Essentials of the Java Programming TM

Language: A Hands-On Guide, Part 1

by Monica Pawlan

If you are new to programming in the Java language, have some

TM

experience with other languages, and are familiar with things like
displaying text or graphics or performing simple calculations, this
tutorial could be for you. It walks through how to use the Java® 2
Platform software to create and run three common types of programs
written for the Java platform—applications, applets, and servlets.

You will learn how applications, applets, and servlets are similar and
different, how to build a basic user interface that handles simple end
user input, how to read data from and write data to files and
databases, and how to send and receive data over the network. This
tutorial is not comprehensive, but instead takes you on a straight and
uncomplicated path through the more common programming features
available in the Java platform.

If you have no programming experience at all, you might still find this
tutorial useful; but you also might want to take an introductory
programming course or read Teach Yourself Java 2 Online in Web Time
before you proceed.

Contents

Lesson 1: Compiling and Running a Simple Program

 A Word About the Java Platform

 Setting Up Your Computer

 Writing a Program

 Compiling the Program

 Interpreting and Running the Program

 Common Compiler and Interpreter Problems

  Code Comments

 API Documentation

 More Information

Lesson 2: Building Applications

 Application Structure and Elements

 Fields and Methods

 Constructors

 To Summarize

 More Information

Lesson 3: Building Applets

 Application to Applet

 Run the Applet

 Applet Structure and Elements

 Packages

 More Information

Lesson 4: Building a User Interface

 Swing APIs

 Import Statements

 Class Declaration

 Global Variables

 Constructor

 Action Listening

 Event Handling
  Main Method

 Applets Revisited

 More Information

Lesson 5: Writing Servlets

 About the Example

 HTML Form

 Servlet Backend

 More Information

Lesson 6: File Access and Permissions

 File Access by Applications

 Exception Handling

 File Access by Applets

 Granting Applets Permission

 Restricting Applications

 File Access by Servlets

 Appending

 More Information

Lesson 7: Database Access and Permissions

 Database Setup

 Create Database Table

 Database Access by Applications

o Establishing a Database Connection

o Final and Private Variables

 o Writing and Reading Data

 Database Access by Applets

o JDBC Driver

o JDBC-ODBC Bridge with ODBC Driver

 Database Access by Servlets

 More Information

Lesson 8: Remote Method Invocation

 About the Example

o Program Behavior

o File Summary

o Compile the Example

o Start the RMI Registry

o Run the RemoteServer Server Object

o Run the RMIClient1 Program

o Run the RMIClient2 Program

 RemoteSend Class

 Send Interface

 RMIClient1 Class

 RMIClient2 Class

 More Information

In Closing
 Lesson 1: Compiling and Running
A Simple Program

The computer age is here to stay. Households and businesses all over
the world use computers in one way or another because computers
help individuals and businesses perform a wide range of tasks with
speed, accuracy, and efficiency. Computers can perform all kinds of
tasks ranging from running an animated 3D graphics application with
background sound to calculating the number of vacation days you
have coming to handling the payroll for a Fortune 500 company.

When you want a computer to perform tasks, you write a program. A

program is a sequence of instructions that define tasks for the
computer to execute. This lesson explains how to write, compile, and
run a simple program written in the Java language (Java program)
TM

that tells your computer to print a one-line string of text on the

console.

But before you can write and compile programs, you need to
understand what the Java platform is, and set your computer up to run
the programs.

 A Word About the Java Platform

 Setting Up Your Computer

 Writing a Program

 Compiling the Program

 Interpreting and Running the Program

 Common Compiler and Interpreter Problems

 Code Comments

 API Documentation

 More Information

A Word About the Java Platform

The Java platform consists of the Java application programming
interfaces (APIs) and the Java1 virtual machine (JVM).

Java APIs are libraries of compiled code that you

can use in your programs. They let you add ready-
made and customizable functionality to save you
programming time.

The simple program in this lesson uses a Java API

to print a line of text to the console. The console
printing capability is provided in the API ready for you to use; you
supply the text to be printed.

Java programs are run (or interpreted) by another program called the
Java VM. If you are familiar with Visual Basic or another interpreted
language, this concept is probably familiar to you. Rather than running
directly on the native operating system, the program is interpreted by
the Java VM for the native operating system. This means that any
computer system with the Java VM installed can run Java programs
regardless of the computer system on which the applications were
originally developed.

For example, a Java program developed on a Personal Computer (PC)

with the Windows NT operating system should run equally well without
modification on a Sun Ultra workstation with the Solaris operating
system, and vice versa.

Setting Up Your Computer

Before you can write and run the simple Java program in this lesson,
you need to install the Java platform on your computer system.

The Java platform is available free of charge from the java.sun.com

web site. You can choose between the Java® 2 Platform software for
Windows 95/98/NT or for Solaris. The download page contains the
information you need to install and configure the Java platform for
writing and running Java programs.

Note: Make sure you have the Java platform installed and
configured for your system before you try to write and run
the simple program presented next.
Writing a Program

The easiest way to write a simple program is with a text editor. So,
using the text editor of your choice, create a text file with the following
text, and be sure to name the text file ExampleProgram.java. Java
programs are case sensitive, so if you type the code in yourself, pay
particular attention to the capitalization.
//A Very Simple Example
class ExampleProgram {
  public static void main(String[] args){
    System.out.println("I'm a Simple Program");
  }
}
Here is the ExampleProgram.java source code file if you do not want to
type the program text in yourself.

Compiling the Program

A program has to be converted to a form the Java VM can understand

so any computer with a Java VM can interpret and run the program.
Compiling a Java program means taking the programmer-readable
text in your program file (also called source code) and converting it to
bytecodes, which are platform-independent instructions for the Java
VM.

The Java compiler is invoked at the command line on Unix and DOS
shell operating systems as follows:

  javac ExampleProgram.java

Note: Part of the configuration process for setting up the

Java platform is setting the class path. The class path can
be set using either the ­classpath option with the javac
compiler command and java interpreter command, or by
setting the CLASSPATH environment variable. You need to
set the class path to point to the directory where the
ExampleProgram class is so the compiler and interpreter
commands can find it. See Java 2 SDK Tools for more
information.
Interpreting and Running the Program

Once your program successfully compiles into Java bytecodes, you can
interpret and run applications on any Java VM, or interpret and run
applets in any Web browser with a Java VM built in such as Netscape
or Internet Explorer. Interpreting and running a Java program means
invoking the Java VM byte code interpreter, which converts the Java
byte codes to platform-dependent machine codes so your computer
can understand and run the program.

The Java interpreter is invoked at the command line on Unix and DOS
shell operating systems as follows:

  java ExampleProgram
At the command line, you should see:
  I'm a Simple Program
Here is how the entire sequence looks in a terminal window:

Common Compiler and Interpreter

Problems

If you have trouble compiling or running the simple example in this

lesson, refer to the Common Compiler and Interpreter Problems lesson
in The Java Tutorial for troubleshooting help.

Code Comments

Code comments are placed in source files to describe what is

happening in the code to someone who might be reading the file, to
comment-out lines of code to isolate the source of a problem for
debugging purposes, or to generate API documentation. To these
ends, the Java language supports three kinds of comments: double
slashes, C-style, and doc comments.

Double Slashes

Double slashes (//) are used in the C++ programming language, and
tell the compiler to treat everything from the slashes to the end of the
line as text.
//A Very Simple Example
class ExampleProgram {
  public static void main(String[] args){
    System.out.println("I'm a Simple Program");
  }
}

C-Style Comments

Instead of double slashes, you can use C-style comments (/* */) to

enclose one or more lines of code to be treated as text.
/* These are
C­style comments
*/
class ExampleProgram {
  public static void main(String[] args){
    System.out.println("I'm a Simple Program");
  }
}

Doc Comments

To generate documentation for your program, use the doc comments

(/** */) to enclose lines of text for the javadoc tool to find. The
javadoc tool locates the doc comments embedded in source files and
uses those comments to generate API documentation.
/** This class displays a text string at
*  the console.
*/
class ExampleProgram {
  public static void main(String[] args){
    System.out.println("I'm a Simple Program");
  }
}
With one simple class, there is no reason to generate API
documentation. API documentation makes sense when you have an
application made up of a number of complex classes that need
documentation. The tool generates HTML files (Web pages) that
describe the class structures and contain the text enclosed by doc
comments. The javadoc Home Page has more information on the
javadoc command and its output.

API Documentation

The Java platform installation includes API Documentation, which

describes the APIs available for you to use in your programs. The files
are stored in a doc directory beneath the directory where you installed
the platform. For example, if the platform is installed in
/usr/local/java/jdk1.2, the API Documentation is in
/usr/local/java/jdk1.2/doc/api.

More Information

See Java 2 SDK Tools for more information on setting the class path
and using the javac, and java commands.

See Common Compiler and Interpreter Problems lesson in The Java

Tutorial for troubleshooting help.

The javadoc Home Page has more information on the javadoc

command and its output.

You can also view the API Documentation for the Java 2 Platform on
the java.sun.com site.

_______
1
As used on this web site, the terms "Java virtual machine" or "JVM"
mean a virtual machine for the Java platform.

Lesson 2: Building Applications

All programs written in the Java language (Java programs) are built
TM

from classes. Because all classes have the same structure and share
common elements, all Java programs are very similar.

This lesson describes the structure and elements of a simple

application created from one class. The next lesson covers the same
material for applets.

 Application Structure and Elements

 Fields and Methods

 Constructors

 More Information
Application Structure and Elements

An application is created from classes. A class

is similar to a RECORD in the Pascal language or
a struct in the C language in that it stores
related data in fields, where the fields can be
different types. So you could, for example,
store a text string in one field, an integer in
another field, and a floating point in a third
field. The difference between a class and a
RECORD or struct is that a class also defines the methods to work on
the data.

For example, a very simple class might store a string of text and
define one method to set the string and another method to get the
string and print it to the console. Methods that work on the data are
called accessor methods.

Every application needs one class with a main method. This class is the
entry point for the program, and is the class name passed to the java
interpreter command to run the application.

The code in the main method executes first when the program starts,
and is the control point from which the controller class accessor
methods are called to work on the data.

Here, again, is the example program from Lesson 1. It has no fields or

accessor methods, but because it is the only class in the program, it
has a main method.

   class ExampleProgram {
      public static void main(String[] 
args){
        System.out.println("I'm a Simple 
Program");
      }
   }

The public static void keywords mean the

Java1 virtual machine (JVM) interpreter can
call the program's main method to start the
program (public) without creating an instance of the class (static), and
the program does not return data to the Java VM interpreter (void)
when it ends.

An instance of a class is an executable copy

of the class While the class describes the
data and behavior, you need a class
instance to acquire and work on data. The
diagram at the left shows three instances
of the ExampleProgram class by the
names: FirstInstance, SecondInstance
and ThirdInstance.

The main method is static to give the Java VM interpreter a way to

start the class without creating an instance of the control class first.
Instances of the control class are created in the main method after the
program starts.

The main method for the simple example does not create an instance
of the ExampleProgram class because none is needed. The
ExampleProgram class has no other methods or fields, so no class
instance is needed to access them from the main method. The Java
platform lets you execute a class without creating an instance of that
class as long as its static methods do not call any non-static methods
or fields.

The ExampleProgram class just calls println, which is a static method

in the System class. The java.lang.System class, among other things,
provides functionality to send text to the terminal window where the
program was started. It has all static fields and methods.

The static fields and methods of a class can be called by another

program without creating an instance of the class. So, just as the Java
VM interpreter command could call the static main method in the
ExampleProgram class without creating an instance of the
ExampleProgram class, the ExampleProgram class can call the static 
println method in the System class, without creating an instance of
the System class.

However, a program must create an instance of a class to access its

non-static fields and methods. Accessing static and non-static fields
and methods is discussed further with several examples in the next
section.
Fields and Methods

The LessonTwoA.java program alters the simple example to store the

text string in a static field called text. The text field is static so its
data can be accessed directly without creating an instance of the
LessonTwoA class.

class LessonTwoA {
   static String text = "I'm a Simple Program";
   public static void main(String[] args){
        System.out.println(text);
   }
}
The LessonTwoB.java and LessonTwoC.java programs add a getText
method to the program to retrieve and print the text.

The LessonTwoB.java program accesses the non-static text field with

the non-static getText method. Non-static methods and fields are
called instance methods and fields. This approach requires that an
instance of the LessonTwoB class be created in the main method. To
keep things interesting, this example includes a static text field and a
non-static instance method (getStaticText) to retrieve it.

Note: The field and method return values are all type
String.

class LessonTwoB {

   String text = "I'm a Simple Program";
   static String text2 = "I'm static text";

   String getText(){
        return text;
   }

   String getStaticText(){
        return text2; 
   }

   public static void main(String[] args){
        LessonTwoB progInstance = new LessonTwoB();
        String retrievedText = progInstance.getText();
        String retrievedStaticText = 
                 progInstance.getStaticText(); 
        System.out.println(retrievedText);
        System.out.println(retrievedStaticText);
   }
}
The LessonTwoC.java program accesses the static text field with the
static getText method. Static methods and fields are called class
methods and fields. This approach allows the program to call the static
getText method directly without creating an instance of the
LessonTwoC class.

class LessonTwoC {

   static String text = "I'm a Simple Program";

//Accessor method
   static String getText(){
        return text;
   }

   public static void main(String[] args){
        String retrievedText = getText();
        System.out.println(retrievedText);
   }
}
So, class methods can operate only on class fields, and instance
methods can operate on class and instance fields.

You might wonder what the difference means. In short, there is only
one copy of the data stored or set in a class field but each instance has
its own copy of the data stored or set in an instance field.

The figure
above shows
three class
instances with
one static field
and one
instance field.
At runtime, there is one copy of the value for static Field A and each
instance points to the one copy. When setFieldA(50) is called on the
first instance, the value of the one copy changes from 36 to 50 and all
three instances point to the new value. But, when setFieldB(25) is
called on the first instance, the value for Field B changes from 0 to 25
for the first instance only because each instance has its own copy of
Field B.

See Understanding Instance and Class Members lesson in The Java

tutorial for a thorough discussion of this topic.

Constructors

Classes have a special method called a constructor that is called when

a class instance is created. The class constructor always has the same
name as the class and no return type. The LessonTwoD program
converts the LessonTwoB program to use a constructor to initialize the
text string.

Note: If you do not write your own constructor, the

compiler adds an empty constructor, which calls the no-
arguments constructor of its parent class. The empty
constructor is called the default constructor. The default
constructor initializes all non-initialized fields and variables
to zero.

class LessonTwoD {

   String text;

//Constructor
   LessonTwoD(){
     text = "I'm a Simple Program";
   }

//Accessor method
   String getText(){
        return text;
   }

   public static void main(String[] args){
        LessonTwoD progInst = new LessonTwoD();
        String retrievedText = progInst.getText();
        System.out.println(retrievedText);
   }
}

To Summarize

A simple program that prints a short text string to the console would
probably do everything in the main method and do away with the
constructor, text field, and getText method. But, this lesson used a
very simple program to show you the structure and elements in a
basic Java program.

More Information

See Understanding Instance and Class Members lesson in The Java

tutorial for a thorough discussion of this topic.

_______
1
As used on this web site, the terms "Java virtual machine" or "JVM"
mean a virtual machine for the Java platform.

Lesson 3: Building Applets

[<<BACK] [CONTENTS] [NEXT>>]

Like applications, applets are created from classes. However, applets

do not have a main method as an entry point, but instead, have
several methods to control specific aspects of applet execution.

This lesson converts an application from Lesson 2 to an applet and

describes the structure and elements of an applet.

 Application to Applet

 Run the Applet

 Applet Structure and Elements

 Packages

 More Information
Application to Applet

The following code is the applet equivalent to the LessonTwoB

application from Lesson 2. The figure below shows how the running
applet looks. The structure and elements of the applet code are
discussed after the section on how to run the applet just below.

import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Color;

public class SimpleApplet extends Applet{

  String text = "I'm a simple applet";

  public void init() {
        text = "I'm a simple applet";
        setBackground(Color.cyan);
  }
  public void start() {
        System.out.println("starting...");
  }
  public void stop() {
        System.out.println("stopping...");
  }
  public void destroy() {
        System.out.println("preparing to unload...");
  }
  public void paint(Graphics g){
        System.out.println("Paint");
        g.setColor(Color.blue);
        g.drawRect(0, 0,
                   getSize().width ­1,
                   getSize().height ­1);
        g.setColor(Color.red);
        g.drawString(text, 15, 25);
  }
}
The SimpleApplet class is declared public so the program that runs
the applet (a browser or appletviewer), which is not local to the
program can access it.

Run the Applet

To see the applet in action, you need an HTML file with the Applet tag
as follows:

<HTML>
<BODY>
<APPLET CODE=SimpleApplet.class WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=100>
</APPLET>
</BODY>
</HTML>

The easiest way to run the applet is with appletviewer shown below
where simpleApplet.html is a file that contains the above HTML
code:

   appletviewer simpleApplet.html

Note: To run an applet written with Java 2 APIs in a

TM

browser, the browser must be enabled for the Java 2

Platform. If your browser is not enabled for the Java 2
Platform, you have to use appletviewer to run the applet or
install Java Plug-in. Java Plug-in lets you run applets on
web pages under the 1.2 version of the Java VM instead of
the web browser's default Java VM.

Applet Structure and Elements

The Java API Applet class provides what you need to design the
appearance and manage the behavior of an applet. This class provides
a graphical user interface (GUI) component called a Panel and a
number of methods. To create an applet, you extend (or subclass) the
Applet class and implement the appearance and behavior you want.

The applet's appearance is created by drawing onto the Panel or by

attaching other GUI components such as push buttons, scrollbars, or
text areas to the Panel. The applet's behavior is defined by
implementing the methods.

Extending a Class

Most classes of any complexity extend other classes. To

extend another class means to write a new class that can
use the fields and methods defined in the class being
extended. The class being extended is the parent class,
and the class doing the extending is the child class.
Another way to say this is the child class inherits the
fields and methods of its parent or chain of parents. Child
classes either call or override inherited methods. This is
called single inheritance.

The SimpleApplet class extends Applet class, which

extends the Panel class, which extends the Container
class. The Container class extends Object, which is the
parent of all Java API classes.

The Applet class provides the init, start, stop, destroy, and paint
methods you saw in the example applet. The SimpleApplet class
overrides these methods to do what the SimpleApplet class needs
them to do. The Applet class provides no functionality for these
methods.

However, the Applet class does provide functionality for the

setBackground method,which is called in the init method. The call to
setBackground is an example of calling a method inherited from a
parent class in contrast to overriding a method inherited from a parent
class.

You might wonder why the Java language provides methods without
implementations. It is to provide conventions for everyone to use for
consistency across Java APIs. If everyone wrote their own method to
start an applet, for example, but gave it a different name such as
begin or go, the applet code would not be interoperable with other
programs and browsers, or portable across multiple platforms. For
example, Netscape and Internet Explorer know how to look for the
init and start methods.

Behavior

An applet is controlled by the software that runs it. Usually, the

underlying software is a browser, but it can also be appletviewer as
you saw in the example. The underlying software controls the applet
by calling the methods the applet inherits from the Applet class.

The init Method: The init method is called when the applet is first

created and loaded by the underlying software. This method performs
one-time operations the applet needs for its operation such as creating
the user interface or setting the font. In the example, the init method
initializes the text string and sets the background color.

The start Method: The start method is called when the applet is

visited such as when the end user goes to a web page with an applet
on it. The example prints a string to the console to tell you the applet
is starting. In a more complex applet, the start method would do
things required at the start of the applet such as begin animation or
play sounds.

After the start method executes, the event thread calls the paint
method to draw to the applet's Panel. A thread is a single sequential
flow of control within the applet, and every applet can run in multiple
threads. Applet drawing methods are always called from a dedicated
drawing and event-handling thread.

The stop and destroy Methods: The stop method stops the applet

when the applet is no longer on the screen such as when the end user
goes to another web page. The example prints a string to the console
to tell you the applet is stopping. In a more complex applet, this
method should do things like stop animation or sounds.

The destroy method is called when the browser exits. Your applet
should implement this method to do final cleanup such as stop live
threads.

Appearance
The Panel provided in the Applet class inherits a paint method from
its parent Container class. To draw something onto the Applet's
Panel, you implement the paint method to do the drawing.

The Graphics object passed to the paint method defines a graphics

context for drawing on the Panel. The Graphics object has methods
for graphical operations such as setting drawing colors, and drawing
graphics, images, and text.

The paint method for the SimpleApplet draws the I'm a simple
applet string in red inside a blue rectangle.

   public void paint(Graphics g){
        System.out.println("Paint");
//Set drawing color to blue
        g.setColor(Color.blue);
//Specify the x, y, width and height for a rectangle
        g.drawRect(0, 0,
                   getSize().width ­1,
                   getSize().height ­1);
//Set drawing color to red
        g.setColor(Color.red);
//Draw the text string at the (15, 25) x­y location
        g.drawString(text, 15, 25);
   }

Packages

The applet code also has three import statements at the top.
Applications of any size and all applets use import statements to
access ready-made Java API classes in packages. This is true whether
the Java API classes come in the Java platform download, from a third-
party, or are classes you write yourself and store in a directory
separate from the program. At compile time, a program uses import
statements to locate and reference compiled Java API classes stored in
packages elsewhere on the local or networked system. A compiled
class in one package can have the same name as a compiled class in
another package. The package name differentiates the two classes.

The examples in Lessons 1 and 2 did not need a package declaration

to call the System.out.println Java API class because the System
class is in the java.lang package that is included by default. You
never need an import java.lang.* statement to use the compiled
classes in that package.
More Information

You can find more information on applets in the Writing Applets trail in
The Java Tutorial.

Lesson 4: Building A User Interface

[<<BACK] [CONTENTS] [NEXT>>]

In the last lesson you saw how the Applet class provides a Panel
component so you can design the applet's user interface. This lesson
expands the basic application from Lessons 1 and 2 to give it a user
interface using the Java Foundation Classes (JFC) Project Swing APIs
TM

that handle user events.

 Project Swing APIs

 Import Statements

 Class Declaration

 Instance Variables

 Constructor

 Action Listening

 Event Handling

 Main Method

 Applets Revisited

 More Information

Project Swing APIs

In contrast to the applet in Lesson 3 where the
user interface is attached to a panel object
nested in a top-level browser, the Project
Swing application in this lesson attaches its user interface to a panel
object nested in a top-level frame object. A frame object is a top-level
window that provides a title, banner, and methods to manage the
appearance and behavior of the window.

The Project Swing code that follows builds this simple application. The
window on the left appears when you start the application, and the
window on the right appears when you click the button. Click again
and you are back to the original window on the left.

When Application Starts When Button Clicked

Import Statements

Here is the SwingUI.java code. At the top, you have four lines of
import statements. The lines indicate exactly which Java API classes
TM

the program uses. You could replace four of these lines with this one
line: import java.awt.*;, to import the entire awt package, but
doing that increases compilation overhead than importing exactly the
classes you need and no others.
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

Class Declaration

The class declaration comes next and indicates the top-level frame for
the application's user interface is a JFrame that implements the
ActionListener interface.
class SwingUI extends JFrame
        implements ActionListener{

The JFrame class extends the Frame class that is part of the Abstract
Window Toolkit (AWT) APIs. Project Swing extends the AWT with a full
set of GUI components and services, pluggable look and feel
capabilities, and assistive technology support. For a more detailed
introduction to Project Swing, see the Swing Connection, and
Fundamentals of Swing, Part 1.

The Java APIs provide classes and interfaces for you to use. An
interface defines a set of methods, but does not implement them. The
rest of the SwingUI class declaration indicates that this class will
implement the ActionListener interface. This means the SwingUI
class must implement all methods defined in the ActionListener
interface. Fortunately, there is only one, actionPerformed, which is
discussed below.

Instance Variables

These next lines declare the Project Swing component classes the
SwingUI class uses. These are instance variables that can be accessed
by any method in the instantiated class. In this example, they are built
in the SwingUI constructor and accessed in the actionPerformed
method implementation. The private boolean instance variable is
visible only to the SwingUI class and is used in the
actionPerformedmethod to find out whether or not the button has
been clicked.
   JLabel text, clicked;
   JButton button, clickButton;
   JPanel panel;
   private boolean _clickMeMode = true;

Constructor

The constructor (shown below) creates the user interface components

and JPanel object, adds the components to the JPanel object, adds
the panel to the frame, and makes the JButton components event
listeners. The JFrame object is created in the main method when the
program starts.
   SwingUI(){
     text = new JLabel("I'm a Simple Program");
     clicked = new JLabel("Button Clicked");

     button = new JButton("Click Me");
//Add button as an event listener
     button.addActionListener(this);

     clickButton = new JButton("Click Again");
//Add button as an event listener
     clickButton.addActionListener(this);
//Create panel
     panel = new JPanel();
//Specify layout manager and background color
     panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout(1,1));
     panel.setBackground(Color.white);
//Add label and button to panel
     getContentPane().add(panel);
     panel.add(BorderLayout.CENTER, 
text);
     panel.add(BorderLayout.SOUTH, 
button);
   }

When the JPanel object is created, the

layout manager and background color are
specified. The layout manager in use determines how user interface
components are arranged on the display area.

The code uses the BorderLayout layout manager, which arranges user
interface components in the five areas shown at left. To add a
component, specify the area (north, south, east, west, or center).

//Create panel
     panel = new JPanel();
//Specify layout manager and background color
     panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout(1,1));
     panel.setBackground(Color.white);
//Add label and button to panel
     getContentPane().add(panel);
     panel.add(BorderLayout.CENTER, text);
     panel.add(BorderLayout.SOUTH, button);
   }
To find out about some of the other available layout managers and
how to use them, see the JDC article Exploring the AWT Layout
Managers.

The call to the getContentPane method of the JFrame class is for

adding the Panel to the JFrame. Components are not added directly to
a JFrame, but to its content pane. Because the layout manager
controls the layout of components, it is set on the content pane where
the components reside. A content pane provides functionality that
allows different types of components to work together in Project
Swing.

Action Listening
In addition to implementing the ActionListener interface, you have
to add the event listener to the JButton components. An action listener
is the SwingUI object because it implements the ActionListener
interface. In this example, when the end user clicks the button, the
underlying Java platform services pass the action (or event) to the
actionPerformed method. In your code, you implement the
actionPerformed method to take the appropriate action based on which
button is clicked..

The component classes have the appropriate add methods to add

action listeners to them. In the code the JButton class has an
addActionListener method. The parameter passed to addActionListener
is this, which means the SwingUI action listener is added to the button
so button-generated actions are passed to the actionPerformed
method in the SwingUI object.

     button = new JButton("Click Me");
//Add button as an event listener
     button.addActionListener(this);

Event Handling

The actionPerformed method is passed an event object that represents

the action event that occurred. Next, it uses an if statement to find out
which component had the event, and takes action according to its
findings.
   public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event){
     Object source = event.getSource();
        if (_clickMeMode) {
          text.setText("Button Clicked");
          button.setText("Click Again");
          _clickMeMode = false;
        } else {
          text.setText("I'm a Simple Program");
          button.setText("Click Me");
          _clickMeMode = true;
        }
   }
You can find information on event handling for the different
components in The Java Tutorial section on Event Handling.

Main Method
The main method creates the top-level frame, sets the title, and
includes code that lets the end user close the window using the frame
menu.
public static void main(String[] args){
//Create top­level frame
  SwingUI frame = new SwingUI();
  frame.setTitle("Example");
//This code lets you close the window
  WindowListener l = new WindowAdapter() {
     public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
       System.exit(0);
     }
  };
    frame.addWindowListener(l);
//This code lets you see the frame
  frame.pack();
  frame.setVisible(true);
 }
}
The code for closing the window shows an easy way to add event
handling functionality to a program. If the event listener interface you
need provides more functionality than the program actually uses, use
an adapter class. The Java APIs provide adapter classes for all listener
interfaces with more than one method. This way, you can use the
adapter class instead of the listener interface and implement only the
methods you need. In the example, the WindowListener interface has
7 methods and this program needs only the windowClosing method so
it makes sense to use the WindowAdapter class instead.

This code extends the WindowAdapter class and overrides the

windowClosing method. The new keyword creates an anonymous
instance of the extended inner class. It is anonymous because you are
not assigning a name to the class and you cannot create another
instance of the class without executing the code again. It is an inner
class because the extended class definition is nested within the
SwingUI class.

This approach takes only a few lines of code, while implementing the
WindowListener interface would require 6 empty method
implementations. Be sure to add the WindowAdapter object to the
frame object so the frame object will listen for window events.

   WindowListener l = new WindowAdapter() {
 //The instantiation of object l is extended to 
 //include this code:
     public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e){
        System.exit(0);
     }
   }; 
   frame.addWindowListener(l);

Applets Revisited

Using what you learned in Lesson 3: Building Applets and this lesson,
convert the example for this lesson into an applet. Give it a try before
looking at the solution.

In short, the differences between the applet and application versions

are the following:

 The applet class is declared public so appletviewer can

access it.

 The applet class descends from Applet and the application

class descends from JFrame.

 The applet version has no main method.

 The application constructor is replaced in the applet by

start and init methods.

 GUI components are added directly to the Applet;

whereas, in the case of an application, GUI components are
added to the content pane of its JFrame object.

More Information

For more information on Project Swing, see the Swing Connection, and
Fundamentals of Swing, Part 1.
Also see The JFC Project Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs.

To find out about some of the other available layout managers and
how to use them, see the JDC article Exploring the AWT Layout
Managers.

Lesson 5: Writing Servlets

[<<BACK] [CONTENTS] [NEXT>>]

A servlet is an extension to a server that enhances the server's

functionality. The most common use for a servlet is to extend a web
server by providing dynamic web content. Web servers display
documents written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and
respond to user requests using the HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP). HTTP is the protocol for moving hypertext files across the
internet. HTML documents contain text that has been marked up for
interpretation by an HTML browser such as Netscape.

Servlets are easy to write. All you need is the Java® 2 Platform
software, and JavaServer Web Development Kit (JWSDK). You can
TM

download a free copy of the JWSDK.

This lesson shows you how to create a very simple form that invokes a
basic servlet to process end user data entered on the form.

 About the Example

 HTML Form

 Servlet Backend

 More Information

About the Example

A browser accepts end user input through an HTML form. The simple
form used in this lesson has one text input field for the end user to
enter text and a Submit button. When the end user clicks the Submit
button, the simple servlet is invoked to process the end user input.
 In this example, the
simple servlet returns
an HTML page that
displays the text
entered by the end
user.

HTML Form

The HTML form is embedded in this HTML file. The diagram shows how
the HTML page looks when it is opened in a browser.

The HTML file and form are similar

to the simple application and applet
examples in Lesson 4 so you can
compare the code and learn how
servlets, applets, and applications
handle end user inputs.

When the user clicks the Click Me

button, the servlet gets the entered
text, and returns an HTML page
with the text.

The HTML page returned to the browser by the ExampServlet.java

servlet is shown below. The servlet code to retrieve the user's input
and generate the HTML page follows with a discussion.

Note: To run the example, you have to put the servlet and
HTML files in the correct directories for the Web server you
are using. For example, with Java WebServer 1.1.1, you
place the servlet in the ~/JavaWebServer1.1.1/servlets
and the HTML file in the
~/JavaWebServer1.1.1/public_html directory.
Servlet Backend

ExampServlet.java builds an HTML page to return to the end user. This

means the servlet code does not use any Project Swing or Abstract
Window Toolkit (AWT) components or have event handling code. For
this simple servlet, you only need to import these packages:

 java.io for system input and output. The HttpServlet

class uses the IOException class in this package to signal that
an input or output exception of some kind has occurred.

 javax.servlet, which contains generic (protocol-

independent) servlet classes. The HttpServlet class uses the
ServletException class in this package to indicate a servlet
problem.

 javax.servlet.http, which contains HTTP servlet classes.

The HttpServlet class is in this package.

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

public class ExampServlet extends HttpServlet {
  public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, 
 HttpServletResponse response)
        throws ServletException, IOException
  {
    response.setContentType("text/html");
    PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();

    out.println("<title>Example</title>" +
       "<body bgcolor=FFFFFF>");

    out.println("<h2>Button Clicked</h2>");

    String DATA = request.getParameter("DATA");

    if(DATA != null){
      out.println(DATA);
    } else {
      out.println("No text entered.");
    }
    out.println("<P>Return to 
<A HREF="../simpleHTML.html">Form</A>");
    out.close();
  }
}

Class and Method Declarations

All servlet classes extend the HttpServlet abstract class.

HttpServlet simplifies writing HTTP servlets by providing a framework
for handling the HTTP protocol. Because HttpServlet is abstract,
your servlet class must extend it and override at least one of its
methods. An abstract class is a class that contains unimplemented
methods and cannot be instantiated itself.
public class ExampServlet extends HttpServlet {
  public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
         HttpServletResponse response)
         throws ServletException, IOException
  {
The ExampServlet class is declared public so the web server that
runs the servlet, which is not local to the servlet, can access it.

The ExampServlet class defines a doPost method with the same

name, return type, and parameter list as the doPost method in the
HttpServlet class. By doing this, the ExampServlet class overrides
and implements the doPost method in the HttpServlet class.

The doPost method performs the HTTP POST operation, which is the

type of operation specified in the HTML form used for this example.
The other possibility is the HTTP GET operation, in which case you
would implement the doGet method instead.

In short, POST requests are for sending any amount of data directly
over the connection without changing the URL, and GET requests are
for getting limited amounts of information appended to the URL. POST
requests cannot be bookmarked or emailed and do not change the
Uniform Resource Locators (URL) of the response. GET requests can be
bookmarked and emailed and add information to the URL of the
response.

The parameter list for the doPost method takes a request and a
response object. The browser sends a request to the servlet and the
servlet sends a response back to the browser.
The doPost method implementation accesses information in the
request object to find out who made the request, what form the
request data is in, and which HTTP headers were sent, and uses the
response object to create an HTML page in response to the browser's
request. The doPost method throws an IOException if there is an
input or output problem when it handles the request, and a
ServletException if the request could not be handled. These
exceptions are handled in the HttpServlet class.

Method Implementation

The first part of the doPost method uses the response object to create
an HTML page. It first sets the response content type to be text/html,
then gets a PrintWriter object for formatted text output.
response.setContentType("text/html");
    PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();

    out.println("<title>Example</title>" +
       "<body bgcolor=#FFFFFF>");

    out.println("<h2>Button Clicked</h2>");
The next line uses the request object to get the data from the text
field on the form and store it in the DATA variable. The getparameter
method gets the named parameter, returns null if the parameter was
not set, and an empty string if the parameter was sent without a
value.
    String DATA = request.getParameter("DATA");
The next part of the doPost method gets the data out of the DATA
parameter and passes it to the response object to add to the HTML
response page.
    if(DATA != null){
      out.println(DATA);
    } else {
      out.println("No text entered.");
    }
The last part of the doPost method creates a link to take the end user
from the HTML response page back to the original form, and closes the
response.
    out.println("<P>Return to
        <A HREF="../simpleHTML.html">Form</A>");
    out.close();
  }
 Note: To learn how to use the other methods available in
the HttpServlet, HttpServletRequest, and
HttpServletResponse classes, see The Java Tutorial trail
on Servlets.

More Information

You can find more information on servlets in the Servlets trail in The
Java Tutorial.

Lesson 6: File Access and Permissions

[<<BACK] [CONTENTS] [NEXT>>]

So far, you have learned how to retrieve and handle a short text string
entered from the keyboard into a simple graphical user interface
(GUI). But programs also retrieve, handle, and store data in files and
databases.

This lesson expands the examples from previous lessons to perform

basic file access using the application programming interfaces (APIs) in
the java.io package. It also shows you how to grant applets
permission to access specific files, and how to restrict an application so
it has access to specific files only.

 File Access by Applications

 System Properties

 File.separatorChar

 Exception Handling

 File Access by Applets

 Granting Applets Permission

 Restricting Applications

 File Access by Servlets

  Appending

 More Informattion

File Access by Applications

The Java® 2 Platform software provides a rich range of classes for

reading character or byte data into a program, and writing character
or byte data out to an external file, storage device, or program. The
source or destination might be on the local computer system where
the program is running or anywhere on the network.

This section shows you how to read data from and write data to a file
on the local computer system. See The Java Tutorial trail on Reading
TM

and Writing for information on transferring data between programs,

between a program and memory, and performing operations such as
buffering or character encoding on data as it is read or written.

 Reading: A program opens an input stream on the file and

reads the data in serially (in the order it was written to the file).

 Writing: A program opens an output stream on the file

and writes the data out serially.

This first example converts the SwingUI.java example from Lesson 4

to accept user input through a text field. The window on the left
appears when you start the FileIO application, and the window on the
right appears when you click the button. When you click the button,
whatever is entered into the text field is saved to a file. After that,
another file is opened and read and its text is displayed in the window
on the right. Click again and you are back to the original window with
a blank text field ready for more input.

When Application Starts

When Button Clicked

The conversion from the SwingUI.java program for Lesson 4 to the
FileIO.java program for this lesson primarily involves the constructor
and the actionPerformed method as described here.

Constructor and Instance Variable Changes

A JTextfield instance variable is added to the class so the

constructor can instantiate the object and the actionPerformed
method can access the text the end user types into it.

The constructor instantiates the JTextField with a value of 20. This

value tells the Java platform the number of columns to use to calculate
the preferred width of the field. Lower values result in a narrower
display, and likewise, higher values result in a wider display.

The text label is added to the North section of the BorderLayout so

the JTextField can be added to the Center section.

Note: You can learn more about component sizing in The

Java Tutorial sections on Solving Common Layout
Problems and Layout Management.

//Instance variable for text field
JTextField textField;

FileIO(){ 
  text = new JLabel("Text to save to file:");
  clicked = new 
JLabel("Text retrieved from file:");

  button = new JButton("Click Me");
  button.addActionListener(this);

  clickButton = new JButton("Click Again");
  clickButton.addActionListener(this);

//Text field instantiation
  textField = new JTextField(20);

  panel = new JPanel();
  panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
  panel.setBackground(Color.white);
  getContentPane().add(panel);

//Adjustments to layout to add text field
  panel.add("North", text);
  panel.add("Center", textField);
  panel.add("South", button);
} 

Method Changes

The actionPerformed method uses the FileInputStream and

FileOutputStream classes to read data from and write data to a file.
These classes handle data in byte streams, as opposed to character
streams, which are shown in the applet example. A more detailed
explanation of the changes to the method implementation follows the
code.
public void actionPerformed(
ActionEvent event){
  Object source = event.getSource();
  if(source == button){
//Variable to display text read from file
    String s = null; 
    if(_clickMeMode){
      try{
//Code to write to file
        String text = textField.getText();
        byte b[] = text.getBytes();

        String outputFileName = 
System.getProperty("user.home", 
  File.separatorChar + "home" + 
  File.separatorChar + "monicap") + 
  File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
          File outputFile = new File(outputFileName);
          FileOutputStream out = new 
FileOutputStream(outputFile);
          out.write(b);
          out.close();

//Code to read from file
        String inputFileName = 
System.getProperty("user.home", 
  File.separatorChar + "home" + 
  File.separatorChar + "monicap") + 
  File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
          File inputFile = new File(inputFileName);
          FileInputStream in = new 
FileInputStream(inputFile);
        byte bt[] = new 
byte[(int)inputFile.length()];
        in.read(bt);
        s = new String(bt);
        in.close();
       }catch(java.io.IOException e){
        System.out.println("Cannot access text.txt");
       }
//Clear text field
      textField.setText("");
//Display text read from file
      text.setText("Text retrieved from file:");
      textField.setText(s);
      button.setText("Click Again");
      _clickMeMode = false;
    } else {
//Save text to file
      text.setText("Text to save to file:");
      textField.setText("");
      button.setText("Click Me");
      _clickMeMode = true;
    }
  }
}

To write the end user text to a file, the text is retrieved from the
textField and converted to a byte array.

   String text = textField.getText();
   byte b[] = text.getBytes();

Next, a File object is created for the file to be written to and used to
create a FileOutputStream object.

