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4.9 Tutorial 9 Mapping class variables to instance variables (also known as properties) and functions to methods

4.9.1 Elementary classes: using a single class for everything

For the purpose of the text that follows, O.O.P. stands for Object Oriented Programming.

Question 4.9.1: Study, compile and run the following code:

class PersonDriver1
begin
    classVar String homersName = "Homer Simpson";
    classVar int    homersAge  = 40; // Homer's age in years

    classVar String fredsName  = "Fred Flintstone";
    classVar int    fredsAge   = 45; // Fred's age in years

    classVar String darthsName = "Darth Vader";
    classVar int    darthsAge  = 55; // Darth's age in years

    function void growHomer()
    begin
        homersAge = homersAge + 1;
    end
    function void growFred()
    begin
        fredsAge = fredsAge + 1;
    end
    function void growDarth()
    begin
        darthsAge = darthsAge + 1;
    end

    function void knightHomer()
    begin
        homersName = "Sir " + homersName;
    end
    function void knightFred()
    begin
        fredsName = "Sir " + fredsName;
    end
    function void knightDarth()
    begin
        darthsName = "Sir " + darthsName;
    end

    function void printHomer()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + homersName + ", my age is " + homersAge);
    end
    function void printFred()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + fredsName + ", my age is " + fredsAge);
    end
    function void printDarth()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + darthsName + ", my age is " + darthsAge);
    end

    beginMain
        growHomer();
        knightHomer();
        printHomer();
        printFred();
        printDarth();
    endMain
end

Question 4.9.2: By copying the pattern established in the existing code write a some new class variables to represent a new person called Barak Obama. Note that he was born August 4, 1961 so at the time of writing this manual he is 54 years old.

Question 4.9.3: Then write some functions to work with this new person.

Question 4.9.4: Finally call those functions from the main function.

4.9.2 Improved classes: one object per class

As your program gets large (say over 1000 lines) then it becomes no longer practical to put all of your code in the same class. So it is natural to put each piece of related code in its own class. The J.T.W. programming language supports splitting a class into its constituent methods and having one file for each method. Simply use the include directive and J.T.W. will include the file for you like so:

include "a.method";

will include a method named a.

Question 4.9.5: Study, compile and run the following code: Each of these classes can be put in their own file. For each class X, this class can be put into a file called X.jtw. However for the purposes of this tutorial you will probably find it easier to merge all of the classes into the same file into a file called PersonDriver2.jtw

class Homer
begin
    classVar String name = "Homer Simpson";
    classVar int    age  = 40;) // Homer's age in years

    function void grow()
    begin
        age = age + 1;
    end
    function void knight()
    begin
        name = "Sir " + name;
    end
    function void print()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + name + ", my age is " + age);
    end
end

class Fred
begin
    classVar String name = "Fred Flintstone";
    classVar int    age  = 45;) // Fred's age in years

    function void grow()
    begin
        age = age + 1;
    end
    function void knight()
    begin
        name = "Sir " + name;
    end
    function void print()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + name + ", my age is " + age);
    end
end

class Darth
begin
    classVar String name = "Darth Vader";
    classVar int    age  = 55;) // Darth's age in years

    function void grow()
    begin
        age = age + 1;
    end
    function void knight()
    begin
        name = "Sir " + name;
    end
    function void print()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + name + ", my age is " + age);
    end
end

class PersonDriver2
begin
    beginMain
        Homer.grow();
        Fred.knight();
        Homer.print();
        Fred.print();
        Darth.print();
    endMain
end

Question 4.9.6: By copying the pattern established in the existing code write a new class to represent Barak Obama.

Question 4.9.7: Call the functions from the main function of the driver class.

4.9.3 True O.O.P.: more than one object per class

To allow for more than one object per class, most if not all class variables needs to be made into what are called instance variables (or more simply and more commonly known as properties) and most if not all functions need to be made into what are called methods.

Question 4.9.8: Study, compile and run the following code:

class Person
begin )
    /*
    * NOTE: the use of the "property" keyword here instead of the
    * "classVar" keyword.
    */
    property String name; // Person's full name
    property int    age;  // Person's age in years

    /*
    * NOTE: the use of the "method" keyword here instead of the
    * "function" keyword.
    */
    method void grow()
    begin
        age = age + 1;
    end

    method void knight()
    begin
        name = "Sir " + name;
    end

    method void print()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + name + ", my age is " + age);
    end

    beginMain

        var Person h = new Person();
        h.name = "Homer Simpson";
        h.age  = 40;

        var Person f = new Person();
        f.name = "Fred Flintstone";
        f.age  = 45;

        var Person d = new Person();
        d.name = "Darth Vader";
        d.age  = 55;

        h.grow();
        h.knight();
        h.print();
        f.print();
        d.print();
    endMain
end

In the above code, note the use of three references h, f and d.

