portability across different architectures
(platforms), all data types in Java have a strictly defined
range of possible values.
▶ Compiler allocates memory space for each variable or constant
according to its data type.
▶ An int is a 32-bit data type regardless of the computer
architecture allows Java programs to be written and run on
any platform without porting on any machine architecture.
▶ Data types play crucial role in defining the kind of
information to be stored or manipulated by program
▶ Choose the most appropriate data types by considering the
range, memory usage and operations to be performed on them.
▶ Two main data types in Java are:
• Primitive data types
• Non-primitive (reference)) data types
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Data types

Figure 4: Java's data types 42 / 187

Primitive data types

▶ Represent single values, rather than complex objects

▶ They are data types built into Java itself.
▶ They are referred to as fundamental (basic building blocks)
data types in Java.
▶ All JVM implementations support these primitive data types.
▶ Although Java is an object oriented programming (OOP)
language, primitive data types are not objects.
▶ Making primitive data types objects would have degraded
performance of Java programs significantly.
▶ There are two distinct categories of primitive data types,
which are usually expanded into eight different types.
▶ Two distinct categories of primitive data types are:
• Non-numeric primitive data types
• Numeric primitive data types

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Non-numeric primitive data types
▶ Boolean data type
• Represents only one of two values; true or false which
represent two truth values of logic and Boolean algebra
• The size of the boolean data type is virtual machine-dependent
• It is also known as logical data type
• It has only two values, true and false
• These values must always be written in lowercase.
▶ Character data type
• It is also known as char or single 16-bit Unicode data type
• Represents symbols in character set, like letters and numbers.
• Its storage locations (variable) store only one character
• A character data type has a memory size of 16 bits, which
allows characters to be represented as integers.
• Character data types are unsigned, meaning that they can not
store negative value; i.e., can only hold single positive value
• A character data value must be enclosed with single quotation
marks, like 'F'
• It has a minimum value of '\u0000' (or 0) and a maximum value
of '\uffff' (or 65,535 inclusive)

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Numeric primitive data types: Integer

▶ Integer: Integral numeric values such as 78, 100, -11, 1917

▶ Integer values are signed, i.e., can store both positive and
negative values.
▶ Four integer data types are byte, short, int and long
• byte
♦ The smallest integer data type, occupying 8 bits (1 byte) in
memory
♦ It can be useful for saving memory in large arrays
♦ It has a minimum and maximum value of -128 and 127, respectively,
i.e, −27 to 27 − 1
• short
♦ A short value occupies 16 bits (2 bytes) in memory.
♦ It has a minimum and maximum value of -32,768 and 32,767,
respectively, i.e., −215 to 215 − 1

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Numeric primitive data types: Integer

• int
♦ It is the most commonly used integer data type in Java.
♦ Provides a range larger than one provided by either byte or
short.
♦ An int value occupies 32 bits (4 bytes) in memory.
♦ int values range from -2147483648 to 2147483647, i.e. −231 to
231 − 1.
♦ It covers most of programmers' needs in calculations, control
loops, indexing arrays.
• long
♦ A long value occupies 64 bits (8 bytes).
♦ Use this data type when you need a range of values wider than
those provided by int data type
♦ Values range from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807,
i.e., −263 to 263 − 1.
♦ In order to assign to a variable a data value of type long, it
is optionally appended with L (or l).

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Numeric primitive data types: Floating point

▶ Floating point
• Non-integral numeric values such as 0.123, 345.678, -3.607 etc.
• Values of this type are called floating numbers.
• Floating point values are signed
▶ Two types of floating point data types are;
• float
♦ Specified as float values by appending an f (or F) to the value.
♦ Float values range from -3.4E38 to +3.4E38 and occupy 32 bits
♦ Use a float (instead of double) if you need to save memory in
large arrays of floating point numbers.
♦ They are represented with approximately 7 decimal digits accuracy.
• double
♦ They occupy 64 bits.
♦ They range from -1.7E308 to +1.7E308
♦ It is a default data type for floating point data values.
♦ They are represented with approximately 17 decimal digits accuracy
i.e., a number of digits to the right of the decimal point.
♦ They are the most commonly used floating point data values.

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Non-primitive data type

▶ It is also called reference data type because it references

(stores) a memory location of an instance (object), rather
than an object itself.
▶ It does not store the actual value of the object, but rather
store memory address (reference) of an object.
▶ Some of non-primitive data types are created by the
programming language, while others are created by the
programmer.
▶ In Java, non-primitive data types are simply called "objects"
because they are created, rather than predefined.
▶ By default, all non-primitive data types have the same memory
size of 8 bytes (i.e, 32 bits).

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Non-primitive data type

▶ Examples of non-primitive data types are;

• Arrays, enumerations
• Objects of standard (built-in) classes such as String, Random,
JFrame, Scanner etc.
• Objects of user-defined classes (i.e., classes created by
programmer)
• Interfaces
▶ Everything in Java is object except primitive data types.
▶ Non-primitive data types are associated with particular
classes.
▶ They represent any instantiable class.
▶ Non-primitive data types are created by using the new
keyword.

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Primitive vs non-primitive data type

Table 1: Differences between primitive and non-primitive data types

Primitive data type Non-primitive data type

They are predefined i.e. they are They are user-defined data type
already defined in Java except String
Can not be used to call (invoke) Used to call (invoke) methods to
methods perform certain operations
Must always have a value It can be null (a default value)
Starts with lowercase, e.g., int Starts with uppercase letter String
Memory size depends on data type They all have the same memory size
e.g., byte has 1 byte, int 4 bytes of 8 bytes

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Non-primitive data type

Figure 5: Definition of the Person class

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Non-primitive data type: Creating objects

Person aneth = new Person();

▶ Clarifications of the syntax;
Person:Class name
aneth:Reference (variable) name to store memory address
(reference) of an object - can be any identifier
=:The assignment operator
new:keyword used to create objects
Person( ):Constructor

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Variables and variable types

▶ A variable is named storage location used by the program to

store data values.
▶ They are so called because their contents (values they hold)
can change.
▶ Data values can be numeric, text, boolean, strings or
characters.
▶ A variable must have a specific name (identifier) used to
refer to it and a data type describing the category of data
value.
▶ A variable consists of three major parts:
• Access specifier (modifier): public, private, protected or
default.
• Data type: Any of the data types discussed, int, float,
String, double, char, boolean etc.
• Name (identifier): Any valid identifier. By convention,
variable names begin with lowercase first alphabetical letters.

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Variable declaration
▶ A process of creating a named storage location (variable) for
storing data value or reference of a certain type.
▶ It involves specifying a data type and variable name
(identifier).
▶ A variable stores a value of declared type only, and it can
not change through out its life time.
▶ Examples of variable declarations are:
int total;
boolean boolValue;
char aLetter;
float floatNum;
▶ Multiple variables of the same data type can be declared in
the same statement:
int x, y, z;
float fNum1, fNum2, fNum3;
char aletter1, aletter2, aletter3;

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Variable initialization

▶ This is the process of fixing initial value to a declared

variable.
▶ Variables can use the initial values in the operations or
have them changed.
▶ Initialization is done using an assignment operator (=).
▶ The = in Java programming does not have the equality meaning
it carries in mathematical calculations.
▶ Initial values are used as place holders or seat warmers.
▶ Be careful when assigning initial values to variables, set
value which can not cause erroneous results.
▶ Example of variable initialization is:
total = 2;
boolValue = false;
▶ Variables total and boolValue must have been declared before
as of type int and boolean, respectively.

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Variable declaration and initialization

▶ Variable declaration and initialization can be done in one

statement (step) such as:
int total = 2;
boolean boolValue = false;
▶ instead of doing it in two separate statements such as:
int total;
total = 2;
▶ This makes programs much shorter.

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Types of Variables

▶ Each variable in Java stores data value of only one type

(declared data type).
▶ Other references refer to variables as fields.
▶ There are three types of variables:
• Class variables
• Instance variables
• Local variables

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Class variables

▶ Also called static fields because they use the keyword static
during their declaration.
▶ They are associated with the entire class and shared by all
class objects.
▶ They are declared inside the class but outside any method
(i.e., not inside any method), commonly after class
definition statement
▶ Only one copy of each class variable exists no matter how
many objects are created.
▶ Exists even if no objects have been created.
▶ Class variables are commonly used for:
• Holding constants which are common and required by all class
objects such as PI.
• Tracking data values that are common to all class objects.