      String outputFileName =
                System.getProperty("user.home",
        File.separatorChar + "home" +
        File.separatorChar + "monicap") +
        File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
        File outputFile = new File(outputFileName);
        FileOutputStream out = new
                FileOutputStream(outputFile);
Finally, the FileOutputStream object writes the byte array to the File
object and closes the output stream when the operation completes.
   out.write(b);
   out.close();
The code to open a file for reading is similar. To read text from a file, a
File object is created and used to create a FileInputStream object.
      String inputFileName =
                System.getProperty("user.home",
        File.separatorChar + "home" +
        File.separatorChar + "monicap") +
        File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
        File inputFile = new File(inputFileName);
        FileInputStream out = new
                FileInputStream(inputFile);
Next, a byte array is created the same size as the file into which the
file contents are read.
   byte bt[] = new byte[(int)inputFile.length()];
   in.read(bt);
Finally, the byte array is used to construct a String object, which is
used to create the text for the label component. The
FileInputStream is closed when the operation completes.
   String s = new String(bt);
   label.setText(s);
   in.close();

System Properties

The above code used a call to System.getProperty to create the

pathname to the file in the user's home directory. The System class
maintains a set of properties that define attributes of the current
working environment. When the Java platform starts, system
properties are initialized with information about the runtime
environment including the current user, Java platform version, and the
character used to separate components of a file name
(File.separatorChar).

The call to System.getProperty uses the keyword user.home to get

the user's home directory and supplies the default value
File.separatorChar + "home" + File.separatorChar + 
"monicap") in case no value is found for this key.

File.separatorChar

The above code used the java.io.File.separatorChar variable to

construct the directory pathname. This variable is initialized to contain
the file separator value stored in the file.separator system property
and gives you a way to construct platform-independent pathnames.
For example, the pathname /home/monicap/text.txt for Unix and
\home\monicap\text.txt for Windows are both represented as
File.separatorChar + "home" + File.separatorChar + "monicap"
+ File.separatorChar + "text.txt" in a platform-independent
construction.

Exception Handling

An exception is a class that descends from either

java.lang.Exception or java.lang.RuntimeException that defines
mild error conditions your program might encounter. Rather than
letting the program terminate, you can write code to handle
exceptions and continue program execution.

The file input and output code in the

actionPerformed method is enclosed in a try
and catch block to handle the
java.lang.IOException that might be
thrown by code within the block.

java.lang.IOException is what is called a

checked exception. The Java platform requires
that a method catch or specify all checked
exceptions that can be thrown within the
scope of a method.

Checked exceptions descend from java.lang.Throwable. If a checked

exception is not either caught or specified, the compiler throws an
error.

In the example, the try and catch block catches and handles the
java.io.IOException checked exception. If a method does not catch
a checked exception, the method must specify that it can throw the
exception because an exception that can be thrown by a method is
really part of the method's public interface. Callers of the method must
know about the exceptions that a method can throw so they can take
appropriate actions.

However, the actionPerformed method already has a public interface

definition that cannot be changed to specify the
java.io.IOException, so in this case, the only thing to do is catch
and handle the checked exception. Methods you define yourself can
either specify exceptions or catch and handle them, while methods you
override must catch and handle checked exceptions. Here is an
example of a user-defined method that specifies an exception so
callers of this method can catch and handle it:

  public int aComputationMethod(int number1, 
int number2)
throws IllegalValueException{
     //Body of method
   } 

Note: You can find more information on this topic in The

Java Tutorial trail on Handling Errors with Exceptions.

When you catch exceptions in your code, you should handle them in a
way that is friendly to your end users. The exception and error classes
have a toString method to print system error text and a
printStackTrace method to print a stack trace, which can be very
useful for debugging your application during development. But, it is
probably better to deploy the program with a more user-friendly
approach to handling errors.

You can provide your own application-specific error text to print to the
command line, or display a dialog box with application-specific error
text. Using application-specific error text that you provide will also
make it much easier to internationalize the application later on
because you will have access to the text.

For the example programs in this lesson, the error message for the file
input and output is handled with application-specific error text that
prints at the command line as follows:

//Do this during development
  }catch(java.io.IOException e){
   System.out.println(e.toString());
   System.out.println(e.printStackTrace());
  }

//But deploy it like this
  }catch(java.io.IOException e){
   System.out.println("Cannot access text.txt");
  }
If you want to make your code even more user friendly, you could
separate the write and read operations and provide two try and catch
blocks. The error text for the read operation could be Cannot read
text.txt, and the error text for the write operation could be Cannot
write text.txt.

As an exercise, change the code to handle the read and write

operations separately. Give it a try before peeking at the solution.

File Access by Applets

The file access code for the FileIOAppl.java code is equivalent to the
FileIO.java application, but shows how to use the APIs for handling
data in character streams instead of byte streams. You can use either
approach in applets or applications. In this lesson, the choice to handle
data in bytes streams in the application and in character streams in
the applet is purely random. In real-life programs, you would base the
decision on your specific application requirements.

The changes to instance variables and the constructor are identical

to the application code, and the changes to the actionPerformed
method are nearly identical with these two exceptions:

 Writing: When the textField text is retrieved, it is

passed directly to the out.write call.

 Reading: A character array is created to store the data

read in from the input stream.

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event){
  Object source = event.getSource();
  if(source == button){
//Variable to display text read from file
    String s = null;
    if(_clickMeMode){
      try{
//Code to write to file
        String text = textField.getText();
        String outputFileName =
                System.getProperty("user.home",
          File.separatorChar + "home" +
          File.separatorChar + "monicap") +
          File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
          File outputFile = new File(outputFileName);
          FileWriter out = new
                FileWriter(outputFile);
        out.write(text);
        out.close();
//Code to read from file
        String inputFileName = 
                System.getProperty("user.home",
          File.separatorChar + "home" +
          File.separatorChar + "monicap") +
          File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
        File inputFile = new File(inputFileName);
        FileReader in = new FileReader(inputFile);
        char c[] = new 
char[(char)inputFile.length()];
        in.read(c);
        s = new String(c);
        in.close();
      }catch(java.io.IOException e){
       System.out.println("Cannot access text.txt");
      }
//Clear text field
      textField.setText("");
//Display text read from file
      text.setText("Text retrieved from file:");
      textField.setText(s);
      button.setText("Click Again");
      _clickMeMode = false;
    } else {
//Save text to file
      text.setText("Text to save to file:");
      textField.setText("");
      button.setText("Click Me");
      _clickMeMode = true;
    }
  }
}

Granting Applets Permission

If you tried to run the applet example, you undoubtedly saw errors
when you clicked the Click Me button. This is because the Java 2
Platform security does not permit an applet to write to and read from
files without explicit permission.

An applet has no access to local system resources unless it is

specifically granted the access. So for the FileUIAppl program to read
from text.txt and write to text.txt, the applet has to be given the
appropriate read or write access permission for each file.
Access permission is granted with a policy file, and appletviewer is
launched with the policy file to be used for the applet being viewed.

Creating a Policy File

Policy tool is a Java 2 Platform security tool for creating policy files.
The Java Tutorial trail on Controlling Applets explains how to use Policy
Tool in good detail. Here is the policy file you need to run the applet.
You can use Policy tool to create it or copy the text below into an
ASCII file.
grant {
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission 
"user.home", "read";
  permission java.io.FilePermission 
"${user.home}/text.txt", "read,write";
};

Running an Applet with a Policy File

Assuming the policy file is named polfile and is in the same directory
with an HTML file named fileIO.html that contains the HTML to run
the FileIOAppl applet, you would run the application in appletviewer
like this:
appletviewer ­J­Djava.security.policy=polfile fileIO.html

Note: If your browser is enabled for the Java 2 Platform or

if you have Java Plug-in installed, you can run the applet
from the browser if you put the policy file in your local
home directory.

Here is the fileIO.html file for running the FileIOAppl applet:

<HTML>
<BODY>

<APPLET CODE=FileIOAppl.class WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=100>
</APPLET>

</BODY>
</HTML>

Restricting Applications
You can use the default security manager and a policy file to restrict
the application's access as follows.
java ­Djava.security.manager 
     ­Djava.security.policy=apppolfile  FileIO 
Because the application runs within the security manager, which
disallows all access, the policy file needs two additional permissions.
One so the security manager can access the event queue and load the
user interface components, and another so the application does not
display the banner warning that its window was created by another
program (the security manager).
grant {
  permission java.awt.AWTPermission 
"accessEventQueue";
  permission java.awt.AWTPermission 
"showWindowWithoutWarningBanner";

  permission java.util.PropertyPermission 
"user.home", "read";
  permission java.io.FilePermission 
"${user.home}/text.txt", "read,write";
};

File Access by Servlets

Although servlets are invoked from a browser, they are under the
security policy in force for the web server under which they run. When
file input and output code is added to ExampServlet.java from Lesson
5, FileIOServlet for this lesson executes without restriction under Java
WebServer 1.1.1.
TM
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

public class FileIOServlet extends HttpServlet {

  public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException
  {
    response.setContentType("text/html");
    PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
    out.println("<title>Example<title>" +
                     "<body bgcolor=FFFFFF>");

    out.println("<h2>Button Clicked</h2>");

    String DATA = request.getParameter("DATA");

    if(DATA != null){
      out.println("<STRONG>Text from 
form:</STRONG>");
      out.println(DATA);
    } else {
      out.println("No text entered.");
    }

    try{
//Code to write to file
      String outputFileName=
        System.getProperty("user.home",
          File.separatorChar + "home" +
          File.separatorChar + "monicap") +
          File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
      File outputFile = new File(outputFileName);
      FileWriter fout = new FileWriter(outputFile);
      fout.write(DATA);
      fout.close();

//Code to read from file
      String inputFileName =
System.getProperty("user.home",
          File.separatorChar + "home" +
          File.separatorChar + "monicap") +
          File.separatorChar + "text.txt";
      File inputFile = new File(inputFileName);
      FileReader fin = new 
FileReader(inputFile);
      char c[] = new 
char[(char)inputFile.length()];
      int i;
      i = fin.read(c);
      String s = new String(c);
      out.println("<P>
<STRONG>Text from file:</STRONG>");
      out.println(s);
      fin.close();
    }catch(java.io.IOException e){
     System.out.println("Cannot access text.txt");
    }

    out.println("<P>Return to 
<A HREF="../simpleHTML.html">Form</A>");
    out.close();
   }
}

Appending

So far the examples have shown you how to read in and write out
streams of data in their entirety. But often, you want to append data
to an existing file or read in only certain amounts. Using the
RandomAccessFile class, alter the FileIO.java class to append to the
file.

