Introduction to Java
What is Java
Java is a programming language and a platform. Java is a high level, robust, object-oriented and secure
programming language.
Java was developed by Sun Microsystems (which is now the subsidiary of Oracle) in the year 1995. James
Gosling is known as the father of Java. Before Java, its name was Oak. Since Oak was already a registered
company, so James Gosling and his team changed the Oak name to Java.
Platform: Any hardware or software environment in which a program runs, is known as a platform. Since Java
has a runtime environment (JRE) and API, it is called a platform.
Java Example
Let's have a quick look at Java programming example. A detailed description of Hello Java example is available
in next page.
class Simple{
public static void main(String args[]){
System.out.println("Hello Java");
}
}
Application
According to Sun, 3 billion devices run Java. There are many devices where Java is currently used. Some of
them are as follows:
1. Desktop Applications such as acrobat reader, media player, antivirus, etc.
2. Web Applications such as irctc.co.in, javatpoint.com, etc.
3. Enterprise Applications such as banking applications.
4. Mobile
5. Embedded System
6. Smart Card
7. Robotics
8. Games, etc.
Types of Java Applications
There are mainly 4 types of applications that can be created using Java programming:
1) Standalone Application
Standalone applications are also known as desktop applications or window-based applications. These are
traditional software that we need to install on every machine. Examples of standalone application are Media
player, antivirus, etc. AWT and Swing are used in Java for creating standalone applications.
2) Web Application
An application that runs on the server side and creates a dynamic page is called a web application. Currently,
Servlet, JSP, Struts, Spring, Hibernate, JSF, etc. technologies are used for creating web applications in Java.
3) Enterprise Application
An application that is distributed in nature, such as banking applications, etc. is called enterprise application. It
has advantages of the high-level security, load balancing, and clustering. In Java, EJB is used for creating
enterprise applications.
4) Mobile Application
An application which is created for mobile devices is called a mobile application. Currently, Android and Java
ME are used for creating mobile applications.
Java Platforms / Editions
There are 4 platforms or editions of Java:
1) Java SE (Java Standard Edition)
It is a Java programming platform. It includes Java programming APIs such as java.lang, java.io, java.net,
java.util, java.sql, java.math etc. It includes core topics like OOPs, String, Regex, Exception, Inner classes,
Multithreading, I/O Stream, Networking, AWT, Swing, Reflection, Collection, etc.
2) Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition)
It is an enterprise platform which is mainly used to develop web and enterprise applications. It is built on the top
of the Java SE platform. It includes topics like Servlet, JSP, Web Services, EJB, JPA, etc.
3) Java ME (Java Micro Edition)
It is a micro platform which is mainly used to develop mobile applications.
4) JavaFX
It is used to develop rich internet applications. It uses a light-weight user interface API.
Java Version History
Many java versions have been released till now. The current stable release of Java is Java SE 10.
1. JDK Alpha and Beta (1995)
2. JDK 1.0 (23rd Jan 1996)
3. JDK 1.1 (19th Feb 1997)
4. J2SE 1.2 (8th Dec 1998)
5. J2SE 1.3 (8th May 2000)
6. J2SE 1.4 (6th Feb 2002)
7. J2SE 5.0 (30th Sep 2004)
8. Java SE 6 (11th Dec 2006)
9. Java SE 7 (28th July 2011)
10. Java SE 8 (18th Mar 2014)
11. Java SE 9 (21st Sep 2017)
12. Java SE 10 (20th Mar 2018)
Features of Java
The primary objective of Java programming language creation was to make it portable, simple and secure
programming language. Apart from this, there are also some excellent features which play an important role in
the popularity of this language. The features of Java are also known as java buzzwords.
A list of most important features of Java language is given below.
