Downloaded 679 times
![14 Java - Fundamentals
Java – Fundamentals
Q 01: Give a few reasons for using Java? LF DC FAQ
A 01: Java is a fun language. Let’s look at some of the reasons:
Built-in support for multi-threading, socket communication, and memory management (automatic garbage
collection).
Object Oriented (OO).
Better portability than other languages across operating systems.
Supports Web based applications (Applet, Servlet, and JSP), distributed applications (sockets, RMI, EJB etc)
and network protocols (HTTP, JRMP etc) with the help of extensive standardized APIs (Application
Programming Interfaces).
Q 02: What is the main difference between the Java platform and the other software platforms? LF
A 02: Java platform is a software-only platform, which runs on top of other hardware-based platforms like UNIX, NT etc.
The Java platform has 2 components:
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) – ‘JVM’ is a software that can be ported onto various hardware platforms. Byte
codes are the machine language of the JVM.
Java Application Programming Interface (Java API) – set of classes written using the Java language and run
on the JVM.
Q 03: What is the difference between C++ and Java? LF
A 03: Both C++ and Java use similar syntax and are Object Oriented, but:
Java does not support pointers. Pointers are inherently tricky to use and troublesome.
Java does not support multiple inheritances because it causes more problems than it solves. Instead Java
supports multiple interface inheritance, which allows an object to inherit many method signatures from
different interfaces with the condition that the inheriting object must implement those inherited methods. The
multiple interface inheritance also allows an object to behave polymorphically on those methods. [Refer Q9
and Q10 in Java section.]
Java does not support destructors but adds a finalize() method. Finalize methods are invoked by the garbage
collector prior to reclaiming the memory occupied by the object, which has the finalize() method. This means
you do not know when the objects are going to be finalized. Avoid using finalize() method to release non-
memory resources like file handles, sockets, database connections etc because Java has only a finite
number of these resources and you do not know when the garbage collection is going to kick in to release
these resources through the finalize() method.
Java does not include structures or unions because the traditional data structures are implemented as an
object oriented framework (Java Collections Framework – Refer Q16, Q17 in Java section).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-15-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 15
All the code in Java program is encapsulated within classes therefore Java does not have global variables or
functions.
C++ requires explicit memory management, while Java includes automatic garbage collection. [Refer Q37 in
Java section].
Q 04: What are the usages of Java packages? LF
A 04: It helps resolve naming conflicts when different packages have classes with the same names. This also helps you
organize files within your project. For example: java.io package do something related to I/O and java.net
package do something to do with network and so on. If we tend to put all .java files into a single package, as the
project gets bigger, then it would become a nightmare to manage all your files.
You can create a package as follows with package keyword, which is the first keyword in any Java program
followed by import statements. The java.lang package is imported implicitly by default and all the other packages
must be explicitly imported.
package com.xyz.client ;
import java.io.File;
import java.net.URL;
Q 05: Explain Java class loaders? If you have a class in a package, what do you need to do to run it? Explain dynamic
class loading? LF
A 05: Class loaders are hierarchical. Classes are introduced into the JVM as they are referenced by name in a class that
is already running in the JVM. So, how is the very first class loaded? The very first class is especially loaded with
the help of static main( ) method declared in your class. All the subsequently loaded classes are loaded by the
classes, which are already loaded and running. A class loader creates a namespace. All JVMs include at least one
class loader that is embedded within the JVM called the primordial (or bootstrap) class loader. Now let’s look at
non-primordial class loaders. The JVM has hooks in it to allow user defined class loaders to be used in place of
primordial class loader. Let us look at the class loaders created by the JVM.
CLASS LOADER reloadable? Explanation
Bootstrap No Loads JDK internal classes, java.* packages. (as defined in the sun.boot.class.path
(primordial) system property, typically loads rt.jar and i18n.jar)
Extensions No Loads jar files from JDK extensions directory (as defined in the java.ext.dirs system
property – usually lib/ext directory of the JRE)
System No Loads classes from system classpath (as defined by the java.class.path property, which
is set by the CLASSPATH environment variable or –classpath or –cp command line
options)
JVM class loaders
Bootstrap
(primordial)
Classes loaded by Bootstrap class loader have no visibility into classes
(rt.jar, i18.jar)
loaded by its descendants (ie Extensions and Systems class loaders).
Extensions The classes loaded by system class loader have visibility into classes loaded
(lib/ext) by its parents (ie Extensions and Bootstrap class loaders).
If there were any sibling class loaders they cannot see classes loaded by
System each other. They can only see the classes loaded by their parent class
(-classpath) loader. For example Sibling1 class loader cannot see classes loaded by
Sibling2 class loader
Sibling1 Sibling2 Both Sibling1 and Sibling2 class loaders have visibilty into classes loaded
classloader classloader by their parent class loaders (eg: System, Extensions, and Bootstrap)
Class loaders are hierarchical and use a delegation model when loading a class. Class loaders request their
parent to load the class first before attempting to load it themselves. When a class loader loads a class, the child
class loaders in the hierarchy will never reload the class again. Hence uniqueness is maintained. Classes loaded](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-16-320.jpg)
![16 Java - Fundamentals
by a child class loader have visibility into classes loaded by its parents up the hierarchy but the reverse is not true
as explained in the above diagram.
Q. What do you need to do to run a class with a main() method in a package?
Example: Say, you have a class named “Pet” in a project folder “c:myProject” and package named
com.xyz.client, will you be able to compile and run it as it is?
package com.xyz.client;
public class Pet {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("I am found in the classpath");
}
}
To run c:myProject> java com.xyz.client.Pet
The answer is no and you will get the following exception: “Exception in thread "main" java.lang.-
NoClassDefFoundError: com/xyz/client/Pet”. You need to set the classpath. How can you do that? One of the
following ways:
1. Set the operating system CLASSPATH environment variable to have the project folder “c:myProject”. [Shown
in the above diagram as the System –classpath class loader]
2. Set the operating system CLASSPATH environment variable to have a jar file “c:/myProject/client.jar”, which
has the Pet.class file in it. [Shown in the above diagram as the System –classpath class loader].
3. Run it with –cp or –classpath option as shown below:
c:>java –cp c:/myProject com.xyz.client.Pet
OR
c:>java -classpath c:/myProject/client.jar com.xyz.client.Pet
Important: Two objects loaded by different class loaders are never equal even if they carry the same values, which mean a
class is uniquely identified in the context of the associated class loader. This applies to singletons too, where each class
loader will have its own singleton. [Refer Q51 in Java section for singleton design pattern]
Q. Explain static vs. dynamic class loading?
Static class loading Dynamic class loading
Classes are statically loaded with Java’s Dynamic loading is a technique for programmatically invoking the functions of a
“new” operator. class loader at run time. Let us look at how to load classes dynamically.
class MyClass { Class.forName (String className); //static method which returns a Class
public static void main(String args[]) {
Car c = new Car(); The above static method returns the class object associated with the class
} name. The string className can be supplied dynamically at run time. Unlike the
} static loading, the dynamic loading will decide whether to load the class Car or
the class Jeep at runtime based on a properties file and/or other runtime
conditions. Once the class is dynamically loaded the following method returns an
instance of the loaded class. It’s just like creating a class object with no
arguments.
class.newInstance (); //A non-static method, which creates an instance of a
//class (i.e. creates an object).
Jeep myJeep = null ;
//myClassName should be read from a .properties file or a Constants class.
// stay away from hard coding values in your program. CO
String myClassName = "au.com.Jeep" ;
Class vehicleClass = Class.forName(myClassName) ;
myJeep = (Jeep) vehicleClass.newInstance();
myJeep.setFuelCapacity(50);
A NoClassDefFoundException is A ClassNotFoundException is thrown when an application tries to load in a
thrown if a class is referenced with class through its string name using the following methods but no definition for the
Java’s “new” operator (i.e. static loading) class with the specified name could be found:
but the runtime system cannot find the
referenced class. The forName(..) method in class - Class.
The findSystemClass(..) method in class - ClassLoader.
The loadClass(..) method in class - ClassLoader.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-17-320.jpg)
![18 Java - Fundamentals
their parent's setup() method, you, as a user, need to remember to invoke theirs after you wrote your initialization
code:
public class DBUnitTestCase extends TestCase {
public void setUp() {
super.setUp();
// do my own initialization
}
}
public void cleanUp() throws Throwable
{
try {
… // Do stuff here to clean up your object(s).
}
catch (Throwable t) {}
finally{
super.cleanUp(); //clean up your parent class. Unlike constructors
// super.regularMethod() can be called at any line.
}
}
Q 07: What are the advantages of Object Oriented Programming Languages (OOPL)? DC FAQ
A 07: The Object Oriented Programming Languages directly represent the real life objects like Car, Jeep, Account,
Customer etc. The features of the OO programming languages like polymorphism, inheritance and
encapsulation make it powerful. [Tip: remember pie which, stands for Polymorphism, Inheritance and
Encapsulation are the 3 pillars of OOPL]
Q 08: How does the Object Oriented approach improve software development? DC
A 08: The key benefits are:
Re-use of previous work: using implementation inheritance and object composition.
Real mapping to the problem domain: Objects map to real world and represent vehicles, customers,
products etc: with encapsulation.
Modular Architecture: Objects, systems, frameworks etc are the building blocks of larger systems.
The increased quality and reduced development time are the by-products of the key benefits discussed above.
If 90% of the new application consists of proven existing components then only the remaining 10% of the code
have to be tested from scratch.
Q 09: How do you express an ‘is a’ relationship and a ‘has a’ relationship or explain inheritance and composition? What
is the difference between composition and aggregation? DC FAQ
A 09: The ‘is a’ relationship is expressed with inheritance and ‘has a’ relationship is expressed with composition. Both
inheritance and composition allow you to place sub-objects inside your new class. Two of the main techniques for
code reuse are class inheritance and object composition.
Inheritance [ is a ] Vs Composition [ has a ]
Building is a is a [House is a Building] has a [House has a Bathroom]
class Building{ class House {
has a ....... Bathroom room = new Bathroom() ;
} ....
public void getTotMirrors(){
class House extends Building{ room.getNoMirrors();
Bathroom ......... ....
House
} }
}
Inheritance is uni-directional. For example House is a Building. But Building is not a House. Inheritance uses
extends key word. Composition: is used when House has a Bathroom. It is incorrect to say House is a](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-19-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 21
super.withdraw (amount); // get code reuse // composed helper class (i.e. composition).
// do something else AccountHelper helper = new AccountHelperImpl ();
}
} public double calculateInterest (double amount) {
// calculate interest for SavingsAccount
public class TermDepositAccount extends Account { return amount * 0.03;
}
public double calculateInterest (double amount) {
// calculate interest for SavingsAccount public void deposit (double amount) {
return amount * 0.05; helper.deposit( amount); // code reuse via composition
} }
public void deposit(double amount) { public void withdraw (double amount) {
super.deposit (amount); // get code reuse helper.withdraw (amount); // code reuse via composition
// do something else }
} }
public void withdraw(double amount) { public class TermDepositAccountImpl implements Account {
super.withdraw (amount); // get code reuse
// do something else // composed helper class (i.e. composition).
} AccountHelper helper = new AccountHelperImpl ();
}
public double calculateInterest (double amount) {
//calculate interest for SavingsAccount
return amount * 0.05;
}
public void deposit (double amount) {
helper.deposit (amount) ; // code reuse via composition
}
public void withdraw (double amount) {
helper.withdraw (amount) ; // code reuse via composition
}
}
The Test class:
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Account acc1 = new SavingsAccountImpl();
acc1.deposit(50.0);
Account acc2 = new TermDepositAccountImpl();
acc2.deposit(25.0);
acc1.withdraw(25);
acc2.withdraw(10);
double cal1 = acc1.calculateInterest(100.0);
double cal2 = acc2.calculateInterest(100.0);
System.out.println("Savings --> " + cal1);
System.out.println("TermDeposit --> " + cal2);
}
}
The output:
depositing 50.0
depositing 25.0
withdrawing 25.0
withdrawing 10.0
Savings --> 3.0
TermDeposit --> 5.0
Q. Why would you prefer code reuse via composition over inheritance? Both the approaches make use of
polymorphism and gives code reuse (in different ways) to achieve the same results but:
The advantage of class inheritance is that it is done statically at compile-time and is easy to use. The disadvantage of
class inheritance is that because it is static, implementation inherited from a parent class cannot be changed at run-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-22-320.jpg)
![24 Java - Fundamentals
The isNegative() method should be true before and after any method completes, each public method and
constructor should contain the following assert statement immediately prior to its return.
assert isNegative();
Explain the assertion construct? The assertion statements have two forms as shown below:
assert Expression1;
assert Expression1 : Expression2;
Where:
Expression1 is a boolean expression. If the Expression1 evaluates to false, it throws an AssertionError without any
detailed message.
Expression2 if the Expression1 evaluates to false throws an AssertionError with using the value of the Expression2 as
the error’s detailed message.
Note: If you are using assertions (available from JDK1.4 onwards), you should supply the JVM argument to
enable it by package name or class name.
java -ea[:packagename...|:classname] or java -enableassertions[:packagename...|:classname]
java –ea:Account
Q 12: What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface and when should you use them? LF DP DC
FAQ
A 12: In design, you want the base class to present only an interface for its derived classes. This means, you don’t want
anyone to actually instantiate an object of the base class. You only want to upcast to it (implicit upcasting, which
gives you polymorphic behavior), so that its interface can be used. This is accomplished by making that class
abstract using the abstract keyword. If anyone tries to make an object of an abstract class, the compiler prevents
it.
The interface keyword takes this concept of an abstract class a step further by preventing any method or function
implementation at all. You can only declare a method or function but not provide the implementation. The class,
which is implementing the interface, should provide the actual implementation. The interface is a very useful and
commonly used aspect in OO design, as it provides the separation of interface and implementation and
enables you to:
Capture similarities among unrelated classes without artificially forcing a class relationship.
Declare methods that one or more classes are expected to implement.
Reveal an object's programming interface without revealing its actual implementation.
Model multiple interface inheritance in Java, which provides some of the benefits of full on multiple
inheritances, a feature that some object-oriented languages support that allow a class to have more than one
superclass.
Abstract class Interface
Have executable methods and abstract methods. Have no implementation code. All methods are abstract.
Can only subclass one abstract class. A class can implement any number of interfaces.
Diamond problem & use of interface
Shape <<Interface>>
ShapeIF
Circle Square CircleOnSquare
Circle Square
<<Interface>> <<Interface>>
CircleIF SquareIF
CircleOnSquare
Multiple interface inheritance in JAVA
No multiple inheritance in JAVA](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-25-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 27
For classes that don’t implement Comparable interface, or when one needs even more control over ordering based on
multiple attributes, a Comparator interface should be used.
Comparable interface Comparator interface
The “Comparable” allows itself to compare with another The Comparator is used to compare two different objects. The
similar object (i.e. A class that implements Comparable following method is specified in the Comparator interface.
becomes an object to be compared with). The method
compareTo() is specified in the interface. public int compare(Object o1, Object o2)
Many of the standard classes in the Java library like String, You can have more control by writing your Comparator class. Let us
Integer, Date, File etc implement the Comparable interface write a Comparator for the Pet class shown on the left. For most cases
to give the class a "Natural Ordering". For example String natural ordering is fine as shown on the left but say we require a
class uses the following methods: special scenario where we need to first sort by the “petId” and then by
the “petType”. We can achieve this by writing a “Comparator” class.
public int compareTo(o)
public int compareToIgnoreCase(str) ...imports
You could also implement your own method in your public class PetComparator implements Comparator, Serializable{
own class as shown below:
public int compare(Object o1, Object o2) {
int result = 0;
...imports
Pet pet = (Pet)o1;
public class Pet implements Comparable { Pet petAnother = (Pet)o2;
int petId; //use Integer class's natural ordering
String petType; Integer pId = new Integer(pet.getPetId());
Integer pAnotherId = new Integer(petAnother.getPetId());
public Pet(int argPetId, String argPetType) {
petId = argPetId; result = pId.compareTo(pAnotherId);
this.petType = argPetType;
} //if ids are same compare by petType
if(result == 0) {
public int compareTo(Object o) { result= pet.getPetType().compareTo
Pet petAnother = (Pet)o; (petAnother.getPetType());
}
//natural alphabetical ordering by type
//if equal returns 0, if greater returns +ve int, return result;
//if less returns -ve int }
return this.petType.compareTo(petAnother.petType);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
List list = new ArrayList();
public static void main(String[] args) { list.add(new Pet(2, "Dog"));
List list = new ArrayList(); list.add(new Pet(1, "Parrot"));
list.add(new Pet(2, "Dog")); list.add(new Pet(2, "Cat"));
list.add(new Pet(1, "Parrot"));
list.add(new Pet(2, "Cat")); Collections.sort(list, new PetComparator());
Collections.sort(list); // sorts using compareTo method for (Iterator iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext();){
Pet element = (Pet) iter.next();
for (Iterator iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext();) { System.out.println(element);
Pet element = (Pet) iter.next(); }
System.out.println(element); }
} }
}
public String toString() {
Output: Parrot, Cat, Dog.
return petType;
}
Note: some methods are not shown for brevity.
}
Output: Cat, Dog, Parrot
Important: The ordering imposed by a java.util.Comparator “myComp” on a set of elements “mySet” should be
consistent with equals() method, which means for example:
if compare(o1,o2) == 0 then o1.equals(o2) should be true.
if compare(o1,o2) != 0 then o1.equals(o2) should be false.
If a comparator “myComp” on a set of elements “mySet” is inconsistent with equals() method, then SortedSet or
SortedMap will behave strangely and is hard to debug. For example if you add two objects o1, o2 to a TreeSet](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-28-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 29
JAVA collection framework
<interface>
Collection AbstractCollection java.util.Collections
extends
<interface> asList Arrays
List <interface>
<interface>
Map
AbstractList Set
AbstractMap
AbstractSet
Abstract <interface>
Sequential <interface> SortedMap
List SortedSet
<interface> Identity
Random HashMap
Access TreeSet TreeMap
LinkedList Weak
HashMap
implements ArrayList
HashSet HashMap
Vector
<interface> Linked
Stack Linked
Comparator HashMap
HashSet
(Diagram sourced from: http://www.wilsonmar.com/1arrays.htm)
What are the benefits of the Java Collections Framework? Collections framework provides flexibility, performance,
and robustness.
Polymorphic algorithms – sorting, shuffling, reversing, binary search etc.
Set algebra - such as finding subsets, intersections, and unions between objects.
Performance - collections have much better performance compared to the older Vector and Hashtable classes with
the elimination of synchronization overheads.
Thread-safety - when synchronization is required, wrapper implementations are provided for temporarily
synchronizing existing collection objects. For J2SE 5.0 use java.util.concurrent package.
Immutability - when immutability is required wrapper implementations are provided for making a collection
immutable.
Extensibility - interfaces and abstract classes provide an excellent starting point for adding functionality and
features to create specialized object collections.
Q. What are static factory methods? CO
Some of the above mentioned features like searching, sorting, shuffling, immutability etc are achieved with
java.util.Collections class and java.util.Arrays utility classes. The great majority of these implementations are provided
via static factory methods in a single, non-instantiable (i.e. private constrctor) class. Speaking of static factory
methods, they are an alternative to creating objects through constructors. Unlike constructors, static factory methods are
not required to create a new object (i.e. a duplicate object) each time they are invoked (e.g. immutable instances can be
cached) and also they have a more meaningful names like valueOf, instanceOf, asList etc. For example:
Instead of:
String[] myArray = {"Java", "J2EE", "XML", "JNDI"};
for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
System.out.println(myArray[i]);
}
You can use:
String[] myArray = {"Java", "J2EE", "XML", "JNDI"};
System.out.println(Arrays.asList(myArray)); //factory method Arrays.asList(…)
For example: The following static factory method (an alternative to a constructor) example converts a boolean primitive
value to a Boolean wrapper object.
public static Boolean valueOf(boolean b) {
return (b ? Boolean.TRUE : Boolean.FALSE)
}](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-30-320.jpg)
![32 Java - Fundamentals
code. If an index position changes for some reason, then LineItemVO item1 = new LineItemVO();
you will have to change every occurrence, otherwise it Item1.setItemId(1);
breaks your application. Item1.setProductName(“BBQ”);
The above coding approaches are analogous to storing LineItemVO item2 = new LineItemVO();
disparate items in a storage system without proper Item1.setItemId(2);
labeling and just relying on its grid position. Item1.setProductName(“Outdoor chair”);
//to add line items to order
myOrder.add(item1);
myOrder.add(item2);
…
Q. How can you code better without nested loops? CO Avoid nested loops where possible (e.g. for loop within
another for loop etc) and instead make use of an appropriate java collection.
How to avoid nested loops with Java collection classes
Code to test if there are duplicate values in an array.
Avoid where possible -- nested loops Better approach -- using a collections class like a Set
public class NonNestedLoop {
public class NestedLoops {
private static String[] strArray = {"Cat", "Dog", "Tiger", "Lion", "Lion"};
private static String[] strArray = {"Cat", "Dog", "Tiger", "Lion", "Lion"};
public static boolean isThereDuplicateUsingCollection() {
public static boolean isThereDuplicateUsingLoop() {
boolean duplicateFound = false;
boolean duplicateFound = false;
int loopCounter = 0;
int loopCounter = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strArray.length; i++) {
Set setValues = new HashSet(10); // create a set
String str = strArray[i];
int countDuplicate = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strArray.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < strArray.length; j++) {
String str = strArray[i];
String str2 = strArray[j];
if(setValues.contains(str)) { // check if already has this value
if(str.equalsIgnoreCase(str2)) {
duplicateFound = true;
countDuplicate++;
System.out.println("duplicate found for " + str);
}
}
setValues.add(str); // add the value to the set
if(countDuplicate > 1) {
duplicateFound = true;
loopCounter++;
System.out.println("duplicate found for " + str);
}
if(duplicateFound) {
loopCounter++;
break;
}//end of inner nested for loop
}
} // end of for loop
if(duplicateFound) {
break;
System.out.println("looped " + loopCounter + " times");
}
return duplicateFound;
}//end of outer for loop
}
System.out.println("looped " + loopCounter + " times");
public static void main(String[] args) {
return duplicateFound;
isThereDuplicateUsingCollection();
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
isThereDuplicateUsingLoop();
output:
}
duplicate found for Lion
}
looped 5 times
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
output: The approach using a Set is more readable and easier to
duplicate found for Lion maintain and performs slightly better. If you have an array with
looped 20 times 100 items then nested loops will loop through 9900 times and
utilizing a collection class will loop through only 100 times.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-33-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 33
Q 18: What is the difference between “==” and equals(…) method? What is the difference between shallow comparison
and deep comparison of objects? LF CO FAQ
A 18: The questions Q18, Q19, and Q20 are vital for effective coding. These three questions are vital when you are
using a collection of objects for Example: using a java.util.Set of persistable Hibernate objects etc. It is easy to
implement these methods incorrectly and consequently your program can behave strangely and also is hard to
debug. So, you can expect these questions in your interviews.
== [ shallow comparison ] equals( ) [deep comparison ]
The == returns true, if the variable reference points to The equals() - returns the results of running the equals() method of a
the same object in memory. This is a “shallow user supplied class, which compares the attribute values. The equals()
comparison”. method provides “deep comparison” by checking if two objects are
logically equal as opposed to the shallow comparison provided by the
operator ==.
If equals() method does not exist in a user supplied class then the
inherited Object class's equals() method is run which evaluates if the
references point to the same object in memory. The object.equals() works
just like the "==" operator (i.e shallow comparison).
Overriding the Object class may seem simple but there are many ways to
get it wrong, and consequence can be unpredictable behavior. Refer Q19
in Java section.
== (identity) equals() method
If (a== b) returns false If (a.equals(b)) returns true
id=1
name
(both objects have same attribute values of id=1
=”Cat and name=”Cat”)
”
Pet a = new Pet(); id=1
Pet Object name
=”Cat
id=1
Pet a = new Pet(); ”
name Pet Object
=”Cat
Pet b = new Pet(); ” id=1
name
Pet Object Pet b = new Pet(); =”Cat
”
If (a== b) returns true (a,b points to the Pet Object
same object, after a is set to b with a=b)
id=1 If (a.equals(b)) returns true
name id=1
=”Cat
a=b ” a=b name
=”Cat
Pet Object ”
Pet Object
a id=1 a
name id=1
=”Cat name
b ” b =”Cat
”
Pet Object
Pet Object
Note: String assignment with the “new” operator follow the same rule as == and equals( ) as mentioned above.
String str = new String(“ABC”); //Wrong. Avoid this because a new String instance
//is created each time it is executed.
Variation to the above rule:
The “literal” String assignment is shown below, where if the assignment value is identical to another String assignment
value created then a new String object is not created. A reference to the existing String object is returned.
String str = “ABC”; //Right because uses a single instance rather than
//creating a new instance each time it is executed.
Let us look at an example:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-34-320.jpg)
![34 Java - Fundamentals
public class StringBasics {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s1 = new String("A"); //not recommended, use String s1 = "A"
String s2 = new String("A"); //not recommended, use String s2 = "A"
//standard: follows the == and equals() rule like plain java objects.
if (s1 == s2) { //shallow comparison
System.out.println("references/identities are equal"); //never reaches here
}
if (s1.equals(s2)) { //deep comparison
System.out.println("values are equal"); // this line is printed
}
//variation: does not follow the == and equals rule
String s3 = "A"; //goes into a String pool.
String s4 = "A"; //refers to String already in the pool.
if (s3 == s4) { //shallow comparison
System.out.println("references/identities are equal"); //this line is printed
}
if (s3.equals(s4)) { //deep comparison
System.out.println("values are equal"); //this line is also printed
}
}
}
Design pattern: String class is designed with Flyweight design pattern. When you create a String constant as shown
above in the variation, (i.e. String s3 = “A”, s4= “A”), it will be checked to see if it is already in the String pool. If it is in the
pool, it will be picked up from the pool instead of creating a new one. Flyweights are shared objects and using them can
result in substantial performance gains.
Q. What is an intern() method in the String class?
A pool of Strings is maintained by the String class. When the intern() method is invoked equals(…) method is invoked to
determine if the String already exist in the pool. If it does then the String from the pool is returned. Otherwise, this String
object is added to the pool and a reference to this object is returned. For any two Strings s1 & s2, s1.intern() ==
s2.intern() only if s1.equals(s2) is true.
Q 19: What are the non-final methods in Java Object class, which are meant primarily for extension? LF CO
A 19: The non-final methods are equals(), hashCode(), toString(), clone(), and finalize(). The other methods like
wait(), notify(), notifyAll(), getClass() etc are final methods and therefore cannot be overridden. Let us look at
these non-final methods, which are meant primarily for extension (i.e. inheritance).
Important: The equals() and hashCode() methods prove to be very important, when objects implementing these two
methods are added to collections. If implemented incorrectly or not implemented at all then your objects stored in a
collection like a Set, List or Map may behave strangely and also is hard to debug.
Method Explanation
name
equals() This method checks if some other object passed to it as an argument is equal the object in which this method is
invoked. It is easy to implement the equals() method incorrectly, if you do not understand the contract. The contract
can be stated in terms of 6 simple principles as follows:
method with
1. o1.equals(o1) which means an Object (e.g. o1) should be equal to itself. (aka Reflexive).
public
access 2. o1.equals(o2) if and only o2.equals(o1) So it will be incorrect to have your own class say “MyPet” to have a
modifier equals() method that has a comparison with an Object of class “java.lang.String” class or with any other built-in
Java class. (aka Symmetric) .
3. o1.equals(o2) && o2.equals(o3) implies that o1.equals(o3) as well It means that if the first object o1 equals to
the second object o2 and the second object o2 is equal to the third object o3 then the first object o1 is equal to
the third object o3. For example, imagine that X, Y and Z are 3 different classes. The classes X and Y both
implement the equals() method in such a way that it provides comparison for objects of class X and class Y. Now
if you decide to modify the equals() method of class Y so that it also provides equality comparison with class Z,
then you will be violating this principle because no proper equals comparison exist for class X and class Z
objects. So, if two objects agree that they are equal and follow the above mentioned symmetric principle, then](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-35-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 39
numbers (e.g. java.lang.Integer, java.lang.Float, java.lang.BigDecimal etc are immutable objects), enumerated
types, colors (e.g. java.awt.Color is an immutable object), short lived objects like events, messages etc.
Q. What are the benefits of immutable objects?
• Immutable classes can greatly simplify programming by freely allowing you to cache and share the references to
the immutable objects without having to defensively copy them or without having to worry about their values
becoming stale or corrupted.
• Immutable classes are inherently thread-safe and you do not have to synchronize access to them to be used in a
multi-threaded environment. So there is no chance of negative performance consequences.
• Eliminates the possibility of data becoming inaccessible when used as keys in HashMaps or as elements in
Sets. These types of errors are hard to debug and fix. Refer Q20 in Java section under “Q. Why it is a best
practice to implement the user defined key class as an immutable object? “
Q. How will you write an immutable class? CO
Writing an immutable class is generally easy but there can be some tricky situations. Follow the following guidelines:
1. A class is declared final (i.e. final classes cannot be extended).
public final class MyImmutable { … }
2. All its fields are final (final fields cannot be mutated once assigned).
private final int[] myArray; //do not declare as private final int[] myArray = null;
3. Do not provide any methods that can change the state of the immutable object in any way – not just setXXX
methods, but any methods which can change the state.
