Chapter 1 –
Java Programming Constructs
- Mrs. Apurwa Barve
Fundamentals of OOP
• Abstraction :
✔We focus on the essential qualities of some thing rather than one specific example and we
automatically discard what is unimportant or irrelevant.
✔Demonstrated through Data abstraction and Process abstraction
✔Promotes maintability.
✔Reduces complexity
✔Simplifies things at design level
✔Focus is on “WHAT”
✔Java achieves abstraction through abstract class and interface
Activity 1.1
1. Consider a class, Car. Apply abstraction (data and procedural) to finalise the attributes and
methods of this class. Discuss within the class how you will finalise the WHAT component of the
class Car
2. Consider a class, Bottle. Apply abstraction (data and procedural) to finalise the attributes and
methods of this class. Discuss within the class how you will finalise the WHAT component of the
class Bottle
3. Consider a class Laptop. Apply abstraction (data and procedural) to finalise the attributes and
methods of this class. Discuss within the class how you will finalise the WHAT component of the
class Laptop
Fundamentals of OOP
• Encapsulation :
✔Binding code and data together in a single unit
✔Wrapping components together to keep them safe from misuse and manipulation
✔A well defined interface controls the access to the code and data.
✔Implemented through class, private access modifier and getter-setter methods
Activity 1.2
1. Consider a class BankAccount. Identify its data members i.e instance variables and methods.
2. Identify if we can implement encapsulation through accessors and mutators.
3. Code the class using the IDE.
Fundamentals of OOP
• Polymorphism :
✔One feature delivering different functionality depending on the situation.
✔One interface, multiple methods.
✔It is the job of the compiler to select specific functionality based on the situation.
✔Method overloading is the type of STATIC or COMPILE time polymorphism
✔Method overriding is the type of DYNAMIC or RUN time polymorphism
Activity 1.3.1 – Method overloading
1. Write a class Printer. Add some attributes of the same. In this class, add a method, print(). The
class object invokes one version of print() for black and white prints and another for printing
coloured prints. Achieve this using method overloading. Add a PolymorphismDemo class
containing main(). Create objects of the necessary classes and invoke print() versions. Observe
the output messages and understand the flow of the program.
Refer Printer.java
Fundamentals of OOP
• Inheritance :
✔ Allows creation of hierarchies having classes which follow IS-A relationship
✔ The class from which you inherit is the SUPERCLASS the class which inherits is the SUBCLASS.
✔ The superclass defines GENERAL attributes and methods. Subclass defines SPECIFIC attributes and methods.
✔ ‘extends’ is the keyword which connects a subclass to the superclass.
syntax :
class subclassName extends superclassName
//body of subclass
}
Activity 1.4.1
1. Write a class Animal with attributes, age,gender,weight and methods, eat(),sleep(),details().
2. Write a class Mammal with attributes, litterSize, gestationPeriod.
3. Write a class Dog with attributes, tailLength, isTrained and methods getTrained()
4. Connect Mammal class and Dog class such that we form a hierarchy of classes using Inheritance
5. Write a InheritanceDemo.java class containing main(). Instantiate all the classes and call methods
using the respective objects. Observe the flow of program execution and output.
Activity 1.4.1
6. Use following combinations of references and objects for method invocation and observe the flow of
the program.
a. Superclass reference = superclass object
reference.superclassMethod();
reference.subclassMethod()
b. superclass reference = subclass object
reference.superclassMethod();
reference.subclassMethod()
c. Subclass reference = subclass object
reference.superclassMethod();
reference.subclassMethod()
d. subclass reference = superclass object
reference.superclassMethod();
reference.subclassMethod()
Activity 1.4.2 – Method overridding
1. In the previous class, Animal, add a method, sound(). In the Dog class override the sound() to print
the message, “Dogs bark”. Add one more class, Lion. Make it the subclass of Animal. In the
sound() of Lion class print the message, “Lion roars”. In the PolymorphismDemo class containing
main(). Create objects of the necessary classes and invoke sound() on each object. Observe the
output messages and understand the flow of the program.
Refer Animal.java, Dog.java, Lion.java and PolymorphismDemo.java
Activity 1.4.3 – Accesing members of the class
1. In Animal class, add an attribute, diet. Make it private.
2. In InheritanceDemo.java where we have created the objects for all the classes, add print
statements and access the diet attribute using ‘object.attribute’ syntax. Observe the flow of the
program and the output.
It is not possible to access private members of the class from anywhere OUTSIDE that class. Such
members are NOT inherited by any subclasses of the said class.
Process of object creation
✔ Consider the code statement given below:
objA = new A();
The above statement creates a new object, objA of the class A. This is called INSTANTIATING a class. This single
statement goes through 3 steps as given below:
a. Declaration -
objA – This part of the above statement declares a reference having a certain name. Object names in
Java start with a small letter and follow camel casing in case of multiple words.
b. Initialization -
new – This is an operator in Java which allocates memory to the object being created.
A() – This calls the constructor on the object who has been just allocated memory. The constructor then
initializes the object.
c. Assignment
The ‘=‘ sign in the above statement assigns the address/location of the freshly created and initialized
object to the reference on its left. Thus after the execution of the above statement, the reference
becomes the pointer to the object of the given class.
Constructor and Constructor Chaining
✔Java allows objects to initialize themselves when they are created. This automatic initialization is
performed through the use of a constructor.
✔A constructor initializes an object immediately upon creation. Once defined, the constructor is
automatically called when the object is created, before the new operator completes.
✔It has the same name as the class in which it resides and is syntactically similar to a method.
✔Constructors look a little strange because they have no return type, not even void. This is because
the implicit return type of a class’s constructor is the class type itself.
Activity 1.5
1. Revisit the classes which you have created and add constructor in Animal, Mammal, Dog and Lion
classes. Add some print statements in each constructor.
2. Observe the sequence of statements in the output.
3. From what you observe discuss what is Constructor Chaining?
Constructor Types and Overloading
✔Default constructor - If no explicit constructor is specified, then Java will automatically supply a
default constructor
✔Non parameterized constructor – A constructor which is explicitly added to the class but takes no
arguments.
✔Parameterized constructor – A constructor which is explicitly added to the class and has
parameters which take arguments at runtime.
Activity 1.5
Add one more constructor to Animal class such that it accepts some parameter. Create objects of
Animal class using non parameterised constructor and parameterised constructor. Observe which
version of the constructor is called when.
Discuss how does the compiler choose which constructor to call?
Having more that one forms of constructors in the class is called constructor
overloading
super keyword
✔super used in any form allows the sub class to access its immediate super class member.
✔In a constructor super() or super(arg1,ar2,.argn) will invoke either the non-parameterized or
parameterized versions of the immediate superclass constructor respectively. If used in a
constructor, it has to be the first code statement.
✔In a method, super(arg1,arg2,..argn) will invoke the matching overridden version of the superclass
method.
✔It can be used to access a variable of the superclass.
Activity 1.6
1. To the constructor of Dog class add super() to invoke the parameterised constructor of its immediate superclass.
2. In the sound() in Lion class, add super to invoke the immediate superclass version of sound()
3. Override details() in Mammal class. Add print statements to print the details of the mammal object. Use super with the
superclass variables and show how they are accessed from within a subclass.
Activity 1.7 - Understanding this keyword wrt variables
1. Add the following parameterised constructor to Dog class.
Local Local
variable variable
Attempt to
initialise
Instance
Observe the
variables of
output on
the same
the console
name as
local
variables
Activity 1.7 - Understanding this keyword wrt variables
2. Add the following statements to details() within Dog class
Printing values of instance variables which should have been initialised in the constructor after
changes done in step 1.
Run the code and observe the output on the console
Discuss why the instance variables do NOT have the same values as the local variables
despite the initialization in the constructor
this keyword - avoiding instance variable hiding
dgObj
✔ In the previous example, the instance variables of Dog class are:
tailLength
isTrained
Dog(double tailLength,
✔ The local variables in the parameterised constructor are:
boolean isTrained)
tailLength = tailLength
isTrained = isTrained
✔The object, dgObj, looks like :
dgObj
✔The names of the instance variables and local variables are tailLength
isTrained
SAME. This casues naming conflict.
Dog(double tailLength,
boolean isTrained)
✔ The local variable HIDES the instance variable hence values
tailLength = tailLength
from the local variables from within the constructor DO NOT get isTrained = isTrained
assigned to the instance variables.
Activity 1.8 - Understanding this keyword wrt variables
Modify the parameterised constructor to Dog class using this keyword.
Local Local
variable variable
Attempt to
initialise
Instance
variables of
the same
name as
local
variables
using this
Observe the output on the
keyword
console
this keyword - avoiding instance variable hiding
✔ this can be used inside any method to refer to the current object.
✔In case of naming conflict between local variables and instance variables, this keyword is used to
refer to the instance variables as they belong to the object.
✔Similarly, this() is used to invoke a specific copy of the overloaded method from within another
overloaded method. (Refer Dog.java)
✔this() when used within an overloaded constructor will help in calling another version of that
constructor (Refer ThisExample.java)
Parameter passing
✔The way arguments are passed to the method at runtime determines parameter passing in that
language.
✔Other languages allow two ways in which parameters are passed as arguments to the called
method. These two ways are, call by value and call by reference.
✔Java permits ONLY call by value.
✔It handles primitive parameters and object(s) as parameter(s) using call by value approach but
they are handled differently.