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Class variables

▶ They are declared using keyword static with the following

syntax:
static data_type variableName;
▶ An example of the class variable declaration is:
static double bodyWeight;
▶ Declaration and initialization in one statement:
static double bodyWeight = 54.5;

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Class variables holding constants

▶ Constants do not change throughout program execution.

▶ They must be protected against both accidental and
intentional changes.
▶ Java provides a way of fixing constants and prevent them from
being changed.
▶ This is done by using keyword final.
static final double bodyWeight = 54.5;
▶ The keyword final tells the compiler that the value stored in
the variable is a constant and should not be modified
anywhere in the program.

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Class variables holding constants

▶ Any variable declared as final must have an initial value

assigned in the same statement as it can not be specified
later.
▶ By convention names of class variables holding constants are
written in uppercase letters.
static final double BODYWEIGHT = 54.5;
▶ This improves readability of the constants within the
program.
▶ Any attempt to change a constant value will generate an
error.

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Instance variables

▶ They are also called non-static variables as they do not use

keyword static.
▶ They are declared inside the class but outside any method
(i.e., not inside any method), commonly after class
definition statement
▶ They are associated with each class object uniquely.
▶ Form the bulk of variables declared in program.
▶ Each instance (object) of the class has its own copy of each
instance variable, giving each instance an individuality.
▶ They are not be operated upon by static methods.
▶ Referencing an instance variable to a static method generates
an syntax error.

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Instance variables

Table 2: Default values for Java’s eight primitive data types

Data type Default value

byte 0
short 0
int 0
long 0L
double 0.0d
float 0.0f
char '\u0000'
boolean false

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Local variables

▶ Variables declared within the body of the method.

▶ They exist only within the body of the method.
▶ They are available only during the execution of the method.
▶ Their scope (accessibility) is from the point of declaration
to the closing brace of that particular method.
▶ Unlike instance variables, they are not initialized to
default values automatically, and therefore they must be
initialized to appropriate values before being used.
▶ Any attempt to use uninitialized local variables generates an
error.

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Local variables

▶ Consider the following method:

double getSum(double cw, double fe){
double total = 0.0; // This is a local variable
total = cw + fe;
return total;
}
▶ total is local variable, of type double.
▶ It must be initialized to any double value before being used.

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Java classes
▶ A class, is a set of objects which shares common behaviors
and properties (attributes).
▶ It is a user-defined blueprint or prototype from which
objects are created.
▶ A class defines its own data type, which is an example of
reference (non-primitive) data type.
▶ However simple a Java program is, it must be organized into a
functional unit called class.
▶ Even simple programs that add two numbers (28 + 1), or
display messages like Hello students, how are you? etc.
must be organized in a class.
▶ No any constructs of Java program will work independently
without being organized into at least one class.
▶ Real world programs contain tens, hundreds or thousands of
classes.
▶ A particular instance of the class takes its attributes from
the general category.
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Java classes
▶ A class is therefore used to create (instantiate) objects
(instances) of its own data type.
▶ If a program contains one class, then the source code file
name must match with this class name.
▶ If it contains more than one class, then the source code file
must match the name of the class that contains the method
main().
▶ As a convention, Java class names should start with an
uppercase first letter.
▶ While it is not a strict rule, it aims at differentiating
class names from variable names, and therefore it is a good
programming practice to adhere to it.
▶ To define a class, we use a keyword class, followed by an
identifier (class name), followed by braces, also called
curly brackets, {}.
▶ All other constructs (elements) are placed between braces.

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Java class - General syntax (form)

Figure 6: General syntax of a Java class

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Clarification of terms

▶ class keyword
• It must precede the class_name.
• It is a reserved word (keyword) that must not be used to name
anything else by a programmer.
▶ class_name
• Any valid identifier.
• Must start with the uppercase letter: FindAreas, Mzumbe
• If two or more words are used, capitalize each first letter of
each word, e.g. Big4Cat, MzumbeStudents, FindStudents or use
an underscore to separate word, such as Find_Students etc.
• Can be of any length.
• Must not include blank space or tabs in the middle of the name:
e.g Mzumbe Students not a valid name.

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Java classes

Figure 7: Simple Java class

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Method main ( )
public static void main (String [ ] args)
▶ The keyword public
Makes a method accessible by any code in the program.
▶ The keyword static
Ensures that method main() is executed (accessible) even
if no objects of the class exist.
▶ The keyword void
Indicates that main() does not return a value.
▶ The keyword main
▶ The name (identifier) given to the method
▶ A pair of parentheses i.e., ()
It must follow any method name, and it can be empty or
carry a parameter/argument.
▶ String [ ] args
It is an argument of type array which provides a mechanism
of accessing data passed to the program.

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Arithmetic operators

▶ Additive operator: +
▶ Subtraction operator: -
▶ Multiplication operator: ∗
▶ Division operator: /
▶ Modulus operator: %

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Method println()

▶ The method println() is used to display string of characters

(text) on the screen.
▶ Its general syntax is:
System.out.println();
▶ The text to be displayed must be enclosed with double quotes.
▶ System.out.println(This is a Java programming class.);

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Method
▶ A self contained block of code that operates on data values
of class.
▶ Defines operations that can be performed on fields (data
values stored in fields).
▶ It is equivalent to a function in C programming language.
▶ Major advantage of the method is reusability, can be executed
as many times as required.
▶ Methods help to break a large and complex problem such as
calculation into smaller and more manageable chunks.
▶ A method is executed by calling its name.
▶ A method may or not return a value when its execution
finishes.
▶ Methods that return a value must finish by executing a return
statement.
▶ An access specifier (attribute) may optionally precede the
return type.
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Method
▶ Specifying a return type for a method defines the type for
the value that will be returned when the method is executed.
▶ A returned value must be consistent with the data specified
in the method declaration (i.e. return type).
▶ Methods that do not return any value have a return type
specified as void.
▶ Java method consists of the following major components;
• Access specifiers: Define access type to the method.
• The return type: Data type of the value returned by the method
or void if it does not return a value.
• Method name (identifier): A method name that uniquely
identifies it in the program.
• Parameter list:
♦ Comma-separated list of input parameters that are defined,
preceded by their data type within the enclosed parentheses.
♦ If there are no parameters, you must use empty parentheses ()
• Exception list: List of exceptions you expect the method to
throw e.g., ArithmeticException, IOException etc.
• Method body: A block of code enclosed between braces which
execute to perform intended operations.
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Method definition

▶ A method must have a name (valid identifier).

▶ Conventionally, method name starts with a lowercase letter.
▶ Parentheses,(), must follow the method name.
▶ The rest of the method must be enclosed inside braces (curly
brackets).
▶ The general syntax of a method definition is;
data_type method_name(){
// Body of the method
}
▶ Method name is preceded by return type (or void) and
optionally by access specifier.
▶ Return type specifies the data type returned by method which
can be any of the primitive data types or reference data
type.

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Method

▶ Example of the method definition:

int getSum(){
// Body of the method
}
▶ Body of the method includes the code for operations to be
performed by the method.
▶ For instance;
int getSum(){
sum = num1 + num2;
return sum;
}
▶ Return type must be consistent with method type, in this case
sum must be of type int.
▶ Variables num1, num2 and sum must have been declared
somewhere in the program.

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Types of Methods

▶ There are two types of methods:

• Instance methods
• Class methods

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Instance methods

▶ They are executed only in relation to particular objects of

class rather than to the class itself.
double getSum(){
double total = 0;
total = cw + fe;
return total;
}
▶ They can only be used after instances of the class have been
created and can not execute if no object have not been
created.
▶ Variables cw and fe must have been declared somewhere in the
program.
▶ Variable total is a local variable.

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Instance methods

▶ They can access class variables, constants as well as

instance variables.
▶ An instance method can not be called with no reference to any
object nor with reference to the class.
▶ When an instance method is invoked, its name is tacked next
to the instance (object) name, separated by a period (.)
such as;
circle.findCircleArea();

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Class methods

▶ They are also called static methods as they are declared

using keyword static.
▶ The static keyword sticks the method to the class rather than
to the objects of the class.
▶ Unlike instance methods, they can be executed even if there
are no objects created.
▶ They can not operate on (reference to) instance variables.
▶ This is because instance variables may not be created.
▶ Referencing an instance variable to a static method generates
an error.
▶ They can only access class variables and constants.
▶ They perform tasks which do not depend on the contents of the
objects.
▶ They apply to the class in which they are defined as whole.

