Java Interview Questions 

Q1: What is the difference between an Interface and an Abstract class?

A: Abstract Class :

An Abstract class declares have at least one instance method that is declared
abstract which will be implemented by the subclasses.

An abstract class can have instance methods that implement a default behavior.

Interface :

An Interface can only declare constants and instance methods, but cannot
implement default behavior.
 
Q2: What is the purpose of garbage collection in Java, and when is it used?
A: The purpose of garbage collection is to identify and discard objects that are
no longer needed by a program so that their resources can be reclaimed and
reused. A Java object is subject to garbage collection when it becomes
unreachable to the program in which it is used.
 
Q3: Describe synchronization in respect to multithreading.
A: With respect to multithreading, synchronization is the capability to control
the access of multiple threads to shared resources.
Without synchonization, it is possible for one thread to modify a shared variable
while another thread is in the process of using or updating same shared
variable. This usually leads to significant errors. 
 
Q4: Explain different way of using thread?
A: The thread could be implemented by using runnable interface or by inheriting
from the Thread class. The former is more advantageous, 'cause when you are
going for multiple inheritance..the only interface can help.
 
Q5: What are pass by reference and passby value?
A: Pass By Reference means the passing the address itself rather than passing the
value. Passby Value means passing a copy of the value to be passed. 
 
Q6: What is HashMap and Map?
A: Map is Interface and Hashmap is class that implements that.
 
Q7: Difference between HashMap and HashTable?
A: The HashMap class is roughly equivalent to Hashtable, except that it is
unsynchronized and permits nulls.

HashMap allows null values as key and value whereas

Hashtable doesnt allow.

HashMap does not guarantee that the order of the map will remain constant
 over time.

HashMap is non synchronized and Hashtable is synchronized.

 
Q8: Difference between Vector and ArrayList?
A: Vector is synchronized whereas
Arraylist is non synchronized
 
 
Q9: Difference between Swing and Awt?
A: AWT are heavy-weight componenets.

Swings are light-weight components.

Hence swing works faster than AWT.

 
Q10: What is the difference between a constructor and a method?
A: A constructor is a member function of a class that is used to create
objects of that class.
It has the same name as the class itself, has no return type, and is invoked
using the new operator. 
A method is an ordinary member function of a class. It has its own name, a
return type (which may be void), and is invoked using the dot operator.
 
Q: What is an Iterators?
A: Some of the collection classes provide traversal of their contents via a
java.util.Iterator interface. This interface allows you to walk a collection of
objects, operating on each object in turn. Remember when using Iterators that
they contain a snapshot of the collection at the time the Iterator was obtained;
generally it is not advisable to modify the collection itself while traversing an
Iterator.
 
Q: State the significance of public, private, protected, default modifiers both
singly and in combination and state the effect of package relationships
on declared items qualified by these modifiers.
A: public : Public class is visible in other packages, field is visible everywhere (class
must be public too) 
private : Private variables or methods may be used only by an instance of the
same class that declares the variable or method, A private feature may only be
accessed by the class that owns the feature. 
protected : Is available to all classes in the same package and also available to
all subclasses of the class that owns the protected feature.This access is provided
even to subclasses that reside in a different package from the class that owns the
protected feature. 
default :What you get by default ie, without any access modifier (ie, public
private or protected).It means that it is visible to all within a particular package .
 
Q: What is an abstract class?
A: Abstract class must be extended/subclassed (to be useful). It serves as a
template. A class that is abstract may not be instantiated (ie, you may not call its
 constructor), abstract class may contain static data. Any class with an abstract
method is automatically abstract itself, and must be declared as such. 
A class may be declared abstract even if it has no abstract methods. This
prevents it from being instantiated.
 
Q: What is static in java?
A: Static means one per class, not one for each object no matter how many instance
of a class might exist. This means that you can use them without creating an
instance of a class.Static methods are implicitly final, because overriding is done
based on the type of the object, and static methods are attached to a class, not
an object. A static method in a superclass can be shadowed by another static
method in a subclass, as long as the original method was not declared final.
However, you can't override a static method with a nonstatic method. In other
words, you can't change a static method into an instance method in a subclass.
 
Q: What is final?
A: A final class can't be extended ie., final class may not be subclassed. A final
method can't be overridden when its class is inherited. You can't change value of
a final variable (is a constant).
Q: What if the main method is declared as private?
A: The program compiles properly but at runtime it will give "Main method not
public." message.
 
Q: What if the static modifier is removed from the signature of the main
method?
A: Program compiles. But at runtime throws an error "NoSuchMethodError".
 
Q: What if I write static public void instead of public static void?
A: Program compiles and runs properly.
 
Q: What if I do not provide the String array as the argument to the method?
A: Program compiles but throws a runtime error "NoSuchMethodError".
 
Q: What is the first argument of the String array in main method?
A: The String array is empty. It does not have any element. This is unlike C/C++
where the first element by default is the program name.
 
Q: If I do not provide any arguments on the command line, then the String
array of Main method will be empty of null?
A: It is empty. But not null.
 
Q: How can one prove that the array is not null but empty?
A: Print args.length. It will print 0. That means it is empty. But if it would have been
null then it would have thrown a NullPointerException on attempting to print
args.length.
 
Q: What environment variables do I need to set on my machine in order to
be able to run Java programs?
A: CLASSPATH and PATH are the two variables.
 
Q: Can an application have multiple classes having main method?
A: Yes it is possible. While starting the application we mention the class name to be
run. The JVM will look for the Main method only in the class whose name you
have mentioned. Hence there is not conflict amongst the multiple classes having
main method.
 
Q: Can I have multiple main methods in the same class?
A: No the program fails to compile. The compiler says that the main method is
already defined in the class.
 
Q: Do I need to import java.lang package any time? Why ?
A: No. It is by default loaded internally by the JVM.
 
Q: Can I import same package/class twice? Will the JVM load the package
twice at runtime?
A: One can import the same package or same class multiple times. Neither compiler
nor JVM complains abt it. And the JVM will internally load the class only once no
matter how many times you import the same class.
 
Q: What are Checked and UnChecked Exception?
A: A checked exception is some subclass of Exception (or Exception itself), excluding
class RuntimeException and its subclasses. 
Making an exception checked forces client programmers to deal with the
possibility that the exception will be thrown. eg, IOException thrown by
java.io.FileInputStream's read() method· 
Unchecked exceptions are RuntimeException and any of its subclasses. Class
Error and its subclasses also are unchecked. With an unchecked exception,
however, the compiler doesn't force client programmers either to catch the 
exception or declare it in a throws clause. In fact, client programmers may not
even know that the exception could be thrown. eg,
StringIndexOutOfBoundsException thrown by String's charAt() method· Checked
exceptions must be caught at compile time. Runtime exceptions do not need to
be. Errors often cannot be.
 
Q: What is Overriding?
A: When a class defines a method using the same name, return type, and
arguments as a method in its superclass, the method in the class overrides the
method in the superclass. 
When the method is invoked for an object of the class, it is the new definition of
the method that is called, and not the method definition from superclass.
Methods may be overridden to be more public, not more private.
 
Q: What are different types of inner classes?
A: Nested top-level classes, Member classes, Local classes, Anonymous classes
Nested top-level classes- If you declare a class within a class and specify the
static modifier, the compiler treats the class just like any other top-level class. 
Any class outside the declaring class accesses the nested class with the declaring
class name acting similarly to a package. eg, outer.inner. Top-level inner classes
implicitly have access only to static variables.There can also be inner interfaces.
All of these are of the nested top-level variety. 
  
Member classes - Member inner classes are just like other member methods
and member variables and access to the member class is restricted, just like
methods and variables. This means a public member class acts similarly to a
nested top-level class. The primary difference between member classes and
nested top-level classes is that member classes have access to the specific
instance of the enclosing class. 
 
Local classes - Local classes are like local variables, specific to a block of code.
Their visibility is only within the block of their declaration. In order for the class
to be useful beyond the declaration block, it would need to implement a 
more publicly available interface.Because local classes are not members, the
modifiers public, protected, private, and static are not usable. 
 
Anonymous classes - Anonymous inner classes extend local inner classes one
level further. As anonymous classes have no name, you cannot provide a
constructor.
 