1. Simple
2. Object-Oriented
3. Portable
4. Platform independent
5. Secured
6. Robust
7. Architecture neutral
8. Interpreted
9. High Performance
10. Multithreaded
11. Distributed
12. Dynamic
Simple
Java is very easy to learn, and its syntax is simple, clean and easy to understand. According to Sun, Java
language is a simple programming language because:
Java syntax is based on C++ (so easier for programmers to learn it after C++).
Java has removed many complicated and rarely-used features, for example, explicit pointers, operator
overloading, etc.
There is no need to remove unreferenced objects because there is an Automatic Garbage Collection in
Java.
Object-oriented
Java is an object-oriented programming language. Everything in Java is an object. Object-oriented means we
organize our software as a combination of different types of objects that incorporates both data and behavior.
Object-oriented programming (OOPs) is a methodology that simplifies software development and maintenance
by providing some rules.
Basic concepts of OOPs are:
1. Object
2. Class
3. Inheritance
4. Polymorphism
5. Abstraction
6. Encapsulation
Platform Independent
Java is platform independent because it is different from other languages like C, C++, etc. which are compiled
into platform specific machines while Java is a write once, run anywhere language. A platform is the hardware
or software environment in which a program runs.
There are two types of platforms software-based and hardware-based. Java provides a software-based platform.
The Java platform differs from most other platforms in the sense that it is a software-based platform that runs on
the top of other hardware-based platforms. It has two components:
1. Runtime Environment
2. API(Application Programming Interface)
Java code can be run on multiple platforms, for example, Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris, Mac/OS, etc. Java code
is compiled by the compiler and converted into bytecode. This bytecode is a platform-independent code because
it can be run on multiple platforms, i.e., Write Once and Run Anywhere(WORA).
Secured
Java is best known for its security. With Java, we can develop virus-free systems. Java is secured because:
No explicit pointer
Java Programs run inside a virtual machine sandbox
Classloader: Classloader in Java is a part of the Java Runtime Environment(JRE) which is used to load
Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine dynamically. It adds security by separating the package for
the classes of the local file system from those that are imported from network sources.
Bytecode Verifier: It checks the code fragments for illegal code that can violate access right to objects.
Security Manager: It determines what resources a class can access such as reading and writing to the
local disk.
Java language provides these securities by default. Some security can also be provided by an application
developer explicitly through SSL, JAAS, Cryptography, etc.
Robust
Robust simply means strong. Java is robust because:
It uses strong memory management.
There is a lack of pointers that avoids security problems.
There is automatic garbage collection in java which runs on the Java Virtual Machine to get rid of
objects which are not being used by a Java application anymore.
There are exception handling and the type checking mechanism in Java. All these points make Java
robust.
Architecture-neutral
Java is architecture neutral because there are no implementation dependent features, for example, the size of
primitive types is fixed.
In C programming, int data type occupies 2 bytes of memory for 32-bit architecture and 4 bytes of memory for
64-bit architecture. However, it occupies 4 bytes of memory for both 32 and 64-bit architectures in Java.
Portable
Java is portable because it facilitates you to carry the Java bytecode to any platform. It doesn't require any
implementation.
High-performance
Java is faster than other traditional interpreted programming languages because Java bytecode is "close" to
native code. It is still a little bit slower than a compiled language (e.g., C++). Java is an interpreted language that
is why it is slower than compiled languages, e.g., C, C++, etc.
Distributed
Java is distributed because it facilitates users to create distributed applications in Java. RMI and EJB are used
for creating distributed applications. This feature of Java makes us able to access files by calling the methods
from any machine on the internet.
Multi-threaded
A thread is like a separate program, executing concurrently. We can write Java programs that deal with many
tasks at once by defining multiple threads. The main advantage of multi-threading is that it doesn't occupy
memory for each thread. It shares a common memory area. Threads are important for multi-media, Web
applications, etc.
Dynamic
Java is a dynamic language. It supports dynamic loading of classes. It means classes are loaded on demand. It
also supports functions from its native languages, i.e., C and C++.
