What`s New in Java 1.5 Tiger?
(Page 1 of 6 )
Call it Java 1.5, 2.0, Java 5, Tiger, or what have you -- this version of Java has a lot to offer. This article covers just some of the new features. It is excerpted from chapter one of
Java 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook, written by Brett McLaughlin and David Flanagan (O'Reilly, 2004; ISBN: 0596007388).
Even with nearly 200 pages before you, it’s going to be awfully tough to cover all of Tiger’s new features. Whether it’s called Java 1.5, 2.0, Java 5, or something altogether different, this version of Java is an entirely new beast, and has tons of meat to offer.
Rather than waste time on introductory text, this chapter jumps right into some of the “one-off” features that are new for Tiger, and that don’t fit into any of the larger chapters. These will get you used to the developer’s notebook format if it’s new for you, and introduce some cool tools along the way. Then Chapter 2 gets downright serious, as generics are introduced, and from there to the last page, it’s a race to cram everything in.
Working with Arrays
Tiger has a pretty major overhaul of its collection classes, most of which have to do with generic types and support for the new for/in loop. Without getting into those details yet, you can get some immediate bang for your buck by checking out the java.util.Arrays class, which is chock-full of static utility methods (many of which are new to Tiger).
How do I do that?
The java.util.Arrays class is a set of static methods that all are useful for working with arrays. Most of these methods are particularly helpful if you have an array of numeric primitives, which is what Example 1-1 demonstrates (in varied and mostly useless ways).
Example 1-1. Using the Arrays utility class
package com.oreilly.tiger.ch01;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
public class ArraysTester {
private int[] ar;
public ArraysTester(int numValues) {
ar = new int[numValues];
for (int i=0; i < ar.length; i++) {
ar[i] = (1000 - (300 + i));
}
}
public int[] get() {
return ar;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
ArraysTester tester = new ArraysTester(50);
int[] myArray = tester.get();
// Compare two arrays
int[] myOtherArray = tester.get().clone();
if (Arrays.equals(myArray, myOtherArray)) {
System.out.println("The two arrays are equal!");
} else {
System.out.println("The two arrays are not equal!");
}
// Fill up some values
Arrays.fill(myOtherArray, 2, 10, new Double(Math.PI).intValue());
myArray[30] = 98;
// Print array, as is
System.out.println("Here's the unsorted array...");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(myArray));
System.out.println();
// Sort the array
Arrays.sort(myArray);
// print array, sorted
System.out.println("Here's the sorted array...");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(myArray));
System.out.println();
// Get the index of a particular value
int index = Arrays.binarySearch(myArray, 98); System.out.println("98 is located in the array at index " + index);
String[][] ticTacToe = { {"X", "O", "O"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
System.out.println(Arrays.deepToString(ticTacToe));
String[][] ticTacToe2 = { {"O", "O", "X"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
String[][] ticTacToe3 = { {"X", "O", "O"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
if (Arrays.deepEquals(ticTacToe, ticTacToe2)) {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 2 are equal.");
} else {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 2 are not equal.");
}
if (Arrays.deepEquals(ticTacToe, ticTacToe3)) {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 3 are equal.");
} else {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 3 are not equal.");
}
}
}
The first method to take note of, at least for Tiger fans, is toString(). This handles the rather annoying task of printing arrays for you. While this is trivial to write on your own, it’s still nice that Sun takes care of it for you now. Here’s some program output, showing the effects of Arrays.toString() on an array:
Note: Running Ant and supplying a target of "run-ch01" automates
this.
run-ch01:
[echo] Running Chapter 1 examples from Tiger: A Developer's Notebook
[echo] Running ArraysTester...
[java] The two arrays are equal!
[java] Here's the unsorted array...
[java][700, 699, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 690, 689,
688, 687, 686, 685, 684, 683, 682, 681, 680, 679,
678, 677, 676, 675, 674, 673, 672, 671, 98, 669, 668, 667, 666, 665, 664, 663, 662, 661, 660, 659, 658,
657, 656, 655, 654, 653, 652, 651]
[java] Here's the sorted array...
[java] [3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 98, 651, 652, 653,
654, 655, 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, 662, 663, 664,
665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 671, 672, 673, 674, 675, 676,
677, 678, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 684, 685, 686, 687,
688, 689, 690, 699, 700]
[java] 98 is located in the array at index 8
Another similar, but also new, method is deepToString(). This method takes in an object array, and prints out its contents, including the contents of any arrays that it might contain. For example:
String[][] ticTacToe = { {"X", "O", "O"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
System.out.println(Arrays.deepToString(ticTacToe));
Here’s the output:
[java] [[X, O, O], [O, X, X], [X, O, X]]
This starts to really come in handy when you’ve got three or four levels of arrays, and don’t want to take the time to write your own recursion printing routines.
Finally, Arrays provides a deepEquals() method that compares multidimensional arrays:
String[][] ticTacToe = { {"X", "O", "O"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
System.out.println(Arrays.deepToString(ticTacToe));
String[][] ticTacToe2 = { {"O", "O", "X"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
String[][] ticTacToe3 = { {"X", "O", "O"},
{"O", "X", "X"},
{"X", "O", "X"}};
if (Arrays.deepEquals(ticTacToe, ticTacToe2)) {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 2 are equal.");
} else {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 2 are not equal.");
}
if (Arrays.deepEquals(ticTacToe, ticTacToe3)) {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 3 are equal.");
} else {
System.out.println("Boards 1 and 3 are not equal.");
}
As expected, the first comparison returns false, and the second true:
[java] Boards 1 and 2 are not equal.
[java] Boards 1 and 3 are equal.
What About…
…hash codes? Java 101 dictates that every good equals() method should be paired with an equivalent hashCode(), and the Arrays class is no exception. Arrays defines both hashCode() and deepHashCode() methods for just this purpose. I’ll leave it to you to play with these, but they are self-explanatory:
int hashCode = Arrays.deepHashCode(ticTacToe);
Next: Using Queues >>
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 This article was taken from chapter one of Java 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook, written by Brett McLaughlin and David Flanagan (O'Reilly, 2004; ISBN: 0596007388). Check it out at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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