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Object-Oriented Programming
Outline

Instance variables vs. local variables

Primitive vs. reference types

Object references, object equality

Objects' and variables' lifetime

Parameters passing and return values

Methods overloading

this reference

Input/Output

Readings:
 HFJ: Ch. 3, 4.

 GT: Ch. 3, 4.

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Variables and types

Two kinds of variables: primitive and object reference.

primitive variables hold fundamental types
of values: int, float, char…(*)
byte a = 7;
boolean done = false;

reference variables hold references to objects

(similar to pointers)
Dog d = new Dog();
d.name = "Bruno";
d.bark();

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(*) read textbook 3
Primitive data types

Java’s primitive types:

 Numerical: byte, int, long, float, double

 Logical: boolean (true/false)

 Characters: char

Primitive data are NOT objects

There’re corresponding wrapper classes, useful
when we want to treat primitive values as objects
 Integer, Float, …

Integer count = new Integer(0);
 Provide utility functions: parseInt(), valueOf()…

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 Object references – controlling objects
str str:String
value = “Hello”
str = new String("Hello");
object reference count = 5
the object

There is actually no such thing as an object variable.

There‘re only object reference variables.

An object reference variable represents a way to
access an object, something like a pointer.

Think of an object reference
as a remote control

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Object equality

"==" and "!=" compares references (not objects) to

see if they are refering to the same object.
Integer b = new Integer(10); a==b is true
Integer c = new Integer(10); b==c is false
Integer a = b;

Use the equals() method to see if two objects are

equal. Integer b = new Integer(10);
Integer c = new Integer(10);

if (b.equals(c)) { // true };

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Object equality

Method equals()

Pre-defined classes: Integer m1 = new Integer(10);
Integer m2 = new Integer(10);
 Ready to use System.out.print(m1.equals(m2));

User-created classes:
 equals() must be defined, otherwise, it always returns false

 This is overriding class MyInteger {

(more on that later) private int value;
public boolean equals (MyInteger other) {
return (value == other.value);
}
...
}

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Object references

Dog myDog = new Dog();

Remember: References are not objects!

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 Object's life on the heap

Objects are created in the heap memory
 a constructor is automatically called to initialize it

 the set of parameters determine which constructor to

call and the initial value of the object

Book b = new Book();

Book c =
new Book(“Harry Potter”);

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 Object's life on the heap

when an object is no longer used,

i.e. there's no more reference
to it, it will be collected and
freed by Java garbage collector.

Book b = new Book();

Book c = new Book();
b = c;
There is no way to reach Book object 1.
It is ready to be collected.

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Object's life on the heap

Book b = new Book();

Book c = new Book();
b = c;
c = null;

Book object 1 is waiting to be disallocated.

Book object 2 is safe as b is still referring to it.

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Garbage collection

To reclaim the memory occupied by objects that are no longer in use

Programmers don’t have to disallocate objects

Java Virtual Machine (JVM) performs automatic garbage collection
 Method finalize() is called by JVM, not programmers.

 Guarantee no memory leaks

However, there’s no guarantee when/whether an object is freed

before the program terminates
 Might not needed as memory is still available

 Clean-up tasks must be done explicitly by other “clean-up”

methods rather than finalize()

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12
Instance variables vs. local variables

Instance variables Local variables

belong to an object
belong to a method

located inside the object in
located inside the method's

the heap memory frame in the stack memory

has the same lifetime as the
has the same lifetime as the
object method call.
public class DogTestDrive {
class Dog { public static void main(String []
int size; Dog dog = new Dog();
String breed; dog.name = "Bruno";
String name; dog.bark();
... }
} }

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 Instance variables vs. local variables
Stack memory
Heap memory

object:Dog
name: “Bruno”
breed: null

size:
main’s stack frame

dog

public class DogTestDrive {

class Dog { public static void main(String []
int size; Dog dog = new Dog();
String breed; dog.name = "Bruno";
String name; dog.bark();
... }
} }

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 Instance variables vs. local variables
Stack memory
Heap memory

object:Dog
name: “Bruno”
breed: null

size:
main’s stack frame

dog

Instance variables Local variables

belong to an object
belong to a method

located inside the object in
located inside the method's

the heap memory frame in the stack memory

has the same lifetime as the
has the same lifetime as the
object method call.

