Java Code Snippets & Hints

General Java Syntax Cheat Sheets:

See: http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jcheat.html (Java Syntax Cheat Sheet)
See: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/constant-values.html (Constants in Java 1.5)

Synchronization and Threading

Bit Shifting:

from: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/bitwise.html (link no longer valid)

Unsigned Bytes:

to save a byte value in a C++ compatible format...to work around Java's lack of support for unsigned types:

public static byte toUnsignedByte(int intVal) {
		byte byteVal;
		if (intVal > 127) {
			int temp = intVal - 256;
			byteVal = (byte)temp;
		}
		else {
			byteVal = (byte)intVal;
		}	
		return byteVal;
	}

Sliders in Java:

Use a JSlider component.

JSlider(int orientation, int minValue, int maxValue, int initialValue)
where orientation is either JSlider.HORIZONTAL or JSlider.VERTICAL

Save a screen capture of a Java Frame/Panel/Window:

Essentially the trick is to draw the panel/frame/etc. into a BufferedImage and use the ImageIO class to write it to an image file.

    BufferedImage image = ...
    System.out.println("image " + image);
    File f = ...
    String fileType = f.getName().substring(f.getName().lastIndexOf('.') + 1);
    try {
        ImageIO.write(image,fileType,f);
    } catch (IOException ioe) {
        ioe.printStackTrace();
        JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,ioe,"Error",JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
    }

from: http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=496947&messageID=2358958

Sprintf for Java

"While not a perfect replica of the C language sprintf utility, the PrintfFormat class should be helpful in converting a code from C to Java. Users are encouraged, however, to use the java.text classes for formatting data because those have regular maintenance and are a much better path towards internationalizing your software than PrintfFormat."

see: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/sprintf/

Java Classpath

See: Mastering the Java Classpath - http://www.kevinboone.com/classpath.html

Java Primitive Type Capacities:

from: http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Programming/java/miscellaneous_java/Java_Primitive_Types.html

Packages

Reasons we usue packages:

• To organize or group related files by functionality or category
• To make specific files easier to locate within a large project
• help us to avoid class name collision when we use the same class name used by someone else

"One thing you must do after creating a package for the class is to create nested subdirectories to represent package hierachy of the class."

"The fully-qualified class name is the name of the java class that includes its package name "

See: http://jarticles.com/package/package_eng.html

Zero-padding Integers:

// converts integer to left-zero padded string, len chars long.
public static String toLZ( int i, int len ) {
   String s = Integer.toString(i);
   if ( s.length() > len ) return s.substring(0,len);
   else if ( s.length() < len ) // pad on left with zeros
   return "000000000000000000000000000".substring(0, len - s.length ()) s;
   else return s;
}

from: http://www.mindprod.com/jgloss/conversion.html

Closing Dependent Windows:

"Because the main window is a multi-document interface it needs to be the “parent” of all windows created. For this reason a dependent window should not create another window itself but inform the main window and let it do so. Creating a listener is the best solution to this problem"

See: http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Java/Listeners-in-Java/1/

Enumerations:

Java 1.5+ solution:
enum Season { WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL };

(Simple) Kludge for 1.4 and before (use int constants):
public static final int SEASON_WINTER = 0;
public static final int SEASON_SPRING = 1;

Problems with the kludge way: This is not type-safe (its just an int, you can do stupid things with it), provides no namespace to prevention of collision with other constants, printed values are not obvious (numeric not string).

(Advanced) Kludge for 1.4 - "type safe enum pattern":

public class MyEnum {
  private final String name;
  private MyEnum(String name) {
    this.name = name;
  }
  public static final MyEnum WINTER = new MyEnum("winter");
  public static final MyEnum SPRING = new MyEnum("spring");

  public String toString() {
    return name;
  }
}

See: http://mindprod.com/jgloss/enum.html
See: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/language/enums.html
See: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/releases/j2se15langfeat/index.html

Files & Directories

Select Directory using JFileChooser:

    JFileChooser chooser = new JFileChooser(); 
    chooser.setCurrentDirectory(new java.io.File("."));
    chooser.setDialogTitle( "Select Directory" );
    chooser.setFileSelectionMode(JFileChooser.DIRECTORIES_ONLY);
    chooser.setAcceptAllFileFilterUsed(false); // disable the "All files" option.
    if (chooser.showOpenDialog(this) == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) { 
        System.out.println("getCurrentDirectory(): " + chooser.getCurrentDirectory());
        System.out.println("getSelectedFile() : " + chooser.getSelectedFile());
    } else { /* ignore if user presses cancel */ }

From: http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0370.html

Listing the Files or Subdirectories in a Directory

File dir = new File("directoryName");
String[] children = dir.list(); //can also take a FilenameFilter as argument

// This filter only returns directories
FileFilter fileFilter = new FileFilter() {
    public boolean accept(File file) {
        return file.isDirectory();
    }
};

See: http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.io/GetFiles.html
See: http://javaalmanac.com/egs/java.io/GetFiles.html

Working with Files & Directories:

String userdir = System.getProperty("user.dir");

Several methods are available for inspecting an instance of the File class. Some of the important ones are:

From: http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/Files_Directories/

InvokeLater

invokeLater makes a method return immediately and run the time consuming code at java's leisure. This page also had a handy list of guidelines for when you would want to thread your execution

See: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/misc/threads.html

Swing Thread

"You can't directly meddle with Swing components, or their backing data models from a second thread. The contract is, if you want to do anything to a Swing component that could have any effect on it's display from an application thread (not the EventDispatchThread itself), you should add it to the event dispatch thread's queue via SwingUtilities.invokeLater( Runnable ) or SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait( Runnable ) so that it will be done on the same thread that Swing itself uses"

From: http://mindprod.com/jgloss/thread.html

Text Box with Formatting

public class StyledField extends JTextPane {
    private Style m_CurrentAttributes;
    

    public StyledField() {
        super();
	      m_CurrentAttributes = getStyle(StyleContext.DEFAULT_STYLE);
    }
        

    public StyledField(String text) {
        this();
        setText(text);
    }


    public void setCurrentColor(Color in) {
        StyleConstants.setForeground(m_CurrentAttributes, in);
    }


    // Attributes - Font.BOLD or Font.ITALIC
    public void setCurrentFont(String Family, int ptSize, int Attributes) {
      StyleConstants.setFontFamily(m_CurrentAttributes, Family);
      StyleConstants.setFontSize(m_CurrentAttributes, ptSize);
    	StyleConstants.setBold(m_CurrentAttributes, 
    	    ((Attributes & Font.BOLD) != 0));
    	StyleConstants.setItalic(m_CurrentAttributes, 
    	    ((Attributes & Font.ITALIC) != 0));
    }
    
    public void setCurrentBold(boolean doit) {
        StyleConstants.setBold(m_CurrentAttributes, doit);
    }

    public void setCurrentItalic(boolean doit) {
       StyleConstants.setItalic(m_CurrentAttributes, doit);
    }
    
    public void insert(String str, int pos) {
        Document doc = getDocument();
        if (doc != null) {
            try {
                doc.insertString(pos, str, m_CurrentAttributes);
            } catch (BadLocationException e) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(e.getMessage());
            }
        }
    }
 
    public void append(String str) {
        Document doc = getDocument();
        if (doc != null) {
            try {
                doc.insertString(doc.getLength(), str, m_CurrentAttributes);
            } catch (BadLocationException e) {
            }
        }
    }
}

From: http://www.lordjoe.com/SwingCourse/StyledText/StyledText.html

Redirecting a Stack Trace to a String:

StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
PrintWriter pw = new PrintWriter(sw);
e.printStackTrace(pw);
return sw.toString();

From: http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0029.html

Static Initializers

"a static initializer, which is a block of code—rather like a static method—that is executed once only, when the class is loaded. It can't be called under any other circumstances, so it doesn't have a name, arguments, or any access modifiers, and does not return a value."