 
 
Q: Are the imports checked for validity at compile time? e.g. will the code
containing an import such as java.lang.ABCD compile?
A: Yes the imports are checked for the semantic validity at compile time. The code
containing above line of import will not compile. It will throw an error saying,can
not resolve symbol 
symbol : class ABCD 
location: package io 
import java.io.ABCD;
 
Q: Does importing a package imports the subpackages as well? e.g. Does
importing com.MyTest.* also import com.MyTest.UnitTests.*?
A: No you will have to import the subpackages explicitly. Importing com.MyTest.*
will import classes in the package MyTest only. It will not import any class in any
of it's subpackage.
 
Q: What is the difference between declaring a variable and defining a
variable?
A: In declaration we just mention the type of the variable and it's name. We do not
initialize it. But defining means declaration + initialization. 
e.g String s; is just a declaration while String s = new String ("abcd"); Or String
s = "abcd"; are both definitions.
 
Q: What is the default value of an object reference declared as an instance
variable?
A: null unless we define it explicitly.
 
Q: Can a top level class be private or protected?
A: No. A top level class can not be private or protected. It can have either "public"
or no modifier. If it does not have a modifier it is supposed to have a default
access.If a top level class is declared as private the compiler will complain that
the "modifier private is not allowed here". This means that a top level class can
not be private. Same is the case with protected.
 
Q: What type of parameter passing does Java support?
A: In Java the arguments are always passed by value .
 
Q: Primitive data types are passed by reference or pass by value?
A: Primitive data types are passed by value.
 
Q: Objects are passed by value or by reference?
A: Java only supports pass by value. With objects, the object reference itself is
passed by value and so both the original reference and parameter copy both refer
to the same object .
 
Q: What is serialization?
A: Serialization is a mechanism by which you can save the state of an object by
converting it to a byte stream.
 
 
 
Q: How do I serialize an object to a file?
A: The class whose instances are to be serialized should implement an interface
Serializable. Then you pass the instance to the ObjectOutputStream which is
connected to a fileoutputstream. This will save the object to a file.
 
Q: Which methods of Serializable interface should I implement?
A: The serializable interface is an empty interface, it does not contain any methods.
So we do not implement any methods.
 
Q: How can I customize the seralization process? i.e. how can one have a
control over the serialization process?
A: Yes it is possible to have control over serialization process. The class should
implement Externalizable interface. This interface contains two methods namely
readExternal and writeExternal. You should implement these methods and write
the logic for customizing the serialization process.
 
Q: What is the common usage of serialization?
A: Whenever an object is to be sent over the network, objects need to be serialized.
Moreover if the state of an object is to be saved, objects need to be serilazed.
 
Q: What is Externalizable interface?
A: Externalizable is an interface which contains two methods readExternal and
writeExternal. These methods give you a control over the serialization
mechanism. Thus if your class implements this interface, you can customize the
serialization process by implementing these methods.
 
Q: What happens to the object references included in the object?
A: The serialization mechanism generates an object graph for serialization. Thus it
determines whether the included object references are serializable or not. This is
a recursive process. Thus when an object is serialized, all the included objects are
 also serialized alongwith the original obect.
 
Q: What one should take care of while serializing the object?
A: One should make sure that all the included objects are also serializable. If any of
the objects is not serializable then it throws a NotSerializableException.
 
Q: What happens to the static fields of a class during serialization? Are
these fields serialized as a part of each serialized object?
A: Yes the static fields do get serialized. If the static field is an object then it must
have implemented Serializable interface. The static fields are serialized as a part
of every object. But the commonness of the static fields across all the instances
is maintained even after serialization.
 
Q: Does Java provide any construct to find out the size of an object?
A: No there is not sizeof operator in Java. So there is not direct way to determine
the size of an object directly in Java.
 
 
 
 
Q: Does importing a package imports the subpackages as well? e.g. Does
importing com.MyTest.* also import com.MyTest.UnitTests.*?
A: Read the system time just before the method is invoked and immediately after
method returns. Take the time difference, which will give you the time taken by a
method for execution.

To put it in code...

long start = System.currentTimeMillis (); 

method (); 
long end = System.currentTimeMillis ();

System.out.println ("Time taken for execution is " + (end - start));

Remember that if the time taken for execution is too small, it might show that it
is taking zero milliseconds for execution. Try it on a method which is big enough,
in the sense the one which is doing considerable amout of processing.
 
Q: What are wrapper classes?
A: Java provides specialized classes corresponding to each of the primitive data
types. These are called wrapper classes. They are e.g. Integer, Character, Double
etc.
 
Q: Why do we need wrapper classes?
A: It is sometimes easier to deal with primitives as objects. Moreover most of the
collection classes store objects and not primitive data types. And also the
wrapper classes provide many utility methods also. Because of these resons we
need wrapper classes. And since we create instances of these classes we can
store them in any of the collection classes and pass them around as a collection.
Also we can pass them around as method parameters where a method expects
an object.
 
Q: What are checked exceptions?
A: Checked exception are those which the Java compiler forces you to catch. e.g.
IOException are checked Exceptions.
 
Q: What are runtime exceptions?
A: Runtime exceptions are those exceptions that are thrown at runtime because of
either wrong input data or because of wrong business logic etc. These are not
checked by the compiler at compile time.
 
Q: What is the difference between error and an exception?
A: An error is an irrecoverable condition occurring at runtime. Such as OutOfMemory
error. These JVM errors and you can not repair them at runtime. While exceptions
are conditions that occur because of bad input etc. e.g. FileNotFoundException
will be thrown if the specified file does not exist. Or a NullPointerException will
take place if you try using a null reference. In most of the cases it is possible to
recover from an exception (probably by giving user a feedback for entering
proper values etc.).
 
Q: How to create custom exceptions?
A: Your class should extend class Exception, or some more specific type thereof.
 
Q: If I want an object of my class to be thrown as an exception object, what
should I do?
A: The class should extend from Exception class. Or you can extend your class from
some more precise exception type also.
 
Q: If my class already extends from some other class what should I do if I
want an instance of my class to be thrown as an exception object?
A: One can not do anytihng in this scenarion. Because Java does not allow multiple
inheritance and does not provide any exception interface as well.
 
Q: What happens to an unhandled exception?
A: One can not do anytihng in this scenarion. Because Java does not allow multiple
inheritance and does not provide any exception interface as well.
 
Q: How does an exception permeate through the code?
A: An unhandled exception moves up the method stack in search of a matching
When an exception is thrown from a code which is wrapped in a try block
followed by one or more catch blocks, a search is made for matching catch block.
If a matching type is found then that block will be invoked. If a matching type is
not found then the exception moves up the method stack and reaches the caller
method. Same procedure is repeated if the caller method is included in a try
catch block. This process continues until a catch block handling the appropriate
type of exception is found. If it does not find such a block then finally the
program terminates.
 
Q: What are the different ways to handle exceptions?
A: There are two ways to handle exceptions,  
 1. By wrapping the desired code in a try block followed by a catch block to catch
the exceptions. and  
2. List the desired exceptions in the throws clause of the method and let the
caller of the method hadle those exceptions.
 
Q: Q: What is the basic difference between the 2 approaches to exception
handling...1> try catch block and 2> specifying the candidate exceptions
in the throws clause? 
When should you use which approach?
A: In the first approach as a programmer of the method, you urself are dealing with
the exception. This is fine if you are in a best position to decide should be done in
case of an exception. Whereas if it is not the responsibility of the method to deal
with it's own exceptions, then do not use this approach. In this case use the
second approach. In the second approach we are forcing the caller of the method
to catch the exceptions, that the method is likely to throw. This is often the
approach library creators use. They list the exception in the throws clause and we
must catch them. You will find the same approach throughout the java libraries
we use.
 
Q: Is it necessary that each try block must be followed by a catch block?
A: It is not necessary that each try block must be followed by a catch block. It
should be followed by either a catch block OR a finally block. And whatever
exceptions are likely to be thrown should be declared in the throws clause of the
method.
 
Q: If I write return at the end of the try block, will the finally block still
execute?
A: Yes even if you write return as the last statement in the try block and no
exception occurs, the finally block will execute. The finally block will execute and
then the control return.
 
Q: If I write System.exit (0); at the end of the try block, will the finally
block still execute?
A: No in this case the finally block will not execute because when you say
System.exit (0); the control immediately goes out of the program, and thus
finally never executes.
 
Q: How are Observer and Observable used?
A: Objects that subclass the Observable class maintain a list of observers. When an
Observable object is updated it invokes the update() method of each of its
observers to notify the observers that it has changed state. The Observer
interface is implemented by objects that observe Observable objects.
 
Q: What is synchronization and why is it important?
A: With respect to multithreading, synchronization is the capability to control 
the access of multiple threads to shared resources. Without synchronization, it is
possible for one thread to modify a shared object while another thread is in the
process of using or updating that object's value. This often leads to significant
errors.
 
Q: How does Java handle integer overflows and underflows?
A: It uses those low order bytes of the result that can fit into the size of the type
allowed by the operation.
 
Q: Does garbage collection guarantee that a program will not run out of
memory?
A: Garbage collection does not guarantee that a program will not run out of
memory. It is possible for programs to use up memory resources faster than they
are garbage collected. It is also possible for programs to create objects that are
not subject to garbage collection 
.
 
Q: What is the difference between preemptive scheduling and time slicing?
A: Under preemptive scheduling, the highest priority task executes until it enters the
waiting or dead states or a higher priority task comes into existence. Under time
slicing, a task executes for a predefined slice of time and then reenters the pool
of ready tasks. The scheduler then determines which task should execute next,
based on priority and other factors.
 
Q: When a thread is created and started, what is its initial state?
A: A thread is in the ready state after it has been created and started.
 
Q: What is the purpose of finalization?
A: The purpose of finalization is to give an unreachable object the opportunity to
perform any cleanup processing before the object is garbage collected.
 
Q: What is the Locale class?
A: The Locale class is used to tailor program output to the conventions of a
particular geographic, political, or cultural region.
 
Q: What is the difference between a while statement and a do statement?
A: A while statement checks at the beginning of a loop to see whether the next loop
iteration should occur. A do statement checks at the end of a loop to see whether
the next iteration of a loop should occur. The do statement will always execute
the body of a loop at least once.
 
Q: What is the difference between static and non-static variables?
A: A static variable is associated with the class as a whole rather than with specific
instances of a class. Non-static variables take on unique values with each object
instance.
 
Q: How are this() and super() used with constructors?
A: Othis() is used to invoke a constructor of the same class. super() is used to
invoke a superclass constructor.
 
Q: What are synchronized methods and synchronized statements?
A: Synchronized methods are methods that are used to control access to an object.
A thread only executes a synchronized method after it has acquired the lock for
the method's object or class. Synchronized statements are similar to
synchronized methods. A synchronized statement can only be executed after a
 thread has acquired the lock for the object or class referenced in the
synchronized statement.
 
Q: What is daemon thread and which method is used to create the daemon
thread?
A: Daemon thread is a low priority thread which runs intermittently in the back
ground doing the garbage collection operation for the java runtime system.
setDaemon method is used to create a daemon thread.
 
Q: Can applets communicate with each other?
A: At this point in time applets may communicate with other applets running in the
same virtual machine. If the applets are of the same class, they can
communicate via shared static variables. If the applets are of different classes,
then each will need a reference to the same class with static variables. In any
case the basic idea is to pass the information back and forth through a static
variable.  
 
An applet can also get references to all other applets on the same page using the
getApplets() method of java.applet.AppletContext. Once you\'ve got a reference
to an applet, you can communicate with it by using its public members.  
 
It is conceivable to have applets in different virtual machines that talk to a server
somewhere on the Internet and store any data that needs to be serialized there.
Then, when another applet needs this data, it could connect to this same server.
Implementing this is non-trivial.
 
 
 
Q: What are the steps in the JDBC connection?
A: While making a JDBC connection we go through the following steps :  
 
Step 1 : Register the database driver by using :

Class.forName(\" driver classs for that specific database\" );

Step 2 : Now create a database connection using :

Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url,username,password);

Step 3: Now Create a query using :

Statement stmt = Connection.Statement(\"select * from TABLE NAME\");

Step 4 : Exceute the query :

stmt.exceuteUpdate();
 
Q: How does a try statement determine which catch clause should be used
to handle an exception?
A: When an exception is thrown within the body of a try statement, the catch
clauses of the try statement are examined in the order in which they appear. The
 first catch clause that is capable of handling the exceptionis executed. The
remaining catch clauses are ignored.
 
Q: Can an unreachable object become reachable again?
A: An unreachable object may become reachable again. This can happen when the
object's finalize() method is invoked and the object performs an operation which
causes it to become accessible to reachable objects.
 
Q: What method must be implemented by all threads?
A: All tasks must implement the run() method, whether they are a subclass of
Thread or implement the Runnable interface.
 
Q: What are synchronized methods and synchronized statements?
A: Synchronized methods are methods that are used to control access to an object.
A thread only executes a synchronized method after it has acquired the lock for
the method's object or class. Synchronized statements are similar to
synchronized methods. A synchronized statement can only be executed after a
thread has acquired the lock for the object or class referenced in the
synchronized statement.
 
Q: What is Externalizable?
A: Externalizable is an Interface that extends Serializable Interface. And sends data
into Streams in Compressed Format. It has two methods,
writeExternal(ObjectOuput out) and readExternal(ObjectInput in)
 
Q: What modifiers are allowed for methods in an Interface?
A: Only public and abstract modifiers are allowed for methods in interfaces.
 
Q: What are some alternatives to inheritance?
A: Delegation is an alternative to inheritance. Delegation means that you include an
instance of another class as an instance variable, and forward messages to the
instance. It is often safer than inheritance because it forces you to think about
each message you forward, because the instance is of a known class, rather than
a new class, and because it doesn't force you to accept all the methods of the
super class: you can provide only the methods that really make sense. On the
other hand, it makes you write more code, and it is harder to re-use (because it
is not a subclass).
 
Q: What does it mean that a method or field is "static"?
A: Static variables and methods are instantiated only once per class. In other words
they are class variables, not instance variables. If you change the value of a
static variable in a particular object, the value of that variable changes for all
instances of that class.
Static methods can be referenced with the name of the class rather than the
name of a particular object of the class (though that works too). That's how
library methods like System.out.println() work out is a static field in the
java.lang.System class.
 
Q: What is the difference between preemptive scheduling and time slicing?
A: Under preemptive scheduling, the highest priority task executes until it enters the
 waiting or dead states or a higher priority task comes into existence. Under time
slicing, a task executes for a predefined slice of time and then reenters the pool
of ready tasks. The scheduler then determines which task should execute next,
based on priority and other factors.
 
Q: What is the catch or declare rule for method declarations?
A: If a checked exception may be thrown within the body of a method, the method
must either catch the exception or declare it in its throws clause.
 

Java Collection Interview Questions  

 
 
Q: What is the Collections API?
A: The Collections API is a set of classes and interfaces that support operations on
collections of objects.
 
Q: What is the List interface?
A: The List interface provides support for ordered collections of objects.
 
Q: What is the Vector class?
A: The Vector class provides the capability to implement a growable array of
objects. 
 
 
Q: What is an Iterator interface?
A: The Iterator interface is used to step through the elements of a Collection .
 
Q: Which java.util classes and interfaces support event handling?
A: The EventObject class and the EventListener interface support event processing.
 
Q: What is the GregorianCalendar class?
A: The GregorianCalendar provides support for traditional Western calendars
 
Q: What is the Locale class?
A: The Locale class is used to tailor program output to the conventions of a
particular geographic, political, or cultural region .
 
Q: What is the SimpleTimeZone class?
A: The SimpleTimeZone class provides support for a Gregorian calendar .
 
Q: What is the Map interface?
A: The Map interface replaces the JDK 1.1 Dictionary class and is used associate
keys with values.
 
Q: What is the highest-level event class of the event-delegation model?
A: The java.util.EventObject class is the highest-level class in the event-delegation
 class hierarchy.
 
Q: What is the Collection interface?
A: The Collection interface provides support for the implementation of a
mathematical bag - an unordered collection of objects that may contain
duplicates.
 
Q: What is the Set interface?
A: The Set interface provides methods for accessing the elements of a finite
mathematical set. Sets do not allow duplicate elements.
 
Q: What is the typical use of Hashtable?
A: Whenever a program wants to store a key value pair, one can use Hashtable.
 
Q: I am trying to store an object using a key in a Hashtable. And some other
object already exists in that location, then what will happen? The
existing object will be overwritten? Or the new object will be stored
elsewhere?
A: The existing object will be overwritten and thus it will be lost.
 
Q: What is the difference between the size and capacity of a Vector?
A: The size is the number of elements actually stored in the vector, while capacity is
the maximum number of elements it can store at a given instance of time.
 
Q: Can a vector contain heterogenous objects?
A: Yes a Vector can contain heterogenous objects. Because a Vector stores
everything in terms of Object.
 
Q: Can a ArrayList contain heterogenous objects?
A: Yes a ArrayList can contain heterogenous objects. Because a ArrayList stores
everything in terms of Object.
 
