Introduction to Classes, Objects,

Methods and Strings

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3.2 Instance Variables, set Methods and get Methods
Each class you create becomes a new type that can be used to declare
variables and create objects.
You can declare new classes as needed; this is one reason Java is known
as an extensible language.

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3.2.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

Class Declaration
Each class declaration that begins with the access modifier public
must be stored in a file that has the same name as the class and ends
with the .java filename extension.
Every class declaration contains keyword class followed immediately
by the class’s name.

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3.2.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

Identifiers and Camel Case Naming

Class, method and variable names are identifiers.
By convention all use camel case names.
Class names begin with an uppercase letter, and method and variable
names begin with a lowercase letter.

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3.2.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

Instance Variable name

An object has attributes that are implemented as instance variables and
carried with it throughout its lifetime.
Instance variables exist before methods are called on an object, while the
methods are executing and after the methods complete execution.
A class normally contains one or more methods that manipulate the instance
variables that belong to particular objects of the class.
Instance variables are declared inside a class declaration but outside the
bodies of the class’s method declarations.
Each object (instance) of the class has its own copy of each of the class’s
instance variables.

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3.2.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

Access Modifiers public and private

Most instance-variable declarations are preceded with the keyword
private, which is an access modifier.
Variables or methods declared with access modifier private are
accessible only to methods of the class in which they’re declared.

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3.1.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

setName Method of Class Account

Parameters are declared in a comma-separated parameter list, which is
located inside the parentheses that follow the method name in the
method declaration.
Multiple parameters are separated by commas.
Each parameter must specify a type followed by a variable name.

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3.1.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

Parameters Are Local Variables

Variables declared in the body of a particular method are local
variables and can be used only in that method.
When a method terminates, the values of its local variables are lost.
A method’s parameters are local variables of the method.

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3.1.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

setName Method Body

Every method’s body is delimited by left and right braces ({ and }).
Each method’s body contains one or more statements that perform the
method’s task(s).

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3.2.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

getName Method of Class Account

The method’s return type specifies the type of data
returned to a method’s caller.
Keyword void indicates that a method will perform
a task but will not return any information.
Empty parentheses following a method name
indicate that the method does not require any
parameters to perform its task.
When a method that specifies a return type other
than void is called and completes its task, the
method must return a result to its calling method.

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3.2.1 Account Class with an Instance Variable, a set Method and a get
Method (Cont.)

The return statement passes a value from a called method back to its
caller.
Classes often provide public methods to allow the class’s clients to
set or get private instance variables.
The names of these methods need not begin with set or get, but this
naming convention is recommended.

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3.2.2 AccountTest Class That Creates and Uses an Object of
Class Account
Driver Class AccountTest
A class that creates an object of another class, then calls the object’s
methods, is a driver class.

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3.2.2 AccountTest Class That Creates and Uses an Object of
Class Account (Cont.)
Scanner Object for Receiving Input from the User
Scanner method nextLine reads characters until a newline character
is encountered, then returns the characters as a String.
Scanner method next reads characters until any white-space
character is encountered, then returns the characters as a String.

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3.2.2 AccountTest Class That Creates and Uses an Object of Class
Account (Cont.)

Instantiating an Object—Keyword new and Constructors

A class instance creation expression begins with keyword new and
creates a new object.
A constructor is similar to a method but is called implicitly by the new
operator to initialize an object’s instance variables at the time the
object is created.

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3.2.2 AccountTest Class That Creates and Uses an Object of Class
Account (Cont.)

Calling Class Account’s getName Method

To call a method of an object, follow the object name with a dot
separator, the method name and a set of parentheses containing the
method’s arguments.

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3.2.2 AccountTest Class That Creates and Uses an Object of Class
Account (Cont.)

null—the Default Initial Value for String Variables

Local variables are not automatically initialized.
Every instance variable has a default initial value—a value provided by
Java when you do not specify the instance variable’s initial value.
The default value for an instance variable of type String is null.

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3.2.2 AccountTest Class That Creates and Uses an Object of
Class Account (Cont.)
Calling Class Account’s setName Method
A method call supplies values—known as arguments—for each of the
method’s parameters.
Each argument’s value is assigned to the corresponding parameter in
the method header.
The number of arguments in a method call must match the number of
parameters in the method declaration’s parameter list.
The argument types in the method call must be consistent with the
types of the corresponding parameters in the method’s declaration.

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3.2.3 Compiling and Executing an App with Multiple Classes

The javac command can compile multiple classes at once.

Simply list the source-code filenames after the command with each
filename separated by a space from the next.
If the directory containing the app includes only one app’s files, you
can compile all of its classes with the command javac *.java.
The asterisk (*) in *.java indicates that all files in the current
directory ending with the filename extension “.java” should be
compiled.

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3.2.4 Account UML Class Diagram

Top Compartment
In the UML, each class is modeled in a class diagram as a rectangle
with three compartments. The top one contains the class’s name
centered horizontally in boldface.

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3.2.4 Account UML Class Diagram

Middle Compartment
The middle compartment contains the class’s attributes, which
correspond to instance variables in Java.