public final static double[] sine;

static 
{
   sine = new double[360];
   for (int angle = 0 ; angle < sine.length ; angle++) {
      sine[angle] = Math.sin((angle * Math.PI)/180.0);
   }
}

From: http://www.ftponline.com/javapro/2003_04/online/tricks_pford_04_10_03 (link no longer valid)

The Reflection API

Class c = Class.forName("com.duke.MyLocaleServiceProvider");
Class c = javax.swing.JButton.class.getSuperclass();

See: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/reflect/index.html

Obscure way to get Class object for primitive arrays using reflection: (don't do this)
Instead of int[].class someone might say Class.forName("[I"); These mean:
[B for byte array
[I for int array
[F for float array

From: http://www.coderanch.com/t/376256/Java-General-intermediate/java/get-Class-primitive-datatypes-array

Generic Array To String Function

public static String arrayToString(Object array) {
    if (array == null) { return "[NULL]"; }
    Object obj = null;
    if (array instanceof Hashtable) { array = ((Hashtable)array).entrySet().toArray(); } 
    else if (array instanceof HashSet) { array = ((HashSet)array).toArray(); } 
    else if (array instanceof Collection) { array = ((Collection)array).toArray(); }
    
    int length = Array.getLength(array);
    int lastItem = length - 1;
    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("[");
    for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
        obj = Array.get(array, i);
        if (obj != null) { sb.append(obj); } else { sb.append("[NULL]"); }
        if (i < lastItem) { sb.append(", "); }
    }
    sb.append("]");
    return sb.toString();
    }
}

From: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/string/ArrayToString.aspx

Unsigned Byte Buffers

import java.nio.ByteBuffer;

/**
 * From code by Ron Hitchens (ron@ronsoft.com)
 */
public class Unsigned
{

    public static short getUnsignedByte (ByteBuffer bb) {
        return ((short)(bb.get() & 0xff));
    }
    public static void putUnsignedByte (ByteBuffer bb, int value) {
        bb.put ((byte)(value & 0xff));
    }
    public static short getUnsignedByte (ByteBuffer bb, int position) {
        return ((short)(bb.get (position) & (short)0xff));
    }
    public static void putUnsignedByte (ByteBuffer bb, int position, int value) {
        bb.put (position, (byte)(value & 0xff));
    }
    public static int getUnsignedShort (ByteBuffer bb) {
        return (bb.getShort() & 0xffff);
    }
    public static void putUnsignedShort (ByteBuffer bb, int value) {
        bb.putShort ((short)(value & 0xffff));
    }
    public static int getUnsignedShort (ByteBuffer bb, int position) {
        return (bb.getShort (position) & 0xffff);
    }
    public static void putUnsignedShort (ByteBuffer bb, int position, int value) {
        bb.putShort (position, (short)(value & 0xffff));
    }
    public static long getUnsignedInt (ByteBuffer bb) {
        return ((long)bb.getInt() & 0xffffffffL);
    }
    public static void putUnsignedInt (ByteBuffer bb, long value) {
        bb.putInt ((int)(value & 0xffffffffL));
    }
    public static long getUnsignedInt (ByteBuffer bb, int position) {
        return ((long)bb.getInt (position) & 0xffffffffL);
    }
    public static void putUnsignedInt (ByteBuffer bb, int position, long value) {
        bb.putInt (position, (int)(value & 0xffffffffL));
    }

    public static void main (String [] argv) throws Exception {
        ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.allocate (20);

        buffer.clear();
        Unsigned.putUnsignedByte (buffer, 255);
        Unsigned.putUnsignedByte (buffer, 128);
        Unsigned.putUnsignedShort (buffer, 0xcafe);
        Unsigned.putUnsignedInt (buffer, 0xcafebabe);

        for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) {
            System.out.println ("" + i + ": "
                + Integer.toHexString ((int)getUnsignedByte (buffer, i)));
        }

        System.out.println ("2: " + Integer.toHexString (getUnsignedShort (buffer, 2)));
        System.out.println ("4: " + Long.toHexString (getUnsignedInt (buffer, 4)));
    }
}

From: http://www.javanio.info/filearea/bookexamples/unpacked/com/ronsoft/books/nio/buffers/Unsigned.java