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Class methods

▶ Class methods are only referenced to class variables.

static int countObjects(){
return count;
}
▶ The variable count must have been declared as static
variable.
▶ If not static variable, an error will be generated.
▶ They are useful for creating and operating on constants and
class variables.
▶ When a class method is invoked, its name is tacked next to
the class name, separated by a period,., rather than to any
objects of the class.
FindArea.countObjects();

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Assignment
1. Write Java program that computes an area of a triangle with;
i. At least two instance variables
ii. At least one instance method
2. Write Java program called President which display correct
full name, age, sex (male or female) and date of assuming
office for Tanzanian and Kenyan President.
3. Write Java program with two instance methods, two instance
variables and one constant which receives radius (r) and
height (h) of the cylindrical body from user through keyboard
to compute its surface area (2πrh+2πr 2 ) and volume (2πr 2 ).
4. Write Java program which prompts a user to enter an integer
and displays true if an integer is greater than 0 and false
otherwise. The program should contain one instance method
which return boolean value.
5. Write Java program that prompts user for coefficients of
quadratic equation to compute its two x values using general
formula assuming that (b 2 ≥ 4ac ). It should contain;
i. At least three instance variables
ii. At least two instance methods
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Parameterized Method
▶ Both instance and class methods may have optional one or more
values passed to them when they are called.
▶ Values passed to a method are called arguments.
▶ Variables that receive arguments inside a method are called
Parameters.
▶ For a method to have a value passed, you must first declare a
data type and variable name.
▶ Data type and variable name form a parameter.
▶ A parameter is declared inside the method's parentheses.
int getSum(int a, int b, int c){
// The rest of the method
}
▶ The return value of method getSum() is of type int.
▶ int a, int b, int c are the parameters.
▶ This method must be supplied with 3 values of type int for
the three variables when calling it.
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Parameterized Method

▶ An attempt to call this method without supplying the values

will generate a compile error.
▶ It is not allowed to declare parameters of the same type in
one statement such as:
int getSum(int a, b, c){
// The rest of the method
}
▶ It is also possible to declare parameters of different data
types such as:
int getSum(int a, double b, float c){
// The rest of the method
}
▶ When calling this method, arguments for variables a, b and c
must be of the appropriate data types and provided in the
same order as specified in the method.

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Parameterized Method

▶ Arguments must match the parameters in terms of order, number

and data type.
▶ This is called parameter order association.
▶ If the parameter order association is not observed:
• A syntax error will be generated.
• Incorrect result (logic error) will be produced.

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Programming error

▶ A bad code in a computer program that causes it to terminate

unexpectedly, produce an incorrect (unexpected) result, or
behave in unintended ways.
▶ Programming errors are commonly referred to as bugs.
▶ Debugging: The processing of tracking (identifying) bugs
and correcting them.
▶ Distinguishing them helps programmers to track them more
quickly.
▶ Most common types of programming errors are:
• Compile-time errors
• Run-time errors
• Logical errors

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Compile-time errors

▶ They are also called syntax errors.

▶ They are kind of errors which occur when the syntax (rules)
of programming language has been violated in the program's
source code.
▶ Syntax: Refers to the structure of the program and the rules
about the structure.
▶ Syntax errors are common to new programmers.
▶ Java compiler can only translate a program that is
syntactically correct.
▶ Program can not run if compilation fails.
▶ Java compiler is not forgiving, i.e., it does not compile
code that contains any errors which violate its syntax.
▶ If syntax errors are discovered anywhere, compiler prints
them (errors) and quits.

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Compile-time errors

▶ Examples of syntax errors include;

• Omitting a terminator (;) at the end of a statement
• Unpaired curly or square bracket
• Mistyping of keywords such as static, void, int, String, public
etc.
• Assigning an incompatible (inconsistent) data to a variable
• An attempt to use undeclared variable
• An attempt to use unitialized local variable
• Not returning or returning a wrong data type to a method that
returns a value
• Returning a value to a void method

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Run-time errors

▶ They are program errors which occur while the program is

running, causing it to stop executing and terminates.
▶ They are so called because they do not appear until you run
the program.
▶ In Java, they occur when interpreter is running the bytecode.
▶ In Java, run-time errors are called exceptions.
▶ Java is a safe language; meaning that it has few such
run-time errors.
▶ Examples of runtime errors are;
• Dividing an integer by zero.
• Trying to open a file that does not exist.
• Performing an illegal operation that violates security.
• Accessing an array beyond its size or using a negative index.

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Logical errors

▶ Also called semantics errors.

▶ They are errors in which the program compiles and runs
successfully, but produces unexpected or incorrect outcome
(result).
▶ The program you wrote is not what you wanted to write.
▶ Identifying logical errors is tricky and may require a lot of
time and effort.
▶ Examples of logical errors are:
• Using a wrong arithmetic operator, for instance + instead of -.
• Creating an infinity loop or one with off-by one error.
• Using a data type such as byte in an operation which produces a
value that is outside the range.
• Calling a different variable but of the same data type in an
operation

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Test One

1. Define the following terms and give one example for each;
(a). Computer programming language
(b). Data type
(c). Keyword
(d). Access specifier
2. Describe any five weaknesses of machine programming
languages.
3. Mention key components of any programming language like Java
that any programmer needs to learn.
4. Why Java is more portable than other high level programming
languages like C+ or C++?
5. List all major categories of primitive data types in Java.
6. List major parts of a Java method.

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Individual Drill: ITS I

▶ Write Java program called WeightOfWater that computes weight

of water contained in a rectangular container of dimensions;
height, length, and width, representing the container's
height, length, and width, respectively. All these
dimensions are instance variables whose values are entered by
the user through the keyboard. The program should also
contain two constants; DENSITY_OF_WATER (1000kg/m3) and
GRAVITY (9.8N/kg) representing density of water and
gravitational force, respectively. Further, it should
contain three instance methods (all returning double values)
called computeVolume(), computeMass() and computeWeight() for
computing volume, mass and weight of water, respectively.

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Individual Drill: ICTB I

▶ Write Java program called WeightOfWater which computes weight

of water contained in a rectangular container of dimensions;
height, length and width, representing the container's
height, length and width, respectively. All these inputs
should be entered by the user through the keyboard and
initialized by an appropriate constructor at creation of each
object. The program should also contain two constants
DENSITY (1000kg/m 3 ) and GRAV_FORCE (9.81N/kg) for density of
water and gravitational force, respectively. Further, it
should contain three instance methods (all returning double
values) called computeVolume(), computeMass() and
computeWeight() for computing volume, mass and weight of
water, respectively. The program should finally print the
volume, mass and weight of water. Present your work
(Fundikira (block B) 207) by Friday, 26th April 2024 at
6.00PM.

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Individual Drill: ICTM I
▶ Write Java program called QuadraticEquation which computes
two x values of a quadratic equation expressed as
ax 2 +bx +c= 0, using general formula method, assuming that
b 2 ≥ 4ac . The program should contain three instance
variables a , b , and c , all of type double, for coefficients
a , b and c , respectively. These coefficients must be
supplied to the program by the user via the keyboard, and get
initialized by an appropriate user-defined constructor at the
time of creating an object. The program should also contain
two instance methods, both returning double values, called
computeFirstX() and computeSecondX() for computing the two x
values.
Deadline and mode of submission: The question be attempted
by only 51 students who attended today's tutorial session.
The source code file, bearing your full name, programme name
and registration number be submitted via email (bearing your
name) to [email protected] not later than 10.00AM, 26
April 2024.
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Individual Drill 2: ICTM I
• Write a Java program called BankAccount (containing main( ))
which allows a user to check balance, deposit cash and
withdraw cash from his account by choosing an integer 1, 2 or
3, respectively. If an integer other than 1, 2 and 3 is
entered, the program should display a message No such
service, and terminate. The program should contain relevant
number of instance variables and instance methods. The user
should deposit cash not less than 10,000 and withdraw any
amount such that the balance left is not less than 10,000.
Upon successful completion of any transaction, the program
should display the message Thank you for doing business with
us, and terminate. The program should also include three
well defined packages, balance, deposit and withdraw for
CheckBalance, DepositCash and WithdrawCash classes,
respectively. No constructor is needed, and the initial
deposit amount should be 500,000. Submit the source code by
31st May, 2024 at 3.00PM. Assessment will largely base on
your understanding of the code and ability to answer
questions. Avoid copying of code from anyone.
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Part II - Main contents

• Relational operators
• Logical operators
• Order of precedence
• Constructors
• Control structures
• Arrays
• Packages
• Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)Variables
• Basics of Graphical User Interface (GUI)

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Relational operators

▶ Determine the relationship that one operand (value) has to

the other, specifically equality and ordering.
▶ The outcome of the evaluation by relational operators is a
boolean value.
▶ Frequently used in the expressions for most control
structures such as if, for and while.
▶ All primitive data types can be compared using the equality
test, ==, and inequality test, !=.
▶ Only numeric types (integers, floating point and character
operands)can be compared using the ordering operators, that
is to see which one is greater or less than the other.