Give it a try before taking a peek at the Solution.

More Information

For more infomation on file input and output, see the Reading and
Writing trail in The Java Tutorial.

You can learn more about component sizing in The Java Tutorial
sections on Solving Common Layout Problems and Layout
Management.
 Lesson 7: Database Access and Permissions

[<<BACK] [CONTENTS] [NEXT>>]

This lesson converts the application, applet, and servlet examples from
Lesson 6 to write to and read from a database using JDBC . JDBC is
TM

the Java database connectivity application programming interface

TM

(API) available in the Java® 2 Platform software.

The code for this lesson is very similar to the code you saw in Lesson
6, but additional steps (beyond converting the file access code to
database access code) include setting up the environment, creating a
database table, and connecting to the database. Creating a database
table is a database administration task that is not part of your program
code. However, establishing a database connection and the resulting
database access are.

As in Lesson 6, the applet needs appropriate permissions to connect to

the database. Which permissions it needs varies with the type of driver
used to make the database connection.

 Database Setup

 Create Database Table

 Database Access by Applications

o Establishing a Connection

o Final and Private Variables

o Writing and Reading Data

 Database Access by Applets

o JDBC Driver

o JDBC-ODBC Bridge with ODBC Driver

 Database Access by Servlets

 More Information
Database Setup

You need access to a database if you want to run the examples in this
lesson. You can install a database on your machine or perhaps you
have access to a database at work. Either way, you need a database
driver and any relevant environment settings so your program can
load the driver and locate the database. The program will also need
database login information in the form of a user name and password.

A database driver is software that lets a program establish a

connection with a database. If you do not have the right driver for the
database to which you want to connect, your program will be unable to
establish the connection.

Drivers either come with the database or are available from the Web.
If you install your own database, consult the documentation for the
driver for information on installation and any other environment
settings you need for your platform. If you are using a database at
work, consult your database administrator for this information.

To show you two ways to do it, the application example uses the jdbc
driver, the applet examples use the jdbc and jdbc.odbc drivers, and
the servlet example uses the jdbc.odbc driver. All examples connect
to an OracleOCI7.3.4 database.

Connections to other databases will involve similar steps and code. Be

sure to consult your documentation or system administrator if you
need help connecting to the database.

Create Database Table

Once you have access to a database, create a table in it for the

examples in this lesson. You need a table with one text field for storing
character data.
TABLE DBA (
        TEXT            varchar2(100),
        primary key (TEXT)
)

Database Access by Applications

This example converts the FileIO program from Lesson 6 to write data
to and read data from a database. The top window below appears
when you start the Dba application, and the window beneath it
appears when you click the Click Me button.

When you click the Click Me button, whatever is entered into the text
field is saved to the database. After that, the data is retrieved from the
database and displayed in the window shown on the bottom. If you
write data to the table more than once, everything written is read and
displayed in the window shown on the bottom, so you might have to
enlarge the window to see the entire list of table items.

When Application Starts

After Writing Orange and Apple to Database

The database access application needs code to establish the database

connection and do the database read and write operations.

Establishing a Database Connection

The JDBC DriverManager class can handle multiple database drivers,

and initiates all database communication. To load the driver and
connect to the database, the application needs a Connection object
and Strings that represent the _driver and _url.

The _url string is in the form of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). It

consists of the URL, Oracle subprotcol, and Oracle data source in the
form jdbc:oracle:thin, the database login username, the password,
plus machine, port, and protocol information.

private Connection c;

final static private String _driver = 
  "oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver";

final static private String _url = 
 "jdbc:oracle:thin:username/password@(description=(
 address_list=(address=(protocol=tcp)
 (host=developer)(port=1521)))
 (source_route=yes)(connect_data=(sid=jdcsid)))";

The actionPerformed method calls the Class.forName(_driver)

method to load the driver, and the DriverManager.getConnection
method to establish the connection. The Exception Handling section in
Lesson 6 describes try and catch blocks. The only thing different here
is that this block uses two catch statements because two different
errors are possible.

The call to Class.forName(_driver); throws

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException, and the call to c = 
DriverManager.getConnection(_url); throws
java.sql.SQLException. In the case of either error, the application
tells the user what is wrong and exits because the program cannot
operate in any meaningful way without a database driver or
connection.

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event){
  try{
//Load the driver
     Class.forName(_driver);
//Establish database connection
     c = DriverManager.getConnection(_url);
   }catch (java.lang.ClassNotFoundException e){
     System.out.println("Cannot find driver class");
     System.exit(1);
   }catch (java.sql.SQLException e){
     System.out.println("Cannot get connection");       
     System.exit(1);
   }

Final and Private Variables

The member variables used to establish the database connection
above are declared private, and two of those variables are also
declared final.

final: A final variable contains a constant value that can never

change once it is initialized. In the example, the user name, and
password are final variables because you would not want to allow an
instance of this or any other class to change this information.

private: A private variable can only be used (accessed) by the class

in which it is declared. No other class can read or change private
variables. In the example, the database driver, user name, and
password variables are private to prevent an outside class from
accessing them and jeopardizing the database connection, or
compromising the secret user name and password information. You
can find more information on this in the Objects and Classs lesson in
The Java Tutorial

Writing and Reading Data

In the write operation, a Statement object is created from the

Connection. The Statement object has methods for executing SQL
queries and updates. Next, a String object that contains the SQL
update for the write operation is constructed and passed to the
executeUpdate method of the Statement object.
Object source = event.getSource();
if(source == button){
 JTextArea displayText = new JTextArea();

 try{
//Code to write to database
   String theText = textField.getText();
   Statement stmt = c.createStatement();
   String updateString = "INSERT INTO dba VALUES 
   ('" + theText + "')";
   int count = stmt.executeUpdate(updateString);
SQL commands are String objects, and therefore, follow the rules of
String construction where the string is enclosed in double quotes (" ")
and variable data is appended with a plus (+). The variable theText
has single and double quotes to tell the database the SQL string has
variable rather than literal data.

In the read operation, a ResultSet object is created from the

executeQuery method of the Statement object. The ResultSet
contains the data returned by the query. To retrieve the data returned,
the code iterates through the ResultSet, retrieves the data, and
appends the data to the text area, displayText.

//Code to read from database
    ResultSet results = stmt.executeQuery(
"SELECT TEXT FROM dba ");
    while(results.next()){
      String s = results.getString("TEXT");
      displayText.append(s + "\n");
    }
    stmt.close();
  } catch(java.sql.SQLException e){
    System.out.println(e.toString());
  }
//Display text read from database
  panel.removeAll();
  panel.add("North", clicked);
  panel.add("Center", displayText);
  panel.add("South", clickButton);
  panel.validate();
  panel.repaint();
}

Database Access by Applets

The applet version of the example is like the application code

described above except for the standard differences between
applications and applets described in the Structure and Elements
section of Lesson 3.

However, if you run the applet without a policy file, you get a stack
trace indicating permission errors. The Granting Applets Permission
section in Lesson 6 introduced you to policy files and how to launch an
applet with the permission it needs. The Lesson 6 applet example
provided the policy file and told you how to launch the applet with it.
This lesson shows you how to read the stack trace to determine the
permissions you need in a policy file.

To keep things interesting, this lesson has two versions of the

database access applet: one uses the JDBC driver, and the other uses
the the JDBC-ODBC bridge with an Open DataBase Connectivity
(ODBC) driver.

Both applets do the same operations to the same database table using
different drivers. Each applet has its own policy file with different
permission lists and has different requirements for locating the
database driver

JDBC Driver

The JDBC driver is used from a program written exclusively in the Java
language (Java program). It converts JDBC calls directly into the
protocol used by the DBMS. This type of driver is available from the
DBMS vendor and is usually packaged with the DBMS software.

Starting the Applet: To successfully run, the DbaAppl.java applet

needs an available database driver and a policy file. This section walks
through the steps to get everything set up. Here is the DbaAppl.html
file for running the DbaAppl applet:

<HTML>
<BODY>

<APPLET CODE=DbaAppl.class
  WIDTH=200
  HEIGHT=100>
</APPLET>

</BODY>
</HTML>

And here is how to start the applet with appletviewer:

  appletviewer DbaAppl.html

Locating the Database Driver: Assuming the driver is not available

to the DriverManager for some reason, the following error generates
when you click the Click Me button.

  cannot find driver
This error means the DriverManager looked for the JDBC driver in the
directory where the applet HTML and class files are and could not find
it. To correct this error, copy the driver to the directory where the
applet files are, and if the driver is bundled in a zip file, unzip the zip
file so the applet can access the driver.

Once you have the driver in place, launch the applet again.

  appletviewer DbaAppl.html
Reading a Stack Trace: Assuming the driver is locally available to
the applet, if the DbaAppl.java applet is launched without a policy file,
the following stack trace is generated when the end user clicks the
Click Me button.
java.security.AccessControlException: access denied 
(java.net.SocketPermission developer resolve)
The first line in the above stack trace tells you access is denied. This
means this stack trace was generated because the applet tried to
access a system resource without the proper permission. The second
line means to correct this condition you need a SocketPermission that
gives the applet access to the machine (developer) where the
database is located.

You can use Policy tool to create the policy file you need, or you can
create it with an ASCII editor. Here is the policy file with the
permission indicated by the stack trace:

grant {
  permission java.net.SocketPermission "developer", 
    "resolve";
  "accessClassInPackage.sun.jdbc.odbc";
};

Run the applet again, this time with a policy file named DbaApplPol
that has the above permission in it:

appletviewer ­J­Djava.security.policy=DbaApplPol 
                                       DbaAppl.html
You get a stack trace again, but this time it is a different error
condition.
  java.security.AccessControlException: access denied 
  (java.net.SocketPermission
  129.144.176.176:1521 connect,resolve)
Now you need a SocketPermission that allows access to the Internet
Protocol (IP) address and port on the developer machine where the
database is located.

