Target Audience

This course is designed for developers with some experience of Java who require an an upgrade to Java 5 ('Tiger') features.

Pre-requisites

The student should be familiar with Java 1.4 or earlier. This experience can be obtained from the Java Primer (ec21) and Java Programming (ec22) courses.

Course Objectives

This course provides students with the skills to use Java 5 features. The syntax of the language features are covered in detail and best practises are discussed. During the course the student will have the opportunity to use the features to ensure that the concepts and statements taught are fully understood and practical experience is gained. The course is taught using a choice of IDE.

Course Environment

Development will be performed using:

•    Eclipse
•    NetBeans
•    Websphere Studio Application Developer
•    Rational Application Developer
•    JBuilder
•    the Java Development Kit (JDK) plus a text editor

Course Details

GENERICS

Parameterised Collections

Parameterised Types And Iterators

Parameterised Maps

Passing Parameterised Types As Method Arguments

Sorting Data With Generics

ADVANCED GENERICS

Type Conversion With Generics

Wildcards

Writing Generic Types

Restricting Type Parameters

Generic Methods

ENUMS

Switching On Enums

Enum Maps

Adding Methods To Enums

AUTOBOXING AND UNBOXING

Incrementing And Decrementing

Comparing Values

Control Statements And Unboxing

Calling Methods And Autoboxing

VARARGS

Sending Arguments

How Do We Use The Data?

ANNOTATIONS

The Override Annotation

The Deprecated Annotation

The Suppresswarnings Annotation

THE FOR-IN STATEMENT

Writing Your Own Iterable Classes

STATIC IMPORTS

Static Imports And Enums

Importing Multiple Members With The Same Name

FORMATTING

Formatting Options

Precision

Width

Argument

Flags

VARIOUS NEW FEATURES

Arrays

Queues

Overriding Return Types

Stringbuilder

Course Format

Practical sessions make up a large part of the course, allowing delegates to demonstrate and reinforce the lectures given. Examples are used extensively. These are supplied at the start of the course and it is encouraged that the delegates execute and ‘experiment’ with these under the instructor’s guidance as they are introduced. These examples are available to take away, along with the delegate’s own work. The comprehensive Student Guide supplied is fully indexed serving as a useful reference tool long after the course has finished. Delegates will also be able to access a free help-line with technical questions relating to topics covered on the course.