2nd Edition

JAVA for
Beginners

An introductory course for Advanced IT Students and those who would Riccardo
like to learn the Java programming language.
Flask
 JAVA for Beginners

Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................ 5
About JAVA ............................................................................................................................................................. 5
OOP – Object Oriented Programming .................................................................................................................... 5
Part 1 - Getting Started ........................................................................................................................................... 6
The Java Development Kit – JDK ........................................................................................................................ 6
My first Java program......................................................................................................................................... 6
Using an IDE ....................................................................................................................................................... 7
Variables and Data Types ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Variables ............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Test your skills – Example3................................................................................................................................ 8
Mathematical Operators .................................................................................................................................... 9
Logical Operators ............................................................................................................................................... 9
Character Escape Codes ................................................................................................................................... 11
Test your skills – Example7............................................................................................................................... 12
Data Types ........................................................................................................................................................ 13
Introducing Control Statements ....................................................................................................................... 16
Blocks of Code .................................................................................................................................................. 18
Test your skills – Example14 ................................................................................................................................. 18
The Math Class ................................................................................................................................................. 19
Scope and Lifetime of Variables ....................................................................................................................... 20
Type Casting and Conversions .......................................................................................................................... 21
Console Input ................................................................................................................................................... 24
Using the Keyboard Class ............................................................................................................................. 24
Using the Scanner Class ............................................................................................................................... 33
Using Swing Components ............................................................................................................................ 34
Part 2 - Advanced Java Programming ................................................................................................................... 35
Control Statements - The if Statement ................................................................................................................. 35
Guessing Game (Guess.java) ............................................................................................................................ 36
Nested if ............................................................................................................................................................... 37
Guessing Game v.3 ........................................................................................................................................... 37
if-else-if Ladder ..................................................................................................................................................... 38
Ternary (?) Operator ............................................................................................................................................. 39
switch Statement (case of) ................................................................................................................................... 41
Nested switch ....................................................................................................................................................... 45
Mini-Project – Java Help System (Help.java) ........................................................................................................ 45
Complete Listing .......................................................................................................................................... 46

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The for Loop.......................................................................................................................................................... 48

Multiple Loop Control Variable ........................................................................................................................ 50
Terminating a loop via user intervention ......................................................................................................... 50
Interesting For Loop Variations ........................................................................................................................ 51
Infinite Loops .................................................................................................................................................... 52
No ‘Body’ Loops................................................................................................................................................ 52
Declaring variables inside the loop .................................................................................................................. 52
Enhanced For loop ........................................................................................................................................... 53
The While Loop ..................................................................................................................................................... 54
The do-while Loop ............................................................................................................................................ 55
Mini-Project 2– Java Help System (Help2.java) .................................................................................................... 58
Complete listing ........................................................................................................................................... 59
Using Break to Terminate a Loop ......................................................................................................................... 62
Terminating a loop with break and use labels to carry on execution .............................................................. 63
Use of Continue (complement of Break) .............................................................................................................. 66
Continue + Label............................................................................................................................................... 67
Mini-Project 3– Java Help System (Help3.java) .................................................................................................... 68
Complete Listing .......................................................................................................................................... 68
Nested Loops ........................................................................................................................................................ 71
Class Fundamentals .............................................................................................................................................. 72
Definition .............................................................................................................................................................. 72
The Vehicle Class .............................................................................................................................................. 72
Using the Vehicle class ................................................................................................................................. 73
Creating more than one instance ................................................................................................................ 73
Creating Objects ................................................................................................................................................... 74
Reference Variables and Assignment ................................................................................................................... 74
Methods ............................................................................................................................................................... 75
Returning from a Method ................................................................................................................................ 76
Returning a Value ............................................................................................................................................. 77
Methods which accept Parameters: ................................................................................................................ 79
Project: Creating a Help class from the Help3.java .......................................................................................... 83
Method helpon( ) ......................................................................................................................................... 83
Method showmenu( ) .................................................................................................................................. 84
Method isvalid( ) .......................................................................................................................................... 85
Class Help ..................................................................................................................................................... 85
Main Program: ............................................................................................................................................. 87
Constructors ......................................................................................................................................................... 88

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Constructor having parameters ....................................................................................................................... 89