Here is the DbaApplPol policy file with the permission indicated by the
stack trace added to it:

grant {
  permission java.net.SocketPermission "developer", 
                       "resolve";
  permission java.net.SocketPermission 
  "129.144.176.176:1521", "connect,resolve";
};

Run the applet again. If you use the above policy file with the Socket
permissions indicated, it works just fine.
  appletviewer ­J­Djava.security.policy=DbaApplPol 
                                         DbaAppl.html

JDBC-ODBC Bridge with ODBC Driver

Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) is Microsoft's programming

interface for accessing a large number of relational databases on
numerous platforms. The JDBC-ODBC bridge is built into the Solaris
and Windows versions of the Java platform so you can do two things:

1. Use ODBC from a Java program

2. Load ODBC drivers as JDBC drivers. This example uses the

JDBC-ODBC bridge to load an ODBC driver to connect to the
database. The applet has no ODBC code, however.

The DriverManager uses environment settings to locate and load the

database driver. For this example, the driver file does not need to be
locally accessible.

Start the Applet: Here is the DbaOdb.html file for running the
DbaOdbAppl applet:

<HTML>
<BODY>

<APPLET CODE=DbaOdbAppl.class 
  WIDTH=200 
  HEIGHT=100>
</APPLET>

</BODY>
</HTML>
And here is how to start the applet:
  appletviewer DbaOdb.html

Reading a Stack Trace: If the DbaOdbAppl.java applet is launched

without a policy file, the following stack trace is generated when the
end user clicks the Click Me button.

  java.security.AccessControlException: access denied
  (java.lang.RuntimePermission 
  accessClassInPackage.sun.jdbc.odbc )
The first line in the above stack trace tells you access is denied. This
means this stack trace was generated because the applet tried to
access a system resource without the proper permission. The second
line means you need a RuntimePermission that gives the applet
access to the sun.jdbc.odbc package. This package provides the
JDBC-ODBC bridge functionality to the Java1 virtual machine (VM).

You can use Policy tool to create the policy file you need, or you can
create it with an ASCII editor. Here is the policy file with the
permission indicated by the stack trace:

grant {
  permission java.lang.RuntimePermission
    "accessClassInPackage.sun.jdbc.odbc";
};

Run the applet again, this time with a policy file named DbaOdbPol
that has the above permission in it:

  appletviewer ­J­Djava.security.policy=DbaOdbPol 
                                         DbaOdb.html
You get a stack trace again, but this time it is a different error
condition.
  java.security.AccessControlException:
  access denied (java.lang.RuntimePermission
  file.encoding read)
The stack trace means the applet needs read permission to the
encoded (binary) file. Here is the DbaOdbPol policy file with the
permission indicated by the stack trace added to it:
  grant {
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission
       "accessClassInPackage.sun.jdbc.odbc";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission
       "file.encoding", "read";
  };
Run the applet again. If you use the above policy file with the Runtime
and Property permissions indicated, it works just fine.
  appletviewer ­J­Djava.security.policy=DbaOdbPol 
                                         DbaOdb.html

Database Access by Servlets

As you learned in Lesson 6, servlets are under the security policy in

force for the web server under which they run. When the database
read and write code is added to the FileIOServlet from Lesson 6, the
DbaServlet.java servlet for this lesson executes without restriction
under Java WebServer 1.1.1.
TM

The web server has to be configured to locate the database. Consult

your web server documentation or database administrator for help.
With Java WebServer 1.1.1, the configuration setup involves editing
the startup scripts with such things as environment settings for loading
the ODBC driver, and locating and connecting to the database.

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

import java.sql.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;

public class DbaServlet extends HttpServlet {

 private Connection c;
 final static private String _driver = 
"sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver";
 final static private String _user = "username";
 final static private String _pass = "password";
 final static private String 
_url = "jdbc:odbc:jdc";

public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
 throws ServletException, IOException{
  response.setContentType("text/html");
  PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
  out.println("<title>Example<title>" +
      "<body bgcolor=FFFFFF>");

  out.println("<h2>Button Clicked</h2>");

  String DATA = request.getParameter("DATA");

  if(DATA != null){
     out.println("<STRONG>Text from 
form:</STRONG>");
     out.println(DATA);
  } else {
    out.println("No text entered.");
  }

//Establish database connection
  try{
    Class.forName (_driver);
    c = DriverManager.getConnection(_url, 
    _user,
    _pass);
   } catch (Exception e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
     System.exit(1);
   }

   try{
//Code to write to database
     Statement stmt = c.createStatement();
     String updateString = "INSERT INTO dba " + 
"VALUES ('" + DATA + "')";
     int count = stmt.executeUpdate(updateString);

//Code to read from database
     ResultSet results = stmt.executeQuery(
"SELECT TEXT FROM dba ");
     while(results.next()){
       String s = results.getString("TEXT");
       out.println("<BR>
         <STRONG>Text from database:</STRONG>");
       out.println(s);
     }
      stmt.close();
     }catch(java.sql.SQLException e){
      System.out.println(e.toString());
     }
      out.println("<P>Return to 
        <A HREF="../dbaHTML.html">Form</A>");
      out.close();
  }
}

More Information

You can find more information on variable access settings in the

Objects and Classes trail in The Java Tutorial

_______
1
As used on this web site, the terms "Java virtual machine" or "JVM"
mean a virtual machine for the Java platform.

Lesson 8: Remote Method Invocation

[<<BACK] [CONTENTS] [NEXT>>]

The Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) application programming

TM

interface (API) enables client and server communications over the net.
Typically, client programs send requests to a server program, and the
server program responds to those requests.

A common example is sharing a word processing program over a

network. The word processor is installed on a server, and anyone who
wants to use it starts it from his or her machine by double clicking an
icon on the desktop or typing at the command line. The invocation
sends a request to a server program for acess to the software, and the
server program responds by making the software available to the
requestor.

The RMI API lets you create a publicly

accessible remote server object that
enables client and server
communications through simple method
calls on the server object. Clients can
easily communicate directly with the server object and indirectly with
each other through the server object using Uniform Resource Locators
(URLs) and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
This lesson explains how to use the RMI API to establish client and
server communications.

 About the Example

o Program Behavior

o File Summary

o Compile the Example

o Start the RMI Registry

o Run the RemoteServer Server Object

o Run the RMIClient1 Program

o Run the RMIClient2 Program

 RemoteServer Class

 Send Interface

 RMIClient1 Class

 RMIClient2 Class

 More Information

About the Example

This lesson converts the File Input and Output application from Lesson
6: File Access and Permissions to the RMI API.

Program Behavior

The RMIClient1 program presents a simple user interface and prompts

for text input. When you click the Click Me button, the text is sent to
the RMIClient2 program by way of the remote server object. When you
click the Click Me button on the RMIClient2 program, the text sent
from RMIClient1 appears.
First Instance of Client 1

If you start a second instance of RMIClient1 and type in some text,

that text is sent to RMIClient2 when you click the Click Me button.
To see the text received by RMIClient2, click its Click Me button.

Second Instance of Client 1

File Summary

The example program consists of the RMIClient1 program, remote

object and interface, and the RMIClient2 program as illustrated in the
diagram. The corresponding source code files for these executables are
described in the bullet list below.

 RMIClient1.
java: Client
program that
calls the
sendData
method on the
RemoteServer server object.

 RMIClient2.java: Client program that calls the getData

method on the RemoteServer server object.
  RemoteServer.java: Remote server object that implements
Send.java and the sendData and getData remote methods.

 Send.java: Remote interface that declares the sendData

and getData remote server methods.

In addition, the following java.policy security policy file grants the

permissions needed to run the example.
grant {
  permission java.net.SocketPermission 
               "*:1024­65535", 
               "connect,accept,resolve";
  permission java.net.SocketPermission 
               "*:80", "connect";
  permission java.awt.AWTPermission 
               "accessEventQueue";
  permission java.awt.AWTPermission 
               "showWindowWithoutWarningBanner";
};

Compile the Example

These instructions assume development is in the zelda home

directory. The server program is compiled in the home directory for
user zelda, but copied to the public_html directory for user zelda
where it runs.

Here is the command sequence for the Unix and Win32 platforms; an
explanation follows.

Unix:
cd /home/zelda/classes
javac Send.java
javac RemoteServer.java
javac RMIClient2.java
javac RMIClient1.java
rmic ­d . RemoteServer
cp RemoteServer*.class /home/zelda/public_html/classes
cp Send.class /home/zelda/public_html/classes
Win32:
cd \home\zelda\classes
javac Send.java
javac RemoteServer.java
javac RMIClient2.java
javac RMIClient1.java
rmic ­d . RemoteServer
copy RemoteServer*.class \home\zelda\public_html\classes
copy Send.class \home\zelda\public_html\classes
The first two javac commands compile the RemoteServer and Send
class and interface. The third javac command compiles the
RMIClient2 class. The last javac command compiles the RMIClient1
class.

The next line runs the rmic command on the RemoteServer server
class. This command produces output class files of the form
ClassName_Stub.class and ClassName_Skel.class. These output
classes let clients invoke methods on the RemoteServer server object.

The first copy command moves the RemoteServer class file with its
associated skel and stub class files to a publicly accessible location in
the /home/zelda/public_html/classes directory, which is on the
server machine, so they can be publicly accessed and downloaded.
They are placed in the public_html directory to be under the web
server running on the server machine because these files are accessed
by client programs using URLs.

The second copy command moves the Send class file to the same
location for the same reason. The RMIClient1 and RMIClient2 class
files are not made publicly accessible; they communicate from their
client machines using URLs to access and download the remote object
files in the public_html directory.

 RMIClient1 is invoked from a client-side directory and

uses the server-side web server and client-side Java VM to
download the publicly accessible files.

 RMIClient2 is invoked from a client-side directory and

uses the server-side web server and client-side Java VM to
download the
publicly
accessible files.

Start the RMI

Registry

Before you start the

client programs, you
must start the RMI
Registry, which is a server-side naming repository that allows remote
clients to get a reference to the remote server object.