4. The “this” reference is not allowed to escape during construction from the immutable class and the immutable
class should have exclusive access to fields that contain references to mutable objects like arrays, collections
and mutable classes like Date etc by:
• Declaring the mutable references as private.
• Not returning or exposing the mutable references to the caller (this can be done by defensive copying)
Wrong way to write an immutable class Right way to write an immutable class
Wrong way to write a constructor: Right way is to copy the array before assigning in the constructor.
public final class MyImmutable { public final class MyImmutable {
private final int[] myArray; private final int[] myArray;
public MyImmutable(int[] anArray) { public MyImmutable(int[] anArray) {
this.myArray = anArray; // wrong this.myArray = anArray.clone(); // defensive copy
} }
public String toString() { public String toString() {
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Numbers are: "); StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Numbers are: ");
for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) { for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
sb.append(myArray[i] + " "); sb.append(myArray[i] + " ");
} }
return sb.toString(); return sb.toString();
} }
} }
// the caller could change the array after calling the // the caller cannot change the array after calling the constructor.
constructor.
int[] array = {1,2};
int[] array = {1,2}; MyImmutable myImmutableRef = new MyImmutable(array) ;
MyImmutable myImmutableRef = new MyImmutable(array) ; System.out.println("Before constructing " + myImmutableRef);
System.out.println("Before constructing " + myImmutableRef); array[1] = 5; // change (i.e. mutate) the element
array[1] = 5; // change (i.e. mutate) the element System.out.println("After constructing " + myImmutableRef);
System.out.println("After constructing " + myImmutableRef);
Out put:
Out put: Before constructing Numbers are: 1 2
Before constructing Numbers are: 1 2](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-40-320.jpg)
![40 Java - Fundamentals
After constructing Numbers are: 1 5 After constructing Numbers are: 1 2
As you can see in the output that the “MyImmutable” object As you can see in the output that the “MyImmutable” object has not
has been mutated. This is because the object reference gets been mutated.
copied as discussed in Q22 in Java section.
Wrong way to write an accessor. A caller could get the array Right way to write an accessor by cloning.
reference and then change the contents:
public int[] getAray() {
public int[] getArray() { return (int[]) myArray.clone();
return myArray; }
}
Important: Beware of using the clone() method on a collection like a Map, List, Set etc because they are not only difficult
to implement correctly refer Q19 in Java section but also the default behavior of an object’s clone() method automatically
yields a shallow copy. You have to deep copy the mutable objects referenced by your immutable class. Refer Q26 in Java
section for deep vs. shallow cloning and Q22 in Java section for why you will be modifying the original object if you do not
deep copy.
Q. How would you defensively copy a Date field in your immutable class?
public final class MyDiary {
private Date myDate = null;
public MyDiary(Date aDate){
this.myDate = new Date(aDate.getTime()); // defensive copying by not exposing the “myDate” reference
}
public Date getDate() {
return new Date(myDate.getTime); // defensive copying by not exposing the “myDate” reference
}
}
Q 22: What is the main difference between pass-by-reference and pass-by-value? LF PI FAQ
A 22: Other languages use pass-by-reference or pass-by-pointer. But in Java no matter what type of argument you
pass the corresponding parameter (primitive variable or object reference) will get a copy of that data, which is
exactly how pass-by-value (i.e. copy-by-value) works.
In Java, if a calling method passes a reference of an object as an argument to the called method then the passed-
in reference gets copied first and then passed to the called method. Both the original reference that was
passed-in and the copied reference will be pointing to the same object. So no matter which reference you use, you
will be always modifying the same original object, which is how the pass-by-reference works as well.
Pass-by-value for primitive variables vs Object references
Primitive variables Object references
i = 10
public void first(){ stores i public void first(){ ref c
int i= 10; Car c = new Car("red") re
f
int x = second(i); //At this point
copy of c
//At this point Copy of i //color is Red Car object
//value of i is still 10 k = 10 second(c);
String color = red
//value of x is 11 i //At this point
ies
} cop //color is Blue
public int second(int k) { } ref d
k++; acts on k k = 11 public void second(Car d) Changes
return k ; { color = blue
} d.setColor(blue); modifies the original
modifies the copy k
but not the original.
//color is blue object through copied
} reference
If your method call involves inter-process (e.g. between two JVMs) communication, then the reference of the
calling method has a different address space to the called method sitting in a separate process (i.e. separate](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-41-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 49
All Java methods are automatically re-entrant. It means that several threads can be executing the same method
at once, each with its own copy of the local variables. A Java method may call itself without needing any special
declarations. This is known as a recursive method call. Given enough stack space, recursive method calls are
perfectly valid in Java though it is tough to debug. Recursive methods are useful in removing iterations from many
sorts of algorithms. All recursive functions are re-entrant but not all re-entrant functions are recursive. Idempotent
methods are methods, which are written in such a way that repeated calls to the same method with the same
arguments yield same results. For example clustered EJBs, which are written with idempotent methods, can
automatically recover from a server failure as long as it can reach another server (i.e. scalable).
Q 35: Explain Outer and Inner classes (or Nested classes) in Java? When will you use an Inner Class? LF SE
A 35: In Java not all classes have to be defined separate from each other. You can put the definition of one class inside
the definition of another class. The inside class is called an inner class and the enclosing class is called an outer
class. So when you define an inner class, it is a member of the outer class in much the same way as other
members like attributes, methods and constructors.
Q. Where should you use inner classes? Code without inner classes is more maintainable and readable.
When you access private data members of the outer class, the JDK compiler creates package-access member
functions in the outer class for the inner class to access the private members. This leaves a security hole. In
general we should avoid using inner classes. Use inner class only when an inner class is only relevant in the
context of the outer class and/or inner class can be made private so that only outer class can access it. Inner
classes are used primarily to implement helper classes like Iterators, Comparators etc which are used in the
context of an outer class. CO
Member inner class Anonymous inner class
public class MyStack { public class MyStack {
private Object[] items = null; private Object[] items = null;
… …
public Iterator iterator() { public Iterator iterator() {
return new StackIterator(); return new Iterator {
} …
//inner class public boolean hasNext() {…}
class StackIterator implements Iterator{ }
… }
public boolean hasNext(){…} }
}
}
Explain outer and inner classes?
Class Type Description Example + Class name
Outer Package Top level class. Only type JVM //package scope
class member class can recognize. class Outside{}
or interface
Outside.class
Inner static nested Defined within the context of the //package scope
class class or top-level class. Must be static & class Outside {
interface can access static members of its static class Inside{ }
containing class. No relationship }
between the instances of outside
and Inside classes. Outside.class ,Outside$Inside.class
Inner Member class Defined within the context of class Outside{
class outer class, but non-static. Until class Inside(){}
an object of Outside class has }
been created you can’t create
Inside. Outside.class , Outside$Inside.class
Inner Local class Defined within a block of code. class Outside {
class Can use final local variables and void first() {
final method parameters. Only final int i = 5;
visible within the block of code class Inside{}
that defines it. }
}
Outside.class , Outside$1$Inside.class](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-50-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 57
Process vs Threads
Process (JVM)
Thread 1 Thread 2 Thread 3
Stack Stack Stack
Each thread has its
own stack memory
method1() method1() method1()
Single heap per process Heap
Object
Object1
shared by all the threads 2
A JVM runs in a single process and threads in a JVM share the heap belonging to that process. That is why
several threads may access the same object. Threads share the heap and have their own stack space. This is
how one thread’s invocation of a method and its local variables are kept thread safe from other threads. But the
heap is not thread-safe and must be synchronized for thread safety.
Q 43: Explain different ways of creating a thread? LF FAQ
A 43: Threads can be used by either :
Extending the Thread class
Implementing the Runnable interface.
class Counter extends Thread {
//method where the thread execution will start
public void run(){
//logic to execute in a thread
}
//let’s see how to start the threads
public static void main(String[] args){
Thread t1 = new Counter();
Thread t2 = new Counter();
t1.start(); //start the first thread. This calls the run() method.
t2.start(); //this starts the 2nd thread. This calls the run() method.
}
}
class Counter extends Base implements Runnable {
//method where the thread execution will start
public void run(){
//logic to execute in a thread
}
//let us see how to start the threads
public static void main(String[] args){
Thread t1 = new Thread(new Counter());
Thread t2 = new Thread(new Counter());
t1.start(); //start the first thread. This calls the run() method.
t2.start(); //this starts the 2nd thread. This calls the run() method.
}
}
Q. Which one would you prefer and why? The Runnable interface is preferred, as it does not require your
object to inherit a thread because when you need multiple inheritance, only interfaces can help you. In the above
example we had to extend the Base class so implementing Runnable interface is an obvious choice. Also note
how the threads are started in each of the different cases as shown in the code sample. In an OO approach you](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-58-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 63
sf = new SimpleShapeFactory();
public class ShapeFactory { }
public abstract Shape getShape(int shapeId); else if (type == TYPE_COMPLEX) {
} sf = new ComplexShapeFactory();
}
public class SimpleShapeFactory extends else throw new BadShapeFactoryException(“No factory!!”);
ShapeFactory throws BadShapeException {
public Shape getShape(int shapeTypeId){ return sf;
Shape shape = null; }
if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_CIRCLE) { }
//in future can reuse or cache objects.
shape = new Circle(); Now let’s look at the calling code, which uses the factory:
}
else if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_SQUARE) { ShapeFactoryType abFac = new ShapeFactoryType();
//in future can reuse or cache objects ShapeFactory factory = null;
shape = new Square(); Shape s = null;
}
else throw new BadShapeException //returns a ShapeFactory but whether it is a
(“ShapeTypeId=”+ shapeTypeId); //SimpleShapeFactory or a ComplexShapeFactory is not
//known to the caller.
return shape;
} factory = abFac.getShapeFactory(1);//returns SimpleShapeFactory
}
//returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a Pentagon is
Now let’s look at the calling code, which uses the //not known to the caller.
factory:
s = factory.getShape(2); //returns square.
ShapeFactory factory = new SimpleShapeFactory(); s.draw(); //draws a square
//returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a //returns a ShapeFactory but whether it is a
//Square is not known to the caller. //SimpleShapeFactory or a ComplexShapeFactory is not
Shape s = factory.getShape(1); //known to the caller.
s.draw(); // circle is drawn
factory = abFac.getShapeFactory(2);
//returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a //returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a Pentagon is
//Square is not known to the caller. //not known to the caller.
s = factory.getShape(2); s = factory.getShape(3); //returns a pentagon.
s.draw(); //Square is drawn s.draw(); //draws a pentagon
Q. Why use factory pattern or abstract factory pattern? Factory pattern returns an instance of several (product
hierarchy) subclasses (like Circle, Square etc), but the calling code is unaware of the actual implementation class.
The calling code invokes the method on the interface for example Shape and using polymorphism the correct
draw() method gets invoked [Refer Q10 in Java section for polymorphism]. So, as you can see, the factory pattern
reduces the coupling or the dependencies between the calling code and called objects like Circle, Square etc. This
is a very powerful and common feature in many frameworks. You do not have to create a new Circle or a new
Square on each invocation as shown in the sample code, which is for the purpose of illustration and simplicity. In
future, to conserve memory you can decide to cache objects or reuse objects in your factory with no changes
required to your calling code. You can also load objects in your factory based on attribute(s) read from an external
properties file or some other condition. Another benefit going for the factory is that unlike calling constructors
directly, factory patterns have more meaningful names like getShape(…), getInstance(…) etc, which may make
calling code more clear.
Q. Can we use the singleton pattern within our factory pattern code? Yes. Another important aspect to
consider when writing your factory class is that, it does not make sense to create a new factory object for each
invocation as it is shown in the sample code, which is just fine for the illustration purpose.
ShapeFactory factory = new SimpleShapeFactory();
To overcome this, you can incorporate the singleton design pattern into your factory pattern code. The singleton
design pattern will create only a single instance of your SimpleShapeFactory class. Since an abstract factory
pattern is unlike factory pattern, where you need to have an instance for each of the two factories (i.e.
SimpleShapeFactory and ComplexShapeFactory) returned, you can still incorporate the singleton pattern as an
access point and have an instance of a HashMap, store your instances of both factories. Now your calling method
uses a static method to get the same instance of your factory, hence conserving memory and promoting object
reuse:
ShapeFactory factory = ShapeFactory. getFactoryInstance();//returns a singleton
factory.getShape();](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-64-320.jpg)
![64 Java - Fundamentals
Note: Since questions on singleton pattern and factory pattern are commonly asked in the interviews, they are included as part
of this section. To learn more about design patterns refer Q11, Q12 in How would you go about section…?
Q 53: What is a socket? How do you facilitate inter process communication in Java? LF
A 53: A socket is a communication channel, which facilitates inter-process communication (For example
communicating between two JVMs, which may or may not be running on two different physical machines). A
socket is an endpoint for communication. There are two kinds of sockets, depending on whether one wishes to
use a connectionless or a connection-oriented protocol. The connectionless communication protocol of the
Internet is called UDP. The connection-oriented communication protocol of the Internet is called TCP. UDP
sockets are also called datagram sockets. Each socket is uniquely identified on the entire Internet with two
numbers. The first number is a 32-bit (IPV4 or 128-bit is IPV6) integer called the Internet Address (or IP address).
The second number is a 16-bit integer called the port of the socket. The IP address is the location of the machine,
which you are trying to connect to and the port number is the port on which the server you are trying to connect is
running. The port numbers 0 to 1023 are reserved for standard services such as e-mail, FTP, HTTP etc.
S o c k e ts
S e n d in g P ro c e s s (J V M ) R e c e ivin g P ro c e s s (J V M )
p o rt: 6 6 7 8 s o c k e ts
IP a d d re s s : 1 2 7 .0 .0 .1
p o rt: 6 6 7 8
O p e ra tin g S ys te m O p e ra tin g S ys te m
N e tw o rk c o m m u n ic a tio n
The lifetime of the socket is made of 3 phases: Open Socket Read and Write to Socket Close Socket
To make a socket connection you need to know two things: An IP address and port on which to listen/connect. In
Java you can use the Socket (client side) and ServerSocket (Server side) classes.
Q 54: How will you call a Web server from a stand alone Java application/Swing client/Applet? LF
A 54: Using the java.net.URLConnection and its subclasses like HttpURLConnection and JarURLConnection.
URLConnection HttpClient (i.e. a browser)
Supports HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and Supports HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and
OPTIONS OPTIONS.
Does not support cookies. Does support cookies.
Can handle protocols other than http like ftp, gopher, mailto Handles only http.
and file.
public class TestServletWriter {
public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception{
String host = "localhost"; //i.e 127.0.0.1
String protocol = "http"; //request/response paradigm
int port = 18080;
String strURL = protocol + "://" + host + ":" + port + "/myRootContext/myServlet";
java.net.URL servletURL = new java.net.URL(strURL);
java.net.URLConnection con = servletURL.openConnection();
con.setDoInput(true);
con.setDoOutput(true);
con.setUseCaches(false);
con.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
// Write the arguments as post data
ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(con.getOutputStream());
out.writeObject("Hello Servlet"); //write a serializable object to the servlet.
out.flush();
out.close();](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-65-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 65
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(con.getInputStream());//this line is a must
// even if you have nothing to read back from the web server because http is a
// request/response paradigm.
String msg = (String)ois.readObject();
System.out.println(msg);
}
}
Note: Sun provides JSSE (Java Secure Socket Extension) as the technology to accomplish HTTPS over the Web.
This section would not be complete without discussing some of the exciting changes in the J2SE external version 5.0 and
the internal version 1.5.0 (“Tiger”) release.
Q 55: Explain some of the new features in J2SE 5.0, which improves ease of development? LF FAQ
A 55: The J2SE 5.0 release is focused along the key areas of ease of development, scalability, performance, quality,
etc. The new features include generics, metadata (aka annotations), autoboxing and auto-unboxing of
primitive types, enhanced “for” loop, enumerated type, static import, C style formatted output, formatted
input, varargs, etc. The following code sample depicts some of these new features. Brief explanation follows the
sample code, so if you do not understand any part of the code, come back to it after reading the brief explanation.
package sample;
//static import
import static sample.SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class CombinedNewFeatures {
enum OddEven {odd,even} //use of enum keyword. An enum is a special classs.
public static void main(String[] args) {
//read from keyboard using the java.util.Scanner
Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter your first number?");
int i1 = keyboard.nextInt();
System.out.println("Enter your second number?");
int i2 = keyboard.nextInt();
//using generics for type safety
List<Integer> numList = new ArrayList<Integer>();
//using auto-boxing to convert primitive int i1,i2 to wrapper Integer object.
numList.add(i1);
numList.add(i2);
//numList.add("just to prove type safety");//won't compile! Requires an Integer to be added
//":" should be read as "foreach". So should read as, foreach "num" value in numList.
for (Integer num : numList) {
//using auto-unboxing feature to convert wrapper Integer object "num" to primitive.
if(num >= 9){
// C style printf. System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).
// this feature is possible due to var-args feature.
System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size());
//"%" symbol means we are using the format specifier, "1" means first arg.
// Refer java.util.Formatter class API for the format specification details.
}
//need not do SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO due to static import feature
if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){
System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even);
}
else {](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-66-320.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 67
…
}
Auto boxing/unboxing makes a programmer’s life easier by not having to write manual code for conversion between
primitive types such as int, float etc and wrapper types Integer, Float etc. The J2SE 5.0 will automatically box and unbox
this for you. So this is a convenience feature and is not a performance booster.
//using auto-boxing to convert primitive int i1,i2 to wrapper Integer object.
numList.add(i1); // no more code like -> numList.add(new Integer(i1)); autoboxed for you
numList.add(i2); // no more code like -> numList.add(new Integer(i2)); autoboxed for you
…
for (Integer num : numList) {
//using auto-unboxing feature to convert wrapper Integer object "num" to primitive.
if(num >= 9){ // no more code like if(num.intValue() >= 9) unboxed for you
…
}
printf method (C style) takes the arguments of a format string and varargs format specifiers. The varargs feature
allows you to have as many format specifiers as you want. Refer java.util.Formatter API for format details. The printf()
feature would not be possible if not for varargs feature, which will be discussed next.
// System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).this feature is possible due to var-args feature.
System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size());//format specifiers in bold
//"%" symbol means we are using the format specifier, "1" means first arg.
//Refer java.util.Formatter class API for the format specification details.
Varargs enables the compiler to assemble the array for you based on the argument list you pass to a method. The three
periods next to the parameter type (e.g. public void myMethod(Object … args)) denotes varargs. The type must be Object
and it must be the last argument or the only argument to the method. You can also pass primitive values due to the new
Autoboxing feature.
//method using varargs
public void addNumbers(Object ...args){ //only argument to the method. … means varargs
int sum = 0;
for (Object object : args) { // compiler converts to an object array Object[] args
sum += (Integer)object;
}
System.out.println("sum is " + sum);
}
The above method can be called following ways:
//invoking methods using varargs
cnf.addNumbers(i1); // one arg -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 1
cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2); // two arguments -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 2
cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2,5); // three arguments -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 3
The printf() method would not be possible, if not for varargs feature.
// C style printf. System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).
// this feature is possible due to var-args feature.
System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size()); // two arguments
Static imports let you avoid qualifying static members with class names. Once the static member is imported then you
can use it in your code without the class name prefix.
//static import
import static sample.SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO;
…
//need not do SampleConstants.NUM_ZERO due to static import feature
if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){
System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even);
}
package sample;
public class SampleStaticValues {
public static int NUM_ZERO = 0;
public static int NUM_ONE = 0;](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-68-320.jpg)
![Java - Swing 69
Java – Swing
Q 56: What is the difference between AWT and Swing? LF DC
A 56: Swing provides a richer set of components than AWT. They are 100% Java-based. There are a few other
advantages to Swing over AWT:
• Swing provides both additional components like JTable, JTree etc and added functionality to AWT-replacement
components.
• Swing components can change their appearance based on the current “look and feel” library that’s being used.
• Swing components follow the Model-View-Controller (MVC) paradigm, and thus can provide a much more
flexible UI.
• Swing provides “extras” for components, such as: icons on many components, decorative borders for
components, tool tips for components etc.
• Swing components are lightweight (less resource intensive than AWT).
• Swing provides built-in double buffering (which means an off-screen buffer [image] is used during drawing
and then the resulting bits are copied onto the screen. The resulting image is smoother, less flicker and quicker
than drawing directly on the screen).
• Swing provides paint debugging support for when you build your own component i.e.-slow motion rendering.
Swing also has a few disadvantages:
• If you’re not very careful when programming, it can be slower than AWT (all components are drawn).
• Swing components that look like native components might not behave exactly like native components.
Q 57: How will you go about building a Swing GUI client? LF
A 57: The steps involved in building a Swing GUI are:
• Firstly, you need a container like a Frame, a Window, or an Applet to display components like panels, buttons,
text areas etc. The job of a container is to hold and display components. A container is also a component
(note: uses a composite design pattern). A JPanel is a container as well.
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
public class MyFrame extends JFrame {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Frame Title");
...// rest of the code to follow
}
}
• Create some components such as panels, buttons, text areas etc.
//create a component to add to the frame
final JTextArea comp = new JTextArea();
JButton btn = new JButton("click");
• Add your components to your display area and arrange or layout your components using the LayoutManagers.
You can use the standard layout managers like FlowLayout, BorderLayout, etc. Complex layouts can be
simplified by using nested containers for example having JPanels within JPanels and each JPanel can use its
own LayoutManager. You can create components and add them to whichever JPanels you like and JPanels
can be added to the JFrame’s content pane.
// Add the component to the frame's content pane;
// by default, the content pane has a border layout
frame.getContentPane().add(comp, BorderLayout.CENTER);
frame.getContentPane().add(btn, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
• Attach listeners to your components. Interacting with a Component causes an Event to occur. To associate a
user action with a component, attach a listener to it. Components send events and listeners listen for events.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-70-320.jpg)
![Java - Swing 71
manager and double-buffering code, which means an off-screen buffer [image] is used during drawing and
then the resulting bits are copied onto the screen. The resulting image is smoother, less flicker and quicker
than drawing directly on the screen.
• Swing components generally repaint themselves whenever necessary. For example when you invoke the
setTextt() on a component etc. This happens behind the scenes using a callback mechanism by invoking the
repaint() method. If a component’s size or position needs to change then the call to revalidate() method
precedes the call to repaint() method.
• Like event handling code, painting code executes on the event-dispatching thread (Refer Q62 in Java
Section). So while an event is being handled, no painting will occur and similarly while painting is happening
no events will take place.
• You can provide your own painting by overriding the paintComponent() method. This is one of 3 methods
used by JComponents to paint themselves.
public class MyFramePainting extends JFrame {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Frame Title");
MyPanel panel = new MyPanel();
panel.setOpaque(true); //if opaque (i.e. solid) then Swing painting system
//does not waste time painting behind the component.
panel.setBackground(Color.white);
panel.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
...//add to contentPane, display logic etc
}
}
public class MyPanel extends JPanel implements MouseListener{
Color col = Color.blue;
public void paintComponent(Graphics gr){
super.paintComponent(gr);
gr.setColor(col);
gr.drawLine(5,5, 200,200);
}
public MyPanel(){
addMouseListener(this); //i.e the Panel itself
}
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent ev){
col = Color.red;
repaint(); //invokes paintComponent(). Never invoke paintComponent() method directly
}
...//other mouse events like onMousePressed etc
}
By default, the paintComponent() method paints the background if the component is opaque, then it performs
any custom painting. The other two methods are paintBorder(Graphics g) and paintChildren(Graphics g),
which tells to paint any border and paint any components contained by this component respectively. You
should not invoke or override these two methods.
Q. How will you improve the painting performance?
• On components with complex output, the repaint() method should be invoked with arguments which define
only the clip rectangle that needs updating (rectangle origin is on top left corner). Note: No paintXXXX()
methods (including paint() method) should not be explicitly invoked. Only repaint() method can be explicitly
invoked (which implicitly calls paintComponent() method) and only paintComponent() should be overridden if
required.
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent ev){
col = Color.red;
repaint(0,0,50,50); //invokes paintComponent with a rectangle. The origin is at top left.
}](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-72-320.jpg)
![Java - Applet 77
S ig n e d A p p le t
R e m o te C o d e
lo c a lc o d e
S ig n e d u n s ig n e d
JVM
Sandbox
c a ss
ac
n
ce
V a lu a b le re s o u rc e s lik e file s
e tc
Q 71: What is the difference between an applet and an application? Can you use an applet as an application? LF FAQ
A 71:
Applet Application
Applets don’t have a main method. They operate on life Has a static main() method.
cycle methods init(), start(), stop(), destroy() etc.
Applets can be embedded in HTML pages and Has no support for embedding or downloading. Has
downloaded over the Internet. Has a sandbox security no inherent security restriction.
model.
Can only be executed within a Java compatible Applications are executed at command line by java
container like browser, appletviewer etc. tool.
Q. Can you use an applet as an application? Yes, by adding a main(String[] args) method to an applet.
Tech Tip #1:
-- If you want to create a new list (i.e. using java.util.List) of items from an array of objects, then it is more efficient and it is
a best practice to use Arrays.asList(…) method as opposed to executing in a loop and copying all elements of an array
one by one.
-- If you want to copy data from one array to another array then it is faster and it is a best practice to use
System.arraycopy(…) method as opposed to executing in a loop and copying all elements of an array one by one.
Q. Which of the following approaches would you prefer and why?
Approach-1
if (“Peter”.equals(name)) {
//….
}
Approach-2
if (name.equals(“Peter”)) {
//….
}
Approach-1 is preferred because the Approach-2 can throw a java.lang.NullPointerException if name is null.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-78-320.jpg)
![Java – Performance and Memory issues 81
Q. Rank the above attributes in order of importance?
There is no one correct answer for this question. [Hint] It can vary from application to application but typically if
you write 1 - extendable, 2 - maintainable and 3 – ease of use code with some high level performance
considerations, then it should allow you to optimize/tune for 4 - performance and 5 - scale. But if you write a code,
which only performs fast but not flexible enough to grow with the additional requirements, then you may end up re-
writing or carrying out a major revamp to your code. Refer SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) Q15 in How
would you go about… section.
Q 73: How would you detect and minimize memory leaks in Java? MI BP FAQ
A 73: In Java, memory leaks are caused by poor program design where object references are long lived and the
garbage collector is unable to reclaim those objects.
Detecting memory leaks:
Use tools like JProbe, OptimizeIt etc to detect memory leaks.
Use operating system process monitors like task manager on NT systems, ps, vmstat, iostat, netstat etc on
UNIX systems.
Write your own utility class with the help of totalMemory() and freeMemory() methods in the Java Runtime
class. Place these calls in your code strategically for pre and post memory recording where you suspect to be
causing memory leaks. An even better approach than a utility class is using dynamic proxies (Refer Q11 in
How would you go about section…) or Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) for pre and post memory
recording where you have the control of activating memory measurement only when needed. (Refer Q3 – Q5
in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section).
Minimizing memory leaks:
In Java, typically memory leak occurs when an object of a longer lifecycle has a reference to objects of a short life cycle.
This prevents the objects with short life cycle being garbage collected. The developer must remember to remove the references
to the short-lived objects from the long-lived objects. Objects with the same life cycle do not cause any issues because the
garbage collector is smart enough to deal with the circular references (Refer Q38 in Java section).
Design applications with an object’s life cycle in mind, instead of relying on the clever features of the JVM.
Letting go of the object’s reference in one’s own class as soon as possible can mitigate memory problems.
Example: myRef = null;
Unreachable collection objects can magnify a memory leak problem. In Java it is easy to let go of an entire
collection by setting the root of the collection to null. The garbage collector will reclaim all the objects (unless
some objects are needed elsewhere).
Use weak references (Refer Q37 in Java section) if you are the only one using it. The WeakHashMap is a
combination of HashMap and WeakReference. This class can be used for programming problems where you
need to have a HashMap of information, but you would like that information to be garbage collected if you are
the only one referencing it.
Free native system resources like AWT frame, files, JNI etc when finished with them. Example: Frame,
Dialog, and Graphics classes require that the method dispose() be called on them when they are no longer
used, to free up the system resources they reserve.
Q 74: Why does the JVM crash with a core dump or a Dr.Watson error? MI
A 74: Any problem in pure Java code throws a Java exception or error. Java exceptions or errors will not cause a core
dump (on UNIX systems) or a Dr.Watson error (on WIN32systems). Any serious Java problem will result in an
OutOfMemoryError thrown by the JVM with the stack trace and consequently JVM will exit. These Java stack
traces are very useful for identifying the cause for an abnormal exit of the JVM. So is there a way to know that
OutOfMemoryError is about to occur? The Java J2SE 5.0 has a package called java.lang.management which
has useful JMX beans that we can use to manage the JVM. One of these beans is the MemoryMXBean.
An OutOfMemoryError can be thrown due to one of the following 4 reasons:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-82-320.jpg)
![82 Java – Performance and Memory issues
JVM may have a memory leak due to a bug in its internal heap management implementation. But this is highly
unlikely because JVMs are well tested for this.
The application may not have enough heap memory allocated for its running. You can allocate more JVM
heap size (with –Xmx parameter to the JVM) or decrease the amount of memory your application takes to
overcome this. To increase the heap space:
java -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M
Care should be taken not to make the –Xmx value too large because it can slow down your application. The
secret is to make the maximum heap size value the right size.
Another not so prevalent cause is the running out of a memory area called the “perm” which sits next to the
heap. All the binary code of currently running classes is archived in the “perm” area. The ‘perm’ area is
important if your application or any of the third party jar files you use dynamically generate classes. For
example: “perm” space is consumed when XSLT templates are dynamically compiled into classes, J2EE
application servers, JasperReports, JAXB etc use Java reflection to dynamically generate classes and/or
large amount of classes in your application. To increase perm space:
java -XX:PermSize=256M -XX:MaxPermSize=256M
The fourth and the most common reason is that you may have a memory leak in your application as
discussed in Q73 in Java section.
[Good read/reference: “Know your worst friend, the Garbage Collector” http://java.sys-
con.com/read/84695.htm by Romain Guy]
Q. So why does the JVM crash with a core dump or Dr.Watson error?
Both the core dump on UNIX operating system and Dr.Watson error on WIN32 systems mean the same thing. The
JVM is a process like any other and when a process crashes a core dump is created. A core dump is a memory
map of a running process. This can happen due to one of the following reasons:
Using JNI (Java Native Interface) code, which has a fatal bug in its native code. Example: using Oracle OCI
drivers, which are written partially in native code or JDBC-ODBC bridge drivers, which are written in non Java
code. Using 100% pure Java drivers (communicates directly with the database instead of through client
software utilizing the JNI) instead of native drivers can solve this problem. We can use Oracle thin driver,
which is a 100% pure Java driver.
The operating system on which your JVM is running might require a patch or a service pack.
The JVM implementation you are using may have a bug in translating system resources like threads, file
handles, sockets etc from the platform neutral Java byte code into platform specific operations. If this JVM’s
translated native code performs an illegal operation then the operating system will instantly kill the
process and mostly will generate a core dump file, which is a hexadecimal file indicating program’s state
in memory at the time of error. The core dump files are generated by the operating system in response to
certain signals. Operating system signals are responsible for notifying certain events to its threads and
processes. The JVM can also intercept certain signals like SIGQUIT which is kill -3 < process id > from the
operating system and it responds to this signal by printing out a Java stack trace and then continue to run.
The JVM continues to run because the JVM has a special built-in debug routine, which will trap the signal -3.
On the other hand signals like SIGSTOP (kill -23 <process id>) and SIGKILL (kill -9 <process id>) will cause
the JVM process to stop or die. The following JVM argument will indicate JVM not to pause on SIGQUIT
signal from the operating system.
java –Xsqnopause](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-83-320.jpg)
![Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational 83
Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Q 75: Did you have to use any design patterns in your Java project? DP FAQ
A 75: Yes. Refer Q12 [Strategy], Q16 [Iterator], Q24 [Decorator], Q36 [Visitor], Q51 [Singleton], Q52 [Factory],
Q58 [Command], Q61 [Composite], and Q63 [MVC-Model View Controller] in Java section and Q11, Q12 in
How would you go about… section for a detailed discussion on design patterns with class diagrams and
examples.
Resource: http://www.patterndepot.com/put/8/JavaPatterns.htm.
Why use design patterns, you may ask (Refer Q5 in Enterprise section). Design patterns are worthy of mention in
your CV and interviews. Design patterns have a number of advantages:
Capture design experience from the past.
Promote reuse without having to reinvent the wheel.
Define the system structure better.
Provide a common design vocabulary.
Some advice if you are just starting on your design pattern journey:
If you are not familiar with UML, now is the time. UML is commonly used to describe patterns in pattern
catalogues, including class diagrams, sequence diagrams etc. (Refer Q106 - Q109 in Enterprise section).
When using patterns, it is important to define a naming convention. It will be much easier to manage a project
as it grows to identify exactly what role an object plays with the help of a naming convention e.g.
AccountFacilityBusinessDelegate, AccountFacilityFactory, AccountFacilityValueObject, AccountDecorator,
AccountVisitor, AccountTransferObject (or AccountFacilityVO or AccountTO).
Make a list of requirements that you will be addressing and then try to identify relevant patterns that are
applicable. You should not just apply a pattern for the sake of learning or applying a pattern because it could
become an anti-pattern.
IMPORTANT: Technical skills alone are not sufficient for you to perform well in your interviews and progress in your
career. Your technical skills must be complemented with business skills (i.e. knowledge/understanding of the business,
ability to communicate and interact effectively with the business users/customers, ability to look at things from the user’s
perspective as opposed to only technology perspective, ability to persuade/convince business with alternative solutions,
which can provide a win/win solution from users’ perspective as well as technology perspective), ability to communicate
effectively with your fellow developers, immediate and senior management, ability to work in a team as well as
independently, problem solving/analytical skills, organizational skills, ability to cope with difficult situations like stress due
to work load, deadlines etc and manage or deal with difficult people, being a good listener with the right attitude (It is
sometimes possible to have “I know it all attitude”, when you have strong technical skills. This can adversely affect your
ability to be a good listener, ability to look at things in a different perspective, ability to work well in a team and
consequently your progression in your career) etc. Some of these aspects are covered below and should be prepared for
prior to your job interview(s).
Q 76: Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your
most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? Why should we hire you and
what kind of contributions will you make? FAQ
A 76: [Hint:] Pick your recent projects and enthusiastically brief on it. Interviewer will be looking for how passionate
you are about your past experience and achievements. Also is imperative that during your briefing, you
demonstrate on a high level(without getting too technical) how you applied your skills and knowledge in some of
the following key areas:
Design concepts and design patterns: How you understood and applied them.
Performance and memory issues: How you identified and fixed them.
Exception handling and best practices: How you understood and applied them.
Multi-threading and concurrent access: How you identified and fixed them.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-84-320.jpg)
![84 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Some of the questions in this section can help you prepare your answers by relating them to your current or past
work experience. For example:
Design Concepts: Refer Q7, Q8, Q9, Q10, Q11 etc
Design Patterns: Refer Q12, Q16, Q24, Q36, Q51, Q52, Q58, Q61, and Q63 in Java section and Q11, Q12
in “How would you go about…?” section for a more detailed discussion.
Performance issues: Refer Q25, Q72 etc
Memory issues: Refer Q37, Q38, Q42, Q73, and Q74
Exception Handling: Refer Q39, Q40 etc
Multi-threading (Concurrency issues): Refer Q15, Q17, Q21, Q34, Q42 and Q46 etc
Demonstrating your knowledge in the above mentioned areas will improve your chances of being successful in
your Java/J2EE interviews. 90% of the interview questions are asked based on your own resume. So in my view it
is also very beneficial to mention how you demonstrated your knowledge/skills by stepping through a recent
project on your resume.
The two other areas, which I have not mentioned in this section, which are also very vital, are transactions and
security. These two areas will be covered in the next section, which is the Enterprise section (J2EE, JDBC, EJB,
JMS, SQL, XML etc).
Even if you have not applied these skills knowingly or you have not applied them at all, just demonstrating that you
have the knowledge and an appreciation will help you improve your chances in the interviews. Also mention any
long hours worked to meet the deadline, working under pressure, fixing important issues like performance issues,
running out of memory issues etc.
The job seekers should also ask questions to make an impression on the interviewer. Write out specific questions
you want to ask and then look for opportunities to ask them during the interview. For example:
Do you have any performance or design related issues? Succinctly demonstrate how you would go about
solving them or how you solved similar problems in your previous assignments.
Do you follow any software development processes like agile methodology, XP, RUP etc? Briefly
demonstrate your experience, understanding and/or familiarity with the development methodology of
relevance.
Do you use any open source frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry etc? Any build tools like Ant, Maven
etc, and testing tools like JUnit etc briefly demonstrate your experience, understanding and/or familiarity
with the framework(s) of relevance.
Many interviewers end with a request to the applicant as to whether they have anything they wish to add. This is
an opportunity for you to end on a positive note by making succinct statements about why you are the best person
for the job by demonstrating your understanding of the key areas and how you applied them in your previous jobs.
Reflect back on your past jobs and pick two to five instances where you used your skills in the key areas
very successfully.
Q 77: Why are you leaving your current position? FAQ
A 77: [Hint]
Do not criticize your previous employer or co-workers or sound too opportunistic.
It is fine to mention a major problem like a buy out, budget constraints, merger or liquidation.
You may also say that your chance to make a contribution is very low due to company wide changes or
looking for a more challenging senior or designer role.
Q 78: What do you like and/or dislike most about your current and/or last position? FAQ
A 78: [Hint]
The interviewer is trying to find the compatibility with the open position. So
Do not say anything like:
You dislike overtime.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-85-320.jpg)
![Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational 85
You dislike management or co-workers etc.
It is safe to say:
You like challenges.
Opportunity to grow into design, architecture, performance tuning etc
Opportunity to learn and/or mentor junior developers..
You dislike frustrating situations like identifying a memory leak problem or a complex transactional or a
concurrency issue. You want to get on top of it as soon as possible.
Q 79: How do you handle pressure? Do you like or dislike these situations? FAQ
A 79: [Hint] These questions could mean that the open position is pressure-packed and may be out of control. Know
what you are getting into. If you do perform well under stress then give a descriptive example. High achievers tend
to perform well in pressure situations.
Q 80: What are your strengths and weaknesses? Can you describe a situation where you took initiative? Can you
describe a situation where you applied your problem solving skills? FAQ
A 80: [Hint]
Strengths:
Taking initiatives and being pro-active: You can illustrate how you took initiative to fix a transactional issue,
a performance problem or a memory leak problem.
Design skills: You can illustrate how you designed a particular application using OO concepts.
Problem solving skills: Explain how you will break a complex problem into more manageable sub-sections
and then apply brain storming and analytical skills to solve the complex problem. Illustrate how you went
about identifying a scalability issue or a memory leak problem.
Communication skills: Illustrate that you can communicate effectively with all the team members, business
analysts, users, testers, stake holders etc.
Ability to work in a team environment as well as independently: Illustrate that you are technically sound
to work independently as well as have the interpersonal skills to fit into any team environment.
Hard working, honest, and conscientious etc are the adjectives to describe you.
Weaknesses:
Select a trait and come up with a solution to overcome your weakness. Stay away from personal qualities and
concentrate more on professional traits for example:
I pride myself on being an attention to detail guy but sometimes miss small details. So I am working on
applying the 80/20 principle to manage time and details. Spend 80% of my effort and time on 20% of the
tasks, which are critical and important to the task at hand.
Some times when there is a technical issue or a problem I tend to work continuously until I fix it without having
a break. But what I have noticed and am trying to practice is that taking a break away from the problem and
thinking outside the square will assist you in identifying the root cause of the problem sooner.
Q 81: What are your career goals? Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? FAQ
A 81: [Hint] Be realistic. For example
Next 2-3 years to become a senior developer or a team lead.
Next 3-5 years to become a solution designer or an architect.
Situational questions: The open-ended questions like last two questions are asked by interviewers to identify specific
characteristics like taking initiative, performance standards, accountability, adaptability, flexibility, sensitivity,
communication skills, ability to cope stress etc. These questions are known as behavioral or situational questions. This](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-86-320.jpg)
![86 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
behavioral technique is used to evaluate a candidate’s future success from past behaviors. The answers to these
questions must describe in detail a particular situation like an event, a project or an experience and how you acted on that
situation and what the results were. Prepare your answers prior to the interview using the “Situation Action Result (SAR)”
approach and avoid fabricating or memorizing your answers. You should try to relate back to your past experiences at
your previous employments, community events, sporting events etc. Sample questions and answers are shown below:
Q 82: Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to achieve it? Give me an example of a time you
showed initiatiative and took the lead? Tell me about a difficult decision you made in the last year? Give me an
example of a time you motivated others? Tell me about a most complex project you were involved in? FAQ
A 82:
Situation: When you were working for the ZCC Software Technology Corporation, the overnight batch process
called the “Data Pacakager” was developed for a large fast food chain which has over 100 stores. This overnight
batch process is responsible for performing a very database intensive search and compute changes like cost of
ingredients, selling price, new menu item etc made in various retail stores and package those changes into XML
files and send those XML data to the respective stores where they get uploaded into their point of sale registers to
reflect the changes. This batch process had been used for the past two years, but since then the number of stores
had increased and so did the size of the data in the database. The batch process, which used to take 6-8 hours to
complete, had increased to 14-16 hours, which obviously started to adversely affect the daily operations of these
stores. The management assigned you with the task of improving the performance of the batch process to 5-6
hours (i.e. suppose to be an overnight process).
Action: After having analyzed the existing design and code for the “Data Packager”, you had to take the
difficult decision to let the management know that this batch process needed to be re-designed and re-written as
opposed to modifying the existing code, since it was poorly designed. It is hard to extend, maintain (i.e. making a
change in one place can break the code some where else and so on) and had no object reuse through caching
(makes too many unnecessary network trips to the database) etc. The management was not too impressed with
this approach and concerned about the time required to rewrite this batch process since the management had
promised the retail stores to provide a solution within 8-12 weeks. You took the initiative and used your
persuasive skills to convince the management that you would be able to provide a re-designed and re-written
solution within the 8-12 weeks with the assistance of 2-3 additional developers and two testers. You were
entrusted with the task to rewrite the batch process and you set your goal to complete the task in 8 weeks. You
decided to build the software iteratively by building individual vertical slices as opposed to the big bang waterfall
approach [Refer subsection “Enterprise – Software development process” in Enterprise – Java section]. You
redesigned and wrote the code for a typical use case from end to end (i.e. full vertical slice) within 2 weeks and
subsequently carried out functional and integration testing to iron out any unforeseen errors or issues. Once the
first iteration is stable, you effectively communicated the architecture to the management and to your fellow
developers. Motivated and mentored your fellow developers to build the other iterations, based on the first
iteration. At the end of iteration, it was tested by the testers, while the developers moved on to the next iteration.
Results: After having enthusiastically worked to your plan with hard work, dedication and teamwork, you were
able to have the 90% of the functionality completed in 9 weeks and spent the next 3 weeks fixing bugs, tuning
performance and coding rest of the functionality. The fully functional data packager was completed in 12 weeks
and took only 3-4 hours to package XML data for all the stores. The team was under pressure at times but you
made them believe that it is more of a challenge as opposed to think of it as a stressful situation. The newly
designed data packager was also easier to maintain and extend. The management was impressed with the
outcome and rewarded the team with an outstanding achievement award. The performance of the newly
developed data packager was further improved by 20% by tuning the database (i.e. partitioning the tables,
indexing etc).
Q 83: Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills? Give me an
example of a time when you used your fact finding skills to solve a problem? Describe a time when you applied
your analytical and/or problem solving skills? FAQ
A 83:
Situation: When you were working for the Surething insurance corporation pty ltd, you were responsible for the
migration of an online insurance application (i.e. external website) to a newer version of application server (i.e. the
current version is no longer supported by the vendor). The migration happened smoothly and after a couple of
days of going live, you started to experience “OutOfMemoryError”, which forced you to restart the application
server every day. This raised a red alert and the immediate and the senior management were very concerned and
consequently constantly calling for meetings and updates on the progress of identifying the root cause of this
issue. This has created a stressful situation.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-87-320.jpg)
![88 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
A 85:
Mastering EJB by Ed Roman.
EJB design patterns by Floyd Marinescu.
Bitter Java by Bruce Tate.
Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel.
Effective Java by Joshua Bloch.
Q. What is your favorite technical book? Effective Java by Joshua Bloch
Q 86: Which Java related website(s) or resource(s) do you use to keep your knowledge up to date beyond Google? FAQ
A 86:
http://www.theserverside.com, http://www.javaworld.com, http://www-136.ibm.com/developerworks/Java,
http://www.precisejava.com, http://www.allapplabs.com, http://java.sun.com, http://www.martinfowler.com,
http://www.ambysoft.com etc.
Q 87: What past accomplishments gave you satisfaction? What makes you want to work hard? FAQ
A 87:
Material rewards such as salary, perks, benefits etc naturally come into play but focus on your
achievements or accomplishments than on rewards.
Explain how you took pride in fixing a complex performance issue or a concurrency issue. You could
substantiate your answer with a past experience. For example while you were working for Bips telecom, you
pro-actively identified a performance issue due to database connection resource leak. You subsequently took
the initiative to notify your team leader and volunteered to fix it by adding finally {} blocks to close the
resources. [Discussed in the Enterprise Java section]
If you are being interviewed for a position, which requires your design skills then you could explain that in your
previous job with an insurance company you had to design and develop a sub-system, which gave you
complete satisfaction. You were responsible for designing the data model using entity relationship diagrams
(E-R diagrams) and the software model using the component diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams
etc. [Discussed in the Enterprise Java section]
If you are being interviewed for a position where you have to learn new pieces of technology/framework like
dependency injection (e.g. Spring framework), component based web development frameworks like Tapestry,
JSF etc, object to relational mapping frameworks like hibernate etc then you can explain with examples from
your past experience where you were not only motivated to acquire new skills/knowledge but also proved that
you are a quick and a pro-active learner. [Discussed in the Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section]
If the job you are being interviewed for requires production support from time to time, then you could explain
that it gives you satisfaction because you would like to interact with the business users and/or customers to
develop your business and communication skills by getting an opportunity to understand a system from the
users perspective and also gives you an opportunity to sharpen your technical and problem solving skills. If
you are a type of person who enjoys more development work then you can be honest about it and indicate that
you would like to have a balance between development work and support work, where you can develop
different aspects of your skills/knowledge. You could also reflect an experience from a past job, where each
developer was assigned a weekly roster to provide support.
You could say that, you generally would like to work hard but would like to work even harder when there are
challenges.
Q 88: Do you have any role models in software development?
A 88:
Scott W. Ambler, Martin Fowler, Ed Roman, Floyd Marinescu, Grady Booch etc.
Gavin King (Hibernate persistence framework), Rod Johnson (Spring framework), Howard M. Lewis Ship
(Tapestry web framework and Hivemind framework), Dennis Sosnoski (JiBX XML binding framework) etc.
Q 89: Why do you want to work for us? What motivates you? What demotivates you? What are you looking for in your
next job? What is your definition of an ideal job? FAQ (Research the company prior to the interview). Look at their
website. Know their product lines and their competitors. Learn about their achievements or strengths.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-89-320.jpg)
![Java – Behaving right in an interview 89
Java – Behaving right in an interview
Arrive 5-10 minutes before the interview. Never arrive too late or too early. If you are running late due to some
unavoidable situation, call ahead and make sure that the interviewers know your situation. Also, be apologetic for
arriving late due to unfortunate situation.
First impressions are everything: Firm handshake, maintain eye contact, smile, watch your body language, be
pleasant, dress neatly and know the names of your interviewers and thank them by their names for the
opportunity.
Try, not to show that you are nervous. Every body is nervous for interviews but try not to show it. [Hint: Just think that
even if you do not get the job, it is a good learning experience and you would do better in your next interview and
appreciate yourself for getting this far. You can always learn from your mistakes and do better at your next interview.]
It is good to be confident but do not make up your answer or try to bluff. If you put something in your resume then
better be prepared to back it up. Be honest to answer technical questions because you are not expected to remember
everything (for example, you might know a few design patterns but not all of them etc). If you have not used a design
pattern in question, request the interviewer, if you could describe a different design pattern. Also, try to provide brief
answers, which means not too long and not too short like yes or no. Give examples of times you performed that
particular task. If you would like to expand on your answer, ask the interviewer if you could elaborate or go on. It is
okay to verify your answers every now and then but avoid verifying or validating your answers too often because
the interviewer might think that you lack self-confidence or you cannot work independently. But if you do not know the
answer to a particular question and keen to know the answer, you could politely request for an answer but should not
request for answers too often. If you think you could find the answer(s) readily on the internet then try to remember the
question and find the answer(s) soon after your interview.
You should also ask questions to make an impression on the interviewer. Write out specific questions you want to
ask and then look for opportunities to ask them during the interview. Many interviewers end with a request to the
applicant as to whether they have anything they wish to add. This is an opportunity for you to end on a positive note
by making succinct statements about why you are the best person for the job.
Try to be yourself. Have a good sense of humor, a smile and a positive outlook. Be friendly but you should not tell
the sagas of your personal life. If you cross your boundaries then the interviewer might feel that your personal life will
interfere with your work.
Be confident. I have addressed many of the popular technical questions in this book and it should improve your
confidence. If you come across a question relating to a new piece of technology you have no experience with like
AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) or IoC (Inversion of Control) or a framework like Tapestry, then you can mention
that you have a very basic understanding and demonstrate that you are a quick leaner by reflecting back on your past
job where you had to quickly learn a new piece of a technology or a framework. Also, you can mention that you keep
a good rapport with a network of talented Java/J2EE developers or mentors to discuss any design alternatives or work
a rounds to a pressing problem.
Unless asked, do not talk about money. Leave this topic until the interviewer brings it up or you can negotiate this
with your agent once you have been offered the position. At the interview you should try to sell or promote your
technical skills, business skills, ability to adapt to changes, and interpersonal skills. Prior to the interview find
out what skills are required by thoroughly reading the job description or talking to your agent for the specific job and
be prepared to promote those skills (Some times you would be asked why you are the best person for the job?).
You should come across as you are more keen on technical challenges, learning a new piece of technology,
improving your business skills etc as opposed to coming across as you are only interested in money.
Speak clearly, firmly and with confidence but should not be aggressive and egoistical. You should act interested in
the company and the job and make all comments in a positive manner. Should not speak negatively about past
colleagues or employers. Should not excuse yourself halfway through the interview, even if you have to use the
bathroom. Should not ask for refreshments or coffee but accept it if offered.
At the end of the interview, thank the interviewers by their names for their time with a firm handshake, maintain
eye contact and ask them about the next steps if not already mentioned to know where you are at the process and
show that you are interested.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-90-320.jpg)
![90 Java – Behaving right in an interview
In short, arrive on time, be polite, firm hand with a smile and do not act superior, act interested and enthusiastic but not desperate, make
eye contact at all times, ask questions but should not over do it by talking too much, it is okay to be nervous but try not to show it and be
honest with your answers because you are not expected to know the answers for all the technical questions. Unless asked, do not talk
about money and find every opportunity to sell your technical, business and interpersonal skills without over doing it. Finish the interview
with a positive note by asking about the next steps if not already mentioned, a firm hand shake with a “thank you for the interviewer’s
time” with an eye contact and a smile.
General Tip #1:
Try to find out the needs of the project in which you will be working and the needs of the people within the project.
80% of the interview questions are based on your own resume.
Where possible briefly demonstrate how you applied your skills/knowledge in the key areas [design concepts, transactional issues,
performance issues, memory leaks etc], business skills, and interpersonal skills as described in this book. Find the right time to
raise questions and answer those questions to show your strength.
Be honest to answer technical questions, you are not expected to remember everything (for example you might know a few design
patterns but not all of them etc). If you have not used a design pattern in question, request the interviewer, if you could describe a
different design pattern.
Do not be critical, focus on what you can do. Also try to be humorous to show your smartness.
Do not act superior. [Technical skills must be complemented with good interpersonal skills ]
General Tip #2:
Prepare a skills/knowledge matrix in your Resume. This is very useful for someone who gained wide range of skills/knowledge in a short
span by being a pro-active learner (e.g. extra reading, additional projects, outside work development projects etc). For example:
Java 1.3 – 5.0 18 months
Servlets / JSP 12 months
J2EE (EJB, JMS, JNDI etc) 12 months
XML, XSD, XSLT etc 6 months
Hibernate 6 months
OOA & OOD 12 months
UML 4 months
Design patterns 5 months
SQL 12 months
General Tip #3:
Unless you are applying for a position as a junior or a beginner developer, having your resume start with all the Java training and
certifications may lead to a misunderstanding that you are a beginner. Your first page should concentrate on your achievements and
skills summary (As in General Tip #2) to show that you are a skilled professional. For example:
• Re-designed the data packager application for the XYZ Corporation, to make it more scalable, maintainable and extendable. [Shows
that you have design skills]
• Identified and fixed memory leak issues for the master lock application and consequently improved performance by 20% and further
improved performance by introducing multi-threading and other performance tuning strategies. Identified and fixed some
transactional issues for the Endeavor project, which is a web based e-commerce application. [Shows that you are a pro-active
developer with good understanding of multi-threading, transactional, performance and memory issues. Also shows that
you have worked on transactional and multi-threaded systems and have an eye for identifying potential failures.]
• Received an outstanding achievement award for my design and development work using Java/J2EE at the ABC Corporation.
Published an article entitled “Java Tips and Tricks”. [Shows that you take pride in your achievements]
• Mentored junior developers at JKL Corporation. [Shows that you are an experienced developer who would like to mentor
junior developers and you are not only a technology oriented person but also a people oriented person].
Reference your achievements and accomplishments with specific examples and/or relevant paperwork (but avoid overloading the hiring
manager with paperwork).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-91-320.jpg)
![Java – Key Points 93
2. Optimizing your I/O operations.
3. Minimizing network overheads, calls to Date, Calendar related classes, use of “casting” or runtime type
checking like “instanceof” in frequently executed methods/loops, JNI calls, etc
4. Managing your objects efficiently by caching or recycling them without having to rely on garbage collection.
5. Using a StringBuffer as opposed to String and ArrayList or HashMap as oppose to Vector or Hashtable
6. Applying multi-threading where applicable.
7. Minimizing any potential memory leaks.
Finally, very briefly familiarize yourself with some of the key design patterns like:
1. Decorator design pattern: used by Java I/O API. A popular design pattern.
2. Reactor design pattern/Observer design pattern: used by Java NIO API.
3. Visitor design pattern: can be used to avoid instanceof and typecast constructs.
4. Factory method/abstract factory design pattern: popular pattern, which gets frequently asked in interviews.
5. Singleton pattern: popular pattern, which gets frequently asked in interviews.
6. Composite design pattern: used by GUI components and also a popular design pattern
7. MVC design pattern/architecture: used by Swing components and also a popular pattern.
8. Command pattern: used by Swing action architecture and also a popular design pattern.
9. Strategy design pattern: A popular design pattern used by AWT layout managers.
Refer Q11 in “How would you go about…” section for a detailed discussion and code samples on GoF (Gang of Four)
design patterns.
Recommended reading:
The famous Gang of Four book: Design Patterns, Eric Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides
(Addiso-Wesley Publishing Co., 1995; ISBN: 0201633612).
Effective Java Programming Language Guide – by Joshua Bloch
Tech Tip #2:
Always have the Java API handy and use the standard library to take advantage of the knowledge of the experts who
wrote it and the experience of those who have used it and tested it before you. Every developer should be familiar with
the following key libraries: java.lang and java.util are used very often and java.math and java.io are used less often.
The other libraries can be learned as and when required. If you have a specialized need then first look for a library and if
you cannot find one then you can implement your own. E.g.
//To copy an array to another array:
String[] array1 = {"a", "b", "c"};
String[] array2 = new String[2] ;
java.lang.System.arraycopy(array1,0,array2,0,2);
//convert an array to a list
List list = java.util.Arrays.asList(array2);
System.out.println(list);//prints [a, b]
//convert the list back to an array
String[] array3 = (String[])list.toArray(new String[0]);
Tech Tip #3:
The data types float and double are primarily designed for engineering and scientific calculations. They are not suited for
financial calculations of monetary values. Use BigDecimal instead. For non decimal values you could either use the
primitive values such as int, long etc or wrapper classes such as Integer, Long etc. Example If you are using hibernate
as your object to relational mapper and would like to map a monetary data field of “amount” with database data type
numeric (10,2) then prefer using BigDecimal as your object data type.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-94-320.jpg)
![100 Enterprise – J2EE Overview
J2E E M V C (M odel-V iew -C ontroller)
M odel
(E ntity/Sessio n B ean s (EJB ),
P lain Java C lasses )
Encapsulates business logic and
application state.
y
pla
st
dis
ate
o
ch
ta t
an
Da
ge
get
V iew C ontroller
(JSP , JavaB ean s, S w in g, U ser A ction(eg: subm itting a
form , clicking a button etc) (Servlet etc)
C u sto m T ag s, etc ) controls application behavior
R enders the m odel & has M aps user actions to m odel.
only display logic. selects view for response.
Sends user actions to the View selection ( eg: selecting the next usually one for each
controller JSP page to display as a response ) functionality.
Allow s controller to select a
view .
C on tro ller
1. R equ est
Servlet 2.
in
st
Browser
an
4 .f o rw a tia
rd te
s
V iew M o del
3. rea d/u pda te
6. R espo nse 5 E JB or Plain Java data database
JSP
class
C lient Tier M iddle Tier (A pplication Tier) D ata Tier
N ote: Typical M V C architecture is show n above. V ariations are possible (e.g.: M odel 1 vs. M odel 2
M V C)
A model represents the core business logic and state. A model commonly maps to data in the database and will
also contain core business logic.
A view renders the contents of a model. A view accesses the data from the model and adds display logic to
present the data.
A controller acts as the glue between a model and a view. A controller translates interactions with the view into
actions to be performed by the model. User interactions in a Web application appear as GET and POST HTTP
requests. The actions performed by a model include activating business processes or changing the state of the
model. Based on the user interactions and the outcome of the model actions, the controller responds by selecting
an appropriate view.
Q 04: How to package a module, which is, shared by both the Web and the EJB modules? SF
A 04: Package the modules shared by both Web and EJB modules as dependency jar files. Define the Class-Path:
property in the MANIFEST.MF file in the EJB jar and the Web war files to refer to the shared modules. [Refer Q7
in Enterprise section for diagram: J2EE deployment structure].
The MANIFEST.MF files in the EJB jar and Web war modules should look like:
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Created-By: Apache Ant 1.5
Class-Path: myAppsUtil.jar](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-101-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Servlet 111
Session Management
Client Server
(Browser)
A new session is created on the Server
side with JSESSIONID where JSESSIONID Name Value
1. Initial Request[No session]
state can be maintained as
name/value pair. xsder12345 Firstname Peter
2. JSESSIONID is passed to client with
the response through xsder12345 LastName Smith
r the
ation fo
cookies or URL re-writing tate informNID
stored s SIO
3. Client uses the JSESSIONID retrieve supplied JSES
for subsequent requests
Q. Session tracking uses cookies by default. What would you do if the cookies are turned off?
If cookies are turned off, you can still enable session tracking using URL rewriting. This involves including the
session ID within the link as the name/value pair as shown below.
http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do;jsessionid=4FB61319542B5D310B243E4BDD6DC64B
Adding session ID to each and every link is cumbersome and hence is simplified by the following methods:
response.encodeURL(givenURL) to associate a session ID with a given URL and if you are using redirection
then response.encodeRedirectURL(givenURL).
//set a value in the session
public class CRMServlet extends HttpServlet {
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws
ServletException, IOException {
req.getSession().setAttribute("key", "ItemNo-1245");
String url = resp.encodeURL("/myWebCtxt/purchase.do");
PrintWriter pw = resp.getWriter();
pw.println("<html>Sample encoded URL --><a href='" + url + "'>purchase</a></html>");
}
}
//retrieve the previously set value from the session
public class PurchaseServlet extends HttpServlet {
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws
ServletException, IOException {
String value = (String)req.getSession().getAttribute("key");
PrintWriter pw = resp.getWriter();
pw.println("<html>Item to purchase is --> " + value +"</html>");
}
}
When you invoke the method encodeURL(givenURL) with the cookies turned on, then session ID is not appended
to the URL. Now turn the cookies off and restart the browser. If you invoke the encodeURL(givenURL) with the
cookies turned off, the session ID is automatically added to the URL as follows:
http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do;jsessionid=4FB61319542B5D310B243E4BDD6DC64B
Q. What is the difference between using getSession(true) and getSession(false) methods?
getSession(true): This method will check whether there is already a session exists for the user. If a session
exists, it returns that session object. If a session does not already exist then it creates a new session for the user.
getSession(false): This method will check whether there is already a session exists for the user. If a session
exists, it returns that session object. If a session does not already exist then it returns null.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-112-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Servlet 113
Should not be used for sensitive or private information.
The performance is moderate.
Cookies There is a limit for cookie size.
The browser may turn off cookies.
The performance is moderate.
The benefit of the cookies is that state information can be stored regardless of which server the client talks to
and even if all servers go down. Also, if required, state information can be retained across sessions.
Q 11: Explain the life cycle methods of a servlet? SF FAQ
A 11: The Web container is responsible for managing the servlet’s life cycle. The Web container creates an instance of
the servlet and then the container calls the init() method. At the completion of the init() method the servlet is in
ready state to service requests from clients. The container calls the servlet’s service() method for handling each
request by spawning a new thread for each request from the Web container’s thread pool [It is also possible to
have a single threaded Servlet, refer Q16 in Enterprise section]. Before destroying the instance the container will
call the destroy() method. After destroy() the servlet becomes the potential candidate for garbage collection.
S e r v le t L ife C y c le
in s ta n tia te
& c a ll in it()
c a lle d o n c e in it()
re a d y to s e rv e re q u e s ts
th re a d 1 : c lie n t re q u e s t h a n d le m u ltip le
th re a d 2 : c lie n t re q u e s t
th re a d 3 : c lie n t re q u e s t re q u e s ts a n d s e n d
s e rv ic e ()
re s p o n s e .
c a lle d o n c e d e s tro y ()
Q. What would be an effective use of the Servlet init() method? One effective use of the Servlet init() method
is the creation and caching of thread-safe resource acquisition mechanisms such, as JDBC DataSources, EJB
Homes, and Web Services SOAP Mapping Registry.
Q. How would you call a method in the EJB from a servlet?
…
MyBeanHome home = null;
…
public void init (ServletConfig config) throws ServletException {
//1. JNDI lookup is hard coded for illustration purpose but should use a declarative
//approach involving web.xml file and server specific deployment descriptor files because
//if the server location changes, hardcoding may require reasonable amount of changes &
//testing. Lookup for JBoss server is shown below:
Properties jndiProps = new Properties();
jndiProps.setProperty(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
“org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory”);
jndiProps.setProperty(Context.URL_PKG_PREFIXES,”org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces”);
jndiProps.setProperty(Context.PROVIDER_URL, “jnp://localhost:1099”);
Context ctx = new InitialContext(jndiProps);
//2. lookup home(or localHome) interface. Shown for illustration. Should prefer using the
//Service Locator pattern. Refer Q87 in Enterprise section.
Object ref = ctx.lookup(“ejb/MyBean”);
home = (MyBeanHome)PortableRemoteObject.narrow(ref, MyBeanHome.class);
}](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-114-320.jpg)
![128 Enterprise – JSP
objects used by the JSP as well as deciding, which JSP page to forward or redirect the request to (i.e. flow
control) depending on the data submitted by the user. The JSP page is responsible for retrieving any objects or
beans that may have been previously created by the servlet, and as a template for rendering the view as a
response to be sent to the user as an HTML.
Model-2 pattern (Model, View, Controller architecture)
internet
Web Container
Servlet Java Beans
(Controller) (Model)
1. request 2. instantiate 3
e.g. CRMServlet with e.g. crm.class with Database
control logic processing logic
user
4
5
JSP page
(View)
6. response
e.g. crm.jsp with
display logic
Q. If you set a request attribute in your JSP, would you be able to access it in your subsequent request
within your servlet code? [This question can be asked to determine if you understand the request/response paradigm]
The answer is no because your request goes out of scope, but if you set a request attribute in your servlet then
you would be able to access it in your JSP.
U n d e rstan d in g th e re q u es t/re sp o n se p a rad ig m
H ttp req u es t
H ttp res p o n s e A p p lica tio n S e rve r
o n h o s t “lo ca lh o s t” p o rt:8 0 80
C lie n t
C R M S e rv le t.c la s s
P re se n ta tio n
C lie n t ... T ie r
T ie r pu b lic cla ss C R M S e rvle t exten d s H ttp S ervlet {
...
p rote cte d vo id d oP o st(H ttp S e rvle tR e q ue st re q, H ttp S e rvle tR e spo n se resp )
h ttp ://lo c alh o s t:8 0 80 /m y W e b C tx t/c rm .d o 1 . re q u e st thro w s S e rvle tE xcep tion , IO E xcep tion {
S tring na m e = "S ervletT ext";
S trin g v a lu e = "req u e s t a ttrib u te se t b y se rvle t";
re q .s e tA ttrib u te (n a m e , v a lu e );
//fo rw a rd the req ue st to JS P
re q .g e tR e qu e stD isp atch er("/crm .jsp").forw ard (re q , re sp );
}
...
inte rne t }
2.
h tm l s e n t fro m J S P to th e b ro w s e r fo rw a rd
c rm .js p
<!D O C T YP E htm l PU BLIC "-//W 3C //D T D X H T M L
1.0 T ransitional//E N " "http://w w w .w 3.org/T R / < % @ p a ge co n ten tT yp e= "te xt/h tm l" % >
xhtm l1/D T D /xhtm l1-transitional.dtd"> < !D O C T Y P E h tm l P U B L IC "-//W 3C //D T D X H T M L 1.0
<!-- sim ple JS P P age --> T ra n sition a l//E N " "http ://w w w .w 3 .org /T R /xh tm l1 /D T D /xhtm l1 -tra n sitio na l.dtd ">
< !-- sim ple JS P P a ge -->
<htm l> < htm l>
< title> S im ple JS P P a ge < /title>
<title>S im ple JS P P age</title> < h 1> O utp ut to B row ser< /h 1 >
<h1>O utput to B row ser</h1> < b od y>
W ritten as h tm l fro m a JS P . A ttrib ute se t by se rvle t:
<body> 3. re sp on s e < !-- retrieve attribu te set b y S ervlet-->
W ritten as htm l from a JSP . Attribute set by < % = re q u e st.g etA ttrib u te("S e rvle tT e x t") % >
servlet: < br/>
<!-- retrieve attribute set by Servlet-->
req u est attrib ute set by servlet < % -- if y o u s et a re q u e st attrib u te, it g o es o u t o f sc o p e afte r re sp o n s e h as
<br/> b e e n s en t an d a n e w re q u e st o b je ct w ill b e cre ate d . --% >
</body>
< % req u e s t.s e tA ttrib u te ("J S P T ex t", "A ttrib u te s et b y J S P " );% >
</htm l> < /b od y>
< /h tm l>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-129-320.jpg)
![138 Enterprise – JSP
session Session Refers to the user’s session.
application Application Same as ServletContext. Refers to the web application’s environment.
out Page Refers to the outputstream.
config Page same as ServletConfig. Refers to the servlet’s configuration.
page Page Refers to the page’s Servlet instance.
exception Page exception created on this page. Used for error handling. Only available if it is an
errorPage with the following directive:
<%@ page isErrorPage="true" %>
The “exception” implicit object is not available for global error pages declared through
web.xml. You can retrieve the java.lang.Throwable object as follows:
<%= request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.exception") %>
<%
String username = null;
username = request.getParameter("userName"); //”request” is an implicit object
out.print(username); //”out” is an implicit object
%>
Note: Care should be taken not to name your objects the same name as the implicit objects. If you have your own object with
the same name, then the implicit objects take precedence over your own object.
Q. What is JSP EL (Expression Language)?
One major component of JSP 2.0 is the new expression language named EL. EL is used extensively in JSTL
(Java Standard Tag Library). However EL is a feature of JSP and not of JSTL. The EL is a language for
accessing runtime data from various sources. JSP EL variables come from one of 2 ways:
1. Implicit variables as shown below:
Implicit variable Description Example
param A collection of all
Parameter values, request parameters as a <c:if test=”${param.name==’peter’} “ >
headers and cookies single string value for Welcome Peter !!
for the current request. each parameter. </c:if>
paramValues A collection of all
request parameters as a
string array value for
each parameter.
header A collection of all
request headers as a ${header['User-Agent']}
single string value for
each header. you must use the array syntax for the header, because the
headerValues A collection of all name includes a dash. otherwise it would be interpreted as
request headers as a the value of the variable expression “header.User” minus
string array value for the value of the variable named “Agent”.
each header.
cookie A collection of all <c:if test=”${ ! empty cookie.userName}”>
request cookies as a Welcome back
single <c:out value=”${cookie.userName.value}”>
javax.servlet.http.Cookie </c:if>
instance value for each
cookie.
Defined in web.xml initParam A collection of all
application init ${initParam.dataSource}
parameters as a single
string value for each
parameter.
Access to the JSP pageContext An instance of the PageContext.getRequest () ${pageContext.request}
objects that represent javax.servlet.jspPageCo PageContext.getResponse () ${pageContext.response}
request, response, ntext class. PageContext.getSession() ${pageContext.session}
session, application PageContext.getServletContext()
etc. ${pageContext.servletContext}
<c:if test=”${pageContext.request.method=’POST’}”>
….
</c:if>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-139-320.jpg)
![142 Enterprise – JSP
</taglib>
</web-app>
STEP: 4
The JSP file declares and then uses the tag library as shown below:
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/MyTagURI" prefix="myTag" %>
<myTag:tag1 attr=”abc”></myTag:tag1> or < myTag:tag1 attr=”abc” />
Q 37: What is a TagExtraInfo class? SF
A 37: A TagExtraInfo class provides extra information about tag attributes to the JSP container at translation time.
Returns information about the scripting variables that the tag makes available to the rest of the JSP page
to use. The method used is:
VariableInfo[] getVariableInfo(TagData td)
Example
<html>
<myTag:addObjectsToArray name=”myArray” />
<myTag:displayArray name=”myArray” />
</html>
Without the use of TagExtraInfo, if you want to manipulate the attribute “myArray” in the above code in a
scriptlet, it will not be possible. This is because it does not place the “myArray” object on the page. You can
still use pageContext.getAttribute() but that may not be a cleaner approach because it relies on the page
designer to correctly cast to object type. The TagExtraInfo can be used to make items stored in the
pageContext via setAttribute() method available to the scriptlet as shown below.
<html>
<myTag:addObjectsToArray name=”myArray” />
<%-- scriptlet code %>
<%
for(int i=0; i<myArray.length;i++){
html += <LI> + myArray[i] + </LI>;
}
%>
</html>
Validates the attributes passed to the Tag at translation time.
Example It can validate the array “myArray” to have not more than 100 objects. The method used is:
boolean isValid(TagData data)
Q 38: What is the difference between custom JSP tags and JavaBeans? SF
A 38: In the context of a JSP page, both accomplish similar goals but the differences are:
Custom Tags JavaBeans
Can manipulate JSP content. Can’t manipulate JSP content.
Custom tags can simplify the complex operations much Easier to set up.
better than the bean can. But require a bit more work to
set up.
Used only in JSPs in a relatively self-contained manner. Can be used in both Servlets and JSPs. You can define a bean in
one Servlet and use them in another Servlet or a JSP page.
JavaBeans declaration and usage example: CO
<jsp:useBean id="identifier" class="packageName.className"/>
<jsp:setProperty name="identifier" property="classField" value="someValue" />
<jsp:getProperty name="identifier" property="classField" /> <%=identifier.getclassField() %>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-143-320.jpg)
![152 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA
Q. How will you control two concurrent transactions accessing a database?
You can use isolation levels. An isolation level defines how concurrent transactions accessing a relational database are
isolated from each other for read purpose. Refer Q72 in Enterprise section. These isolation levels can prevent one or
more of the phenomena that happen during concurrent transactions:
• Dirty reads: A transaction reads uncommitted changes from another transaction.
• Nonrepeatable reads: A transaction reads a row in a database table, a second transaction changes the same row
and the first transaction re-reads the row and gets a different value.
• Phantom reads: A transaction executes a query, returning a set of rows that satisfies a search condition and a
second transaction inserts another row and the first re-executes the same query and get an additional record
returned.
Isolation Level (in ascending order of Dirty read Nonrepeatable read Phantom read
data integrity)
TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITED Possible Possible Possible
TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITED Not possible Possible Possible
TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ Not possible Not possible Possible
TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE Not possible Not possible Not possible
You should use a highest possible isolation level that gives acceptable performance. It is basically a tradeoff between
data integrity and performance. For example the isolation level “TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE” attribute guarantees
the highest level of data integrity but adversely affects performance because even simple reads must wait in line.
Q 44: What is the difference between JDBC-1.0 and JDBC-2.0? What are Scrollable ResultSets, Updateable ResultSets,
RowSets, and Batch updates? SF
A 44: JDBC2.0 has the following additional features or functionality:
JDBC 1.0 JDBC 2.0
With JDBC-1.0 the With JDBC 2.0 ResultSets are updateable and also you can move forward and backward.