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Relational operators

Table 3: Java’s relational operators, assume x = 7

Operator English Java Example Binary

Name Symbol operator in Java result
Less than < < 5 < x true
Less than or equal to ≤ <= 5 <= x true
Greater than > > 5 > x false
Greater than or equal to ≥ >= 5 >= x false
Equal to = == 5 == x false
Not equal to ̸= != 5 != x true

▶ Placing space between symbols e.g., ! = generates an error.

▶ All of the above operators are binary operators, that means
they operate on two operands at a time.
▶ Comparing more than two operands will generate a compile time
error.

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Logical (boolean) operators
▶ They operate on boolean operands to create a resultant
boolean value which is used to determine whether the combined
statement (expression) is true or not.
▶ These operators are;
• logical NOT
• logical AND
• logical OR
• exlusive OR
▶ The logical AND, logical OR and XOR operate on binary boolean
operands.
▶ The logical NOT (!), is a unary operator, that it operates on
a single boolean operand to invert its state.
▶ The logical NOT (unary operator) is an operator which
operates on a single operand to invert its state.
▶ Represented using symbols, rather than names and that using
names such as NOT instead of ! generates syntax errors.
▶ Binary logical operators operate from left to right order.
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Logical (boolean) operators

Table 4: Java’s logical operators

Operator Symbol Synonym Description

NOT ! logical Reverses (inverts) the value of the
negation operand
AND & logical AND Returns true if both operands evaluat
e to true
AND && conditional Same as &, but if operand on the left
AND is false, it returns false without
evaluating operand on the right
OR | logical OR Returns true if at least one operand
evaluates to true
OR || conditional The same as |, but if operand on the
OR left is true, it returns true without
evaluating operand on the right
XOR logical Returns true if one and only one of
V
exclusion the operands evaluates to true. It
returns false if both operands evalu
ate to true or both operands evaluate
to false 101 / 187
Order of precedence

▶ Also known as operator precedence.

▶ Defines the order with which arithmetic operators are
executed in a program.
▶ Multiplication (*), division (/) and modulus (%) are executed
before any addition (+) and subtraction (-). The expression;
(20 - 3 * 3 - 9 / 3)
produces 8.
▶ You can use parentheses, ( ), in arithmetic calculations to
change the order (sequence) of execution.
▶ For instance, the expression ((20 - 3) * (3 - 9) / 3)
produces -34.

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Constructors
▶ DEMONSTRATION ON HOW to supply instance variables with
values without a constructor.
▶ When you create an object of a class, a special kind of
method called a constructor is always invoked.
▶ If no constructor is defined for your class, the compiler
supplies a default constructor which does nothing.
▶ The default constructor is also described as the no-arg
constructor because it requires no arguments to be specified
when it is called.
▶ The primary purpose of a constructor is to provide programmer
with the means of initializing instance variables uniquely
for each object created.
▶ Constructors ensure that instance variables are initialized
at the time they are created.
▶ However, not all instance variables must be initialized with
the constructor

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Constructors

▶ Constructor has the following characteristics;

• It has the same name as the class in which it resides.
• It is syntactically similar to a method, though it is not a
method.
• It never returns a value and you must not specify a return type
not even of type void
• It is invoked using the new operator when an object is created.
▶ Constructor does not have a return type because the implicit
return type of a class constructor is the class type itself.
▶ A constructor can have any number of parameter, including
none.
▶ The default constructor has no parameters, as it is indicated
by its alternative description the no-arg constructor
▶ Though it is possible to initialize class variables with
constructor, it is rarely done in professional Java programs.

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Control structures

▶ A block of code that dictates the flow of statements in a

program.
▶ The order in which statements in a program are executed is
called flow of control.
▶ Normally statements in a Java program, are executed one after
the other in the order in which they are written, a process
called sequential execution.
▶ Java provides constructs which enable programmers to specify
the next statement to execute, which is not necessary the
next one in the sequence.
▶ Control structures allow programmers to specify the logic
required for statements to execute.

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Control structures

▶ A procedure for solving a problem in terms of actions to

execute and the order in which these actions are executed is
called an algorithm.
▶ Determine the actions and the order of execution involved in
making ugali.
▶ Determine the actions and the order of execution involved in
taking money from ATM.
▶ Java provides three types of control structures namely:
• Sequential control structure
• Selection control structure
• Repetition control structure

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Sequential control structure

▶ A default control structure in Java if no any other control

structure is specified.
▶ With sequential control structure, program statements are
executed one after another in the order they occur from top
to bottom.
▶ A program can contain any number of statements.
▶ Consider statements in the main () method, they are usually
executed in the order in which they are placed from top to
bottom.
▶ Figure 8 depicts the execution flow of four statements in
sequential control structure.

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Sequence control structure

Figure 8: Flow of execution in sequence control structure

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Sequence control structure

▶ In this case, statement 1 will execute first, followed by

statement 2, then statement 3 and finally statement 4.
▶ The statements must be logically placed in a correct order so
as to avoid compile time errors or logic errors that may
arise if they are wrongly ordered.
▶ You do not have to add any other code to make sequential
execution occur.

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Selection control structure

▶ They are control structures used by programs to choose among

alternative courses of action.
▶ They contain a condition (also called expression) which is
evaluated to either true or false.
▶ If the condition is true, a statement linked to the condition
is executed.
▶ If the condition is false, a statement linked to the
condition is ignored (i.e. not executed).
▶ Java provides three types of selection control structures
namely;
• if
• if/else
• if-else-if ladder
• switch

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Selection control structure: if statement

▶ The if statement is a single selection statement because it

selects/performs or ignores a single action (or a single
group of action).
▶ A single group of action (statements) is commonly known as
statement block.
▶ If the condition evaluates to true, statements linked to the
if statement are executed, otherwise the statements are
ignored (skipped).
▶ The general syntax of an if statement is;
if (expression){
//statement;
}

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Selection control structure: if statement

▶ The expression can be any expression that produces a boolean

value.
▶ For instance testing whether the mark is greater than or
equal to 40 and print the message Passed can be written as;
if (mark>=40){
System.out.println(Passed);
}
▶ If the value of the expression is true, the statement that
follows the if is executed, otherwise it is not executed.
▶ The indention of the second statement shows that it is
subject to the if condition.

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Selection control structure: if statement

Figure 9: General syntax of the if statement

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Selection control structure: if statement

▶ When you have a statement block in the body of the if

statement that is not enclosed with braces, a logic error may
be generated.
▶ In that case, only the statement immediately after the
expression will execute if the expression evaluates to true,
and not evaluate when the expression evaluates to false.
▶ The rest will execute whether the expression evaluates to
true or not as they will not be considered part of the if
body.
▶ It is always good to enclose the body of the if statement
within braces whether you have one statement or statement
block.

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Selection control structure: if/else

▶ An if statement can be followed by an optional else clause

which executes when the boolean expression (condition) is
false.
▶ The if/else statement provides an explicit choice between two
courses of action; one for when the if expression is true and
another for when it is false.
if (boolean expression){
// Statements to execute when the expression is true
} else {
// Statements to execute when expression is false
}

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Selection control structure: if/else

Figure 10: if/else statement flowchart diagram

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Selection control structure: if-else-if ladder
▶ It is a variant of the if/else statement.
▶ Its else statement may contain another if statement,creating
a series of if-else statements in which only one if statement
execute when its condition is true.
▶ The conditional expressions are evaluated from top to bottom,
and at no time will two or more else if statements execute.
▶ As soon as the true condition is found, the statement
associated with it is executed and the rest of the ladder is
bypassed.
▶ If it erroneously happens that two else-if statements contain
the same conditional expression, the first else-if statement
in the order will execute.
▶ If none of the conditions is true, the final (optional) else
statement is executed.
▶ An else clause always associates with the nearest if in the
same block that is not already associated with any else.

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Selection control structure: if-else-if ladder

if(boolean_expression){
//statement 1;
} else if (boolean_expression){
//statement 2;
} else if (boolean_expression){
//statement 3;
} else if (boolean_expression){
//statement 4;
}else { // This else clause is optional
//statement 5;
}

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Selection control structure: switch statement

▶ Used to select multiple choices (alternatives) based on a set

of fixed values for a given expression.
▶ The expression must produce an integer value other than long;
i.e., a value of type byte, short, int and char.
▶ This means it does not support values of type long.
▶ Switch statements do not support expressions which produce
floating point values, that is double and float values.
▶ The selections made are determined by the value of the
expression placed between parentheses after the keyword
switch.
▶ Possible switch options are defined by one or more case
values also called case labels which are defined by using
keyword case.
▶ Case label consists of case keyword followed by a constant
value that will select the case, followed by a colon (:).

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Selection control structure: switch statement
▶ Statements to be executed when the case is selected follow
the case label.
▶ All case labels and their associated statements are placed
between braces for switch statement.
▶ Switch statement may contain a special case called default,
which is selected when the value of the switch expression
does not correspond to any of the values for the other cases.
▶ A value of an expression is successively tested against a
list of constant values and when a match is found, the
statement sequence associated with that match is executed.
▶ This means a particular case is selected if its value is the
same (matches) with the value of the switch expression.
▶ Frequently, the expression controlling the switch is simply a
variable and the case constant (value) must be literals of a
data type compatible with the variable (expression).
▶ Statements of each case label may be terminated by an
optional break statement.
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Selection control structure: switch statement

▶ When encountered within the statement sequence of a case

label, the break statement causes the program flow to exit
from the entire switch statement and resume at the next
statement outside the switch.
▶ If a break is not placed at the end of the statement sequence
associated with a case, all statements following the matching
case will be executed until another break or end of the
switch is encountered.
▶ Cases in the switch statement can be written in any order,
though it is usually good to sequence them by the order of
the case values.
▶ You can have any number of case statements within the switch.
▶ The general syntax of the witch statement is;

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Selection control structure: switch statement

Figure 11: General syntax of the switch statement

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Selection control structure

▶ if statement: A program that checks whether a mark entered

by the user is a pass or not using the set passmark.
▶ if else statement: Update the above program to include
statement when it is not a fail
▶ if else if: An upgrade of the above program, to also include
limiting marks between 0 and 100, inclusive.
▶ switch statement: A bank program to include methods for
depositing cash (depositCash(), withdraw cash (withdrawCash)
and checking balance (checkBalance()).
• Variables deposit, withdraw and deposit (initial and new one)
• The deposit cash should show

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Repetition control structure

▶ These are the control structures that enable programs to

execute statements repeatedly as long as a condition called
the loop-continuation condition remains true.
▶ They can make a statement or a block of statement to execute
in a specified number of times or indefinitely.
▶ The most common repetition control structures are;
• for
• while
• do while
• Sentinel controlled while loop
• while (true)

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Repetition control structure: for loop

▶ The for loop is one of the most commonly used repetition

control statements in Java.
▶ It is declared by using keyword for, followed by parentheses
containing loop control mechanism, followed by the loop body
enclosed in braces.
▶ The loop control mechanism contains three parts;
• initialization_expression: Simply called initialization, is an
assignment statement that sets the initial value of the loop
control variable, such as int i = 0;
• loop_continuation condition: It is a boolean expression that
determines whether or not the loop will repeat, such as i <5;
• update_expression: Defines the amount by which the loop
control variable will change each time the loop is repeated,
such as i++

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Repetition control structure: for loop
▶ The update expression can change by any amount, but usually
it changes by one.
▶ The expression i++ is equivalent to i = i + 1 or i += 1.
▶ If you want it to change by 2, you can write i += 2.
▶ The update expression may also involve -, *, / or any valid
combination as long as it meets your need.
▶ If a loop continuation condition evaluates to false from the
beginning, the for loop body will not execute
▶ The general syntax of the for loop is;

Figure 12: General syntax of the for loop

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Repetition control structure: for loop
▶ Example of the for loop is;

Figure 13: for loop

▶ Quite often, the loop control variable is needed for that

purpose and is not used else where in the program.
▶ When this is the case, it is therefore possible to declare
the variable inside the initialization expression of the loop
control mechanism and limit its scope within the for loop.
▶ The for loop can proceed in a positive or negative fashion,
though the former is the most commonly used one.
▶ It is highly recommended to enclose the body of the for loop
with braces even if it contains only one statement.
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Repetition control structure: while loop
▶ It contains three major parts;
• The boolean (conditional) expression
• Statement (or statement block) to be executed when the
condition is true
• Update expression
▶ When the boolean expression evaluates to false, the loop
terminates and the execution continues with the statement
following the loop block.
▶ The boolean expression is tested at the beginning of the
loop, so if it is initially false, the loop body will not be
executed at all.
▶ A statement in the body of the while loop may be a single
statement or block of statement.
▶ The general syntax of the while loop is;
while(boolean_expression){
//statement
update_operation
}
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Repetition control structure: while loop

▶ Example of the while loop is;

while(x < 5){
System.out.println(Today is my birthday.....);
x++;
}
▶ Unlike the for loop, the loop counter variable inside the
parentheses of the while loop must have been declared and
initialized outside the parentheses.
▶ In the above case, the variable x must have been declared and
initialized outside the while loop.
▶ A compile time error will be generated if you attempt to
declare (and initialize) it inside the loop's parentheses.
▶ Like the for loop, it is highly recommended to enclose the
body of the while loop with braces even if it contains only
one statement.

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Repetition control structure: Sentinel
controlled while loop
▶ It is used where the number of repetitions (iterations)is not
known in advance.
▶ In this case, a condition must be set to enable the loop
iterate for any unspecified number of times, and terminate
when required.
▶ It uses a special value called sentinel or signal value which
indicates when a loop should terminate.
▶ Upon entering a sentinel value, the loop will terminate and
the next statement in the order of execution after the while
loop will execute.
▶ While a sentinel value can be any number, it must be careful
chosen so that it can not be confused with any acceptable
values entered by the user.
▶ The sentinel value may vary from program to program depending
on the valid range of the values to be entered by the user.

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Repetition control structure: Sentinel
controlled while loop

▶ For instance, a program processing students marks (0 to 100)

can have any negative value such as -1 or a positive value
greater than 100 as a sentinel value.
▶ This is because it is not expected a student to score less
than 0 or greater than 100 for any test or exam mark.
▶ The boolean condition uses the most recent mark entered by
the user to determine whether the loop should execute again
or not.
▶ Unlike the ordinary while loop, the sentinel controlled while
loop does not have an update expression.
▶ However, great care must be taken to avoid a logical error
which may arise if the sentinel value is involved in any
computations within the body of while loop.

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Repetition control structure: Sentinel
controlled while loop

▶ An example of the sentinel controlled while loop is;

while(mark != -1){
sum += mark;
System.out.println(Enter a mark value: );
mark = input.nextInt();
}
▶ Only when a value entered for mark is not equal to -1, it
will be added to sum.
▶ When -1 is entered, the while loop will terminate and the
next statement after the loop will execute.

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Repetition control structure: while (true) loop

▶ The while(true) statement is a better alternative to a

sentinel controlled while loop.
▶ Like all other forms of while loops, there must be a
condition for the loop to come out of it, otherwise it will
iterate infinitely.
▶ The most common condition used to terminate the while(true)
loop is a break statement.
▶ The program does not specify the number of times the loop
should iterate for the user to enter the marks before the
loop terminates.

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Repetition control structure: while (true) loop

▶ Example of the while(true) loop is;

while(true){
System.out.println(Enter a mark value: );
mark = input.nextInt();
if(mark == -1){
break;
}
sum += mark;
}
▶ The if statement executes each time a user enters a value to
check if it is equal to -1 or not.
▶ If it is equal to -1, the break statement executes to
terminate the while loop.
▶ If it is not equal to -1, it is added to sum, and another
iteration begins until -1 is entered.