    ByteBuffer buf = ByteBuffer.allocate(15);
    IntBuffer ibuf = buf.asIntBuffer();

From: http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.nio/TypeBuf.html Creating a Non-Byte Java Type Buffer on a ByteBuffer

File I/O Performance

Exerpted from notes by "ryan" from JavaOne conference presentation on File I/Oby a presenter from BEA:

• What to think about when doing file I/O - Data access pattern (rand, seq), Data size read/write at once, How much of the file will be read/written, How durable must the disk writes be (OS crash, power failure)
• Writing Safely - OS normally caches all disk writes (data may be lost in the event of OS crash), Most disks also cache all disk writes (data lost on power failure). APIs are available that let you "force" the I/O. They make sure data is not cached by the O/S or disk. These APIs do not always work! Enterprise (SCSI, etc) hardware usually avoid these problems
• General I/O concept: Bigger is better - A few large I/Os are faster than many small I/Os. There is overhead in traversing all the layers between app and disk (Java -> JNI -> system call -> OS -> file system -> cache -> driver -> device)
• General I/O concept: Extending files is slow - When you just write data to existing file, you just write to the disk blocks where your data goes, when you write past the EOF, OS must keep track of new file size. When you must extend, try doing it in larger chunks
• FileOutputStream - Suggestion: use BufferedOutputStream for buffering, but don't forget to close or flush when you're done! Application exit doesn't close/flush!!!
• Reliable Disk Writes - Possible solutions: Call 'flush" after each write, Open file with a "sync" flag like "rwd" or "rws", Use a memory mapped file and call "force". Results: Using the "rwd" mode will be fastest, flush() was 2x map force for write sizes from 50-4096 bytes; rwd was 50%-300% faster (smaller writes much faster obviously when buffered internally) than flush(), flush() and map means many JVM -> OS system calls
• RandomReads - to look at random pieces of big file/db (several 100mb), memory mapping = tremendously faster than I/O APIs (esp. for small reads)
• Direct I/O - (Things you can't do in Java) Every O/S today has a feature called "direct I/O" that bypasses O/S buffer cache, generally reducing CPU usage for large I/O, Designed for use by databases. There is no Java API for this, so we must use native code.

From: http://justmonkey.biz/2005/06/javaone_notes_achieving_great.html

Finding Bugs

Running [code] analysis [such as FindBugs] and finding obviously stupid code is easy. Need to budget time for more than just running the analysis and reviewing the bugs. Often, the hard part is stuff like:
• Figuring out who is responsible for that code
• Understanding what the code is actually supposed to do
• Figuring out if stupid code can cause the application to misbehave
• Writing a test case that demonstrates the bug
• Getting approval to change the code

From: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~pugh/SV-JUG-2009.pdf

Formatting Locale-Specific Percentages

    Locale locale = Locale.CANADA; // Format
    String string = NumberFormat.getPercentInstance(locale).format(123.45); // 12,345%

    try { // Parse
        Number number = NumberFormat.getPercentInstance(locale).parse("123.45%"); // 1.2345
        if (number instanceof Long) { /* Long */ } else { /* Double */ }
    } catch (ParseException e) { ... }

from: http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.text/Percent.html

Creating a Custom Table Cell Editor

    TableColumn col = table.getColumnModel().getColumn(vColIndex);
    col.setCellEditor(new MyTableCellEditor());
    public class MyTableCellEditor extends AbstractCellEditor implements TableCellEditor { ... }

from: http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/javax.swing.table/CustEdit.html

Operators in Java

from: http://www.cafeaulait.org/course/week2/03.html

Static initialization of String Arrays

// Standard string array initialization syntax
String array1[] = new String[]{"Zero", "One", "Two"};

// More concise syntax that only works in initializers (constructors, static blocks)
String array2[] = {"Zero", "One", "Three"};

// Syntax allocating the array as an array of null objects
String array3[] = new String[3];
// which can be later filled in with values
array3[0] = "Zero"; array3[1] = "One"; array3[2] = "Two";