Java supports dynamic compilation and automatic memory management (garbage collection).
First Java Program | Hello World Example
In this page, we will learn how to write the simple program of java. We can write a simple hello java
program easily after installing the JDK.
To create a simple java program, you need to create a class that contains the main method. Let's
understand the requirement first.
The requirement for Java Hello World Example
For executing any java program, you need to
Install the JDK if you don't have installed it, download the JDK and install it.
Set path of the jdk/bin directory.
Create the java program
Compile and run the java program
Creating Hello World Example
Let's create the hello java program:
class Simple{
public static void main(String args[]){
System.out.println("Hello Java");
}
}
save this file as Simple.java
To compile:javac Simple.java
To execute: java Simple
Output:Hello Java
Compilation Flow:
When we compile Java program using javac tool, java compiler converts the source code into byte
code.
Parameters used in First Java Program
Let's see what is the meaning of class, public, static, void, main, String[], System.out.println().
class keyword is used to declare a class in java.
public keyword is an access modifier which represents visibility. It means it is visible to all.
static is a keyword. If we declare any method as static, it is known as the static method. The core
advantage of the static method is that there is no need to create an object to invoke the static method.
The main method is executed by the JVM, so it doesn't require to create an object to invoke the main
method. So it saves memory.
void is the return type of the method. It means it doesn't return any value.
main represents the starting point of the program.
String[] args is used for command line argument. We will learn it later.
System.out.println() is used to print statement. Here, System is a class, out is the object of PrintStream
class, println() is the method of PrintStream class. We will learn about the internal working of
System.out.println statement later.
How many ways can we write a Java program
There are many ways to write a Java program. The modifications that can be done in a Java program
are given below:
1) By changing the sequence of the modifiers, method prototype is not changed in Java.
Let's see the simple code of the main method.
static public void main(String args[])
2) The subscript notation in Java array can be used after type, before the variable or after the
variable.
Let's see the different codes to write the main method.
public static void main(String[] args)
public static void main(String []args)
public static void main(String args[])
3) You can provide var-args support to the main method by passing 3 ellipses (dots)
Let's see the simple code of using var-args in the main method. We will learn about var-args later in
Java New Features chapter.
public static void main(String... args)
4) Having a semicolon at the end of class is optional in Java.
Let's see the simple code.
class A{
static public void main(String... args){
System.out.println("hello java4");
}
};
Valid java main method signature
public static void main(String[] args)
public static void main(String []args)
public static void main(String args[])
public static void main(String... args)
static public void main(String[] args)
public static final void main(String[] args)
final public static void main(String[] args)
final strictfp public static void main(String[] args)
Invalid java main method signature
public void main(String[] args)
static void main(String[] args)
public void static main(String[] args)
abstract public static void main(String[] args)
Resolving an error "javac is not recognized as an internal or external command"?
If there occurs a problem like displayed in the below figure, you need to set path. Since DOS doesn't
know javac or java, we need to set path. The path is not required in such a case if you save your
program inside the JDK/bin directory. However, it is an excellent approach to set the path.
Internal Details of Hello Java Program
Internal Details of Hello Java
In the previous page, we have learnt about the first program, how to compile and run the first java
program. Here, we are going to learn, what happens while compiling and running the java program.
Moreover, we will see some question based on the first program.
What happens at compile time?
At compile time, java file is compiled by Java Compiler (It does not interact with OS) and converts the
java code into bytecode.
What happens at runtime?
At runtime, following steps are performed:
Classloader: is the subsystem of JVM that is used to load class files.
Bytecode Verifier: checks the code fragments for illegal code that can violate access right to objects.
Interpreter: read bytecode stream then execute the instructions.
Q) Can you save a java source file by other name than the class name?
Yes, if the class is not public. It is explained in the figure given below:
To compile: javac Hard.java
To execute: java Simple
Q) Can you have multiple classes in a java source file?
Yes, like the figure given below illustrates:
