Supplement J: Eclipse Tutorial

For Introduction to Java Programming, 5E

By Y. Daniel Liang

This supplement covers the following topics:

• Getting Started with Eclipse

• Choosing a Perspective
• Creating a Project
• Creating a Java Program
• Compiling and Running a Java Program
• Run Java Applications from the Command Line
• Debugging in Eclipse

NOTE: To use this supplement with the text, you

may cover Sections 1 – 6 in this supplement
after Chapter 1 in the text, cover Section 7 in
this supplement after Chapter 2 in the text, and
cover Section 8 in this supplement at the
beginning of Chapter 14 in the text.

0 Introduction
This tutorial is for students who are currently taking a
Java course that uses Eclipse and for Java programmers who
want to develop Java projects using Eclipse. Eclipse is an
open source supported by IBM.

You can use JDK command line utility to write Java programs.
The JDK command line utility consists of a set of separate
programs, such as compiler and interpreter, each of which is
invoked from a command line. Besides the JDK command line
utility, there are more than a dozen Java development tools
on the market today, including Borland JBuilder, NetBeans,
Sun ONE Studio (a commercial version of NetBeans), Eclipse,
and WebGain Visual Café. These tools support an integrated
development environment (IDE) for rapidly developing Java
programs. Editing, compiling, building, debugging, and
online help are integrated in one graphical user interface.
Using these tools effectively will greatly increase your
programming productivity.

This brief tutorial will help you to become familiar

with Eclipse. Specifically, you will learn how to
create projects, create programs, compile, and run
programs.

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 NOTE: Eclipse can run on any platform with a Java
Virtual Machine. The screen shots in the tutorial
are taken from Windows using Eclipse 3.0. You can
download Eclipse from www.eclipse.org.

INSTALLATION NOTE: You must install JDK 1.5

before installing Eclipse. JDK 1.5 can be
downloaded from
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5/download.html. The
Windows version of Eclipse 3.0 is contained in a
ZIP file named eclipse-SDK-3.0-win32.zip. Unzip
the file into c:\. All the files are now
contained in c:\eclipse.

1 Getting Started with Eclipse

Assume that you have installed Eclipse files in c:\eclipse.
To start Eclipse, double-click on the eclipse icon in the
c:\eclipse folder, as shown in Figure 1. The Workspace
Launcher window now appears, as shown in Figure 2. Enter
c:\smith in the Workspace field and click OK to display the
Eclipse UI, as shown in Figure 3. (If the workspace already
contains projects, the projects will be displayed in the
UI.) Workspace is actually a directory that stores your
project files.

Figure 1

You can start Eclipse by double-clicking the eclipse

icon from the eclipse installation directory.

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
 Figure 2

The Workspace Launcher lets you choose a directory to

store projects.

Figure 3

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
 The Eclipse main window is the command center for the
IDE.

2 Choosing a Perspective
A perspective defines the initial set and layout of views in
the window. Perspectives control what appears in certain
menus and toolbars. For example, a Java perspective contains
the views that you would commonly use for editing Java
source files, while the Debug perspective contains the views
you would use for debugging Java programs. You may switch
perspectives, but you need to specify an initial perspective
for a workspace.

To create Java programs, set the Java perspective by

choosing Window, Open Perspective, Java from the main menu,
as shown in Figure 4. The new UI is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 4

You need to set a perspective for the workspace.

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
 Figure 5

The Eclipse UI is displayed according to the

perspective.

3 Creating a Project
To create a project, choose File, New, Project to display
the New Project wizard, as shown in Figure 6. Select Java
Project and click Next to display New Java Project wizard,
as shown in Figure 7. Type myjavaprograms in the Project
name field. As you type, the Directory field becomes
c:\smith\myjavaprograms. Make sure that you selected the
options Create project in workspace and Use project folder
as root for sources and class files. Click Finish to create
the project.

