More About Objects and
Methods
Chapter 6
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Objectives
• Define and use constructors
• Write and use static variables and methods
• Use methods from class Math
• Use predefined wrapper classes
• Use stubs, drivers to test classes and programs
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Objectives
• Write and use overloaded methods
• Define and use enumeration methods
• Define and use packages and import statements
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Defining Constructors
• A special method called when instance of an object created with new
• Create objects
• Initialize values of instance variables
• Can have parameters
• To specify initial values if desired
• May have multiple definitions
• Each with different numbers or types of parameters
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Defining Constructors
• Example class to represent pets
• Figure 6.1 Class Diagram for Class Pet
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Defining Constructors
• class Pet
• Note different constructors
• Default
• With 3 parameters
• With String parameter
• With double parameter
• class PetDemo
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Defining Constructors
Sample
screen
output
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Calling Methods from Other Constructors
• Constructor can call other class methods
• View sample code, listing 6.3
class Pet2
• Note method setPet
• Keeps from repeating code
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Calling Constructor from Other Constructors
• From listing 6.3 we have the initial constructor and method set
• In the other constructors use the this reference to call initial
constructor
• Use this(<other constructor’s params>) instead of
ClassName(<other constructor’s params>)
• class Pet3
• Note calls to initial constructor
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Defining Constructors
• Constructor without parameters is the default constructor
• Java will define this automatically if the class designer does not define any
constructors
• If you do define a constructor, Java will not automatically define a default
constructor
• Usually default constructors not included in class diagram
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Defining Constructors
• Figure 6.2 A constructor
returning a reference
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Static Variables
• Static variables are shared by all objects of a class
• Variables declared static final are considered constants – value cannot
be changed
• Variables declared static (without final) can be changed
• Only one instance of the variable exists
• It can be accessed by all instances of the class
• Static variables also called class variables
• Contrast with instance/member variables
• Do not confuse class variables with variables of a class type
• Both static variables and instance variables are sometimes called fields
or data members
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Static Methods
• Some methods may have no relation to any type of object
• Example
• Compute max of two integers
• Convert character from upper to lower case
• Static method declared in a class
• Can be invoked without using an object
• Instead use the class name (unnecessary if used in same class defined)
• Make a method static if the logic
• Does not use instance variables
• Or, a more specific version of the above, it just takes parameters an just returns a result
• Example 1: a method that takes two parameters and returns the distance between them
• Example 2: a utility method such as print() or println() such as used in class to avoid typing
“System.out” every time for print-heavy programs
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Static Methods
• View sample class, listing 6.5
class DimensionConverter
• View demonstration program, listing 6.6
class DimensionConverterDemo
Sample
screen
output
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Tasks of main in Subtasks
• Program may have
• Complicated logic
• Repetitive code
• Create static methods to accomplish subtasks
• Must be static or will require an instance of the class to call – often does
not make sense to create an instance of a class just to call a utility
method or subtask
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Adding Method main to a Class
• Method main used so far in its own class within a
separate file
• Often useful to include method main within class
definition
• To create objects in other classes
• To be run as a program
• Note example code, listing 6.11
a redefined class Species
• When used as ordinary class, method main ignored
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
The Math Class
• Provides many standard mathematical methods
• Automatically provided, no import needed
• Example methods, figure 6.3a
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
The Math Class
• Example methods, figure 6.3b
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Random Numbers
• Math.random()returns a random double that is greater than or
equal to zero and less than 1
• Java also has a Random class to generate random numbers
• Can scale using addition and multiplication; the following simulates
rolling a six sided die
int die = (int) (6.0 * Math.random()) + 1;
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Wrapper Classes
• Recall that arguments of primitive type treated differently from those
of a class type
• May need to treat primitive value as an object occasionally
• Java provides wrapper classes for each primitive type
• Methods provided to act on values (generally useful)
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Wrapper Classes
• Allow programmer to have an object that corresponds to value of
primitive type
• Contain useful predefined constants and methods
• Double.MAX_VALUE
• Wrapper classes have no default constructor
• Programmer must specify an initializing value when creating new object
• Wrapper classes have no set methods – they are immutable, like
Strings
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Wrapper Classes
• Figure 6.4a Static methods in class Character
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Wrapper Classes
• Figure 6.4b Static methods in class Character
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Writing Methods: Outline
• Case Study: Formatting Output
• Decomposition
• Addressing Compiler Concerns
• Testing Methods
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Formatting Output
Algorithm to display a double amount as dollars and cents (corrected)
0. get total number of cents (rounded)
1. dollars = the number of whole dollars in total cents
amount.
2. cents = the number of remaining cents in amount.
Round if there are more than two digits after the decimal
point.
3. Display a dollar sign, dollars, and a decimal point.
4. Display cents as a two-digit integer.
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Formatting Output
Sample
screen
output
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Decomposition
• Recall pseudocode from previous slide
• With this pseudocode we decompose the task into subtasks
• Then solve each subtask
• Combine code of subtasks
• Place in a method
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Addressing Compiler Concerns
• Compiler ensures necessary tasks are done
• Initialize variables
• Include return statement
• Rule of thumb: believe the compiler
• Change the code as requested by compiler
• It is most likely correct
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Testing Methods
• To test a method use a driver program (or use unit tests…)
• Every method in a class should be tested – not just that a method
was called but that all code paths tested too… still not perfect
• Bottom-up testing
• Test lowest levels first
• Failed tests at lower levels generally suggest to work on the lower level
before the higher level
• Can do Top-Down also by using a stub – simplified version of a
method for testing purposes – for the lower levels. Examples:
• Stub for Database/Network: may just return answers without querying
database or making internet connection
• Stub for video camera input: may just read a given video
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Overloading: Outline
• Overloading Basics
• Overloading and Automatic Type Conversion
• Overloading and the Return Type
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Overloading Basics
• When two or more methods have same name within the same class
• Java distinguishes the methods by number and types of parameters
• If it cannot match a call with a definition, it attempts to do type conversions
• return type is not considered
• A method's name and number and type of parameters is called the
signature
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Overloading Basics
• View example program, listing 6.15
class Overload
• Note overloaded method getAverage
Sample
screen
output
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Overloading and Type Conversion
• Overloading and automatic type conversion can
conflict
• Recall definition of Pet class of listing 6.1
• If we pass an integer to the constructor we get the
constructor for age, even if we intended the constructor
for weight
• Remember the compiler attempts to overload
before it does type conversion
• Use descriptive method names, avoid overloading
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Overloading and Return Type
• You must not overload a method where the only difference is the
type of value returned -- ambiguous
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Information Hiding Revisited
Privacy Leaks
• Instance variable of a class type contain address
where that object is stored
• Assignment of class variables results in two
variables pointing to same object
• Use of method to change either variable, changes the
actual object itself
• View insecure class, listing 6.18
class petPair
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Information Hiding Revisited
• View sample
program,
Sample
listing 6.19
screen
class Hacker output
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Enumeration as a Class
• Consider defining an enumeration for
suits of cards
enum Suit {CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS, SPADES}
• Compiler creates a class with methods
• equals
• compareTo
• ordinal
• toString
• valueOf
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Enumeration as a Class
• View enhanced enumeration, listing 6.20
enum Suit
• Note
• Instance variables
• Additional methods
• Constructor
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Packages: Outline
• Packages and Importing
• Package Names and Directories
• Name Clashes
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Packages and Importing
• A package is a collection of classes grouped
together into a folder
• Name of folder is name of package
• Each class
• Placed in a separate file
• Has this line at the beginning of the file
package Package_Name;
• Classes use packages by use of import statement
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Package Names and Directories
• Package name tells compiler path name for directory containing
classes of package
• Search for package begins in class path base directory
• Package name uses dots in place of / or \
• Name of package uses relative path name starting from any directory
in class path
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Package Names and Directories
• Figure 6.5 A package name
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
Name Clashes
• Packages help in dealing with name clashes
• When two classes have same name
• Different programmers may give same name to two classes
• Ambiguity resolved by using the package name
JAVA: An Introduction to Problem Solving & Programming, 7th Ed. By Walter Savitch
ISBN 0133862119 © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved
