Book Image

Java Fundamentals

By : Gazihan Alankus, Rogério Theodoro de Brito, Basheer Ahamed Fazal, Vinicius Isola, Miles Obare
Book Image

Java Fundamentals

By: Gazihan Alankus, Rogério Theodoro de Brito, Basheer Ahamed Fazal, Vinicius Isola, Miles Obare

Overview of this book

Since its inception, Java has stormed the programming world. Its features and functionalities provide developers with the tools needed to write robust cross-platform applications. Java Fundamentals introduces you to these tools and functionalities that will enable you to create Java programs. The book begins with an introduction to the language, its philosophy, and evolution over time, until the latest release. You'll learn how the javac/java tools work and what Java packages are - the way a Java program is usually organized. Once you are comfortable with this, you'll be introduced to advanced concepts of the language, such as control flow keywords. You'll explore object-oriented programming and the part it plays in making Java what it is. In the concluding chapters, you'll get to grips with classes, typecasting, and interfaces, and understand the use of data structures, arrays, strings, handling exceptions, and creating generics. By the end of this book, you will have learned to write programs, automate tasks, and follow advanced courses on algorithms and data structures or explore more advanced Java courses.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Java Fundamentals
Preface

Introduction


So far, we have looked at programs that consist of a series of statements that the Java compiler executes sequentially. However, in certain cases, we might need to perform actions based on the current state of the program.

Consider the example of the software that's installed in an ATM machine – it performs a set of actions, that is, it allows a transaction to occur when the PIN that's been entered by the user is correct. However, when the PIN that's been entered is incorrect, then the software performs another set of actions, that is, it informs the user that the PIN does not match and asks the user to reenter the PIN. You'll find that such logical constructs that depend upon values or stages are present in almost all real-world programs.

There are also times where a particular task might need to be performed repeatedly, that is, for a particular time duration, for a particular set number of times, or until a condition is met. Continuing from our example of the ATM machine,...