How to build a macOS application from a Java Jar file
In this article I’ll show how to build a macOS application from a Java Jar file. I tested this with Java 1.8 on macOS 10.12.5 (Sierra) on June 29, 2017.
Three assumptions in this process are:
A ‘printf’ format reference page (cheat sheet)
Summary: This page is a printf formatting cheat sheet. I originally created this cheat sheet for my own purposes, and then thought I would share it here.
A cool thing about the printf formatting syntax is that the specifiers you can use are very similar, if not identical, between several different languages, including C, C++, Java, Perl, Ruby, and others, so your knowledge is reusable, which is a good thing.
The rationale for Optional (in Java)
Wesley Reisz shared this nice image titled, “The Rationale for Optional” (in Java). Optional in Java is similar to Option in Scala.
How to search multiple jar files for a string or pattern (shell script)
Here’s a Unix shell script that I use to search Java JAR files for any type of pattern. You can use it to search for the name of a class, the name of a package, or any other string/pattern that will show up if you manually ran jar tvf on each jar file. The advantage of this script — if you’re a Unix, Linux, or Cygwin user — is that it will search through all jar files in the current directory:
How to write a Java method that returns a generic type (syntax)
As a quick note, if you need some examples of the syntax of how to write a Java method that returns a generic type, I hope these are helpful:
A Java method to round a float value to the nearest one-half value
As a quick note, here’s a Java method that will round a float to the nearest half value, such as 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, etc.:
/**
* converts as follows:
* 1.1 -> 1.0
* 1.3 -> 1.5
* 2.1 -> 2.0
* 2.25 -> 2.5
*/
public static float roundToHalf(float f) {
return Math.round(f * 2) / 2.0f;
}
The comments show how this function converts the example float values to their nearest half value, so I won’t add any more comments here.
A Java “approximately equal” method (function)
As a quick note, here’s the source code for a Java “approximately equal” function that I use in an Android application:
How to iterate (loop) over the elements in a Map in Java 8
If you need to iterate over the elements in a Map in Java 8, this source code shows how to do it:
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
map.put("first_name", "Alvin");
map.put("last_name", "Alexander");
// java 8
map.forEach((k,v)->System.out.println("key: " + k + ", value: " + v));
Modern garbage collection
From the article: “The reality is that Go’s GC does not really implement any new ideas or research. As their announcement admits, it is a straightforward concurrent mark/sweep collector based on ideas from the 1970s. It is notable only because it has been designed to optimise for pause times at the cost of absolutely every other desirable characteristic in a GC.
A Java tuple class (Tuple2 or Pair, if you prefer)
After working with Scala for a long time, I had to come back to Java for a while to work on an Android app. Right away I missed a lot of things from the Scala world, including all of the built-in Scala collection methods, and other things as simple as the Scala Tuple classes.
If you haven’t used them before, a Scala Tuple class lets you write code like this:
Tuple<String, Integer> t = new Tuple<>("age", 41);
If you’re comfortable with generics, the Java implementation of a Tuple class like this is simple: