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Unit objectives
 Aftercompleting this unit, you should be
able to:
 Outline naming conventions used by Java
programs
 Construct a valid identifier
 Describe the Java primitive data types, and
explain how and why each one is used
 Declare and initialize Java variables and arrays
 Identify reserved words

Identifiers
 Identifiers are:
 Text strings that represent variables, methods,
classes or labels
 Case-sensitive
 Characters can be digit, letter, '$' or '_'
 Identifiers cannot:
 Begin with digit
 Be the same as a reserved word

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Java is case-sensitive
 Java is case-sensitive
 yourname, yourName, Yourname, YourName are
four different identifiers
 •Conventions:
 Package: all lower case
 theexample
 Class: initial upper case, composite words with
upper case
 TheExample
 Method/field: initial lower, composite words with
upper case
 theExample
 Constants: all upper case
 THE_EXAMPLE

Reserved words
A literal is the source code
 Literals representation of a value of a
 null true false primitive type, the String
type,or the null type.
 Keywords

 Reserved for future use

 const goto

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Java Types
 There are two kinds of types
 PrimitiveType
 Integer

 Float

 Character

 Boolean

 ReferenceType
 ClassOrInterfaceType

 TypeVariable

 ArrayType

Java primitives
 Every variable must have a data type
 Primitive data types contain a single value
 The size and format of a primitive data type are
suited to its type

 Java has four categories of primitives

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Primitives:integers
 Signed whole numbers
 Initialized to zero

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Primitives:floating points
 “General” numbers (can have fractional parts)
 Initialized to zero

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Primitives: characters
 Anyunsigned Unicode character is a char
primitive data type
A character is a single Unicode character
between two single quotes
 Initialized to zero (\u0000)

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Primitives: booleans
 boolean values are distinct in Java
 An int value can NOT be used in place of a boolean
 A boolean can store either true or false

 Initialized to false

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Literals
A literal is a value
 Six kinds:
 integer
 floating point
 boolean
 character
 String
 null

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Primitive literals: integers

 Octals are prefixed with a zero
 032
 Hexadecimals are prefixed with a zero and an
x
 0x1A
 Follow a literal with “L” to indicate a long
 26L
 Upper and lower case are equivalent

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Primitive literals: floating point

 float literals end with an f (or F)
 7.1f

 double literals end with a d (or D)

 7.1D

e (or E) is used for scientific notation

 7.1e2

A floating point number with no final letter is

a double
 7.1 is the same as 7.1d

 Upper and lower case are equivalent

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Primitive literals: escape sequences

 Somekeystrokes can be simulated with an escape
sequence
 \b (backspace BS, Unicode \u0008)
 \t (horizontal tab HT, Unicode \u0009)
 \n (linefeed LF, Unicode \u000a)
 \f (form feed FF, Unicode \u000c)
 \r (carriage return CR, Unicode \u000d)
 Some characters may need to be escaped when used
in string literals
 \" (double quote “, Unicode \u0022)
 \’ (single quote ’ , Unicode \u0027)
 \\ (backslash \, Unicode \u005c)
 Hexadecimal Unicode values can also be written
‘\uXXXX’

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Casting primitive types

 Java is a strictly typed language
 Assigning the wrong type of value to a variable
could result in a compile error or a JVM exception
 Castinga value allows it to be treated as
another type
 TheJVM can implicitly promote from a
narrower type to a wider type
 Tochange to a narrower type, you must cast
explicitly

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Implicit versus explicit casting

 Casting is automatically done when no loss
of information is possible

 Anexplicit cast is required when there is a

"potential" loss of accuracy

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Declarations and initialization

 Variables must be declared before they can be
used
 Singlevalue variables (variables that are not
arrays) must be initialized before their first use
in an expression
 Declarations and initializations can be combined
 Use = for assignment (including initialization)
 Examples:

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Arrays
 Arrays must also be declared before use
 Have fixed size
 May be specified by a literal, by an expression, or
implicitly
 May be optionally initialized
 Have default values depending on their type
 Are always zero-based (array[0] is the first element)
 Examples:

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Operators and precedence

 Operators are the “glue” of expressions
 Precedence – which operator is evaluated first
– is determined explicitly by parentheses or
implicitly as follows:

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Comments
 Java supports three kinds of comments:

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Statements
 Statements are terminated by a semicolon
 Several statements can be written on one
line
A statement can be split over several lines

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Conditional statement: if-else

 Conditional expression must evaluate to a
boolean
 The else clause is optional
 Braces are not needed for single statements
but are highly recommended for clarity

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Shortcut for if-else: the ternary

operator
 Shortcut for if-else statement:
 (<boolean-expr> ? <true-choice> : <false-choice>)

 Can result in shorter code

 Make sure code is still readable

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Conditional statement: switch

 Testsa single variable for several alternative
values and executes the corresponding case
 Any case without break will “fall through”
 Next case will also be executed
 default
clause handles values not explicitly
handled by a case

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Looping statements: while and

do…while
 Executes a statement or block as long as
the condition remains true
 while() executes zero or more times
 do...while() executes at least once

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Looping statement: for

A for loop executes the statement or block { } that
follows it
 Evaluates "start expression" once
 Continues as long as the "test expression" is true
 Evaluates "increment expression" after each iteration
A variable can be declared in the for statement
 Typically used to declare a "counter" variable
 Typically declared in the “start” expression
 Its scope is restricted to the loop

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for versus while

 These statements provide equivalent
functionality
 Each can be implemented in terms of the other
 These looping structures are typically used in
different situations
 while tends to be used for open-ended looping
 for tends to be used for looping over a fixed number
of iterations

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Branching statements
 break
 Can be used outside a switch statement
 Terminates a for, while or do...while loop
 Two forms:
 Labeled: execution continues at next statement after labeled loop
 Unlabeled: execution continues at next statement outside loop

 continue
 Like break, but merely skips the remainder of this iteration of the
loop, then continues by evaluating the boolean expression of the
innermost loop
 Labeled and unlabeled forms
 return
 Exits the current method
 May include an expression to be returned
 Type must match method’s return type
 A void return type means no value can be returned

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Sample branching statements

• break
• Can be used outside a switch statement
• Terminates a for, while or do...while loop
• Two forms:
• Labeled: execution continues at next statement after labeled loop
• Unlabeled: execution continues at next statement outside loop

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Scope
A variable's scope is the region of a program
within which the variable can be referenced
 Variables declared in a method can only be
accessed in that method
 Variables declared in a loop or a block can only be
accessed in that loop or block

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