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Parameter passing & return value

Java allows only pass-by-value

 That means pass-by-copy

 Argument’s content is copied to the parameter

Dog d = new Dog();

d.bark(3);

class Dog {
...
void bark(int numOfBarks) {
while (numOfBarks > 0) {
System.out.println("ruff");
numOfBarks--; A method uses parameters.
} A caller passed arguments
}
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Parameter passing & return value

A parameter is effectively a local variable that is

initialized with the value of the corresponding
argument.
Dog d = new Dog();
d.bark(3);

class Dog {
something like
...
int numOfBarks = 3;
void bark(int numOfBarks) {
happens at this point
while (numOfBarks > 0) {
System.out.println("ruff");
numOfBarks--;
}
}
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Parameter passing & return value

The return value is copied to the stack, then to the

variable that get assigned (dogSize in this example)

int dogSize = dog.getsize();

these types must match

class Dog {
...
int getSize() {
return size;
}

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Parameter passing & return value

Two kinds of parameters:

 Primitive types

parameter’s value is copied

parameters can be constants, e.g. 10, “abc”…
 Object references

the reference's value is copied, NOT the referred object.

m
n 50

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Example
y, m, d are of primitive data type.
They’ll take the values of the
class Date { passed parameters.
int year, month, day;
public Date(int y, int m, int d) {
year = y; month = m; day = d;
}
public void copyTo(Date d) {
d.year = year; d is a reference.
d.month = month; d will take the values of the
passed parameter, which is
d.day = day; an object location.
}
public Date copy() {
return new Date(day, month, year);
} return a reference to the newly
... created Date object.
} Again, it's a value, not the object

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 Example
...
int thisYear = 2010;
Date d1 = new Date(thisYear, 9, 26);
class Date {
int year, month, day; y = thisYear;
public Date(int y, int m, int d) { m = 9;
year = y; month = m; day = d; d = 26;
} year = y;
public void copyTo(Date d) { month = m;
d.year = year; day = d;
d.month = month;
d.day = day;
}
public Date copy() {
return new Date(day, month, year);
}
...
}
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 Example
...
Date d1 = new Date(thisYear, 9, 26);
Date d2 = new Date(2000, 1, 1);
d1.copyTo(d2);
class Date {
int year, month, day;
public Date(int y, int m, int d) {
year = y; month = m; day = d; d = d2;
} d.year = d1.year;
public void copyTo(Date d) { d.month = d1.month;
d.year = year; d.day = d1.day;
d.month = month;
d.day = day;
}
public Date copy() {
return new Date(day, month, year);
}
...
}
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 Example
...
Date d2 = new Date(2000, 1, 1);
Date d3 = d2.copy();

class Date {
int year, month, day;
public Date(int y, int m, int d) {
year = y; month = m; day = d;
}
public void copyTo(Date d) {
d.year = year; Date temp =
d.month = month; new Date(d2.year, d2.month, d2.day);
d.day = day; d3 = temp;
}
public Date copy() {
return new Date(year, month, day);
}
...
}
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Method overloading

Methods of the same class can have the same

name but different parameter lists.
class Dog { Dog d = new Dog();
...
void bark() { d.bark();
System.out.println("Ruff! Ruff!");
} d.bark(3);
void bark(int numOfBarks) {
while (numOfBarks > 0) {
System.out.println("ruff");
numOfBarks--;
}
}
}

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 Do you still remember?

Instance variables/methods belong to an object.