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Repetition control structure: do-while loop

▶ With the do-while loop, the boolean expression (loop

continuation condition) controlling the loop is tested at the
end of the loop block, that is at the end of each iteration.
▶ This means that the loop body always executes at least once
even if the expression is always false.
▶ Its general syntax is;
do{
// loop body
// update_statement
} while(boolean_expression);

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Repetition control structure: do-while loop

▶ Since the boolean expression appears at the end of the loop,

the statement in the loop is guaranteed to execute at least
once before the boolean condition is tested.
▶ An example of the do-while loop is;
do{
System.out.println(Enter a mark value: );
mark = input.nextInt();
sum += mark;
i++;
} while(i < 4);

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Arrays

▶ Data structure: A collection of related data items.

▶ Array: A data structure consisting of related data items of
the same data type.
▶ Other types of data structures include linked lists, stacks,
heaps, queues, dictionaries and trees.
▶ Arrays have the following characteristics;
• Hold element values of the same data type. No two or more
element values can be of different data types.
• Have fixed size (length) and can not be resized after being
created.
• They are objects, and therefore of reference data type.
• Elements of arrays can be of either primitive data types or
reference data type.

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Declaring arrays

▶ You declare a variable to reference the array and specify the

data type of the array elements.
elementDataType arrayRefVar[ ];
▶ The elementDataType can be any data type and all elements in
that array must be of that data type.
▶ The arrayRefVar is the array variable.
▶ Array (reference) variable names follow the same conventions
as other variable names.
▶ For instance, the following statement creates an array of
type int.
int intArray[ ];
▶ Array variable names follow the same conventions as other
variable names.
▶ Arrays can be of any data type, and every element must be of
the array's declared type and not otherwise.

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Creating arrays

▶ You can not assign elements to an array unless it has been

created.
▶ To create an array object, you specify data type of the array
elements and the number of elements as part of an array
creation expression that uses keyword new.
▶ The general syntax for creating an array is:
arrayRefVar = new elementDataType[arraysize];
▶ An arraysize specifies the number of elements that can be
stored in an array.
▶ The following statement creates an intArray with the array
size of five elements from the declaration made above:
intArray = new int[5];

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Declaring and creating an array (combined)

▶ Declaring an array variable, creating an array and assigning

the reference of an array to the variable can be combined in
one statement as shown below:
elementDataType arrayRefVar [ ] = new elementDataType[arraysize];
▶ You can also rewrite the above statement as follows;
elementDataType [ ] arrayRefVar = new elementDataType[arraysize];
▶ The difference being the position of square brackets, which
can be placed before or after the arrayRefVar.

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Array initialization

▶ Array initialization is the process of assigning values to

elements of an array.
▶ After the initialization, element values can be changed any
time when necessary.
▶ Arrays can be initialized with elements at creation or after
creation.
• At creation;
elementDataType arrayRefVar[ ] = {value0 ,value1 ,.....,valuek };
♦ Observe the absence of new operator and the elementDataType on the
right hand side of the assignment operator.
♦ Also observe the use of curly brackets in place of square
brackets.
♦ Initializing an array at creation is appropriate when assigning
(initializing) small number of elements.
♦ For instance the following statement declares, creates and
initialize an array with three elements of type int.
int intArray[ ] = {3,6,9};

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Array initialization
▶ After creation:
• This method initializes an array after its creation and is
commonly used to initialize one element value at a time.
int [ ] intArray = new int[5];
• Then assigning values can be done such as;
intArray[0] = 5;
intArray[1] = 12;
intArray[3] = 45;
• Not necessary to initialize all elements at once and in an
order as elements can be initialized (or accessed) randomly.
• Repetition loops such as for and while can also be used to
initialize larger arrays much easily.

Figure 14: Assigning elements to an array using for loop after creation

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Packages

▶ Package is a uniquely named collection of classes which are

related in functionality, scope, or by inheritance.
▶ To use classes from other packages you must refer to them
explicitly by package names or you import them in your source
code files.
▶ Strictly speaking, a package specifies an organized path for
folders storing particular classes.
▶ A package may have a composite name that is a combination of
two or more simple names.
▶ You can specify a package name as any sequence of names
separated by periods.

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Packages

▶ It is important to know that package names are case

sensitive.
▶ This means, Scanner is different from scanner
▶ File path for the package is provided using a period (.)
rather than Windows's \ or Linux's and Unix OS's /.
package mzumbe.fst.css;
import mzumbe.fst.css;
▶ Classes in packages contain some methods which can be used to
perform the operations they have been coded for.
▶ You can create your own package, define some classes and
methods and call them in other classes of your program.
▶ Two types of packages are;
• Built-in packages - Java packages included within JDK.
• User-defined packages - Containing classes written by the user.

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Packages

▶ The use of packages in Java has the following advantages;

• Locate and organize classes into units: This is achieved by
grouping together classes that are related in terms of
functionality, scope or inheritance.
• They reduce name collision: class names in one package will
not interfere with names of other packages' classes of your
programs because class names in packages are all qualified by
package names.
• Provide protection: This is achieved through the use of Java's
access control mechanism that uses access specifiers (access
attributes).
• Making searching/locating and usage of classes, interfaces,
enumerations and annotations easier.
• Packages can be considered as data encapsulation (or
data-hiding).

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Packages

▶ You can use packages in Java programs in three different

ways.
• Classes from java.lang such as String and Math are
automatically loaded by the JVM and made available to any Java
application.
✓ This is because most of classes from this package provide language
related support (syntax).
• Referring to the class by its full name (fully qualified name)
which includes its package name.
✓ This is appropriate if the class is used once or twice in the
program. For instance the statement;
java.util.Scanner input = new java.util.Scanner (System.in);

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Packages

▶ You can use packages in Java programs in three different

ways.
• Import individual classes or the whole package using an import
statement such as;
import java.util.Scanner;
✓ imports a class Scanner from the package called java.util.
✓ When you want to import all classes from the package, you use the
asterisk sign (*). For instance the statement;
import java.util.*;
imports all classes from the java.util package.
✓ To use the Scanner class, create an object of the class and use
any of the available methods found in the Scanner

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Creating and using packages

▶ You need to understand that Java uses a file system directory

to store them
▶ To create your own package, add a package statement as a
first non comment line in the source code file of your Java
program.
▶ Only comments and blank lines are allowed to precede the
package statement.
▶ A package statement consists of keyword package followed by
package name.
▶ If you want classes in the package to be accessible outside
the package, you must declare the class using keyword public
in the first line of the class definition.

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Creating and using packages

▶ Classes definitions not preceded with the keyword public are

accessible only from the methods in classes that belong in
the same package.
▶ Finally you must save all the files for classes in package in
a directory with the same name.
▶ A general syntax of package statement is:
package packageName;
▶ An example of the package declaration is;
package mzumbe;
class FST{
// class statements eg method definitions
}
▶ A package mzumbe has been created, and the class FST belongs
to it.

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Creating and using packages

▶ All classes that are to be included in one package must

include the same package statement as the first executable
statement and must be saved in the same directory that has
the same name as the package.
▶ You will also have to declare constructors and methods in the
classes using keyword public if they are to be accessible
outside of the package.
▶ If you do not declare a class, its constructor, methods or
variables public, and you try to access it through import
statement in a class of a different package, an access denied
error will be generated.

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Packages and access specifiers
▶ They are also called access modifiers or access attributes
▶ They are elements which control accessibility of class
members (data and methods) from other classes in the program
▶ Access to class members from other classes depends on access
specifiers specified for the class members regardless of the
package in which the class belongs
▶ Non-static (instance) members (variables or methods) can not
be referenced (accessed) by static (class) members (i.e.,
instance variables and methods can not be accessed by static
(class) variables and methods.
▶ Static members (variable and methods) can be accessed by both
static and non-static members.
▶ Four access specifiers are public, protected, private and
default.
▶ If no access specifier has been specified for a particular
class member, then the member is said to have a default
access specifier.
▶ Default access specifier is essentially absence of an
explicit access specifier.
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Packages and access specifiers
▶ public:
• It is the least restrictive access specifier
• Public members are accessible to all code (methods) in the
program
• A class declared as public in a package can be accessed from a
class within the same package and other packages of the program
• Classes not declared as public can be accessed only by classes
within the same package
▶ protected:
• Accessible in any class in the same package and from any
subclass(es) within and outside the package in which it is
defined.
▶ private:
• It is the most restrictive access specifier
• Private members can only be accessed by code (methods) inside
the class
• Any code that is not a member of the class can not access a
private member.
▶ default:
• It means no access specifier specified
• Accessible to any methods in any class in the same package
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Packages and access specifiers

Figure 15: Access specifiers on members within the same package

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Object oriented programming: Access specifiers

Figure 16: Access specifiers on data members from different packages

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Standard packages and classes

▶ Because of this, Java contains many built-in packages with a

huge number of classes, commonly known as standard classes.
▶ You therefore do not need to write your own classes and
methods that perform the same functions performed by any of
the standard classes. Do not invent your wheel.
▶ Standard classes are usually more secure, reliable, uniform
throughout the world, reusable, efficient and they reduce
effort and time required to write similar classes.

