What's New In Java 5.0

Java language has not changed much since its inception. It changed only twice. Once inner classes were added in JDK 1.1Then in J2SE 1.4 where, assertions were added. J2SE 1.5, code named Tiger, is about a few significant changes to the language. The aim of Java team is to make Java more expressive, safer and easier, of course without sacrificing compatibility with the existing code. J2SE 1.5 beta 2 is currently available for download at java.sun.com. Its size is 43 MB.

The following are the new features introduced in J2SE 1.5.

Generics
Enhanced forloop
Boxing and Unboxing
Static import
Variable Arguments
Enumeration

Generics

Currently when you are reading data from collection classes, you have to type case the objects to the required type before you process it. For this to work, first you have to place objects of the same type in the collection.

However, collection classes such as ArrayList can take any object. But what do we do when we want to have only Strings in a collection. How do you ensure no other type is inserted? Consider the following code in J2SE 1.4.

 // program to convert all strings to uppercase and display
 Iterator itr = al.iterator();
 String st;
 while ( itr.hasNext())
 {
    st = (String)  itr.next();  // works provided object in the collection is of type String
    System.out.println( st.toUpperCase());
 }

The above program fails if an object in the ArrayList of type other than String.

The solution to the problem is to inform the compiler what type of objects we want to have in a collection and let compiler check for appropriate type.

The following code shows how we can inform to compiler about the type of object a collection should support.

void  displayUpper( Collection c)
{
 
 Iterator itr = c.iterator();
 while ( itr.hasNext())
      System.out.println(  itr.next().toUpperCase());
}

The above code needs no type casting because compiler knows that we have only String objects in the collection. It provides compile-time type checking.

Generic are not similar to templates of C++. Java doesn't write another class (like it is in C++) with the specified data type. So no code-size increase will take place. Generics simply provide compile-time type safety and eliminate the need for casts.

In J2SE 1.4, iterating over a collection is lengthy. We have to get an iterator and then use methods like hasNext() and next() to get each object of the collection.

The following is the code to take each element of the collection in J2SE 1.4.

void  display( Collection c)
{
 
 Iterator itr = c.iterator();
 while ( itr.hasNext())
      System.out.println(  itr.next() );
}

Enhanced for loop

J2SE 1.5 introduced a new for loop (borrowed from VB) called foreach. It simplifies the code to access a collection as follows:

void  display( Collection c)
{
  for ( Object obj : c )
      System.out.println(  obj );
}

For each object in collection c the loop is executed by copying the object into obj. As J2SE 1.5 supports generics, for loop can make use of generics as follows:

void  display( Collection c)
{
 
  for (String s : c )
      System.out.println(  s.toUpperCase() );
}

The above code makes use of new for loop to eliminate Iterator and Generic to avoid type casting. What's more about new for loop is that it works even with arrays.

int  a[] = {10,20,30};
 
  for ( int i : a )
    System.out.println( i );

The following function takes an array of strings and returns a single concatenated string.

String concatenate(String st[])
{
  String cs = "";
  for ( String s : st )
       cs  +=  s;
 
  return cs;
}

Boxing and Unboxing

In the current version of J2SE when you have to use an int with collections, it is to be explicitly converted to an object using wrapper class - Integer. The following code demonstrates it.

int n[]= {10,20,30};
ArrayList al = new ArrayList();
 
   for ( int i=0; i < n.length ; i ++)
        al.add  ( new  Integer( n[i]) );   // explicit boxing

Whenever we have to use a standard data type where an object is expected, we have to convert standard type to object using wrapper class. It could be pain if it is to be done many times. Also you have to convert objects back to standard type (unbox) to process the data.

The following code demonstrates explicit unboxing.

  Iterator itr = al.iterator();
  Integer obj;
  int sum  =0;
  while( itr.hasNext())
  {
    obj = (Integer) itr.next();
    sum +=  obj.intValue();    // explicit unboxing
  }

Boxing and Unboxing are automatic in J2SE 1.5. So, no need to explicitly convert the standard types to objects and objects back to standard data types. Just specify the type of the collection then compiler takes care of automatically convert standard type to object and back to standard type.

The following is the code in J2SE 1.5 for the same program given above.

 int n[]= {10,20,30};
 ArrayList al = new ArrayList();
 
  for ( int i=0; i < n.length ; i ++)
       al.add  ( n[i] );   //   automatic boxing
   
  // process data
 
  
  int sum  =0;
 
  for ( Integer i : al)
  {
     sum += i;   //  automatic unboxing  
  }

Static Import

Tiger supports static imports. Static imports are similar to importing classes from packages, but it imports static members of the class.

In J2SE 1.4 or before we had to refer to each static member explicity using the class name. But in Tiger, once you import static members of the class then static members can be accessed directly.

import static  java.lang.Math.*;
public class Test
{
   public static void main(String args[])
   {int n = -20;
    System.out.println( abs(n));  // earlier it was  Math.abs(n)
   }
}

variable Arguments

It is possible in Tiger for a method to take variable number of arguments. Earlier it could be done with the help of an array. But in Tiger, a special syntax is provided to support variable number of arguments. It means a function may have arbitrary number of parameters.

The following function takes variable number of arguments and returns the sum of the given numbers. The parameter values is of type int[].

int sum(int ... values)
{
   int s = 0;
   for ( int e : values)
        s += e;
   return s;
}

Enumeration

Tiger supports enumeration that is similar to what we find in c and C++. Enumeration is a collection of constants. It is also possible to assign values to each constant.

The following example show how to create an enumeration.

enum Season { WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL }

You can also take all values of the enumeration using a for each loop and use it switch statement.

enum Week { MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI,SAT,SUN }
for (Week w : Week.values())
   // do something with w

The following program displays the week and wage to be paid for that week.

enum Week { MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI,SAT,SUN }
class  Test
{
  public static void main(String args[])
  {
       for ( Week w : Week.values())
         System.out.println( w + " : " +  getWage(w));
  }
  public static int getWage(Week w)
  {
     switch(w)
     {
          case MON : return 120;
          case TUE :
          case WED : return 100;
          case THU : 
          case FRI : return 90;
          case SAT : return 130;
          case SUN : return 150;
     }
  }
} // end of class