Activity 1.9.1 Parameter passing primitives
1. Add a class Student having the attributes, rollNbr, name, course, semester, course1, course2, course3,
course4, course5, percentage, grade.
2. Using a parameterized constructor, assign the values of rollNbr, name, course, semester, course1, course2,
course3, course4, course5 to the newly created object.
3. Write a ArgumentPassingDemo class containing main(). Create object of Student class and initialise the object
with the necessary values.
Activity 1.9.2 Parameter passing primitives
1. Create a class Marksheet having attributes totalMarks, percentage, grade. This class should have business
methods such as, calculateGrade() which takes the marks in each course as parameters and calculates the
total and percentage. If the percentage is less than 50% then the grade is F (Fail), if the percentage is between
51 and 59 then the grade is P (pass) , if the percentage is between 60 and 70 then the grade is G (Good) , if
the percentage is between 71 and 75 then the percentage is E (Excellent) and if the percentage is above 75
then the grade is O (Outstanding).
2. Add another method, printMarksheet() which prints the recently calculated percentage and grade of the student.
3. Create object of Marksheet class in the Demo class and invoke the necessary methods from there.
4. Check the status of percentage and grade attributes of Student class object whose marks were used to
calculate the total and percentage in points 1 and 2.
Understand how primitives are passed in this example.
Activity 1.9.3 Parameter passing - passing Object
1. In the Marksheet class written before, overload the method, calculateGrade(), to accept Student object. From
within this overloaded method, use the Student class object course attributes to access individual course
marks. Calculate the total, percentage and grade. Now assign the values of percentage and grade to the
Student object’s instance variables, percentage and grade respectively.
2. Now overload printMarksheet() to take Student class object as an argument. Access the necessary attributes
of this object and print those in the marksheet.
Understand how Objects are passed in this example.
Discuss which approach should be used when – pass primitives v/s pass object as argument?
final keyword
ü final is one of the non-access keywords given by Java.
ü It can be used with variables, methods and class
ü final with variable :
§ It prevents the value of that variable from getting changed. Thus the variable acts like a CONSTANT.
§ Variable declared as final should either be initialized at the time of declaration or within the constructor.
§ It is common coding convention to name the final variable in ALL CAPS.
§ Instance variables, local variables from within the method and local variables passed as arguments all
can be declared as FINAL.
Activity 1.10 final variable
Refer FinalVariableExample.java – Here we are trying to provide ticket booking system using our class. We
take the day of the weak from the user. For each day there is an upper limit fixed for available tickets. Only
those many tickets can be sold. We also have a fixed value for TOTAL TICKETS.
The user can book as many tickets as the user wants by invoking the relevant booking method. If the tickets
are available, we calculate the booking amount and ask the user to pay that much. Else we display a
message that the booking could not be completed.
final keyword
ü final with method :
§ It prevents the method from getting overridden.
§ This prevents the subclass from making any changes to the original, superclass implementation of the
method.
Activity 1.10.1 final method
1. Write a class, CharacterUtility.java. This class should have the following methods, countVowels(String str) and
countOccurance(char ch,String str).
2. Make both the methods, final.
3. Write another subclass, MyCharacterUtility.java extending CharacterUtility.java. Override countVowels(String
str). Observe what happens.
final keyword
ü final with class :
§ It prevents the class from getting inherited.
§ This prevents any other class from becoming a subclass of the original class.
§ Which classes in Java are final?
Activity 1.10.2 final class
1. Write a class, CharacterUtility.java. This class should have the following methods, countVowels(String str) and
countOccurance(char ch,String str).
2. Make the class, final.
3. Write another subclass, MyCharacterUtility.java extending CharacterUtility.java. Observe what happens.
final keyword
ü We can conclude that use of final keyword
with a variable – prevents changes to the variable
with a method – prevents method overriding
with a class – prevents class inheriting
static keyword
ü When we use the non-access keyword static for a variable or method, we allow it to be used independently.
ü static keyword can be used for variables and methods.
ü Such data element can be used without creating a class object. So, it does not need the following syntax,
object.dataMember
ü public static void main(String arg[]) is a popular static method in Java. Understand its significance and syntax.
ü From Java 8, static methods are allowed in the interface too.
Activity 1.11 static variable
Refer StaticExample.java – Here we are trying to provide ticket booking system using our class. We take
the day of the weak from the user. For each day there is an upper limit fixed for available tickets. Only those
many tickets can be sold. We also have a fixed value for TOTAL TICKETS.
There are multiple users booking the tickets from different ticket windows.
Each user can book as many tickets as the user wants by invoking the relevant booking method. If the tickets
are available, we calculate the booking amount and ask the user to pay that much. Else we display a
message that the booking could not be completed.
Thank You
