1

Notes from

Well House
Consultants
These notes are written by Well House Consultants and distributed
under their Open Training Notes License. If a copy of this license is not
supplied at the end of these notes, please visit
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Well House Consultants Samples Notes from Well House Consultants 1

Q110

1.1 Well House Consultants

Well House Consultants provides niche training, primarily but not exclusively in
Open Source programming languages. We offer public courses at our training centre
and private courses at your offices. We also make some of our training notes available
under our "Open Training Notes" license, such as we’re doing in this document here.

1.2 Open Training Notes License

With an "Open Training Notes License", for which we make no charge, you’re
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You are NOT allowed to charge (directly or indirectly) for the copying or distribu-
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1.3 Courses presented by the author

If you would like us to attend a course (Java, Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl/Tk, MySQL
or Linux) presented by the author of these notes, please see our public course
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If you have a group of 4 or more trainees who require the same course at the same
time, it will cost you less to have us run a private course for you. Please visit our onsite
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which will give you details and costing information

1.4 Contact Details

Well House Consultants may be found online at

http://www.wellho.net
graham@wellho.net technical contact
lisa@wellho.net administration contact

Our full postal address is

404 The Spa
Melksham
Wiltshire
UK SN12 6QL

Phone +44 (0) 1225 708225

Fax +44 (0) 1225 707126

2 Notes from Well House Consultants Well House Consultants, Ltd.

 2

Objects and
Classes
In Java, we place all our code in "classes". Each class contains one or
more named blocks of code known as methods, and the group of methods
provides all the functionality that's required to handle data (or objects) of
a particular type.

Using an instance of a class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Writing your own class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Enhancements to the basic class structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Naming conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

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Java would be very limited if data could only be held in the eight different primitive
types of variables. Although they can form the fundamental building blocks, you
really want something much more. You want to be able to define your own data type,
create variables to contain data of that type, and then perform operations on the vari-
ables, secure in the knowledge that all of the operations are sensible for that type of
data.
2.1 Using an instance of a class
You declare a variable to be not an int or a double but, perhaps, a "Film":
Film Kids;
There you go, a variable that can contain a film, and the name of the variable is
"Kids".
Just like the declaration
int number;
tells Java that number is an int, but doesn't set any value into it, so the same thing
applies to our Kids variable. Let's put something into our Kids variable, which we'll
do by running a method that can be used for any variable of type Film.
Kids = new Film("Shrek",133);
"Create an object of type Film; the two parameters are ’Shrek’ and ’133’, and store
the Film into the variable called ’Kids’."
There's going to be a certain number of things that we can do on a variable of type
Film,1 and if we want to do those things we need to do them by method calls. For
example:
System.out.println("The kids are watching "+ Kids.getcalled());

will output
The kids are watching Shrek

This evening, the adults are going to watch "Road to Perdition" and the children
will be watching "Shrek". Let's put both films into a class, and see how much earlier
the adults will be through:

Figure 1 Running "Eve"

bash-2.04$ java Eve
The kids are watching Shrek
The big kids are watching Road to Perdition
The adults will be through 16 minutes ahead
bash-2.04$

1
and we need it defined somewhere, but that's a story later in this module

4 Objects and Classes Well House Consultants, Ltd.

 Chapter 2

And here's the class that we wrote:

public class Eve {

public static void main(String [] args) {

// Set up two film objects

Film Kids;
Film Adults;

Kids = new Film("Shrek",133);

Adults = new Film("Road to Perdition",117);

System.out.println("The kids are watching "+

Kids.getcalled());
System.out.println("The big kids are watching "+
Adults.getcalled());

int before = Kids.getminutes() - Adults.getminutes();