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3.2.4 Account UML Class Diagram

Bottom Compartment
The bottom compartment contains the class’s operations, which correspond
to methods and constructors in Java.
The UML represents instance variables as an attribute name, followed by a
colon and the type.
Private attributes are preceded by a minus sign (–) in the UML.
The UML models operations by listing the operation name followed by a set
of parentheses.
A plus sign (+) in front of the operation name indicates that the operation is
a public one in the UML (i.e., a public method in Java).

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3.2.4 Account UML Class Diagram

Return Types
The UML indicates an operation’s return type by placing a colon and
the return type after the parentheses following the operation name.
UML class diagrams do not specify return types for operations that do
not return values.
Declaring instance variables private is known as data hiding or
information hiding.

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3.2.4 Account UML Class Diagram

Parameters
The UML models a parameter of an operation by listing the parameter
name, followed by a colon and the parameter type between the
parentheses after the operation name

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3.2.5 Additional Notes on Class AccountTest
static Method main
You must call most methods other than main explicitly to tell them to
perform their tasks.
A key part of enabling the JVM to locate and call method main to begin
the app’s execution is the static keyword, which indicates that main
is a static method that can be called without first creating an object
of the class in which the method is declared.

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3.2.5 Additional Notes on Class AccountTest (Cont.)
Notes on import Declarations
Most classes you’ll use in Java programs must be imported explicitly.
There’s a special relationship between classes that are compiled in the
same directory.
By default, such classes are considered to be in the same package—
known as the default package.
Classes in the same package are implicitly imported into the source-
code files of other classes in that package.

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3.2.5 Additional Notes on Class AccountTest (Cont.)
An import declaration is not required when one class in a package
uses another in the same package.
An import- declaration is not required if you always refer to a class
with its fully qualified class name, which includes its package name and
class name.

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3.2.6 Software Engineering with private Instance Variables and public
set and get Methods

Declaring instance variables private is known as data hiding or

information hiding.

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3.2.6 Software Engineering with private Instance Variables and public set
and get Methods

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3.3 Account Class: Initializing Objects with Constructors

Each class you declare can optionally provide a constructor with

parameters that can be used to initialize an object of a class when the
object is created.
Java requires a constructor call for every object that’s created.

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3.3.1 Declaring an Account Constructor for Custom Object
Initialization

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3.3.2 Class AccountTest: Initializing Account Objects When They’re
Created

Constructors Cannot Return Values

Constructors can specify parameters but not return types.
Default Constructor
If a class does not define constructors, the compiler provides a default
constructor with no parameters, and the class’s instance variables are
initialized to their default values.
There’s No Default Constructor in a Class That Declares a Constructor
If you declare a constructor for a class, the compiler will not create a default
constructor for that class.

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3.3.2 Class AccountTest: Initializing Account Objects When They’re
Created (Cont.)

Adding the Contructor to Class Account’s UML Class Diagram

The UML models constructors in the third compartment of a class
diagram.
To distinguish a constructor from a class’s operations, the UML places
the word “constructor” between guillemets (« and ») before the
constructor’s name.

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3.4 Account Class with a Balance; Floating-Point Numbers

A floating-point number is a number with a decimal point.

Java provides two primitive types for storing floating-point numbers in
memory—float and double.
Variables of type float represent single-precision floating-point numbers
and have seven significant digits.
Variables of type double represent double-precision floating-point
numbers.
These require twice as much memory as float variables and provide 15
significant digits—approximately double the precision of float variables.
Floating-point literals are of type double by default.

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3.4.2 AccountTest Class to Use Class Account

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3.4.2 AccountTest Class to Use Class Account (Cont.)
Scanner method nextDouble returns a double value.

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3.4.2 AccountTest Class to Use Class Account (Cont.)
Formatting Floating-Point Numbers for Display
The format specifier %f is used to output values of type float or
double.
The format specifier %.2f specifies that two digits of precision should
be output to the right of the decimal point in the floating-point number.

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3.4.2 AccountTest Class to Use Class Account (Cont.)
The default value for an instance variable of type double is 0.0, and
the default value for an instance variable of type int is 0.

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3.5 Primitive Types vs. Reference Types
Types in Java are divided into two categories—primitive types and reference
types.
The primitive types are boolean, byte, char, short, int, long, float and
double.
All other types are reference types, so classes, which specify the types of
objects, are reference types.
A primitive-type variable can store exactly one value of its declared type at a
time.
Primitive-type instance variables are initialized by default.
Variables of types byte, char, short, int, long, float and double are
initialized to 0.

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3.5 Primitive Types vs. Reference Types (Cont.)
Variables of type boolean are initialized to false.
Reference-type variables (called references) store the location of an object in
the computer’s memory.
Such variables refer to objects in the program.
The object that’s referenced may contain many instance variables and
methods.
Reference-type instance variables are initialized by default to the value
null.
A reference to an object is required to invoke an object’s methods.
A primitive-type variable does not refer to an object and therefore cannot be
used to invoke a method.

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