Q: What is an enumeration?
A: An enumeration is an interface containing methods for accessing the underlying
data structure from which the enumeration is obtained. It is a construct which
collection classes return when you request a collection of all the objects stored in
the collection. It allows sequential access to all the elements stored in the
collection.
 
Q: Considering the basic properties of Vector and ArrayList, where will you
use Vector and where will you use ArrayList?
A: The basic difference between a Vector and an ArrayList is that, vector is
synchronized while ArrayList is not. Thus whenever there is a possibility of
multiple threads accessing the same instance, one should use Vector. While if not
multiple threads are going to access the same instance then use ArrayList. Non
synchronized data structure will give better performance than the synchronized
one.
 
Q: Can a vector contain heterogenous objects?
A: Yes a Vector can contain heterogenous objects. Because a Vector stores
everything in terms of Object.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

JSP Interview Questions 

Q: What is a output comment?

A: A comment that is sent to the client in the viewable page source.The JSP engine
handles an output comment as uninterpreted HTML text, returning the comment
in the HTML output sent to the client. You can see the comment by viewing the
page source from your Web browser.
JSP Syntax 
<!-- comment [ <%= expression %> ] --> 
 
Example 1 
<!-- This is a commnet sent to client on 
<%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString() %> 
--> 
 
Displays in the page source: 
<!-- This is a commnet sent to client on January 24, 2004 -->
  TOP

 
 
 
Q: What is a Hidden Comment?
A: A comments that documents the JSP page but is not sent to the client. The JSP
engine ignores a hidden comment, and does not process any code within hidden
comment tags. A hidden comment is not sent to the client, either in the displayed
JSP page or the HTML page source. The hidden comment is useful when you want
to hide or "comment out" part of your JSP page.

You can use any characters in the body of the comment except the closing --%>
combination. If you need to use --%> in your comment, you can escape it by
typing --%\>.  
JSP Syntax 
 <%-- comment --%>

Examples 
<%@ page language="java" %> 
<html> 
<head><title>A Hidden Comment </title></head> 
<body> 
<%-- This comment will not be visible to the colent in the page source --%> 
</body> 
</html>
 
Q: What is a Expression?
A: An expression tag contains a scripting language expression that is evaluated,
converted to a String, and inserted where the expression appears in the JSP file.
Because the value of an expression is converted to a String, you can use an
expression within text in a JSP file. Like 
<%= someexpression %>  
<%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString() %> 
You cannot use a semicolon to end an expression
 
Q: What is a Declaration?
A: A declaration declares one or more variables or methods for use later in the JSP
source file.
A declaration must contain at least one complete declarative statement. You can
declare any number of variables or methods within one declaration tag, as long
as they are separated by semicolons. The declaration must be valid in the
scripting language used in the JSP file.  
 
<%! somedeclarations %> 
<%! int i = 0; %> 
<%! int a, b, c; %>
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Q: What is a Scriptlet?
A: A scriptlet can contain any number of language statements, variable or method
declarations, or expressions that are valid in the page scripting language.Within
scriptlet tags, you can

1.Declare variables or methods to use later in the file (see also Declaration). 
 
2.Write expressions valid in the page scripting language (see also Expression).  
 
3.Use any of the JSP implicit objects or any object declared with a
<jsp:useBean> tag.  
You must write plain text, HTML-encoded text, or other JSP tags outside the
 scriptlet.

Scriptlets are executed at request time, when the JSP engine processes the client
request. If the scriptlet produces output, the output is stored in the out object,
from which you can display it.
 
Q: What are implicit objects? List them?
A: Certain objects that are available for the use inJSP documents without being declared
first. These objects are parsed by the JSP engine and inserted into the generated servlet.
The implicit objects re listed below
 request

 response

 pageContext

 session

 application

 out

 config

 page

 exception
 
 
Q: Difference between forward and sendRedirect?
A: When you invoke a forward request, the request is sent to another resource on
the server, without the client being informed that a different resource is going to
process the request. This process occurs completly with in the web container.
When a sendRedirtect method is invoked, it causes the web container to return to
the browser indicating that a new URL should be requested. Because the browser
issues a completly new request any object that are stored as request attributes
before the redirect occurs will be lost. This extra round trip a redirect is slower
than forward.
 
Q: What are the different scope valiues for the <jsp:useBean>?
A: The different scope values for <jsp:useBean> are
1. page 
2. request 
3.session 
4.application
 
Q: Explain the life-cycle mehtods in JSP?
A: THe generated servlet class for a JSP page implements the HttpJspPage interface
of the javax.servlet.jsp package. Hte HttpJspPage interface extends the JspPage
interface which in turn extends the Servlet interface of the javax.servlet package.
the generated servlet class thus implements all the methods of the these three
 interfaces. The JspPage interface declares only two mehtods - jspInit() and
jspDestroy() that must be implemented by all JSP pages regardless of the client-
server protocol. However the JSP specification has provided the HttpJspPage
interfaec specifically for the JSp pages serving HTTP requests. This interface
declares one method _jspService().  
The jspInit()- The container calls the jspInit() to initialize te servlet instance.It is
called before any other method, and is called only once for a servlet instance. 
The _jspservice()- The container calls the _jspservice() for each request, passing
it the request and the response objects. 
The jspDestroy()- The container calls this when it decides take the instance out of
service. It is the last method called n the servlet instance.
  TOP

 
Q: How do I prevent the output of my JSP or Servlet pages from being
cached by the browser?
A: You will need to set the appropriate HTTP header attributes to prevent the
dynamic content output by the JSP page from being cached by the browser. Just
execute the following scriptlet at the beginning of your JSP pages to prevent
them from being cached at the browser. You need both the statements to take
care of some of the older browser versions.
<% 
response.setHeader("Cache-Control","no-store"); //HTTP 1.1 
response.setHeader("Pragma\","no-cache"); //HTTP 1.0 
response.setDateHeader ("Expires", 0); //prevents caching at the proxy server 
%>
 
Q: How does JSP handle run-time exceptions?
A: You can use the errorPage attribute of the page directive to have uncaught run-
time exceptions automatically forwarded to an error processing page. For
example: 
<%@ page errorPage=\"error.jsp\" %> redirects the browser to the JSP page
error.jsp if an uncaught exception is encountered during request processing.
Within error.jsp, if you indicate that it is an error-processing page, via the
directive: <%@ page isErrorPage=\"true\" %> Throwable object describing the
exception may be accessed within the error page via the exception implicit
object. Note: You must always use a relative URL as the value for the errorPage
attribute.
 
Q: How can I implement a thread-safe JSP page? What are the advantages
and Disadvantages of using it?
A: You can make your JSPs thread-safe by having them implement the
SingleThreadModel interface. This is done by adding the directive <%@ page
isThreadSafe="false" %> within your JSP page. With this, instead of a single
instance of the servlet generated for your JSP page loaded in memory, you will
have N instances of the servlet loaded and initialized, with the service method of
each instance effectively synchronized. You can typically control the number of
instances (N) that are instantiated for all servlets implementing
SingleThreadModel through the admin screen for your JSP engine. More
importantly, avoid using the tag for variables. If you do use this tag, then you
should set isThreadSafe to true, as mentioned above. Otherwise, all requests to
that page will access those variables, causing a nasty race condition.
SingleThreadModel is not recommended for normal use. There are many pitfalls,
including the example above of not being able to use <%! %>. You should try
really hard to make them thread-safe the old fashioned way: by making them
 thread-safe .
 
Q: How do I use a scriptlet to initialize a newly instantiated bean?
A: A jsp:useBean action may optionally have a body. If the body is specified, its
contents will be automatically invoked when the specified bean is instantiated.
Typically, the body will contain scriptlets or jsp:setProperty tags to initialize the
newly instantiated bean, although you are not restricted to using those alone.

The following example shows the “today” property of the Foo bean initialized to
the current date when it is instantiated. Note that here, we make use of a JSP
expression within the jsp:setProperty action. 
 
