Case Studies - Technical Articles Index

An index to various technical articles on the web.

Basics

• Accessing the environment from Java applications
• Constructor and Initialization Ordering
• Class and Object initialization
• Default Constructors
• Destroying Objects
• How arguments are passed to Java methods
• Interfaces and Constants
• Narrowing and Widening Conversions
• Overload Resolution
• Shadowing
• Understanding Expression Evaluation Order
• Using Assertions
• Using Import Declarations
• Using Variable length argument lists

Class Design

• Abstract Classes
• Abstract Classes vs Interfaces
• Anonymous Classes
• Cloning Objects
• Java Design Patterns 101 (Developerworks tutorial)
• Joshua Bloch: A conversation about design
• Local Classes
• Making defensive copies of objects
• Making deep copies of objects
• Returning multiple values from a method
• Using Adapters
• Using Class methods and variables
• Use stack variables whenever possible
• When not to Overload Methods

Collections

• Using Java Collections
• Collection Utilities
• Choosing a Collections Framework Implementation
• Using Iterators
• Maintaining Insertion order in Collections
• Maintaining a Priority Queue
• Manipulating Arrays
• Sorting Arrays
• Sorting Lists
• Sorting with Comparators(Using Method Pointers)
• The Enumeration interface
• The RandomAccess Interface
• Using ArrayList and LinkedList
• Using Enumerations in Java Programming
• Using HashSet, LinkedHashSet and TreeSet
• Using Hashtable
• Using List Collections efficiently
• Using the LinkedHashMap Class
• Using Sets
• Using Vector in the Collections Framework
• Using Zero-Length Arrays

Exceptions

• Using Exceptions
• Finally clauses
• Guidelines and tips on when and how to use exceptions
• Handling InterruptedExceptions
• Handling Uncaught Exceptions
• Reusing Exceptions
• Stack Trace Elements
• Use the finally keyword to avoid resource leaks
• Using finally vs finalize for resource cleanup
• Why finalizers should (and can) be avoided

Graphics

• Blending Images
• Drawing and rendering simple graphic images without suffering a serious performance hit
• Providing a Scalable Image Icon
• Using the BitSet Class

I/O

• Capturing standard output in a log file
• Converting Pathnames to URLs
• File Channles
• Filter Streams
• I/O Redirection
• Improving Java I/O Performance
• Improving I/O Performance with buffering
• Improving Serialization performance with Externalizable
• Piped Streams
• Programming with Buffers
• Programming with File Attributes
• Random Access for Files
• Reading and writing Unicode using I/O Stream Encodings
• Reading from Output Streams
• Serialization in the real world
• Serialization and Transient values
• Temporary Files
• Using Charsets and Encodings
• Using Checksums
• Using ReadResolve
• Using the PushbackReader Class
• Using the Serialiazable Fields API

HTML

• Extracting links from an HTML document

Java Tools/Extras

• A custom utility class for JavaHelp software
• Adding Help to your applications with JavaHelp software
• Capturing Audio with the Sound API
• Creating a HelpSet with JavaHelp software
• Fundamentals of JavaMail API
• Generating custom taglets (JavaDoc)
• Getting started with Java Management Extensions (JMX)
• Reading files from Java Archives (Jars) (An addendum to this article)
• Sending mail with the JavaMail API

Math

• BigDecimal
• Character (using the Character class)
• Formatting BigDecimal Numbers
• Format currencies
• Format Dates
• Formatting Decimal Numbers
• Generating integer random numbers
• Performing exact calculations with floating-point numbers
• Representing currencies
• Some things you should know about Floating Point Arithmetic
• Using Random Numbers for Testing and Simulation
• Working with Number Bases (binary, decimal, octal, hex)

Miscellaneous

• Compiling source directly from a program
• Converting C programs to Java
• Discovering the calling methods name
• Goto statements and Java programming
• Invoking programs from Java applications
• Unpacking Zip files
• Producing MIDI Sound
• Using Method Pointers
• Using runtime.exec to invoke child processes

Optimization

• A Memory Testbed Application / Controlling your Memory Manager

Patterns

• Employ Factory Methods to best advantage
• Singleton: Limit class instances with a modified singleton
• Singleton: Creating thread-safe singletons

Reflection

• Reflection
• Using java.lang.Class
• Using Reflection to Create Class Instances
• Using Reflection to test methods and classes

RMI

• Dynamic Class Loading in RMI
• The LifeCycle of an RMI Server
• Using RMI to access legacy databases
• A Java RMI server framework

Strings

• String vs StringBuffer
• Collators
• Interning Strings
• Optimizing String Performance
• String Concatenation and Performance
• Optimizing StringBuffer Usage
• StringBuffer editing
• String tokenization using StreamTokenizer
• String tokenization using StringTokenizer
• Using BreakIterator to parse text
• Using the CharSequence Interface
• Using the java.lang.Character class
• Writing toString Methods

Swing

• Automating GUI programs with java.awt.Robot
• Borders
• Build a better GUI
• Creating a File Chooser
• Create a Splash Screen
• Creating Image Thumbnails
• Creating Modal Internal Frames (with a JOptionPane)
• Creating Round buttons
• Creating Tree Tables, Part 1, Part 2,
• Custom Carets (cursors)
• Cut, Copy and Paste
• Displaying element level tool tips for Swing components
• Drag and Drop Fundamentals
• Drag and Drop, Part 1 , Part 2
• Dragging Text and Images with Swing
• Effective Layout Management
• Fonts (working with)
• Handling Keyboard Focus
• JColorChooser
• JFileChooser
• JFileChooser(Implementing type-ahead feature)
• JFormattedTextField (and regular expresssions)
• JList (advanced programming)
• JList (Making sure your JList index is visible)
• JMenu (displaying large menus)
• JScrollableDesktopPane (create a virtual, scrollable desktop)
• JSpinner(selecting from an ordered list)
• JTabbedPane
• JTable (cell rendering)
• JTable (displaying multi-column lists)
• Set your table options
• JTextField (validating numerical input)
• JTextPane
• JToolTips (customizing)
• JTree (manipulating hierarchical data)
• JTree (understanding TreeModel)
• Keymaps
• Loading text files in Swing efficiently
• Look and Feel
• Make a Splash Screen in Swing
• Performance secrets in Swing
• Press Esc to close Dialog windows
• Printing in Swing
• Saving and reconstituting Swing components
• Tracking locations in a Document
• Undoing Text edits
• Using Swing Timers
• Using the GraphicsEnvironment class
• Swing model filtering (Using filter objects to reinterpret data and state models)
• The Java Foundation Classes(The new standard for Java GUI development)
• Using Progress bars and Monitors in Java GUI Applications
• Using Timers in Swing Applications

Text in Swing

• Converting Numeric Entities
• Displaying Multiline text
• Displaying text in multiple styles
• Text Overview
• Text attributes
• Modeling Text in Documents
• Pattern Matching (java.util.regex)
• The Element Interface
• Tabbing
• Sizing text with FontMetrics
• Customizing a Text Editor
• Concurrency in Swing Text

Threads

• Acquire multiple locks in a fixed, global order
• Do not reassign the object reference of a locked object
• Ease your multithreaded application programming (Producer-Consumer)
• Exploiting ThreadLocal to enhance scalability
• Can ThreadLocal solve the double-checked locking problem?
• Minimizing the overhead of synchronized blocks
• Multi-threading in Java programs
• Piped Streams (to communicate between threads)
• Programmatically choose threads for notification
• Protecting shared resources with synchronized blocks
• Understand that for methods, synchronized locks objects, not methods or code
• Using synchronized or volatile when accessing shared variables
• Using Synchronized Statements
• Using Timers to run tasks on a background thread
• Writing efficient thread safe classes