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
 Figure 6

The Eclipse UI is displayed according to the

perspective.

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 Figure 7

The Eclipse UI is displayed according to the

perspective.

4 Creating a Program
Now you can create a program in the project by choosing
File, New, Class to display the New Java Class wizard, as
shown in Figure 8. Type Welcome in the Name field. Check the
option public static void main(String[] args). Click Finish
to generate the template for the source code Welcome.java,
as shown in Figure 9.

NOTE:

You may use a package by entering a package name

in the Package field in Figure 9. Since the
source code in the book does not use packages,
the Package field is left blank to match the
code in the book.

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
 Figure 8

The New Java Class wizard lets you create a new Java
class.

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 Figure 9

The New Java Class wizard generates the template of

Java source code.

Type System.out.println(“Welcome to Java”); in the main

method.

NOTE: As you type, the code completion

assistance may automatically come up to give you
suggestions for completing the code. For
instance, when you type a dot (.) after System
and pause for a second, Eclipse displays a popup
menu with suggestions to complete the code, as
shown in Figure 10. You can then select the
appropriate item from the menu to complete the
code.

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
 Figure 10

The Code Completion popup menu is automatically

displayed to help you complete the code.

5 Compiling and Running a Program

By default, your source code is dynamically compiled as you
type. For example, if you forgot to type the semicolon (;)
to end the statement, as shown in Figure 11, you will see
the red wriggly line in the editor pointing to the error. To
run the program, right-click the class in the project to
display a context menu, as shown in Figure 12. Choose Run,
Java Application in the context menu to run the class. The
output is displayed in the Console pane, as shown in Figure
13.

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 Figure 11

Eclipse dynamically checks syntax errors.

Figure 12

You can run the program from Eclipse.

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 Figure 13

The console pane displays the output to the console.

6 Run Java Applications from the Command Line

You also can run program standalone directly from the
operating system. Here are the steps in running the Welcome
application from the DOS prompt.

1. Start a DOS window by clicking the Windows Start

button, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt in Windows.
2. Type the following commands to set up the proper
environment variables for running Java programs in the
DOS environment in Windows:
set path=%path%;c:\j2sdk1.5\bin
set classpath=.;%classpath%
3. Type cd c:\smith\myjavaprograms to change the directory
to c:\smith\myjavaprograms.
4. Type java Welcome to run the program. A sample run of
the output is shown in Figure 14.

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 Figure 14

You can run the Java program from the DOS prompt using
the java command.

NOTE: You can also compile the program using the

javac command at the DOS prompt, as shown in
Figure 14.

7 Debugging in Eclipse
The debugger utility is integrated in Eclipse. You can
pinpoint bugs in your program with the help of the Eclipse
debugger without leaving the IDE. The Eclipse debugger
enables you to set breakpoints and execute programs line by
line. As your program executes, you can watch the values
stored in variables, observe which methods are being called,
and know what events have occurred in the program.

To demonstrate debugging, Let us use Example 2.4,

“Displaying the Current Time,” to demonstrate debugging.
Create a new class named ShowCurrentTime under c:\smith. The
source code for ShowCurrentTime.java can be obtained from
Example 2.4.

7.1 Setting Breakpoints

You can execute a program line by line to trace it, but this
is time-consuming if you are debugging a large program.
Often, you know that some parts of the program work fine. It
makes no sense to trace these parts when you only need to
trace the lines of code that are likely to have bugs. In
cases of this kind, you can use breakpoints.

A breakpoint is a stop sign placed on a line of source code

that tells the debugger to pause when this line is
encountered. The debugger executes every line until it
encounters a breakpoint, so you can trace the part of the
program at the breakpoint. Using the breakpoint, you can

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quickly move over the sections you know work correctly and
concentrate on the sections causing problems.

There are several ways to set a breakpoint on a line. One

quick way is to click the cutter of the line on which you
want to put a breakpoint. You will see the line highlighted,
as shown in Figure 15. You also can set breakpoints by
choosing Run, Toggle Line Breakpoint. To remove a
breakpoint, simply click the cutter of the line.

As you debug your program, you can set as many breakpoints

as you want, and can remove breakpoints at any time during
debugging. The project retains the breakpoints you have set
when you exit the project. The breakpoints are restored when
you reopen it.

Figure 15

You can set breakpoints in the source code.

7.2 Starting the Debugger

There are several ways to start the debugger. A simple way

is shown below:

1. Set a break point at the first statement in the main

method in the Source Editor.

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 2. Right-click on ShowCurrentTime.java in the project
pane to display a context menu. Choose Debug, Java
Application to start debugging. You will first see
the Confirm Perspective Switch dialog, as shown in
Figure 16. Click Yes to switch to the Debug
perspective. The UI for Debug perspective is shown in
Figure 17.

Figure 16

To start debug, Eclipse needs to switch to the Debug

perspective.

Figure 17

The debugger starts to run ShowCurrentTime.java.

7.3 Controlling Program Execution

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The program pauses at the first line in the main method.
This line, called the current execution point, is
highlighted in green. The execution point marks the next
line of source code to be executed by the debugger.

When the program pauses at the execution point, you can

issue debugging commands to control the execution of the
program. You also can inspect or modify the values of
variables in the program.

When Eclipse is in the debugging mode, the toolbar buttons

for debugging are displayed in the Debug window, as shown in
Figure 17. The toolbar button commands also appear in the
Run menu (see Figure 18). Here are the commands for
controlling program execution:

• Resume resumes the execution of a paused program.

• Suspend temporarily stops execution of a program.

• Terminate ends the current debugging session.

• Step Into executes a single statement or steps into a

method.

• Step Over executes a single statement. If the statement

contains a call to a method, the entire method is
executed without stepping through it.

• Step Return executes all the statements in the current

method and returns to its caller.

• Run to Line runs the program, starting from the current

execution point, and pauses and places the execution
point on the line of code containing the cursor, or at
a breakpoint.

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Figure 18

The debugging commands appear under the Debug menu.

7.4 Examining and Modifying Variables

Among the most powerful features of an integrated debugger

is its capability to examine the values of variables, array
items, and objects, or the values of the parameters passed
in a method call. You also can modify a variable value if
you want to try a new value to continue debugging without
restarting the program.

To demonstrate it, choose Run, Step Over to execute one line

in the source code, and you will see the value for
totalMilliseconds in the Variables pane, as shown in Figure
19.

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Figure 19

The value for variable totalMilliseconds is displayed

in the Variable pane.

To change the value in totalMilliseconds, double-click on

totalMilliseconds to display the Set Value dialog box, as
shown in Figure 20. You can now set a new value for
totalMilliseconds.

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© Copyright Y. Daniel Liang, 2005
Figure 20

The Set Value dialog box enables you to change the

value for a variable.

TIP:

The debugger is an indispensable, powerful tool

that boosts your programming productivity. It
may take you some time to become familiar with
it, but the effort will pay off in the long run.

Note:

The debugger is not only a valuable tool for

finding errors, but it is also a valuable
pedagogical tool for learning programming.

Note:

After finishing debugging, you may switch to the

Java perspective by choosing Window, Open
Perspective, Java.

8 Creating and Testing Java Applets

You can create a Java applet in the same way you create a
Java application. For example, you can create the
WelcomeApplet class in Chapter 14, as shown in Figure 21.

Figure 21

Applets are created in the same way as applications.

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To run an applet, choose Run, Run As, Java Applet, as shown
in Figure 22. Eclipse automatically creates an HTML file to
contain the applet and invokes the appletviewer utility to
run the applet, as shown in Figure 23.

Figure 22

Applets are created in the same way as applications.

Figure 23

The WelcomeApplet program runs from the applet viewer.

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