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Standard packages and classes
▶ Commonly used Java's packages include;
• java.lang: Contains language support classes (e.g classes
which defines primitive data types, math operations).
✓ This package is automatically imported into any Java program.
• java.util: Contains utility classes which implement data
structures like linked list, dictionary and support for
Date/Time operations.
• java.io: Contains classes for supporting input/output
operations.
• java.awt:Contains classes for developing Graphical User
Interface (GUI) or window-based applications in Java.
• javax.swing:Contains classes for implementing the components
for graphical user interfaces (like button, menus etc.)
• java.awt.event: Defines classes and interfaces used for event
handling in the AWT and Swing.
• java.net: Contains classes for supporting networking
operations.
▶ Each of these packages contains several classes which in turn
contains many methods.
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Standard packages and classes

▶ The Math class which contains most of the mathematical

formulas and functions is contained in the java.lang package.
▶ Examples of Math methods include;
Math.max(arg1,arg2): Returns a max value.
Math.min(arg1, arg2): Retuns a min value
Math.ceil(arg)
Math.floor(arg)
Math.round(arg)
Math.sqrt(arg): Finds a square root.
Math.cbrt(arg): Finds cuberoot of an arg.
Math.pow(x,y): Find x raised to y.
Math.log10(arg):Finds a base 10 log of an arg.
Math.random()

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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
▶ It is a software suite that consolidates tools essential for
software development into a unified platform.
▶ Provides the programmer with centralized tools for authoring,
modifying, testing, debugging, deploying code documentation
and others to streamline the development process.
▶ By integrating multiple tools within cohesive environment,
developers can write, test and debug code more efficiently,
ultimately contributing to increased productivity.
▶ Examples of popular IDE for Java programming include
NetBeans, Eclipse, Visual Studio, IntellJ
▶ Among other things, IDE consists of the following;
• Source code editor (Text editor): For creating and editing
source code.
• Build automation tools: Performs various activities such as
compiling source code, packaging, running tests, deploying
software and creating documentation and release notes.
• Debugger: Used to find and remove bugs (errors) in the program
source code i.,e. debugging.
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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

▶ Among other things, IDE consists of the following;

• Compiler: Converts source code into machine readable form for
execution by a computer.
• Class browser: Allows developers to navigate the class structure
of an object-oriented program.
• Object browser: Allows developers to browse through objects
in a project and examine their properties, methods and events.
• Class hierarchy diagram: Allows developers to visualize the
structure of the code in an object-oriented programming
language.

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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

▶ Advantages (benefits) of using IDE include;

• Syntax highlighting: Enhances code readability by applyig
different colours to different elements such as keywords,
variables, classes etc. which helps developers to quickly
identify and correct errors.
• Intelligent code suggestion: Suggests possible code that you
can type in your program.
• Code completion: Suggests possible code snippets, variable
names etc as you type to accelerate coding and reduce the need
to type out long and complex expressions and minimize errors.
• Snytax checking: It can identify and minimize coding mistakes
and typos.
• Intelligent code navigation: Allows developers to quickly jump
between files, classes, packages, methods which is useful in
large codebases, enhancing overall productivity.
• Spell checking: Checks spelling of typed code and comments.
• Automated code generation: Automate repetitive coding tasks by
generating some codes.

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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
▶ Advantages (benefits) of using IDE include;
• Framework integration: Provides tools to package applications
and integrate them with frameworks.
• Enforce project, company or language standards:
• Breakpoints and debugging console: Using breakpoints,
developers can pause code execution at specific points to
facilitate step-by-step debugging.
✓ Debugging consoles provide real-time insight into variable values,
function calls and other critical information during debugging
process
• Variable inspection and tracking: Provides tools for inspecting
variables and tracking their values as code runs.
• Code compilation and execution: Provides real-time
compilation, allowing developers to identify syntax errors and
compile their code as they type.
• Immediate feedback on code changes: Developers can observe
the impact of code changes almost immediately.
• Code refactoring tools: Allows developers to restructure,
rename elements such as variables, methods, classes easily and
organize imports with minimal efforts, saving time, and
ensuring code quality.
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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

▶ Advantages (benefits) of using IDE include;

• Collaborative editing: Enable multiple developers to work on the
same codebase simultaneously which fosters communication and
accelerates development process especially in team environment
where team members contribute to various parts of code.
• Consistent development environment: Provides consistent
development environment across team members through shared
project settings, coding standard, version control, unified
workspace etc.

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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

▶ You need to consider the following while selecting an IDE;

• Language support: If the selected IDE supports the programming
language you work with.
• Platform compatibility: Confirm that the IDE is compatible with
your development platform (Operating system).
• Community support: Look for the IDE that enjoys a strong
online presence and a community willing to share knowledge
through active forums, discussion groups, and community that
can offer help when you face challenges.
• Regular updates and bug fixing: A good IDE should receive
regular updates to address bugs, and introducing new features
in order to enhance the stability and security of IDE.
• Third-party plugin and availability: Availability of a wide range
of third-party plugin or extensions allows developers to
customize their IDEs with tools and features that cater their
unique development requirements.

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Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
▶ Disadvantages of using IDE include;
• Initial setup and configuration: IDEs, especially those with
extensive features may have steeper learning curve during
initial setup and configuration.
✓ Setting up of project environment, integrating external tools and
preferences which can be time-consuming for new comers.
• Mastering advanced features: IDEs often come with a wide array
of advanced features which can be powerful but might require
time and effort to master.
• Resource intensive: Some IDEs may demand substantial
computational resources which can pose challenges to developers
using older hardware or working in resource-constrained
environment.
• Impact on system performance: Running IDE alongside other
resource intensive applications can impact overall system
performance.
✓ IDE processes such as compiling or running intensive analysis may
lead to slowdowns especially on less powerful machines.
• Feature overload for simple projects: IDEs may contain
comprehensive features which may create a sense of feature
overload and make the development environment seem overly
complex for the scope of smaller projects.
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Basics of Graphical User Interface (GUI)

▶ All programs we have been creating are called console

programs, and they run from the command terminals such as
Windows' CMD or Linux command shell.
▶ While they provided solutions for the problems they were
intended to solve, they require special knowledge to use and
can rarely be used by users with ordinary computer literacy.
▶ Many computer users are comfortable to use computer
applications which they can easily interact with through
graphical user interface such as buttons, menus, texts etc.
▶ Programs with components such as buttons, text fields are
known as windowed applications.
▶ Java provides an extensive support for GUI, making it one of
the best programming languages for developing a wide range of
GUI based applications.

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Basics of GUI
▶ Three major frameworks for GUI development in Java are;
• Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT)
• Swing
• JavaFX
▶ AWT and swing reside in the standard packages java.awt and
javax.swing, respectively which both contain many classes for
writing GUI programs.
▶ Most components for creating GUI in Java are members (classes
and methods) of these packages.
▶ The java.awt package has been included in Java since the
earliest versions of Java.
▶ AWT was the first framework for GUI development in Java, but
due to several limitations, more robust and feature rich
frameworks such as swing and JavaFX were developed.
▶ Limitations of AWT include;
• Most of its components are dependent on the OS. This means the
same component such as a button could have different look and
feel depending on the OS the application runs on.
• Many components of this framework provided limited
functionalities.
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Basics of GUI

▶ The next framework was Swing, containing large number of

classes which replace or supplement java.awt classes.
▶ It is more useful and powerful than AWT because;
• More flexible than AWT as it is implemented purely in Java and
does not depend on the OS on which Java runs.
• Its components contain more and advanced features than AWT.
• Supports for model-view-controller (MVC) architecture: MVC is
an architecture which separates the data model, the user
interface, and control logic which simplifies program
maintenance.
• Integration with AWT: Although Swing is an independent
frameworks, it integrates very well with AWT.
▶ Still Swing was found to have a number of issues such as;
• It is resource-intensive
• Older look and feel
• Its performance can be slower than more modern GUI frameworks

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Console VS Windowed applications

▶ Before we start writing GUI-based Java applications, it is

important to know the differences between console and
windowed applications.
▶ In console programs, the program code determines the sequence
of events.
▶ Because of this, program statements are ordered depending on
the order of events (actions) to be performed by the program.
▶ In a window-based application, the action(s) performed by the
program is driven by the events you do with the GUI.
▶ Because of this, GUI-based applications are commonly known as
event driven programs, because a program performs actions in
response to certain events on the application's GUI.
▶ In event driven program, the part of the program that
executes and the subsequent output depend on the action
(event) that occurs on the program.