Overloading Methods and Constructors .......................................................................................................... 90
Method Overloading .................................................................................................................................... 90
Automatic Type Conversion for Parameters of overloaded Methods ......................................................... 92
Overloading Constructors ............................................................................................................................ 94
Access Specifiers: public and private .................................................................................................................... 96
Arrays and Strings ............................................................................................................................................... 101
Arrays .................................................................................................................................................................. 101
One-dimensional Arrays ................................................................................................................................. 101
Sorting an Array – The Bubble Sort ................................................................................................................ 103
Two-Dimensional Arrays: ............................................................................................................................... 104
Different syntax used to declare arrays: .................................................................................................... 105
Array References:....................................................................................................................................... 106
The Length Variable: .................................................................................................................................. 107
Using Arrays to create a Queue data structure ** .................................................................................... 110
The Enhanced ‘for’ Loop: ........................................................................................................................... 113
Strings ................................................................................................................................................................. 114
Using String Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 115
String Arrays ................................................................................................................................................... 117
Vector and ArrayList ........................................................................................................................................... 122
Employee.java ............................................................................................................................................ 125
ComparableDemo.java .............................................................................................................................. 126
File Operations in Java ........................................................................................................................................ 134
Template to read data from disk .................................................................................................................... 138
Template to write (save) data to disk ............................................................................................................ 142
Introduction to GUI using AWT/Swing ............................................................................................................... 143
Using Swing to create a small Window............................................................................................................... 143
Inserting Text inside Window ......................................................................................................................... 144
Creating a simple application implementing JButton, JTextfield and JLabel ................................................. 145

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Introduction

About JAVA

“Java refers to a number of computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems
(the Java technology) that together provide a system for developing and deploying cross-platform
applications. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms spanning from embedded devices
and mobile phones on the low end to enterprise servers and super computers on the high end. Java
is fairly ubiquitous in mobile phones, Web servers and enterprise applications, and somewhat less
common in desktop applications, though users may have come across Java applets when browsing
the Web.

Writing in the Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed
as Java bytecode, though there are compilers available for other languages such as JavaScript,
Python and Ruby, and a native Java scripting language called Groovy. Java syntax borrows heavily
from C and C++ but it eliminates certain low-level constructs such as pointers and has a very simple
memory model where every object is allocated on the heap and all variables of object types are
references. Memory management is handled through integrated automatic garbage collection
performed by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).”1

OOP Object Oriented Programming

OOP is a particular style of programming which involves a particular way of designing solutions to
particular problems. Most modern programming languages, including Java, support this paradigm.
When speaking about OOP one has to mention:

Inheritance
Modularity
Polymorphism
Encapsulation (binding code and its data)

However at this point it is too early to try to fully understand these concepts.

This guide is divided into two major sections, the first section is an introduction to the language and
illustrates various examples of code while the second part goes into more detail.

1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28Sun%29

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Part 1 - Getting Started

The Java Development Kit JDK
In order to get started in Java programming, one needs to get a recent copy of the Java JDK. This can
be obtained for free by downloading it from the Sun Microsystems website, http://java.sun.com/

Once you download and install this JDK you are ready to get started. You need a text editor as well
and Microsoft’s Notepad (standard with all Windows versions) suits fine.

My first Java program

Open your text editor and type the following lines of code:

/*
This is known as a Block Comment.
My first program These lines are useful to the
programmer and are ignored by the
Version 1 Compiler
*/

public class Example1 {

public static void main (String args []) {

System.out.println ("My first Java program");

Save the file as Example1.java2. The name of the program has to be similar to the filename.
Programs are called classes. Please note that Java is case-sensitive. You cannot name a file
“Example.java” and then in the program you write “public class example”. It is good practice to
insert comments at the start of a program to help you as a programmer understand quickly what the
particular program is all about. This is done by typing “/ ” at the start of the comment and “ /”
when you finish. The predicted output of this program is:

My first Java program

In order to get the above output we have to first compile the program and then execute the
compiled class. The applications required for this job are available as part of the JDK:

javac.exe – compiles the program

java.exe – the interpreter used to execute the compiled program

In order to compile and execute the program we need to switch to the command prompt. On
windows systems this can be done by clicking Start>Run>cmd

2
Ideally you should create a folder on the root disk (c:\) and save the file there

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At this point one needs some basic DOS commands in order to get to the directory (folder), where
the java class resides:

cd\ (change directory)

cd\[folder name] to get to the required folder/directory

When you get to the required destination you need to type the following:

c:\[folder name]\javac Example1.java

The above command will compile the java file and prompt the user with any errors. If the
compilation is successful a new file containing the bytecode is generated: Example1.class

To execute the program, we invoke the interpreter by typing:

c:\[folder name]\java Example1

The result will be displayed in the DOS window.

Using an IDE
Some of you might already be frustrated by this point. However there is still hope as one can forget
about the command prompt and use an IDE (integrated development environment) to work with
Java programming. There are a number of IDE’s present, all of them are fine but perhaps some are
easier to work with than others. It depends on the user’s level of programming and tastes! The
following is a list of some of the IDE’s available:

BlueJ – www.bluej.org (freeware)

NetBeans – www.netbeans.org (freeware/open-source)
JCreator – www.jcreator.com (freeware version available, pro version purchase required)
Eclipse – www.eclipse.org (freeware/open-source)
IntelliJ IDEA – www.jetbrains.com (trial/purchase required)
JBuilder – www.borland.com (trial/purchase required)

Beginners might enjoy BlueJ and then move onto other IDE’s like JCreator, NetBeans, etc. Again it’s
just a matter of the user’s tastes and software development area.

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Variables and Data Types

Variables
A variable is a place where the program stores data temporarily. As the name implies the value
stored in such a location can be changed while a program is executing (compare with constant).

class Example2 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int var1; // this declares a variable

int var2; // this declares another variable

var1 = 1024; // this assigns 1024 to var1

System.out.println("var1 contains " + var1);

var2 = var1 / 2;

System.out.print("var2 contains var1 / 2: ");

System.out.println(var2);

Predicted Output:

var2 contains var1 / 2: 512

The above program uses two variables, var1 and var2. var1 is assigned a value directly while var2 is
filled up with the result of dividing var1 by 2, i.e. var2 = var1/2. The words int refer to a particular
data type, i.e. integer (whole numbers).

Test your skills Example3

As we saw above, we used the ‘/’ to work out the quotient of var by . Given that ‘ ’ would
perform addition, ‘-‘ subtraction and ‘ ’ multiplication, write out a program which performs all the
named operations by using two integer values which are hard coded into the program.

Hints:

You need only two variables of type integer

Make one variable larger and divisible by the other
You can perform the required calculations directly in the print statements, remember to
enclose the operation within brackets, e.g. (var1-var2)

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Mathematical Operators
As we saw in the preceding example there are particular symbols used to represent operators when
performing calculations:

Operator Description Example – given a is 15 and b is 6

+ Addition a + b, would return 21
- Subtraction a - b, would return 9
* Multiplication a * b, would return 90
/ Division a / b, would return 2
% Modulus a % b, would return 3 (the remainder)

class Example4 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int iresult, irem;

double dresult, drem;

iresult = 10 / 3;

irem = 10 % 3;

dresult = 10.0 / 3.0;

drem = 10.0 % 3.0;

System.out.println("Result and remainder of 10 / 3: " +

iresult + " " + irem);

System.out.println("Result and remainder of 10.0 / 3.0: "

+ dresult + " " + drem);

Predicted Output:

Result and Remainder of 10/3: 3 1

Result and Remainder of 10.0/3.0: 3.3333333333333335 1

The difference in range is due to the data type since ‘double’ is a double precision -bit floating
point value.

Logical Operators
These operators are used to evaluate an expression and depending on the operator used, a
particular output is obtained. In this case the operands must be Boolean data types and the result is
also Boolean. The following table shows the available logical operators:

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Operator Description
& AND gate behaviour (0,0,0,1)
| OR gate behaviour (0,1,1,1)
^ XOR – exclusive OR (0,1,1,0)
&& Short-circuit AND
|| Short-circuit OR
! Not

class Example5 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int n, d;

n = 10;

d = 2;

if(d != 0 && (n % d) == 0)

System.out.println(d + " is a factor of " + n);

d = 0; // now, set d to zero

// Since d is zero, the second operand is not evaluated.

if(d != 0 && (n % d) == 0)

System.out.println(d + " is a factor of " + n);

/* Now, try same thing without short-circuit operator.

This will cause a divide-by-zero error.

*/

if(d != 0 & (n % d) == 0)

System.out.println(d + " is a factor of " + n);

Predicted Output:

*Note if you try to execute the above program you will get an error (division by zero). To be able to
execute it, first comment the last two statements, compile and then execute.

2 is a factor of 10

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Trying to understand the above program is a bit difficult, however the program highlights the main
difference in operation between a normal AND (&) and the short-circuit version (&&). In a normal
AND operation, both sides of the expression are evaluated, e.g.

if(d != 0 & (n % d) == 0) – this returns an error as first d is compared to 0 to check inequality and then
the operation (n%d) is computed yielding an error! (divide by zero error)

The short circuit version is smarter since if the left hand side of the expression is false, this mean
that the output has to be false whatever there is on the right hand side of the expression, therefore:

if(d != 0 && (n % d) == 0) – this does not return an error as the (n%d) is not computed since d is
equal to 0, and so the operation (d!=0) returns false, causing the output to be false. Same applies for
the short circuit version of the OR.

Character Escape Codes

The following codes are used to represents codes or characters which cannot be directly accessible
through a keyboard:

Code Description
\n New Line
\t Tab
\b Backspace
\r Carriage Return
\\ Backslash
\’ Single Quotation Mark
\” Double Quotation Mark
\* Octal - * represents a number or Hex digit
\x* Hex
\u* Unicode, e.g. \u (trademark symbol)

class Example6 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

System.out.println("First line\nSecond line");

System.out.println("A\tB\tC");

System.out.println("D\tE\tF") ;

Predicted Output:

First Line
Second Line
A B C
D E F

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Test your skills Example7

Make a program which creates a sort of truth table to show the behaviour of all the logical operators
mentioned. Hints:

You need two Boolean type variables which you will initially set both to false
Use character escape codes to tabulate the results

The following program can be used as a guide:

class LogicTable {

public static void main(String args[]) {

boolean p, q;

System.out.println("P\tQ\tPANDQ\tPORQ\tPXORQ\tNOTP");

p = true; q = true;

System.out.print(p + "\t" + q +"\t");

System.out.print((p&q) + "\t" + (p|q) + "\t");

System.out.println((p^q) + "\t" + (!p));

p = true; q = false;

System.out.print(p + "\t" + q +"\t");

System.out.print((p&q) + "\t" + (p|q) + "\t");

System.out.println((p^q) + "\t" + (!p));

p = false; q = true;

System.out.print(p + "\t" + q +"\t");

System.out.print((p&q) + "\t" + (p|q) + "\t");

System.out.println((p^q) + "\t" + (!p));

p = false; q = false;

System.out.print(p + "\t" + q +"\t");

System.out.print((p&q) + "\t" + (p|q) + "\t");

System.out.println((p^q) + "\t" + (!p));

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Predicted Output:

P Q PANDQ PORQ PXORQ NOTP

true true true true false fals

true false false true true fals

false true false true true true

false false false false false true

Data Types
The following is a list of Java’s primitive data types:

Data Type Description

int Integer – 32bit ranging from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,648
byte 8-bit integer ranging from -128 to 127
short 16-bit integer ranging from -32,768 to 32,768
long 64-bit integer from -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to -9,223,372,036,854,775,808

float Single-precision floating point, 32-bit

double Double-precision floating point, 64-bit

char Character , 16-bit unsigned ranging from 0 to 65,536 (Unicode)

boolean Can be true or false only

The ‘String’ type has not been left out by mistake. It is not a primitive data type, but strings (a
sequence of characters) in Java are treated as Objects.

class Example8 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int var; // this declares an int variable

double x; // this declares a floating-point variable

var = 10; // assign var the value 10

x = 10.0; // assign x the value 10.0

System.out.println("Original value of var: " + var);

System.out.println("Original value of x: " + x);

System.out.println(); // print a blank line

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// now, divide both by 4

var = var / 4;

x = x / 4;

System.out.println("var after division: " + var);

System.out.println("x after division: " + x);

Predicted output:

Original value of var: 10

Original value of x: 10.0

var after division: 2

x after division: 2.5

One here has to note the difference in precision of the different data types. The following example
uses the character data type. Characters in Java are encoded using Unicode giving a 16-bit range, or
a total of 65,537 different codes.

class Example9 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

char ch;

ch = 'X';

System.out.println("ch contains " + ch);

ch++; // increment ch

System.out.println("ch is now " + ch);

ch = 90; // give ch the value Z

System.out.println("ch is now " + ch);

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Predicted Output:

ch is now X
ch is now Y
ch is now Z

The character ‘X’ is encoded as the number , hence when we increment ‘ch’, we get character
number , or ‘Y’.

The Boolean data type can be either TRUE or FALSE. It can be useful when controlling flow of a
program by assigning the Boolean data type to variables which function as flags. Thus program flow
would depend on the condition of these variables at the particular instance. Remember that the
output of a condition is always Boolean.

class Example10 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

boolean b;

b = false;

System.out.println("b is " + b);

b = true;

System.out.println("b is " + b);

// a boolean value can control the if statement

if(b) System.out.println("This is executed.");

b = false;

if(b) System.out.println("This is not executed.");

// outcome of a relational operator is a boolean value

System.out.println("10 > 9 is " + (10 > 9));

Predicted output:

b is false
b is true
This is executed
10 > 9 is true

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Introducing Control Statements

These statements will be dealt with in more detail further on in this booklet. For now we will learn
about the if and the for loop.

class Example11 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int a,b,c;

a = 2;

b = 3;

c = a - b;

if (c >= 0) System.out.println("c is a positive number");

if (c < 0) System.out.println("c is a negative number");

System.out.println();

c = b - a;

if (c >= 0) System.out.println("c is a positive number");

if (c < 0) System.out.println("c is a negative number");

Predicted output:

c is a negative number
c is a positive number

The ‘if’ statement evaluates a condition and if the result is true, then the following statement/s are
executed, else they are just skipped (refer to program output). The line System.out.println() simply
inserts a blank line. Conditions use the following comparison operators:

Operator Description
< Smaller than
> Greater than
<= Smaller or equal to, (a<=3) : if a is 2 or 3, then result of comparison is TRUE
>= Greater or equal to, (a>=3) : if a is 3 or 4, then result of comparison is TRUE
== Equal to
!= Not equal

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The for loop is an example of an iterative code, i.e. this statement will cause the program to repeat a
particular set of code for a particular number of times. In the following example we will be using a
counter which starts at 0 and ends when it is smaller than 5, i.e. 4. Therefore the code following the
for loop will iterate for 5 times.

class Example12 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int count;

for(count = 0; count < 5; count = count+1)

System.out.println("This is count: " + count);

System.out.println("Done!");

Predicted Output:

This is count: 0

This is count: 1

This is count: 2

This is count: 3

This is count: 4

Done!

Instead of count = count+1, this increments the counter, we can use count++

The following table shows all the available shortcut operators:

Operator Description Example Description

++ Increment a++ a = a + 1 (adds one from a)
-- Decrement a-- a = a – 1 (subtract one from a)
+= Add and assign a+=2 a=a+2
-= Subtract and assign a-=2 a=a–2
*= Multiply and assign a*=3 a=a*3
/= Divide and assign a/=4 a=a/4
%= Modulus and assign a%=5 a = a mod 5

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Blocks of Code
Whenever we write an IF statement or a loop, if there is more than one statement of code which has
to be executed, this has to be enclosed in braces, i.e. ‘, …. ’

class Example13 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

double i, j, d;

i = 5;

j = 10;

if(i != 0) {

System.out.println("i does not equal zero");

d = j / i; Block of
Code
System.out.print("j / i is " + d);

System.out.println();

Predicted Output:

i does not equal to zero

j/i is 2

Test your skills Example14

Write a program which can be used to display a conversion table, e.g. Euros to Malta Liri, or Metres
to Kilometres.

Hints:

One variable is required

You need a loop

The Euro Converter has been provided for you for guidance. Note loop starts at 1 and finishes at 100
(<101). In this case since the conversion rate does not change we did not use a variable, but assigned
it directly in the print statement.

class EuroConv {

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public static void main (String args []){

double eu;

System.out.println("Euro conversion table:");

System.out.println();

for (eu=1;eu<101;eu++)

System.out.println(eu+" Euro is euqivalent to Lm

"+(eu*0.43));

The Math Class

In order to perform certain mathematical operations like square root (sqrt), or power (pow); Java
has a built in class containing a number of methods as well as static constants, e.g.
Pi = 3.141592653589793 and E = 2.718281828459045. All the methods involving angles use radians
and return a double (excluding the Math.round()).

class Example15 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

double x, y, z;

x = 3;

y = 4;

z = Math.sqrt(x*x + y*y);

System.out.println("Hypotenuse is " +z);

Predicted Output:

Hypotenuse is 5.0

Please note that whenever a method is called, a particular nomenclature is used where we first
specify the class that the particular method belongs to, e.g. Math.round( ); where Math is the class
name and round is the method name. If a particular method accepts parameters, these are placed in
brackets, e.g. Math.max(2.8, 12.9) – in this case it would return 12.9 as being the larger number. A

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useful method is the Math.random( ) which would return a random number ranging between 0.0
and 1.0.

Scope and Lifetime of Variables

The following simple programs, illustrate how to avoid programming errors by taking care where to
initialize variables depending on the scope.

class Example16 {

public static void main(String args[]) {

int x; // known to all code within main

x = 10;

if(x == 10) { // start new scope

int y = 20; // known only to this block

// x and y both known here.

System.out.println("x and y: " + x + " " + y);

x = y * 2;

// y = 100; // Error! y not known here

// x is still known here.

System.out.println("x is " + x);

Predicted Output:

x and y: 10 20
x is 40

If we had to remove the comment marks from the line, y = 100; we would get an error during
compilation as y is not known since it only exists within the block of code following the ‘if’
statement.

The next program shows that y is initialized each time the code belonging to the looping sequence is
executed; therefore y is reset to -1 each time and then set to 100. This operation is repeated for
three (3) times.

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