Before you start the RMI Registry, make sure the shell or window in
which you run the rmiregistry command does not have a CLASSPATH
environment variable that points to the remote object classes,
including the stub and skel classes, anywhere on your system. If the
RMI Registry finds these classes when it starts, it will not load them
from the server-side Java VM, which will create problems when clients
try to download the remote server classes.

The following commands unset the CLASSPATH and start the RMI
Registry on the default 1099 port. You can specify a different port by
adding the port number as follows: rmiregistry 4444 &. If you
specify a different port number, you must specify the same port
number in your server-side code as well.

Unix:
cd /home/zelda/public_html/classes
unsetenv CLASSPATH
rmiregistry &
Win32:
cd \home\zelda\public_html\classes
set CLASSPATH=
start rmiregistry 

Note: You might want to set the CLASSPATH back to its

original setting at this point.

Run the RemoteServer Server Object

To run the example programs, start RemoteServer first. If you start

either RMIClient1 or RMIClient2 first, they will not be able to
establish a connection because the remote server object is not
running.

In this example, RemoteServer is started from the

/home/zelda/public_html/classes directory.
The lines beginning at java should be all on one line with spaces
where the lines break. The properties specified with the ­D option to
the java interpreter command are program attributes that manage the
behavior of the program for this invocation.

Unix:
cd /home/zelda/public_html/classes
java 
­Djava.rmi.server.codebase=http://kq6py/~zelda/classes
­Djava.rmi.server.hostname=kq6py.eng.sun.com
­Djava.security.policy=java.policy RemoteServer
Win32:
cd \home\zelda\public_html\classes
java ­Djava.rmi.server.codebase=file:
       c:\home\zelda\public_html\classes
­Djava.rmi.server.hostname=kq6py.eng.sun.com
­Djava.security.policy=java.policy RemoteServer

 The java.rmi.server.codebase property specifies where

the publicly accessible classes are located.

 The java.rmi.server.hostname property is the complete

host name of the server where the publicly accessible classes
reside.

 The java.rmi.security.policy property specifies the

policy file with the permissions needed to run the remote server
object and access the remote server classes for download.

 The class to execute (RemoteServer).

Run the RMIClient1 Program

Here is the command sequence for the Unix and Win32 platforms; an
explanation follows.

In this example, RMIClient1 is started from the

/home/zelda/classes directory.

The lines beginning at java should be all on one line with spaces
where the lines break. Properties specified with the ­D option to the
java interpreter command are program attributes that manage the
behavior of the program for this invocation.

Unix:
cd /home/zelda/classes

java ­Djava.rmi.server.codebase=
                         http://kq6py/~zelda/classes/
­Djava.security.policy=java.policy 
                  RMIClient1 kq6py.eng.sun.com
Win32:
cd \home\zelda\classes

java ­Djava.rmi.server.codebase=
                         file:c:\home\zelda\classes\
­Djava.security.policy=java.policy 
                         RMIClient1 kq6py.eng.sun.com

 The java.rmi.server.codebase property specifies where

the publicly accessible classes for downloading are located.

 The java.security.policy property specifies the policy

file with the permissions needed to run the client program and
access the remote server classes.

 The client program class to execute (RMIClient1), and the

host name of the server (Kq6py) where the remote server
classes are.

Run RMIClient2

Here is the command sequence for the Unix and Win32 platforms; an
explanation follows.

In this example, RMIClient2 is started from the

/home/zelda/classes directory.

The lines beginning at java should be all on one line with spaces
where the lines break. The properties specified with the ­D option to
the java interpreter command are program attributes that manage the
behavior of the program for this invocation.

Unix:
cd /home/zelda/classes
java ­Djava.rmi.server.codebase=
                         http://kq6py/~zelda/classes
­Djava.security.policy=java.policy 
                         RMIClient2 kq6py.eng.sun.com
Win32:
cd \home\zelda\classes
java ­Djava.rmi.server.codebase=
                file:c:\home\zelda\public_html\classes
­Djava.security.policy=java.policy 
                         RMIClient2 kq6py.eng.sun.com

 The java.rmi.server.codebase property specifies where

the publicly accessible classes are located.

 The java.rmi.server.hostname property is the complete

host name of the server where the publicly accessible classes
reside.

 The java.rmi.security.policy property specifies the

policy file with the permissions needed to run the remote server
object and access the remote server classes for download.

 The class to execute (RMIClient2).

RemoteServer Class

The RemoteServer class extends UnicastRemoteObject and

implements the sendData and getData methods declared in the Send
interface. These are the remotely accessible methods.

UnicastRemoteObject implements a number of java.lang.Object

methods for remote objects and includes constructors and static
methods to make a remote object available to receive method calls
from client programs.

class RemoteServer extends UnicastRemoteObject
                 implements Send {

  String text;

  public RemoteServer() throws RemoteException {
    super();
  }

  public void sendData(String gotText){
    text = gotText;
  }

  public String getData(){
    return text;
  }
The main method installs the RMISecurityManager and opens a
connection with a port on the machine where the server program runs.
The security manager determines whether there is a policy file that
lets downloaded code perform tasks that require permissions. The
main method creates a name for the the RemoteServer object that
includes the server name (kq6py) where the RMI Registry and remote
object run, and the name, Send.

By default the server name uses port 1099. If you want to use a
different port number, you can add it with a colon as follows:
kq6py:4444. If you change the port here, you must start the RMI
Registry with the same port number.

The try block creates an instance of the RemoteServer class and binds
the name to the remote object to the RMI Registry with the
Naming.rebind(name, remoteServer); statement.

  public static void main(String[] args){
    if(System.getSecurityManager() == null) {
      System.setSecurityManager(new 
               RMISecurityManager());
    }
    String name = "//kq6py.eng.sun.com/Send";
    try {
      Send remoteServer = new RemoteServer();
      Naming.rebind(name, remoteServer);
      System.out.println("RemoteServer bound");
    } catch (java.rmi.RemoteException e) {
      System.out.println("Cannot create 
                   remote server object");
    } catch (java.net.MalformedURLException e) {
      System.out.println("Cannot look up 
                   server object");
    }
  }
}

Note: The remoteServer object is type Send (see instance

declaration at top of class) because the interface available
to clients is the Send interface and its methods; not the
RemoteServer class and its methods.
Send Interface

The Send interface declares the methods implemented in the

RemoteServer class. These are the remotely accessible methods.
public interface Send extends Remote {

  public void sendData(String text) 
                throws RemoteException;
  public String getData() throws RemoteException;
}

RMIClient1 Class

The RMIClient1 class establishes a connection to the remote server

program and sends data to the remote server object. The code to do
these things is in the actionPerformed and main methods.

actionPerformed Method

The actionPerformed method calls the RemoteServer.sendData

method to send text to the remote server object.
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event){
   Object source = event.getSource();

   if(source == button){
//Send data over socket
      String text = textField.getText();
      try{
        send.sendData(text);
      } catch (java.rmi.RemoteException e) {
        System.out.println("Cannot send data to server");
      }
      textField.setText(new String(""));
   }
}

main Method

The main method installs the RMISecurityManager and creates a name

to use to look up the RemoteServer server object. The client uses the
Naming.lookup method to look up the RemoteServer object in the RMI
Registry running on the server.

The security manager determines whether there is a policy file that

lets downloaded code perform tasks that require permissions.
  RMIClient1 frame = new RMIClient1();

  if(System.getSecurityManager() == null) {
    System.setSecurityManager(new RMISecurityManager());
  }

  try {
//args[0] contains name of server where Send runs
    String name = "//" + args[0] + "/Send";
    send = ((Send) Naming.lookup(name));
  } catch (java.rmi.NotBoundException e) {
    System.out.println("Cannot look up 
                 remote server object");
  } catch(java.rmi.RemoteException e){
    System.out.println("Cannot look up 
                 remote server object");
  } catch(java.net.MalformedURLException e) {
    System.out.println("Cannot look up 
                 remote server object");
  }

RMIClient2 Class

The RMIClient2 class establishes a connection with the remote server

program and gets the data from the remote server object and displays
it. The code to do this is in the actionPerformed and main methods.

actionPerformed Method

The actionPerformed method calls the RemoteServer.getData

method to retrieve the data sent by the client program. This data is
appended to the TextArea object for display to the end user on the
server side.
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
   Object source = event.getSource();

   if(source == button){
      try{
        String text = send.getData();
        textArea.append(text);
      } catch (java.rmi.RemoteException e) {
        System.out.println("Cannot send data 
                     to server");
      }
      }
   }
}
main Method

The main method installs the RMISecurityManager and creates a name

to use to look up the RemoteServer server object. The args[0]
parameter provides the name of the server host. The client uses the
Naming.lookup method to look up the RemoteServer object in the RMI
Registry running on the server.

The security manager determines whether there is a policy file that

lets downloaded code perform tasks that require permissions.

  RMIClient2 frame = new RMIClient2();

  if(System.getSecurityManager() == null) {
    System.setSecurityManager(new RMISecurityManager());
  }

  try {
    String name = "//" + args[0] + "/Send";
    send = ((Send) Naming.lookup(name));
  } catch (java.rmi.NotBoundException e) {
    System.out.println("Cannot look up remote 
                 server object");
  } catch(java.rmi.RemoteException e){
    System.out.println("Cannot look up remote 
                 server object");
  } catch(java.net.MalformedURLException e) {
    System.out.println("Cannot look up remote 
                 server object");
  }

More Information

You can find more information on the RMI API in the RMI trail of The
Java Tutorial.

In Closing

After completing this tutorial you should have a basic understanding of

Java programming and how to use some of the more common
TM

application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Java

platform. You should also have a solid understanding of the similarities
and differences between the three most common kinds of Java
programs: applications, applets, and servlets.

Java Programming Language Basics, Part 2, is now available. It covers

sockets, threads, cryptography, building a more complex user
interface, serialization, collections, internationalization, and Java
Archive (JAR) files. It also presents object-oriented concepts as they
relate to the examples in Part 1 and Part 2.

You can also explore programming in the Java language on your own
with the help of the articles, training materials, other documents
available on the Docs & Training page.

Monica Pawlan is a staff writer on the JDC team. She has a

background in 2D and 3D graphics, security, database products, and
loves to explore emerging technologies. monica.pawlan@eng.sun.com