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Console VS Windowed applications
▶ Events performed by user on GUI include;
• Clicking of the mouse button.
• Pressing of the window components including button, radio
button, check box etc.
• Entering the text on a text field.
• Pressing a key on the keyboard.
• Selecting an item such as text, color etc.
• Pointing of the window component.
• Resizing the window etc.
• Displaying message (text) on the label
▶ Statements of the GUI programs which execute at any time
depend on the event that takes place.
▶ If a user presses a button or clicks a mouse, then the code
that is associated with this event (pressing of a button or
clicking of a mouse) will execute.
▶ For each type of an event, the program could do an event
(action) associated with that event.

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Basics of GUI

▶ The code which makes the program produce a certain output

when a particular event occurs is called event listener or
simply listener.
▶ Java contains several event listeners for different types of
events.
▶ Most of the event listeners belong to two packages called
java.awt.event and javax.swing.event
▶ These packages contain a large number of classes and methods
to respond to various events.
▶ Listeners in Java are not called in the same way we have been
calling methods/statements in console programs.
▶ Instead they are called automatically when the corresponding
event occurs.

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Basics of GUI

▶ Creating GUI-based Java applications will require importing

several classes and methods from various packages including;
• java.awt
• javax.swing
• java.awt.event
• javax.swing.event
▶ There are many other packages with classes and methods that
provide many more functionalities related to GUI.
▶ This course will make use of Swing framework from javax.swing
package.
▶ However, we still use many classes including Font, Color from
java.awt package.

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Creating GUI-based Java application - Steps

▶ To create a GUI based application, be guided with the

following;
• Import the packages for classes and methods you are going to
use.
• Create a window, that is the largest component of the program
that holds all other components.
• Create components of the window.
• Create the event listener.
▶ It should be understood that creating components does not
automatically make them respond to any events.
▶ For instance, creating a button, does not automatically make
it respond to mouse or key clicks, but you need to create a
listener for it.
▶ Know that most of the classes you will create extend some
standard classes.

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Creating GUI window

▶ All Java user interfaces (UI) are commonly known as

components.
▶ Many components act as containers to hold other components.
▶ The largest component in Java application that holds all
other components is known as a window, also known as a frame.
▶ A window (frame) needs to be the first component to create
and all other components your application needs to have will
be attached (embedded) to it.
▶ To create a frame, you may use one of the following methods;
• Defining a class that extends a JFrame class from javax.swing
package.
• Creating a JFrame object to which methods are referenced to
▶ You then call several standard methods to provide the window
with some characteristics.

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Creating a window - Extending a JFrame class

▶ Follow the following steps under this method;

• Import appropriate classes from awt and swing frameworks.
• Define a class that extends the JFrame class.
• Call a constructor with some methods to define some
characteristics for the window and/or its components.
▶ Add more components like panels, textfields, labels, buttons
etc.

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Creating a window - Extending a JFrame class

Figure 17: The Java Program window: Extending a JFrame class

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Creating a window - Creating a JFrame class

▶ Follow the following steps under this method;

• Create a JFrame object to which all methods defined in the
constructor or other methods you will create will be called
with reference to
• This frame object is created like any other object such as;
JFrame frameName = new JFrame();
• The JFrame constructor may take an argument of type String
which will be the title of the window. For instance;
JFrame frameName = new JFrame(FirstGUI);
• Creates a frame object with the title FirstGUI Program.
▶ Look the following two codes which create two very similar
windows with the identical characteristics.

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Creating a window - Creating a JFrame class

Figure 18: The FirstGUI Program: Creating a JFrame object

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Creating a window
▶ setDefaultCloseOperation(): Controls the behavior of a
window when the user tries to close it. It may carry these
arguments;
• JFrame.DO_NOTHING_ON_CLOSE
• JFrame.HIDE_ON_CLOSE
• JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE
• JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE
▶ setVisible(): Sets the size of the window based on the
dimensions given. Its arguments are true or false.
• When it is true the window is displayed, otherwise it is not
displayed.
▶ The setSize() method receives two integer arguments which
specify the size of the window in terms of length (left to
right) and height (top to bottom).
▶ The setLocation() method receives two arguments which specify
where the top left corner of the program should be placed.
▶ The setLayout() defines the order (lay out) in which
components will be arranged on the window.
• You need to define a specific layout manager.
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Creating a window

Figure 19: A window of the first two programs

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Adding smaller components to the window

▶ The window has two major parts;

• The menu bar area: Holds the program's menu bar
• The content pane holds other components
▶ The above window does not contain any other smaller
components such as buttons, label or text field.
▶ It can only respond to a few events automatically provided by
the GUI framework which are resizing the window (maximizing
and minimizing) and closing the window.

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Adding smaller components to a window

▶ After the window has been created, you can add other
components on it.
▶ To do this, there are two methods to use, add() and
getContentPane() methods.
▶ When adding any component directly to the window, use the
getContentPane() method and not add().
▶ The add() is used when adding a component to another
component, which is then added to the content pane using the
getContentPane() method.

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Adding smaller components to a window

▶ A window is GUI's largest component that may hold many other

components including;
• Label
• Button
• Panel
• Radio button
• Combobox
▶ Layout managers: For organizing and positioning window
components in a suitable manner.
• FlowLayout manager
• GridLayout manager
▶ Graphics tools
• Colors
• Fonts

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Event handling

▶ Each component (button, textfield, radio button etc) created

must be linked to its respective event listener.
▶ Event listeners are implemented using interface, not classes.
▶ There are two ways of creating event handling code in Java
which are;
• Implementing an interface such as ActionListener during class
definition.
• Using an interface.
▶ We will use the second method - using the interface.
▶ Each listener interface has the same name as the
corresponding event class, but with Listener as a suffix
instead of Event.
▶ Thus, ActionListener interface belongs to the class called
ActionEvent, and class FocusEvent, there is an interface
called FocusListener.

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Event handling
▶ The methods (actual code to respond to an event) that a
listener class must have are defined in the interface.
▶ Common listener method we will use is actionPerformed( ) that
belongs to class ActionEvent.
▶ It responds to pressing of buttons, changing of text on
textfields, selection of choices.
▶ However, there are other methods for different classes and
interfaces which can be used to handle different events.
▶ A listener method always get an object of type of class to
which the interface belongs, for instance, ActionPerformed()
must have a parameter of type ActionEvent.
▶ After implementing the listener method, you must register the
listener. This is done by calling the the appropriate method
to the component the listener is connected to.
▶ For button presses we use the method AddActionListener to
register the listner.

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Customizing behaviors of components

▶ Java GUI packages contain many classes and methods to change

bevaviours of various components in terms of colour, font
size, font style, etc.
▶ The following methods operate on various GUI components;
• setForeground(): Operates on compoents like labels to change
their foreground colours. Eg. label.setForeground(Color.blue)

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Group Assignment
▶ Write GUI-based Java program called WeightOfWaterGUI which
computes weight of water contained in a rectangular container
of dimensions; height, length and width, representing the
container's height, length and width, respectively. All
these inputs should be entered by the user through three
textfields for height, width and length of the aplication
window. The program should also contain two constants
DENSITY (1000kg/m 3 ) and GRAV_FORCE (9.81N/kg) for density of
water and gravitational force, respectively. Further, it
should contain three instance methods (all returning double
values) called computeVolume(), computeMass() and
computeWeight() for computing volume, mass and weight of
water, respectively. The program should finally print, on
the window, the volume, mass and weight of water. All group
members must appear in person for the presentation of their
program in my office (Fundikira (block B) 207) by Friday,
14th June 2024 at 6.00PM. The program should have a look
similar to one shown in Figure 20.
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Figure 20: WeightOfWaterGUI window

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