Thus, when accessing them, you MUST specify
which object they belong to.

dot notation (.) public class DogTestDrive {

and public static void main(String [] args) {
the object Dog d = new Dog();
reference d.name = "Bruno";
d.bark(); access 'name' of the Dog
}
} call its bark() method

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How about this case?
class Dog {
int size; Which object does the object that owns the
String breed; size belong to? current method –
String name; bark() or getBigger()

void bark() {
if (size > 14)
dog1.bark(); //this dog's size get compared
System.out.println("Ruff! Ruff!");
else
dog2.getBigger(); //this dog's size get increased
System.out.println("Yip! Yip!");
}
void getBigger() {
size += 5;
where is the object reference
}
and dot notation?
}

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The this reference
class Dog {
int size; this reference
String breed; was omitted
String name;

void bark() {
if (this.size > 14)
dog1.bark(); //this dog's size get compared
System.out.println("Ruff! Ruff!");
else
dog2.getBigger(); //this dog's size get increased
System.out.println("Yip! Yip!");
}
void getBigger() {
this.size += 5;
}
}

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The this reference

this : the object reference referring to the current
object – the owner of the current method

usage of this:
 explicit reference to object’s attributes and

methods

often omitted
 parameter passing and return value
 calling constructor from inside constructor

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The this reference

class MyInteger {
private int value;
public boolean greaterThan (MyInteger other) {
return (this.value > other.value);
}
public boolean lessThan (MyInteger other) {
return (other.greaterThan(this));
}
public MyInteger increment() {
value++;
return this;
}
}

MyInteger counter = new MyInteger();

counter.increment().increment(); // increased by 2

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Input / output

Details:
 HFJ. Ch.14 / GT. Ch.12

In this slide:
 standard input / output stream

 simple input / output

 simple text file input / output

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Standard I/O

Three stream objects automatically created when a Java

program begins executing:
 System.out : standard output stream object

enables a program to output data to the console

 System.err : standard error stream object

enables a program to output error messages to the console
 System.in : standard input stream object

enables a program to input bytes from the keyboard

Redirect at command line (input and output stream only):

C:\> type input.dat | java AJavaProgram > output.dat

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Standard output and error streams

System.out and System.err can be used directly

 System.out.println("Hello, world!");
 System.err.println("Invalid day of month!");

Note: if you mix up these two streams in your

programs, the output might not end up being
displayed in the same order as the output
instructions.

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Standard input

System.in
 An InputStream object

 must be wrapped before use

Scanner: wrapper that supports input of primitive types and

character strings
 next(): get the next word separated by white spaces

 nextInt(), nextDouble(),…: get the next data item

 hasNext(), hasNextInt(), hasNextDouble(),…: check if there

are data left to be read

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Standard input. Example
// import the wrapper class
import java.util.Scanner;
...
// create Scanner to get input from keyboard
Scanner input = new Scanner( System.in );

// read a word
String s = sc.next());

// read an integer
int i = sc.nextInt();

// read a series of big intergers

while (sc.hasNextLong()) {
long aLong = sc.nextLong();
}

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 Import required
classes
Input from a text file. Example
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.FileInputStream; To deal with errors such
import java.io.IOException; as file-not-found
...
public static void main(String args[]) {
try {
// create Scanner to get input from a file stream
Scanner sc = new Scanner(new FileInputStream("test.dat"));

String s = sc.next()); // read a word

int i = sc.nextInt(); // read an integer
while (sc.hasNextLong()) { // read a series of big intergers
long aLong = sc.nextLong();
}
Open and close
the text file
sc.close();

} catch(IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
...
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 Write to a text file. Example
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
...
public static void main(String args[]) {
int i = 1; long l = 10;
try {
// create a printwriter to write output to a file stream
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("test.data"));

// write to file
out.println("Hello " + i + " " + l);

out.close();
} catch(IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
...

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Command-line parameters

//CmdLineParas.java: read all command-line parameters

public class CmdLineParas {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
//display the parameter list
for (int i=0; i<args.length; i++)
System.out.println(args[i]);
}
}
}
C:\>java CmdLineParas hello world
hello
world

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