System.out.println("The adults will be through "+

before+ " minutes ahead");
}
}

Looks good. We've used two objects of type Film, set them up, called information
back, etc. As programmers of this application, we needed to know what methods we
could call in the Film class, and what the parameters were to the methods, but we
didn't need to know how the class works internally.
Chances are that the Film class is also in use by some other programmers and
applications. Good; there's no point in rewriting code, and there's no point in
everyone having to learn the low-level details about how to handle films. Provided
that the Film class was written and tested well and does what's needed, it's a building
block that has a very wide use.
Some detail of using an object
"new " is a reserved word in Java. When our program says "new Film " it's an
instruction for Java to set up the memory to hold everything about a film, and to pass
back some sort of variable1 through which the information can be later accessed.
The getcalled and getminutes methods are names that just happen to be
defined in class Film as methods that can be called on an object of type Film, and
the syntax for the call is objectname.method(). If the method has any extra
parameters, they'll be passed in within the round brackets as you can see (for example)
in the println calls. println is a method in just the same way that getcalled
is, it's just that println is a part of the standard library and getcalled isn't.

1
sometimes referred to as an instance

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2.2 Writing your own class

In order for the application we've just looked at to work, someone had to write and
provide the Film class, not too hard as it's just another class:

public class Film {

String called;
int minutes;

public Film (String title, int length) {

called = title;
minutes = length;
}

public int getminutes() {

return minutes;
}

public String getcalled() {

return called;
}

public void setminutes(int length) {

minutes = length;
}
}
First, note there's no main method. The Film class isn't written to run as a stand-
alone application, so it doesn't need such a method. What does it have?
It has a method with the same name as the name of the class – "Film". By defini-
tion in Java, this is the constructor method that is run when the new keyword is
used on the class. The constructor does not have a return type specified like all the
other methods in this and previous examples.1
What information do we want to be able to store about each and every film object
that we create? In our simple example, the title and the length in minutes. If we were
to declare variables to grab this information within our constructor, those variables
would be lost as soon as our constructor finished running – a sorry state of affairs.
Instead, we have declared all the variables we want in each object at the very top of
the class:
String called;
int minutes;
For each object of type Film that we create, two new variables ("called " and
"minutes") will be created. When we call any of the other methods that we have
defined on the class, it will choose which called or minutes variable to use
depending on which instance of the class we have called the method on.

1
getminutes returns an int, setminutes is specified as void to state that it has nothing to return, etc.

6 Objects and Classes Well House Consultants, Ltd.

 Chapter 2

Exercise

You're going to be working with vehicles (cars, buses, train carriages etc.). Create a class of type Vehicle with three parameters
– a String for the owner's name, the number of passengers it can take, and the maximum speed it can travel. Also write some get
methods to let you retrieve data.
Write a test program in which you create three Vehicles – a car with a maximum capacity of five and a top speed of 70 m.p.h, a
railway carriage with a maximum capacity of 45 and a top speed of 120 miles per hour, and a bus with a capacity of 51 and a top
speed of 55 m.p.h.
You have 30 people to convey 100 miles. How long is it going to take you to do that with your train carriage, and how long would
it take you with your bus?

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2.3 Enhancements to the basic class structure

Class or static methods
How many films do we have? In our example, we had two but it's not immediately
obvious how we could find that out from a method call to the class. We need a new
type of variable or method – a class variable or method, which applies to the class as
a whole and not to any particular instance of the class. Such variables and methods
are referred to as static, since Java always uses the same variable or method no
matter which member of the class they're called on, or indeed if they're called on the
class as a whole.
Direct variable access
It can be a real pain to have to write get and set methods for every property, so
Java allows you to directly access the variables that relate to each instance of a class,
provided that they have open enough privileges.1
Object oriented design purists may not be thrilled about this, feeling that every-
thing should be done through a method. In practical use it works fine, and if you're
particularly concerned you can declare variables private rather than public which will
stop any users in their tracks.
this
Very often, you'll want to give a parameter the same variable name as a variable in
the current instance of your class; our earlier example was somewhat fiddled when we
wrote:
public Film (String title, int length) {
called = title;
minutes = length;
}
as it would have been much cleaner if we had been able to use the word "title" for
both the parameter and the internal variable within the instance.
If we declare a parameter with the same name as such an instance variable, then
any references we make will be to the parameter. We can force Java to use the instance
variable by writing "this" in front of the variable name when appropriate.
Overloading
In Java, when you call a method you must get the number and type of parameters Important to note: In Java, when you
correct; it's not just the name that identifies the method, but the name and the param- call a method you must get the number
eter list. This means that you can write more than one method with the same name, and type of parameters correct.
very useful if you want to have a method which you specify "short" and leave it to
default the final parameter(s). This can be done equally well with the constructor,
static or dynamic methods.

An example
We've modified our earlier example to include all the extra facilities that we've
talked about since the last exercise – static methods and variables, this, overloading,
and direct access to variables. Here's the object class (now called "Film2"):

public class Film2{

String called;
public int minutes;
static int count = 0;

1
that word "public" that we've been using is more than enough!

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 Chapter 2

public Film2 (String called, int minutes) {

filmset(called, minutes);
}

public Film2 (String called) {

filmset(called, 125);
}

private void filmset(String called, int minutes) {

this.called = called;
this.minutes = minutes;
count++;
}

public String getcalled() {

return called;
}

public void setminutes(int length) {

minutes = length;
}

public static int getcount() {

return count;
}

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Here's our test harness:

public class Eve2 {

public static void main(String [] args) {

// Set up two film objects

Film2 Kids;
Film2 Adults;

Kids = new Film2("Shrek");

Adults = new Film2("Road to Perdition",117);

System.out.println("The kids are watching "+

Kids.getcalled());
System.out.println("The big kids are watching "+
Adults.getcalled());

int before = Kids.minutes - Adults.minutes;

System.out.println("The adults will be through "+

before+ " minutes ahead");

System.out.println("You have a total of " +

Film2.getcount() + " films");

}
}
And here's the result from running it:

Figure 2 Running public class Eve2

bash-2.04$ java Eve2
The kids are watching Shrek
The big kids are watching Road to Perdition
The adults will be through 8 minutes ahead
You have a total of 2 films
bash-2.04$

10 Objects and Classes Well House Consultants, Ltd.

 Chapter 2

2.4 Naming conventions

It's common practice to use different capitalisation standards to differentiate
between primitive and object variables, and the names of methods.
Primitive variables are usually written all lowercase.
Important to note: Primitive variables Classes and object variables start with an uppercase letter, and are then continue
are usually written all lowercase. Classes in lowercase.
and object variables start with an upper- Method names start with a lowercase letter, but have capitals for the start of each
case letter, and are then continue in intermediate word in the method name. Examples:
lowercase. Method names start with a
lowercase letter, but have capitals for numberofobjects primitive
the start of each intermediate word in
Numberofobjects object
the method name.
numberOfObjects method

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Exercise

Modify your vehicle class so that you can call a method to ask how many seats (in total) you have created, and test that method
by adding a total seat report to the test harness.
Add in a second constructor that takes no parameters at all; if you call up a vehicle and don't specify anything, it's to be a car
with four seats, top speed 70 m.p.h. and have an "unknown" owner.

Alternative:

Take the example classes Animal and Ourmenag off the course server, compile them, study them, test them, and modify them
as follows:

a) Add in a constructor which takes two int parameters - an age and a convertion factor. Assume a breed of "unknown" if this
constructor is used
b) Define an extra inimal at the end of the zoo array which is 3 years old and has an ageing factor of 5. You do not know its breed.
c) Add a static variable (and method to access it) that keeps count of the number of animals with an effective age of 18 or more
... these are known as "adult animals".
d) Modify the test program to report on the number of adult animals in addition to the existing reports it generates.

12 Objects and Classes Well House Consultants, Ltd.

 3

License
These notes are distributed under the Well House Consultants
Open Training Notes License. Basically, if you distribute it and use it
for free, we’ll let you have it for free. If you charge for its distribution of
use, we’ll charge.

Well House Consultants Samples License 13

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3.1 Open Training Notes License

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Copyright is retained by Well House Consultants Ltd, of 404, The Spa, Melk-
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Please send any amendments and corrections to these notes to the Copyright
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Original Version, Well House Consultants, 2004

Updated by: ___________________ on _________________

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