Information Technology

Applications Programming

LECTURE 5
Design Notations

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Design Notations
Learning Objectives
At the end of the lecture, you should be able to:

Follow good OOP practices including code layout and

alignment

Describe and use list lookup and group classes

Draw a client chart to represent object interactions

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Boolean Functions

A boolean variable can only be true or false; a boolean function

returns a boolean value.

There is no need to test if true equals true or false

equals false:

boolean found = true;

if (found == true) Wrong!
– The condition is true if found is true, otherwise false.

if (found) Right!
– The condition is true if found is true, otherwise false.

This code is shorter and easier to write and read.

Use if (!found) instead of if (found == false)

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1
Good Spacing

Bad Good
String name=getName(); String name = getName();
area = depth*height; area = depth * height;
for(int i=0;i<2;i++) for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
public double sqrt ( int value) public double sqrt (int value)

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Indenting shows Flow of Control

Bad Good
If... If …
… …
else if … • else if…

…. …
• else
else
…
…

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No Egyptian Brackets

Bad Good
public void public void
method() { method()
//do {
something //do
} something
}

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2
 Class Code Order

Attributes
Methods listed in calling order
• If the method end() is used before play(), then it should
appear above play() in the class

Accessors & Mutators

toString()
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A Group Class

A common pattern is to store the list in its own class

Class Objects
{
private LinkedList<Object> objects = new
LinkedList<Object>();
public void method()
{
for (Object object: objects)
object.method();
}
}

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List Lookup Pattern

A common pattern is to give each object an id. To find an object
in the list, we can scan each object until we find one that
matches.

The supplier offers a boolean function

public boolean matches(int id)
{ return this.id == id; }

The client scans the list and returns the matching object
private Object find(int id)
{ for (Object object: objects)
if (object.matches(id))
return object;
return null; }
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3
 Another example of a List

Lists Code Example – see handout

Animals class has a list of Animal objects

that is, Cow objects.

private LinkedList<Animal> animalList;

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Example of a List
Remember .. Variables defined as final cannot be changed

The Cow class has final private constants – lines 27 & 28

final private String SOUND = "moo";

final private String ANIMAL = "Cow";

The Cow class inherits from Animal and effects (provide

implementation for) noise() the abstract method in the parent class.
– Abstract method noise() in Animal class – line ??
– Cow inherits from Animal – line ??
– Cow default constructor – line ??
– Cow alternate constructor – line ??
– Cow effects noise() – line ??

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Example of a List

Animals class uses java classes – line ??

import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.ListIterator;

Attribute animalList is of type LinkedList where the objects have

been declared as Animal (so we do not need to cast) – line ??

private LinkedList<Animal> animalList;

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4
Example of a List
There are 5 elements in the list

The animalList attribute is created and populated in

the Animals default constructor – lines ??

animalList.add(new Cow("Clarabelle"));
animalList.add(new Cow());
animalList.add(new Cow("Buttercup"));
animalList.add(new Cow("Daisy"));
animalList.add(new Cow("Meg"));

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Example of a List

Animals:noise() gets each element in the list and calls
noise() on each element.
ListIterator<Animal> li = animalList.listIterator();
while (li.hasNext())
{
System.out.println(li.next().noise());
}

Output:

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What if I did this?

Animal animal = animalList.get(5);
What would happen?

IndexOutOfBoundsException

There are only 5 elements in the list

There are only indexes 0 to 4

animalList.get(5), will try to return the 6th object – but there is
no 6th object

This will compile, but when we run the application…

The runtime will throw an exception:
java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 5, Size: 5

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5
What if I did this?
Delete
animalList = new LinkedList<Animal>();
From the Animals Constructor
What would happen?
NullPointerException

The datatype has been defined, but I have not created the
object for the attribute animalList

This will compile, but when I run the application…

The runtime will throw an exception:
java.lang.NullPointerException

You cannot call a method on a null object

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Null Object

When you declare a reference variable, the default value is

null.

Example:
– private Rectangle rectangle;
– None of the attributes have been set, because the
constructor has not been called, ie the object has not been
created.

If we try to call rectangle.area();, we will get a
NullPointerException

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Runtime Errors
These are the two most common runtime errors you will
encounter:

• you are trying to

reference an index that
IndexOutOfBoundsException does not exist

• you are trying to call a

method (or attribute)
NullPointerException on an object that does
not exist ie a null object

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6
Assertions
An assertion is either true or false
It has the form assert <boolean condition>

It is used to test assumptions. For example, if you write a

method to calculate the WAM of a student, you would
assume that the WAM will be less than 100, we write:

assert wam < 100;

If the wam is greater than 100 the assertion will fail

Assertion checking is usually turned on during
implementation and turned off during testing and at release
time.

A failed assertion will generate an AssertionError Exception
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Pre & Post Conditions

Precondition at the start of the method

Post condition at the end of the method

An assertion placed at the beginning of a method is a pre

condition. It checks an assumption at the start of the method.

An assertion placed at the bottom of a method body is a post
condition. It checks what is true after the method’s code has
been executed

Assertions are disabled in BlueJ, you can enable them by
changing the default property in BlueJ. See
http://lists.bluej.org/pipermail/bluej-discuss/2006-
January/005217.html

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Design Notation
A client chart shows how a class uses one or more other
classes; classes are connected by use links.

A class is represented by an oval with a label.

The root class is shown at far left.

A link arrow points from left to right, from the client to the
supplier class.

A supplier class supplies methods that are used or called by its
client.

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7
Client Chart Example

Game Dice

– A link is created when a class name is mentioned in the

client code.
– A link between two classes is shown only once, but a class
may be shown many times; this creates a tree structure
from the root node.
– This convention means that an oval has only one input link;
there are no joins

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Client Chart

A collection (such as an array or list) is shown by writing []

above the link; this symbol indicates that a client class (at left)
uses many objects of the supplier class (at right).

[]
Game Player

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OO Design Steps

Create Group Identify

classes Objects
• Create classes,
• Implement list
attributes &
lookup pattern
methods

Find Common
Code
• Refactor for
parent class

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8
Key Concepts
Summary

Boolean functions should be used
without variables

Alignment shows flow of control

Good spacing helps readability

Egyptian bracketing is not easy to read

Class order should be followed

Group classes & List Lookup patterns

should be used

Client chart show object relationships

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