Question 4.9.9: By copying the pattern established in the existing code add some code to the main function add some code to create a new person for Barak Obama.

4.9.4 A common design pattern: private properties,public constructor and public getters

A common design pattern in Java and one that I present for you in the following code is to make all of the properties of a class effectively read-only to all client classes by making all of the properties private and providing non-private getter methods for getting the values of the properties. It is possible for the original class to change the values of the properties but other classes (such as PersonTest below) are not capable of doing this, without calling a method of the original class such the grow and knight methods of the Person class. Finally an additional thing known as a constructor is used to ensure that objects are initialized with meaningful values for their properties.

Question 4.9.10: Study, compile and run the following code:

class Person
begin

    private property String name;
    private property int    age; // Age in years
)
    //
    // NOTE: Getter methods
    //
    public method String getName()
    begin
        return name;
    end

    public method int getAge()
    begin
        return age;
    end

    public constructor Person(String aName, int anAge)
    begin
        this.name = aName;
        this.age  = anAge;
    end

    public method void grow()
    begin
        age = age + 1;
    end

    public method void knight()
    begin
        name = "Sir " + name;
    end

    public method void print()
    begin
        System.out.println("I am " + name + ", my age is " + age);
    end
end

class PersonDriver3
begin
    beginMain
        //
        // NOTE: In the following constructor calls the age and name are set by the constructor
        //
        var Person h = new Person("Homer Simpson",40);
        var Person f = new Person("Fred Flintstone",45);
        var Person d = new Person("Darth Vader",55);

        h.grow();
        h.knight();
        h.print();
        f.print();
        d.print();

        h.name = "Luke Skywalker";)                 // ERROR: name is private
        h.age = h.age + 1;                          // ERROR: age is private

        System.out.println("name=" + h.name);       // ERROR: name is private
        System.out.println("age="  + h.age);        // ERROR: age is private

        System.out.println("name=" + h.getName());  // OK: getter is non-private
        System.out.println("age="  + h.getAge());   // OK: getter is non-private
    endMain
end

Note that you will have to remove the error lines from the above file for the code to compile.

Question 4.9.11: By copying the pattern established in the existing code add some code to the main function to create a new person called Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton was born on October 26, 1947 so at the time of writing this manual she was 68 years old

4.9.5 Comparing strings

Question 4.9.12: Add a method unknight() which removes the "Sir " title if he has one. One trap for young players in J.T.W. or Java is to use the operator == to compare strings like so:

function boolean myCompare(String a, String b)
begin
    return a == b;) // Works but not as expected!
end

It compiles without error, but doesn’t give you the result you were expecting. Instead you need to use the equals method of the String class like so:

function boolean myCompare(String a, String b)
begin
    return a.equals(b);
end

More generally, if x and y are a references to objects, then x == y returns whether or not x and y are pointing to the same object, whereas x.equals(y) returns whether or not the contents of the objects referred to by x and y are equal. The meaning of the word contents varies from class to class, but in the case of strings it means that the strings contain the same data.

You will also find the String class’ substring and (toUpperCase or toLowerCase) methods useful here too. See the class String in the package java.lang at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api for more details of these two methods.

4.9.6 The null value for references

As soon as you learn how to use references you need to know that all reference variables could conceivably hold the value null, meaning no value. In particular when properties are themselves references as you will discover in Tutorial 11, then those properties are initialized to null by default. Object arrays that you will learn about in Tutorial 10 using the second of two initialization syntaxes are also initialized to null by default.

4.9.7 Why the toString method is better than any other method or

property for debugging

If x is a reference to a class X (including this for the current class) and if m is a method of X and p is a property of X, and if x is currently null, then the following lines result in a NullPointerException being thrown when executed:

x.p;
x.m();

whereas if x is null then

System.out.println(x); and
System.out.println("x=" + x);

prints out, respectively:

null, and
x=null.

If x is not null, it calls

System.out.println(x.toString());
System.out.println("x=" + x.toString());

so these expressions are safer to use than any other method or property in situations where x might be null. The syntax of the toString method is as follows:

public method String toString()
begin
    // Code goes here...
end

Importantly for reasons which will be explained later the toString method must be declared with public visibility. For other properties and methods to be used safely with null references you need to wrap a conditional if construct around the calling of the method or property like so for properties:

if (x != null)
then begin
    System.out.println(x.p);
end

or like so for methods:

if (x != null)
then begin
    System.out.println(x.m());
end

Therefore the toString method is more convenient than any other method or property.

Question 4.9.13: Change the print method above from a method that prints out to the screen to a method called toString that returns a String.

Question 4.9.14: Call the toString method instead of the print methods in the main function.


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