<jsp:useBean id="foo" class="com.Bar.Foo" >

<jsp:setProperty name="foo" property="today"  

value="<%=java.text.DateFormat.getDateInstance().format(new
java.util.Date()) %>" / >

<%-- scriptlets calling bean setter methods go here --%>

</jsp:useBean >
 
Q: How can I prevent the word "null" from appearing in my HTML input text
fields when I populate them with a resultset that has null values?
A: You could make a simple wrapper function, like

<%! 
String blanknull(String s) { 
return (s == null) ? \"\" : s; 
} 
%>

then use it inside your JSP form, like

<input type="text" name="lastName" value="<%=blanknull(lastName)% >" >

 
 
 
 
 
Q: What's a better approach for enabling thread-safe servlets and JSPs?
SingleThreadModel Interface or Synchronization?
A: Although the SingleThreadModel technique is easy to use, and works well for low
volume sites, it does not scale well. If you anticipate your users to increase in the
future, you may be better off implementing explicit synchronization for your
shared data. The key however, is to effectively minimize the amount of code that
is synchronzied so that you take maximum advantage of multithreading.
Also, note that SingleThreadModel is pretty resource intensive from the server\'s
perspective. The most serious issue however is when the number of concurrent
requests exhaust the servlet instance pool. In that case, all the unserviced
requests are queued until something becomes free - which results in poor
performance. Since the usage is non-deterministic, it may not help much even if
you did add more memory and increased the size of the instance pool.
 
Q: How can I enable session tracking for JSP pages if the browser has
disabled cookies?
A: We know that session tracking uses cookies by default to associate a session
identifier with a unique user. If the browser does not support cookies, or if
cookies are disabled, you can still enable session tracking using URL rewriting.
URL rewriting essentially includes the session ID within the link itself as a
name/value pair. However, for this to be effective, you need to append the
session ID for each and every link that is part of your servlet response. Adding
the session ID to a link is greatly simplified by means of of a couple of methods:
response.encodeURL() associates a session ID with a given URL, and if you are
using redirection, response.encodeRedirectURL() can be used by giving the
redirected URL as input. Both encodeURL() and encodeRedirectedURL() first
determine whether cookies are supported by the browser; if so, the input URL is
returned unchanged since the session ID will be persisted as a cookie. 
 
Consider the following example, in which two JSP files, say hello1.jsp and
hello2.jsp, interact with each other. Basically, we create a new session within
hello1.jsp and place an object within this session. The user can then traverse to
hello2.jsp by clicking on the link present within the page. Within hello2.jsp, we
simply extract the object that was earlier placed in the session and display its
contents. Notice that we invoke the encodeURL() within hello1.jsp on the link
used to invoke hello2.jsp; if cookies are disabled, the session ID is automatically
appended to the URL, allowing hello2.jsp to still retrieve the session object. Try
this example first with cookies enabled. Then disable cookie support, restart the
brower, and try again. Each time you should see the maintenance of the session
across pages. Do note that to get this example to work with cookies disabled at
the browser, your JSP engine has to support URL rewriting.

hello1.jsp 
<%@ page session=\"true\" %> 
<% 
Integer num = new Integer(100); 
session.putValue("num",num); 
String url =response.encodeURL("hello2.jsp");  
%> 
<a href=\'<%=url%>\'>hello2.jsp</a>

hello2.jsp 
<%@ page session="true" %> 
<% 
Integer i= (Integer )session.getValue("num"); 
out.println("Num value in session is " + i.intValue()); 
%>
 
 
Q: What is the difference b/w variable declared inside a declaration part
and variable declared in scriplet part?
A: Variable declared inside declaration part is treated as a global variable.that
means after convertion jsp file into servlet that variable will be in outside of
service method or it will be declared as instance variable.And the scope is
available to complete jsp and to complete in the converted servlet class.where as
if u declare a variable inside a scriplet that variable will be declared inside a
 service method and the scope is with in the service method.
 
Q: How does JSP handle run-time exceptions?
A: You can use the errorPage attribute of the page directive to have uncaught run-
time exceptions automatically forwarded to an error processing page. For
example: 
<%@ page errorPage=\"error.jsp\" %> redirects the browser to the JSP page
error.jsp if an uncaught exception is encountered during request processing.
Within error.jsp, if you indicate that it is an error-processing page, via the
directive: <%@ page isErrorPage=\"true\" %> Throwable object describing the
exception may be accessed within the error page via the exception implicit
object. Note: You must always use a relative URL as the value for the errorPage
attribute.
 
Q: How can I implement a thread-safe JSP page? What are the advantages
and Disadvantages of using it?
A: You can make your JSPs thread-safe by having them implement the
SingleThreadModel interface. This is done by adding the directive <%@ page
isThreadSafe="false" %> within your JSP page. With this, instead of a single
instance of the servlet generated for your JSP page loaded in memory, you will
have N instances of the servlet loaded and initialized, with the service method of
each instance effectively synchronized. You can typically control the number of
instances (N) that are instantiated for all servlets implementing
SingleThreadModel through the admin screen for your JSP engine. More
importantly, avoid using the tag for variables. If you do use this tag, then you
should set isThreadSafe to true, as mentioned above. Otherwise, all requests to
that page will access those variables, causing a nasty race condition.
SingleThreadModel is not recommended for normal use. There are many pitfalls,
including the example above of not being able to use <%! %>. You should try
really hard to make them thread-safe the old fashioned way: by making them
thread-safe .
 
Q: How do I use a scriptlet to initialize a newly instantiated bean?
A: A jsp:useBean action may optionally have a body. If the body is specified, its
contents will be automatically invoked when the specified bean is instantiated.
Typically, the body will contain scriptlets or jsp:setProperty tags to initialize the
newly instantiated bean, although you are not restricted to using those alone.

The following example shows the “today” property of the Foo bean initialized to
the current date when it is instantiated. Note that here, we make use of a JSP
expression within the jsp:setProperty action. 
 
<jsp:useBean id="foo" class="com.Bar.Foo" >

<jsp:setProperty name="foo" property="today"  

value="<%=java.text.DateFormat.getDateInstance().format(new
java.util.Date()) %>" / >

<%-- scriptlets calling bean setter methods go here --%>

</jsp:useBean >
 
Q: How can I prevent the word "null" from appearing in my HTML input text
 fields when I populate them with a resultset that has null values?
A: You could make a simple wrapper function, like

<%! 
String blanknull(String s) { 
return (s == null) ? \"\" : s; 
} 
%>

then use it inside your JSP form, like

<input type="text" name="lastName" value="<%=blanknull(lastName)% >" >

 
Q: What's a better approach for enabling thread-safe servlets and JSPs?
SingleThreadModel Interface or Synchronization?
A: Although the SingleThreadModel technique is easy to use, and works well for low
volume sites, it does not scale well. If you anticipate your users to increase in the
future, you may be better off implementing explicit synchronization for your
shared data. The key however, is to effectively minimize the amount of code that
is synchronzied so that you take maximum advantage of multithreading.
Also, note that SingleThreadModel is pretty resource intensive from the server\'s
perspective. The most serious issue however is when the number of concurrent
requests exhaust the servlet instance pool. In that case, all the unserviced
requests are queued until something becomes free - which results in poor
performance. Since the usage is non-deterministic, it may not help much even if
you did add more memory and increased the size of the instance pool.
 
 
 
 
Q: How can I enable session tracking for JSP pages if the browser has
disabled cookies?
A: We know that session tracking uses cookies by default to associate a session
identifier with a unique user. If the browser does not support cookies, or if
cookies are disabled, you can still enable session tracking using URL rewriting.
URL rewriting essentially includes the session ID within the link itself as a
name/value pair. However, for this to be effective, you need to append the
session ID for each and every link that is part of your servlet response. Adding
the session ID to a link is greatly simplified by means of of a couple of methods:
response.encodeURL() associates a session ID with a given URL, and if you are
using redirection, response.encodeRedirectURL() can be used by giving the
redirected URL as input. Both encodeURL() and encodeRedirectedURL() first
determine whether cookies are supported by the browser; if so, the input URL is
returned unchanged since the session ID will be persisted as a cookie. 
 
Consider the following example, in which two JSP files, say hello1.jsp and
hello2.jsp, interact with each other. Basically, we create a new session within
hello1.jsp and place an object within this session. The user can then traverse to
hello2.jsp by clicking on the link present within the page. Within hello2.jsp, we
simply extract the object that was earlier placed in the session and display its
contents. Notice that we invoke the encodeURL() within hello1.jsp on the link
used to invoke hello2.jsp; if cookies are disabled, the session ID is automatically
appended to the URL, allowing hello2.jsp to still retrieve the session object. Try
this example first with cookies enabled. Then disable cookie support, restart the
 brower, and try again. Each time you should see the maintenance of the session
across pages. Do note that to get this example to work with cookies disabled at
the browser, your JSP engine has to support URL rewriting.

hello1.jsp 
<%@ page session=\"true\" %> 
<% 
Integer num = new Integer(100); 
session.putValue("num",num); 
String url =response.encodeURL("hello2.jsp");  
%> 
<a href=\'<%=url%>\'>hello2.jsp</a>

hello2.jsp 
<%@ page session="true" %> 
<% 
Integer i= (Integer )session.getValue("num"); 
out.println("Num value in session is " + i.intValue()); 
%>
 
Q: Is there a way to execute a JSP from the comandline or from my own
application?
A: There is a little tool called JSPExecutor that allows you to do just that. The
developers (Hendrik Schreiber <hs@webapp.de> & Peter Rossbach
<pr@webapp.de>) aim was not to write a full blown servlet engine, but to
provide means to use JSP for generating source code or reports. Therefore most
HTTP-specific features (headers, sessions, etc) are not implemented, i.e. no
reponseline or header is generated. Nevertheless you can use it to precompile
JSP for your website.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Servlet Interview Questions 

Q: Explain the life cycle methods of a Servlet.

A: The javax.servlet.Servlet interface defines the three methods known as life-cycle
method. 
public void init(ServletConfig config) throws ServletException 
 public void service( ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res) throws
ServletException, IOException 
public void destroy() 
First the servlet is constructed, then initialized wih the init() method. 
Any request from client are handled initially by the service() method before
delegating to the doXxx() methods in the case of HttpServlet. 
 
The servlet is removed from service, destroyed with the destroy() methid, then
garbaged collected and finalized.
 
Q: What is the difference between the getRequestDispatcher(String path)
method of javax.servlet.ServletRequest interface and
javax.servlet.ServletContext interface?
A: The getRequestDispatcher(String path) method of javax.servlet.ServletRequest
interface accepts parameter the path to the resource to be included or forwarded
to, which can be relative to the request of the calling servlet. If the path begins
with a "/" it is interpreted as relative to the current context root. 
 
The getRequestDispatcher(String path) method of javax.servlet.ServletContext
interface cannot accepts relative paths. All path must sart with a "/" and are
interpreted as relative to curent context root.
 
Q: Explain the directory structure of a web application.
A: The directory structure of a web application consists of two parts.  
A private directory called WEB-INF 
A public resource directory which contains public resource folder. 
 
WEB-INF folder consists of  
1. web.xml 
2. classes directory 
3. lib directory
 
Q: What are the common mechanisms used for session tracking?
A: Cookies 
SSL sessions 
URL- rewriting
 
Q: Explain ServletContext.
A: ServletContext interface is a window for a servlet to view it's environment. A
servlet can use this interface to get information such as initialization parameters
for the web applicationor servlet container's version. Every web application has
one and only one ServletContext and is accessible to all active resource of that
application.
 
Q: What is preinitialization of a servlet?
A: A container doesnot initialize the servlets ass soon as it starts up, it initializes a
servlet when it receives a request for that servlet first time. This is called lazy
loading. The servlet specification defines the <load-on-startup> element, which
can be specified in the deployment descriptor to make the servlet container load
and initialize the servlet as soon as it starts up. The process of loading a servlet
before any request comes in is called preloading or preinitializing a servlet.
 
Q: What is the difference between Difference between doGet() and
doPost()?
A: A doGet() method is limited with 2k of data to be sent, and doPost() method
doesn't have this limitation. A request string for doGet() looks like the following:  
http://www.allapplabs.com/svt1?p1=v1&p2=v2&...&pN=vN 
doPost() method call doesn't need a long text tail after a servlet name in a
request. All parameters are stored in a request itself, not in a request string, and
it's impossible to guess the data transmitted to a servlet only looking at a request
string.
 
Q: What is the difference between HttpServlet and GenericServlet?
A: A GenericServlet has a service() method aimed to handle requests. HttpServlet
extends GenericServlet and adds support for doGet(), doPost(), doHead()
methods (HTTP 1.0) plus doPut(), doOptions(), doDelete(), doTrace() methods
(HTTP 1.1).  
Both these classes are abstract.
 
Q: What is the difference between ServletContext and ServletConfig?
A: ServletContext: Defines a set of methods that a servlet uses to communicate
with its servlet container, for example, to get the MIME type of a file, dispatch
requests, or write to a log file.The ServletContext object is contained within the
ServletConfig object, which the Web server provides the servlet when the servlet
is initialized  
 
ServletConfig: The object created after a servlet is instantiated and its default
constructor is read. It is created to pass initialization information to the servlet.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

EJB Interview Questions 

Q: What are the different kinds of enterprise beans?

 
A: Stateless session bean- An instance of these non-persistent EJBs provides a
service without storing an interaction or conversation state between methods.
Any instance can be used for any client. 
 
Stateful session bean- An instance of these non-persistent EJBs maintains
state across methods and transactions. Each instance is associated with a
particular client. 
 
Entity bean- An instance of these persistent EJBs represents an object view of
the data, usually rows in a database. They have a primary key as a unique
identifier. Entity bean persistence can be either container-managed or bean-
 managed.  
 
Message-driven bean- An instance of these EJBs is integrated with the Java
Message Service (JMS) to provide the ability for message-driven beans to act as a
standard JMS message consumer and perform asynchronous processing between
the server and the JMS message producer.
 
Q: What is Session Bean?
 
A: A session bean is a non-persistent object that implements some business logic
running on the server. One way to think of a session object is as a logical
extension of the client program that runs on the server. 
 
Session beans are used to manage the interactions of entity and other session
beans,access resources, and generally perform tasks on behalf of the client. 
 
There are two basic kinds of session bean: stateless and stateful.  
 
Stateless session beans are made up of business methods that behave like
procedures; they operate only on the arguments passed to them when they are
invoked. Stateless beans are called stateless because they are transient; they do
not maintain business state between method invocations.Each invocation of a
stateless business method is independent from previous invocations. Because
stateless session beans are stateless, they are easier for the EJB container to
manage, so they tend to process requests faster and use less resources. 
 
Stateful session beans encapsulate business logic and state specific to a client.
Stateful beans are called "stateful" because they do maintain business state
between method invocations, held in memory and not persistent. Unlike stateless
session beans, clients do not share stateful beans. When a client creates a
stateful bean, that bean instance is dedicated to service only that client. This
makes it possible to maintain conversational state, which is business state that
can be shared by methods in the same stateful bean.
 
 
 
Q: What is Entity Bean?
 
A: The entity bean is used to represent data in the database. It provides an object-
oriented interface to data that would normally be accessed by the JDBC or some
other back-end API. More than that, entity beans provide a component model
that allows bean developers to focus their attention on the business logic of the
bean, while the container takes care of managing persistence,transactions, and
access control. 
 
There are two basic kinds of entity beans: container-managed ersistence (CMP)
andbean-managed persistence (BMP).  
 
Container-managed persistence beans are the simplest for the bean developer to
create and the most difficult for the EJB server to support. This is because all the
logic for synchronizing the bean's state with the database is handled
automatically by the container. This means that the bean developer doesn't need
to write any data access logic, while the EJB server is 
supposed to take care of all the persistence needs automatically. With CMP, the
 container manages the persistence of the entity bean. Vendor tools are used to
map the entity fields to the database and absolutely no database access code is
written in the bean class.  
 
The bean-managed persistence (BMP) enterprise bean manages synchronizing its
state with the database as directed by the container. The bean uses a database
API to read and write its fields to the database, but the container tells it when to
do each synchronization operation and manages the transactions for the bean
automatically. Bean-managed persistence gives the bean developer the flexibility
to perform persistence operations that are too complicated for the container or to
use a data source that is not supported by the container.
 
Q: What are the methods of Entity Bean?
 
A: An entity bean consists of 4 groups of methods:  
 
1. create methods: To create a new instance of a CMP entity bean, and
therefore insert data into the database, the create() method on the bean's home
interface must be invoked. They look like this: EntityBeanClass
ejbCreateXXX(parameters), where EntityBeanClass is an Entity Bean you are
trying to instantiate, ejbCreateXXX(parameters) methods are used for creating
Entity Bean instances according to the parameters specified and to some
programmer-defined conditions.  
 
A bean's home interface may declare zero or more create() methods, each of
which must have corresponding ejbCreate() and ejbPostCreate() methods in the
bean class. These creation methods are linked at run time, so that when a
create() method is invoked on the home interface, the container delegates the
invocation to the corresponding ejbCreate() and ejbPostCreate() methods on the
bean class.  
 
2. finder methods: The methods in the home interface that begin with "find" are
called the find methods. These are used to query the EJB server for specific entity
beans, based on the name of the method and arguments passed. Unfortunately,
there is no standard query language defined for find methods, so each vendor will
implement the find method differently. In CMP entity beans, the find methods are
not implemented with matching methods in the bean class; containers implement
them when the bean is deployed in a vendor specific manner. The deployer will
use vendor specific tools to tell the container how a particular find method should
behave. Some vendors will use object-relational mapping tools to define the
behavior of a find method while others will simply require the deployer to enter
the appropriate SQL command. 
 
There are two basic kinds of find methods: single-entity and multi-entity. Single-
entity find methods return a remote reference to the one specific entity bean that
matches the find request. If no entity beans are found, the method throws an
ObjectNotFoundException . Every entity bean must define the single-entity find
method with the method name findByPrimaryKey(), which takes the bean's
primary key type as an argument. 
 
The multi-entity find methods return a collection ( Enumeration or Collection
type) of entities that match the find request. If no entities are found, the multi-
entity find returns an empty collection.  
 
3. remove methods: These methods (you may have up to 2 remove methods,
 or don't have them at all) allow the client to physically remove Entity beans by
specifying either Handle or a Primary Key for the Entity Bean.  
 
4. home methods: These methods are designed and implemented by a
developer, and EJB specification doesn't have any requirements for them except
the need to throw a RemoteException is each home method.
 
Q: What is the difference between Container-Managed Persistent (CMP)
bean and Bean-Managed Persistent(BMP) ?
 
A: Container-managed persistence beans are the simplest for the bean developer to
create and the most difficult for the EJB server to support. This is because all the
logic for synchronizing the bean's state with the database is handled
automatically by the container. This means that the bean developer doesn't need
to write any data access logic, while the EJB server is supposed to take care of all
the persistence needs automatically. With CMP, the container manages the
persistence of the entity bean. A CMP bean developer doesn't need to worry
about JDBC code and transactions, because the Container performs database
calls and transaction management instead of the programmer. Vendor tools are
used to map the entity fields to the database and absolutely no database access
code is written in the bean class. All table mapping is specified in the deployment
descriptor. Otherwise, a BMP bean developer takes the load of linking an
application and a database on his shoulders.  
 
The bean-managed persistence (BMP) enterprise bean manages synchronizing its
state with the database as directed by the container. The bean uses a database
API to read and write its fields to the database, but the container tells it when to
do each synchronization operation and manages the transactions for the bean
automatically. Bean-managed persistence gives the bean developer the flexibility
to perform persistence operations that are too complicated for the container or to
use a data source that is not supported by the container.BMP beans are not
100% database-independent, because they may contain database-specific code,
but CMP beans are unable to perform complicated DML (data manipulation
language) statements. EJB 2.0 specification introduced some new ways of
querying database (by using the EJB QL - query language).
 
Q: What are the callback methods in Entity beans?
 
A: The bean class defines create methods that match methods in the home interface and
business methods that match methods in the remote interface. The bean class also
implements a set of callback methods that allow the container to notify the bean of
events in its life cycle. The callback methods are defined in the javax.ejb.EntityBean
interface that is implemented by all entity beans.The EntityBean interface has the
following definition. Notice that the bean class implements these methods.
public interface javax.ejb.EntityBean {
  public void setEntityContext(); 
public void unsetEntityContext(); 
public void ejbLoad(); 
public void ejbStore(); 
public void ejbActivate(); 
public void ejbPassivate(); 
public void ejbRemove();
}  
  
The setEntityContext() method provides the bean with an interface to the
container called the EntityContext. The EntityContext interface contains methods
for obtaining information about the context under which the bean is operating at
any particular moment. The EntityContext interface is used to access security
information about the caller; to determine the status of the current transaction or
to force a transaction rollback; or to get a reference to the bean itself, its home, or
its primary key. The EntityContext is set only once in the life of an entity bean
instance, so its reference should be put into one of the bean instance's fields if it
will be needed later. 
 
The unsetEntityContext() method is used at the end of the bean's life cycle
before the instance is evicted from memory to dereference the EntityContext and
perform any last-minute clean-up.  
 
The ejbLoad() and ejbStore() methods in CMP entities are invoked when the
entity bean's state is being synchronized with the database. The ejbLoad() is
invoked just after the container has refreshed the bean container-managed fields
with its state from the database. The ejbStore() method is invoked just before the
container is about to write the bean container-managed fields to the database.
These methods are used to modify data as it's being synchronized. This is common
when the data stored in the database is different than the data used in the bean
fields.  
 
The ejbPassivate() and ejbActivate() methods are invoked on the bean by the
container just before the bean is passivated and just after the bean is activated,
respectively. Passivation in entity beans means that the bean instance is
disassociated with its remote reference so that the container can evict it from
memory or reuse it. It's a resource conservation measure the container employs to
reduce the number of instances in memory. A bean might be passivated if it hasn't
been used for a while or as a normal operation performed by the container to
maximize reuse of resources. Some containers will evict beans from memory, while
others will reuse instances for other more active remote references. The
ejbPassivate() and ejbActivate() methods provide the bean with a notification as to
when it's about to be passivated (disassociated with the remote reference) or
activated (associated with a remote reference).
 
Q: What is software architecture of EJB?
 
A: Session and Entity EJBs consist of 4 and 5 parts respetively: 
 
1. A remote interface (a client interacts with it),  
 
2. A home interface (used for creating objects and for declaring business
methods), 
 
3. A bean object (an object, which actually performs business logic and EJB-
specific operations).  
 
4. A deployment descriptor (an XML file containing all information required for
maintaining the EJB) or a set of deployment descriptors (if you are using some
container-specific features).  
 
5.A Primary Key class - is only Entity bean specific.
 
Q: Can Entity Beans have no create() methods?
 
A: Yes. In some cases the data is inserted NOT using Java application, so you may
only need to retrieve the information, perform its processing, but not create your
own information of this kind.
     
 
Q: What is bean managed transaction?
A: If a developer doesn't want a Container to manage transactions, it's possible to
implement all database operations manually by writing the appropriate JDBC
code. This often leads to productivity increase, but it makes an Entity Bean
incompatible with some databases and it enlarges the amount of code to be
written. All transaction management is explicitly performed by a developer.
 
Q: What are transaction attributes?
A: The transaction attribute specifies how the Container must manage transactions
for a method when a client invokes the method via the enterprise bean’s home or
component interface or when the method is invoked as the result of the arrival of
a JMS message. (Sun's EJB Specification) Below is a list of transactional
attributes: 
 
1. NotSupported - transaction context is unspecified. 
 
2. Required - bean's method invocation is made within a transactional context.
If a client is not associated with a transaction, a new transaction is invoked
automatically.  
 
3. Supports - if a transactional context exists, a Container acts like the
transaction attribute is Required, else - like NotSupported. 
 
4. RequiresNew - a method is invoked in a new transaction context. 
 
5. Mandatory - if a transactional context exists, a Container acts like the
transaction attribute is Required, else it throws a
javax.ejb.TransactionRequiredException. 
 
6. Never - a method executes only if no transaction context is specified.
 
Q: What are transaction isolation levels in EJB?
A: 1. Transaction_read_uncommitted- Allows a method to read uncommitted
data from a DB(fast but not wise). 
 
2. Transaction_read_committed- Guarantees that the data you are getting
has been committed. 
 
3. Transaction_repeatable_read - Guarantees that all reads of the database
will be the same during the transaction (good for read and update operations). 
 
4. Transaction_serializable- All the transactions for resource are performed
serial.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

JMS Interview Questions 

Q: What is JMS?
A: JMS is an acronym used for Java Messaging Service. It is Java's answer to
creating software using asynchronous messaging. It is one of the official
specifications of the J2EE technologies and is a key technology.
 
Q: How JMS is different from RPC?
A: In RPC the method invoker waits for the method to finish execution and return
the control back to the invoker. Thus it is completely synchronous in nature.
While in JMS the message sender just sends the message to the destination and
continues it's own processing. The sender does not wait for the receiver to
respond. This is asynchronous behavior.
 
Q: What are the advantages of JMS?
A: JMS is asynchronous in nature. Thus not all the pieces need to be up all the time
for the application to function as a whole. Even if the receiver is down the MOM
will store the messages on it's behalf and will send them once it comes back up.
Thus at least a part of application can still function as there is no blocking.  
 
Q: Are you aware of any major JMS products available in the market?
A: IBM's MQ Series is one of the most popular product used as Message Oriented
Middleware. Some of the other products are SonicMQ, iBus etc. Weblogic
application server also comes with built in support for JMS messaging.
 
Q: What are the different types of messages available in the JMS API?
A: Message, TextMessage, BytesMessage, StreamMessage, ObjectMessage,
MapMessage are the different messages available in the JMS API. 
  TOP  
 
Q: What are the different messaging paradigms JMS supports?
A: Publish and Subscribe i.e. pub/suc and Point to Point i.e. p2p.
 
Q: What is the difference between topic and queue?
A: A topic is typically used for one to many messaging i.e. it supports publish
subscribe model of messaging. While queue is used for one-to-one messaging i.e.
it supports Point to Point Messaging.
 
Q: What is the role of JMS in enterprise solution development?
A: JMS is typically used in the following scenarios 
1. Enterprise Application Integration: - Where a legacy application is integrated
with a new application via messaging. 
2. B2B or Business to Business: - Businesses can interact with each other via
messaging because JMS allows organizations to cooperate without tightly
coupling their business systems. 
3. Geographically dispersed units: - JMS can ensure safe exchange of data
amongst the geographically dispersed units of an organization. 
4. One to many applications: - The applications that have to push data in packet
to huge number of clients in a one-to-many fashion are good candidates for the
use JMS. Typical such applications are Auction Sites, Stock Quote Services etc.
 
Q: What is the use of Message object?
A: Message is a light weight message having only header and properties and no
payload. Thus if the received are to be notified abt an event, and no data needs
to be exchanged then using Message can be very efficient.
 
Q: What is the basic difference between Publish Subscribe model and P2P
model?
A: Publish Subscribe model is typically used in one-to-many situation. It is unreliable
but very fast. P2P model is used in one-to-one situation. It is highly reliable.
 
Q: What is the use of BytesMessage?
A: BytesMessage contains an array of primitive bytes in it's payload. Thus it can be
used for transfer of data between two applications in their native format which
may not be compatible with other Message types. It is also useful where JMS is
used purely as a transport between two systems and the message payload is
opaque to the JMS client. Whenever you store any primitive type, it is converted
into it's byte representation and then stored in the payload. There is no boundary
line between the different data types stored. Thus you can even read a long as
short. This would result in erroneous data and hence it is advisable that the
payload be read in the same order and using the same type in which it was
created by the sender.
 
Q: What is the use of StreamMessage?
A: StreamMessage carries a stream of Java primitive types as it's payload. It
contains some conveient methods for reading the data stored in the payload.
However StreamMessage prevents reading a long value as short, something that
is allwed in case of BytesMessage. This is so because the StreamMessage also
writes the type information alonwgith the value of the primitive type and enforces
a set of strict conversion rules which actually prevents reading of one primitive
type as another.
 
Q: What is the use of TextMessage?
A: TextMessage contains instance of java.lang.String as it's payload. Thus it is very
useful for exchanging textual data. It can also be used for exchanging complex
character data such as an XML document.
 
Q: What is the use of ObjectMessage?
A: ObjectMessage contains a Serializable java object as it's payload. Thus it allows
exchange of Java objects between applications. This in itself mandates that both
the applications be Java applications. The consumer of the message must
typecast the object received to it's appropriate type. Thus the consumer should
before hand know the actual type of the object sent by the sender. Wrong type
casting would result in ClassCastException. Moreover the class definition of the
object set in the payload should be available on both the machine, the sender as
well as the consumer. If the class definition is not available in the consumer
machine, an attempt to type cast would result in ClassNotFoundException. Some
of the MOMs might support dynamic loading of the desired class over the
network, but the JMS specification does not mandate this behavior and would be
a value added service if provided by your vendor. And relying on any such vendor
specific functionality would hamper the portability of your application. Most of the
time the class need to be put in the classpath of both, the sender and the
consumer, manually by the developer.
 
Q: What is the use of MapMessage?
A: A MapMessage carries name-value pair as it's payload. Thus it's payload is similar
to the java.util.Properties object of Java. The values can be Java primitives or
their wrappers.
 
Q: What is the difference between BytesMessage and StreamMessage??
A: BytesMessage stores the primitive data types by converting them to their byte
representation. Thus the message is one contiguous stream of bytes. While the
StreamMessage maintains a boundary between the different data types stored
because it also stores the type information along with the value of the primitive
being stored. BytesMessage allows data to be read using any type. Thus even if
your payload contains a long value, you can invoke a method to read a short and
it will return you something. It will not give you a semantically correct data but
the call will succeed in reading the first two bytes of data. This is strictly
prohibited in the StreamMessage. It maintains the type information of the data
being stored and enforces strict conversion rules on the data being read.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Struts Interview Questions 

Q: What is Struts?
A: The core of the Struts framework is a flexible control layer based on standard
technologies like Java Servlets, JavaBeans, ResourceBundles, and XML, as well as
various Jakarta Commons packages. Struts encourages application architectures
based on the Model 2 approach, a variation of the classic Model-View-Controller
(MVC) design paradigm.

Struts provides its own Controller component and integrates with other
technologies to provide the Model and the View. For the Model, Struts can
interact with standard data access technologies, like JDBC and EJB, as well as
most any third-party packages, like Hibernate, iBATIS, or Object Relational
Bridge. For the View, Struts works well with JavaServer Pages, including JSTL and
JSF, as well as Velocity Templates, XSLT, and other presentation systems.

The Struts framework provides the invisible underpinnings every professional web
application needs to survive. Struts helps you create an extensible development
environment for your application, based on published standards and proven
design patterns.
 
Q: What is Jakarta Struts Framework?
A: Jakarta Struts is open source implementation of MVC (Model-View-Controller)
pattern for the development of web based applications. Jakarta Struts is robust
architecture and can be used for the development of application of any size.
Struts framework makes it much easier to design scalable, reliable Web
applications with Java.
 
Q: What is ActionServlet?
A: The class org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet is the called the ActionServlet. In
the the Jakarta Struts Framework this class plays the role of controller. All the
requests to the server goes through the controller. Controller is responsible for
handling all the requests.
 
Q: How you will make available any Message Resources Definitions file to
the Struts Framework Environment?
A: T Message Resources Definitions file are simple .properties files and these files
contains the messages that can be used in the struts project. Message Resources
Definitions files can be added to the struts-config.xml file through <message-
resources /> tag.

Example:

<message-resources parameter=\"MessageResources\" />.

 
Q: What is Action Class?
A: The Action Class is part of the Model and is a wrapper around the business logic.
The purpose of Action Class is to translate the HttpServletRequest to the business
logic. To use the Action, we need to Subclass and overwrite the execute()
method. In the Action Class all the database/business processing are done. It is
advisable to perform all the database related stuffs in the Action Class. The
ActionServlet (commad) passes the parameterized class to Action Form using the
execute() method. The return type of the execute method is ActionForward which
is used by the Struts Framework to forward the request to the file as per the
value of the returned ActionForward object.
 
Q: What is ActionForm?
A: An ActionForm is a JavaBean that extends org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm.
ActionForm maintains the session state for web application and the ActionForm
object is automatically populated on the server side with data entered from a
form on the client side.
 
Q: What is Struts Validator Framework?
A: Struts Framework provides the functionality to validate the form data. It can be
use to validate the data on the users browser as well as on the server side. Struts
Framework emits the java scripts and it can be used validate the form data on
the client browser. Server side validation of form can be accomplished by sub
classing your From Bean with DynaValidatorForm class.
The Validator framework was developed by David Winterfeldt as third-party add-
on to Struts. Now the Validator framework is a part of Jakarta Commons project
and it can be used with or without Struts. The Validator framework comes
integrated with the Struts Framework and can be used without doing any extra
settings.
 
Q: Give the Details of XML files used in Validator Framework?
A: The Validator Framework uses two XML configuration files validator-rules.xml and
validation.xml. The validator-rules.xml defines the standard validation routines,
these are reusable and used in validation.xml. to define the form specific
validations. The validation.xml defines the validations applied to a form bean.
 
Q: How you will display validation fail errors on jsp page?
A: Following tag displays all the errors:
<html:errors/>

 
Q: How you will enable front-end validation based on the xml in
validation.xml?
A: The <html:javascript> tag to allow front-end validation based on the xml in
validation.xml. For example the code: <html:javascript
formName=\"logonForm\" dynamicJavascript=\"true\"
staticJavascript=\"true\" /> generates the client side java script for the
form \"logonForm\" as defined in the validation.xml file. The <html:javascript>
when added in the jsp file generates the client site validation script.
 

How to get data from the velocity page in a action class?

We can get the values in the action classes by using data.getParameter(\"variable name
defined in the velocity page\");