Posts in the “java” category

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Java math FAQ: How do I square a number in Java?

You can square a number in Java in at least two different ways:

1. Multiply the number by itself
2. Call the Math.pow function

Summary: A Java "extract method" refactoring example is demonstrated.

If you don't own a copy of Martin Fowler's Refactoring book, I highly recommend it. The basic idea of refactoring source code is that the code "smells" in one way or another, and there are a variety of ways to improve smelly code. More specifically, Mr. Fowler describes refactoring as this:

Java String formatting FAQ: How can I format Java String output?

One way to format Java string output is with the format method of the String class, which works like a “Java sprintf” method. Here are some examples:

Today I was working with a class that extended the Spring class NamedParameterJdbcDaoSupport, and when I went to use the getNamedParameterJdbcTemplate().queryForObject() method, the third parameter of the method required a Class reference.

Java write/save FAQ: Can you share an example of how to write to a file in Java?

Sure. Here are two "Java file save" or "Java file write" examples, taken from my Java file utilities article (Java file utilities to write, save, open, read, and copy files). I'm not going to explain these too much, but if you need a simple method to write to a file in your Java programs, I hope these methods will help you.

As a brief note, and assuming that you already know a little bit about RxJava, here’s the simplest possible RxJava 2 “Hello, world” example I think you can create:

package hello;

import io.reactivex.Observable;

public class HelloWorld {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Observable<String> observable = Observable.just("Hello, world");
        observable.subscribe(System.out::println);
    }

}

If you ever need a Java method that returns a boolean value based on a given probability, I can confirm that this method works:

/**
 * `probability` should be given as a percentage, such as
 * 10.0 (10.0%) or 25.5 (25.5%). As an example, if `probability` 
 * is 60% (60.0), 100 calls to this function should return ~60 
 * `true` values.
 * (Note that Math.random returns a value >= 0.0 and < 1.0.)
 */
static boolean getRandomBoolean(float probability) {
    double randomValue = Math.random()*100;  //0.0 to 99.9
    return randomValue <= probability;
}

If you want to create and populate a Java ArrayList with Java 9, 11, and newer, you can use this syntax:

List<> ints = ArrayList<Integer>(List.of(1,2,3));

As shown, this uses the usual ArrayList constructor and the Java List.of method. Once you have an ArrayList like this you can continue to add new elements to it as usual:

ints.add(4);

I was just reminded that if you need to print every element in a Java List, you can use the forEach method on the List:

// [1] create a List of strings.
java.util.List<String> listOfStrings = CollectionConverters.asJava(xs);

// [2] print the List of strings using forEach and System.out.println.
// note that there is no need for a 'for' loop.
listOfStrings.forEach(System.out::println);

I can confirm that as of August, 2021, this solution works just fine. So if you ever need to print every element in a Java List — without using a for loop — I hope this example is helpful.

Summary: This page is a printf formatting cheat sheet or reference page. I originally created this cheat sheet for my own programming purposes, and then thought I would share it here.

A great thing about the printf formatting syntax is that the format specifiers you can use are very similar — if not identical — between different languages, including C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Scala, and others. This means that your printf knowledge is reusable, which is a good thing.

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Java/Scala memory FAQ: How do I control the amount of memory my Java program uses (i.e., Java RAM usage)?

Java RAM: Short answer

The short answer is that you use these java command-line parameters to help control the RAM use of application:

Java String FAQ: How do I merge/combine two Java String fields?

You can merge/concatenate/combine two Java String fields using the + operator, as shown in this example code:

I started writing some Java REST (RESTful) clients lately, and in doing so, I've been looking at several different ways to do this, including using the Apache HttpClient project, the Jersey project, Apache CXF, and more.

After writing several recent Model/View/Controller (MVC) pattern articles (A Model View Controller diagram, Model View Controller definitions), I thought it might help to share a real-world implementation of an MVC design. To that end, I’d like to share some information from a Java/Swing GUI application I wrote several years ago to help me in my work with Function Point Analysis (FPA).

Java date/time FAQ: When working with the Timestamp class, how do I create a “Java current timestamp”? For instance, how do I create a JDBC Timestamp object to represent the “current time” (“now”)?

Solution

You can create a “current time” JDBC Timestamp in just a few lines of code, using the Java Calendar class and a java.util.Date instance, as shown in this example code:

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Back when I was interviewing for computer programming positions in Boulder and Louisville, Colorado, I found that many interviewers ask questions about Java serialization. After being asked about serialization for the third time, I remembered an old Java deep clone hack that takes advantage of serialization.

Java array FAQ: Can you share an example of how to sort a Java String array?

Sure. The following source code shows how to sort an array of strings. In short, you can easily sort a string array with the Arrays class sort method, shown in bold below:

Java 5 FAQ: Can you share some examples of the Java 5 for loop syntax?

Sure. As a bit of background, in the days before Java 5 you could create a for loop to iterate over a collection of strings like this:

// assumes there is a method named "getList()"
List list = getList();

for (Iterator it = list.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
  String value=(String)it.next();
}

Java 5 for loop syntax

That’s not too bad, but with the release of Java 5 your for loops can now be a little tighter, like this:

I used the following Scala source code to build a semi-transparent dialog (a Java JFrame, actually) for the second version of Sarah:

Java JFrame FAQ: How do I set the size of a JFrame?

Solution: There are several different ways to set the size of a Java JFrame, but I generally use the setPreferredSize method of the JFrame class in combination with the Java Dimension class, like this:

jframe.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(400, 300));

A JFrame size example

Here's the source code for a complete "JFrame size" example, showing how to use this setPreferredSize method call in an actual Java program.