Java 5 – Tiger

• Short history.
• Where AP is headed: likely features that
will end up in the subset.
• Other fun features to use if you choose

Java 5.0
 Short History

• Java 1.1 to 1.2 had some language

changes
• From 1.2 until Java 5, essentially no
language feature changes – just additions
to the APIs
• Java 5 – Tiger (originally called 1.5 during
beta) now has many additional language
features
• AP will adopt a couple

Java 5.0
 Generics
• Like “templates” in C++
• Pedagogically, this is more sound. Let’s declare to the
compiler upfront what we’re going to put in – if a student
doesn’t, she’ll get a compiler error. The old way, the runtime
environment would discover that someone didn’t put the
right thing in/out and throw a run-time exception – less
desirable – harder for students. Also, this is now self-
documenting.

Realize that one could put a

ArrayList<Fish> list =
new ArrayList<Fish>();
list.add( new Fish(…) );
Fish f = list.get(0);
Fish or any subclass of Fish
into this list. One could also
choose to put an interface
or abstract class type within
the <>

Java 5.0
 Auto-Boxing/Unboxing

• Automatically put primitives into Wrapper

classes – and go other way as well. Works for
all 8 primitive types and their respective
Wrapper class.
Integer intObj = 1;
int x = intObj;

Yes! Nice!

Java 5.0
int answer = intObj + x;
 More generic Generics examples
(sorry)

Let’s keep track of how many of each color crayon

we have…
Map<String, Integer> crayons =
new TreeMap<String, Integer>();
crayons.put(“red”, 1);
crayons.put(“blue”, 2);
…
int count = crayons.get("blue");
count++;

Java 5.0
crayons.put("blue", count);
 Your Turn!
Declare a structure that would allow you to keep a list of
teacher names (we’d eventually like to print them in
alpha) who have a particular color crayon(we’d like the
crayon colors to also come out in alpha order)
Red crayon  Don, Sharon, Joe, Mike
Blue crayon  Kent, Doug, Dan, Carol
Green crayon  Harlie, Jennifer, Gerard
Yellow crayon  Mark, Sam, Kevin, Norm
Orange crayon  Shirley, Regina, Dave, Jon
(you have 10 minutes – go try – get all the names in and
then print)

Java 5.0
 Here’s one way
Map<String, Set<String>> crayons =
new TreeMap<String, Set<String>>();
Set s = new TreeSet();
s.add("Don");
s.add("Sharon");
s.add("Joe");
s.add("Mike");
crayons.put("red",s);

s = new TreeSet();
s.add("Kent");
s.add("Doug");
s.add("Dan");
s.add("Carol");
crayons.put("blue",s);

Java 5.0
System.out.println(crayons);
 What will AP do?
• So, AP will probably adopt Generics and
Auto-boxing/unboxing for the ’07 exam
– No official word yet – but it’s almost for sure
• May or may not adopt the “For each” loop
– Leads to cleaner questions – so probably

Java 5.0
 “For Each” loop

Fish[] fishes = …;
for (Fish f : fishes)
f.act();

Pros: no OBOB’s – cleaner

Cons: can’t skip 1st, last, increment
some index, delete an element

Java 5.0
 more For Each…

ArrayList<Fish> fishList = …;
for (Fish f : fishList)
f.act();

Java 5.0
 more For Each…

int[] nums = {1,2,3,4,5};

for (int x : nums)
System.out.println(x);

Java 5.0
 more For Each…
public static void setsAreIterable() {
Set<Integer> s =
new TreeSet<Integer>();
s.add(1);
s.add(2);
s.add(3);
for (int x : s)
System.out.println( x );
}

Java 5.0
 more For Each…

• In general, any class that implements

Iterable will allow you to use the “For
Each” loop

Java 5.0
 AP Probably Won’t adopt…

• Scanner
• Variable number of parameters

Java 5.0
 Scanner
// from console
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.print("How old are you?");
int age = in.nextInt();

// from file
String fileName = . . .;
Scanner file = new Scanner(new File(fileName));

Easy – no more third-party packages necessary

Java 5.0
 Variable number of parameters

public static double average(double... values)

{
assert values.length > 0;
double sum = 0;
for (double v : values)
sum += v;
return sum / values.length;
}

Java 5.0
 For more…

• See apcentral.collegeboard.com

Java 5.0