ResultSet functionality
was limited. There was no Example This example creates an updateable and scroll-sensitive ResultSet
support for updates of any
kind and scrolling through Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement(ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_SENSITIVE,
the ResultSets was ResultSet.CONCUR_UPDATEABLE)
forward only (no going
back)
With JDBC-1.0 the With JDBC-2.0 statement objects can be grouped into a batch and executed at once. You call
statement objects submits addBatch() multiple times to create your batch and then you call executeBatch() to send the SQL
updates to the database statements off to database to be executed as a batch (this minimizes the network overhead).
individually within same or
separate transactions. Example
This is very inefficient
when large amounts of Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement();
data need to be updated. stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (1,”ABC”)”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (2,”DEF”)”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (3,”XYZ”)”);
…
int[] countInserts = stmt.executeBatch();
- The JDBC-2.0 optional package provides a RowSet interface, which extends the ResultSet. One
of the implementations of the RowSet is the CachedRowSet, which can be considered as a
disconnected ResultSet.
Q 45: How to avoid the “running out of cursors” problem? DC PI MI FAQ
A 45: A database can run out of cursors if the connection is not closed properly or the DBA has not allocated enough
cursors. In a Java code it is essential that we close all the valuable resources in a try{} and finally{} block. The
finally{} block is always executed even if there is an exception thrown from the catch {} block. So the resources like
connections and statements should be closed in a finally {} block. CO](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-153-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – JMS 187
Transactional Transactional behavior is controlled at the session level. When a session is transacted, the message
behavior oriented middleware (MOM) stages the message until the client either commits or rolls back the
transaction. The completion of a session’s current transaction automatically begins a new transaction.
The use of transactions in messaging affects both the producers and consumers of the messages as
shown below:
Messaging - Transactional behavior
1. send
1. commit 3. commit
Message MOM
Message
Producer (aka Broker) 4. roll back
2. roll back Consumer
4. resend
3. dispose of
2. dispose of
the message
the message
Producers [As per the above diagram]:
1’s Commit: The MOM send the group of messages that have been staged.
2’s Rollback: The MOM disposes of the group of messages that have been staged.
Consumers [As per the above diagram] :
3’s Commit: The MOM disposes of the group of messages that have been staged.
4’s Rollback: The MOM resends the group of messages that have been staged.
Transaction In JMS, a transaction organizes a message or a group of messages into an atomic processing unit. So, if a
modes message delivery is failed, then the failed message may be re-delivered. Calling the commit() method
commits all the messages the session receives and calling the rollback method rejects all the messages.
InitialContext ic = new InitialContext(…);
QueueConnectionFactory qcf =
(QueueConnectionFactory)ic.lookup(“AccountConnectionFactory”);
QueueConnection qc = qcf.createQueueConnection();
QueueSession session = qc.createQueueSession(true, -1);
In the above code sample, the transaction mode is set to true and acknowledgement mode is set to -1,
which means acknowledgement mode has no use in this mode. Let us look at transaction modes:
Message Driven Bean (MDB) with container managed transaction demarcation: A MDB participates in
a container transaction by specifying the transaction attributes in its deployment descriptor. A transaction
automatically starts when the JMS provider removes the message from the destination and delivers it to
the MDB’s onMessage(…) method. Transaction is committed on successful completion of the onMessage()
method. A MDB can notify the container that a transaction should be rolled back by setting the
MessageDrivenContext to setRollBackOnly(). When a transaction is rolled back, the message is re-
delivered.
public void onMessage(Message aMessage) {
…
if(someCondtionIsTrue) {
mdbContext.setRollbackOnly();
}
else{
//everything is good. Transaction will be committed automatically on
//completion of onMessage(..) method.
}
}
Message Driven Bean (MDB) with bean managed transaction demarcation: If a MDB chooses not to
participate in a container managed transaction then the MDB programmer has to design and code
programmatic transactions. This is achieved by creating a UserTransaction object from the MDB’s
MessageDrivenContext as shown below and then invoking the commit() and rollback() methods on this
UserTransaction object.
public void onMessage(Message aMessage) {
UserTransaction uT = mdbContext.getUserTransaction();](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-188-320.jpg)
![192 Enterprise – XML
XML because they are written in XML. <xs:sequence>
• Better data communication with the help of data <xs:element name="to" type="xs:string"/>
types. For example a date like 03-04-2005 will be <xs:element name="from" type="xs:string"/>
rd
interpreted in some countries as 3 of April 2005 and <xs:element name="title" type="xs:string"/>
th
in some other countries as 04 March 2005. <xs:element name="content" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:attribute name="language" type=”xs:string”
use=”Required” />
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
XSL XSL stands for eXtensible Stylesheet Language. The XSL To convert the Sample.xml file to a XHTML file let us apply the
consists of 3 parts: following Sample.xsl through XALAN parser.
• XSLT: Language for transforming XML documents Sample.xsl
from one to another.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
• XPath: Language for defining the parts of an XML <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">
document. <xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates select="note " />
• XSL-FO: Language for formatting XML documents. </xsl:template>
For example to convert an XML document to a PDF
document etc. <xsl:template match="note">
<html>
XSL can be thought of as a set of languages that can : <head>
<title><xsl:value-of
• Define parts of an XML. select="content/@language">
• Transform an XML document to XHTML (eXtensible </title>
Hyper Text Markup Language) document. </head>
• Convert an XML document to a PDF document. </html>
• Filter and sort XML data. </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
You get the following output XHTML file:
XSLT processor example: Xalan (from Apache).
Sample.xhtml
<html>
PDF Processor example: FOP (Formatting Objects <head>
Processor from Apache) <title>English</title>
</head>
</html>
Now to convert the Sample.xml into a PDF file apply the
following FO (Formatting Objects) file Through the FOP
processor.
Sample.fo
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
<fo:layout-master-set>
<fo:simple-page-master master-name="A4">
</fo:simple-page-master>
</fo:layout-master-set>
<fo:page-sequence master-reference="A4">
<fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
<fo:block>
<xsl:value-of select="content[@language='English']">
</fo:block>
</fo:flow>
</fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>
which gives a basic Sample.pdf which has the following line
Not Much
XPath Xml Path Language, a language for addressing parts of an As per Sample.xsl](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-193-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – XML 193
XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and
XPointer. We can write both the patterns (context-free) and <xsl:template match=”content[@language=’English’]”>
expressions using the XPATH Syntax. XPATH is also used ………
in XQuery. <td><xsl:value-of select=”content/@language” /></td>
JAXP Stands for Java API for XML Processing. This provides a DOM example using JAXP:
common interface for creating and using SAX, DOM, and
XSLT APIs in Java regardless of which vendor’s DocumentBuilderFactory dbf =
implementation is actually being used (just like the JDBC, DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
JNDI interfaces). JAXP has the following packages: DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc =
db.parse(new File("xml/Test.xml"));
JAXP NodeList nl = doc.getElementsByTagName("to");
Node n = nl.item(0);
SAXParser implements System.out.println(n.getFirstChild().getNodeValue());
Factory Content
Handler
SAX example using JAXP:
SAXExample
SAXReader
Error
Handler SAXParserFactory spf =
SAXParser
DTD SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
Handler SAXParser sp = spf.newSAXParser();
XML SAXExample se = new SAXExample();
Entity
Sample. sp.parse(new File("xml/Sample.xml"),se);
Resolver
xml
where SAXExample.Java code snippet
public class SAXExample extends DefaultHandler {
DocumentBuilder
Factory
public void startElement(
Document String uri,
(DOM) String localName,
XML Document String qName,
Sample. Builder note Attributes attr)
xml throws SAXException {
to from
System.out.println("--->" + qName);
}
...
Transformer
}
Factory
The DefaultHandler implements ContentHandler,
DTDHandler, EntityResolver, ErrorHandler
Source Result
sample. Transformer sample.
XSLT example using JAXP:
xml xhtml
StreamSource xml =
Transformation new StreamSource(new File("/xml/Sample.xml"));
instructions StreamSource xsl = new StreamSource(
sample.xsl new File("xml/Sample.xsl"));
StreamResult result =
new StreamResult(new File("xml/Sample.xhtml"));
TransformerFactory tf =
• javax.xml.parsers common interface for different TransformerFactory.newInstance();
vendors of SAX, DOM parsers). Transformer t = tf.newTransformer(xsl);
• org.xml.sax Defines basic SAX API. t.transform(xml, result);
• org.w3c.dom Defines Document Object Model and
its componenets. This gives you Sample.xhtml
• javax.xml.transform Defines the XSLT API which
allows you to transform XML into other forms like <html>
PDF, XHTML etc. <head>
<title>English</title>
Required JAR files are jaxp.jar, dom.jar, xalan.jar, </head>
xercesImpl.jar. </html>
JAXB Stands for Java API for XML Binding. This standard Let’s look at some code:
defines a mechanism for writing out Java objects as XML
(Marshaling) and for creating Java objects from XML For binding:
structures (unMarshaling). (You compile a class
description to create the Java classes, and use those xjc.sh –p com.binding sample.xsd –d work
classes in your application.)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-194-320.jpg)
![194 Enterprise – XML
-p identifies the package for the generated Java files (i.e.
*.Java)
JAXB
-d option identifies the target.
XML
UnMarshaling the XML document:
schema
Sample.xsd
JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(
“com.binding”);
Unmarshaller um = jc.createUnmarshaller();
compiler
binding
Object o = um.unMarshall(
xjc new File(“/xml/”));
Note n = (Note) n;
System.out.println(n.getFrom().getContent().get(0));
System.out.println(n.getTo().getContent().get(0));
Now to modify the in memory object content:
Java files
(*.java interfaces
& n. getFrom().getContent().set(0, “newValue”);
implementations)
Marshaling the change back to different XML file:
Marshaller m = jc.createMarshaller();
javac
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(
new File(“/xml/SampleNew.xml”));
Java
class files m.marshall(n, fos);
*.class
e
us
Application Java content
XML unmarshall Objects
Sample. JAXB note
xml API
marshall
to from
Refer Q14 in How would you go about section for XML based standards/protocols like SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI relating to Web
services, which enable interoperability between disparate systems (e.g. Between .Net and J2EE etc). These standards provide a
common and interoperable approach for defining (i.e. WSDL), publishing (i.e. UDDI) and using (i.e. SOAP) Web services. The J2EE
1.4 platform provides comprehensive support for Web services through the JAX-RPC (Java API for XML based RPC (Remote
Procedure Call)) and JAXR (Java API for XML Registries).
Q. What is version information in XML?
A. Version information in an XML is a processing instruction.
<?xml version=”1.0” ?>
Tags that begin with <? and end with ?> are called processing instructions. The processing instructions can also be
used to call a style sheet for an XML as shown below:
<?xml-stylesheet type=”text/css” href=”MyStyle.css” ?>
Q. What is a CDATA section in an XML?
A. If you want to write about elements and attributes in your XML document then you will have to prevent your parser
from interpreting them and just display them as a regular text. To do this, you must enclose such information in a
CDATA section.
<![CDATA[ <customername id=”123” > John </customername> ]]>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-195-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – XML 195
Q. How will you embed an XML content within an XML document?
A. By using a CDATA section.
<message>
<from>LoansSystem</from>
<to>DocumentSystem</to>
<body>
<![CDATA[
<application>
<number>456</number>
<name>Peter</name>
<detail>blah blah</detail>
</application>
]]>
</body>
</message>
Q. How do you write comments in an XML document?
A. <!-- This is an XML comment -->
Q. How do you write an attribute value with single quotes? How do you write an element value of “> 500.00”?
A. You need to use an internal entity reference like < for <, > for >, & for &, " for “, ' for ‘.
<customer name=”"Mr. Smith"” />
<cost> > 500.00</cost>
Q. What is a well-formed XML document?
A. A well formed document adheres to the following rules for writing an XML.
• A root element is required. A root element is an element, which completely contains all the other elements.
• Closing tags are required. <cust>abc</cust> or <cust/>
• Elements must be properly nested.
• XML is case sensitive. <CUSTOMER> and <Customer> elements are considered completely separate.
• An attribute’s value must always be enclosed in either single or double quotes.
• Entity references must be declared in a DTD before being used except for the 5 built-in (<, > etc)
discussed in the previous question.
Q. What is a valid XML document?
A. For an XML document to be valid, it must conform to the rules of the corresponding DTD (Document Type Definition –
internal or external) or XSD (XML Schema Definition).
Q. How will you write an empty element?
A.
<name age=”25”></name>
or
<name age=”25” />
Q. What is a namespace in an XML document?
A. Namespaces are used in XML documents to distinguish one similarly titled element from another. A namespace must
have an absolutely unique and permanent name. In an XML, name space names are in the form of a URL. A default
namespace for an element and all its children can be declared as follows:
<accounts xmlns=”http://www.bank1.com/ns/account”>
…
</accounts>
Individual elements can be labeled as follows:
<accounts xmlns=”http://www.bank1.com/ns/account” xmlns:bank2=”http://www.bank2.com/ns/account”>
<name>FlexiDirect</name> <!-- uses the default name space -->
<bank2:name>Loan</bank2:name> <!-- >
…
</accounts>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-196-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping 205
clustered indexes can be created
on a table? What are the Indexes are of two types. Clustered indexes and non-clustered indexes. When you
advantages and disadvantages of create a clustered index on a table, all the rows in the table are stored in the order of the
creating separate index on each clustered index key. So, there can be only one clustered index per table. Non-clustered
column of a table? indexes have their own storage separate from the table data storage. The row located
could be the RowID or the clustered index key, depending up on the absence or
presence of clustered index on the table.
If you create an index on each column of a table, it improves the query (i.e. SELECT)
performance, as the query optimizer can choose from all the existing indexes to come up
with an efficient execution plan. At the same time, data modification operations (such as
INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE) will become slow, as every time data changes in the
table, all the indexes need to be updated. Another disadvantage is that, indexes need
disk space, the more indexes you have, more disk space is used.
Technical Tip #6
Q. How would you build a regex (regular expression) to filter out email addresses? The reason for asking this question,
is that even if you cannot answer it straight away (because regular expressions actually form a miniature language in their own right), if
you know what regular expressions are, know where to and when to use them and comfortable with it then you can write any pattern with
a help of a reference guide, examples (http://www.regexlib.com) and the Java regex API. You can think of regular expressions as a kind
of SQL query for free flowing text.
[Hint] String emailRegex = “(w+)@(w+.)(w+)(.w+)*”;
The above pattern will satisfy: peter@company.com , peter@company.net.au , peter@company.inet.net.au
w a word character, . any character, + occurring 1 or more times, * occurring 0 or more
times, ? occurring 0 or 1 time, . use to escape special meaning of . (which is any
character), to escape in Java because has a special meaning in Java.
Important: ?, *, + are not wild characters. They denote occurrence of a pattern (o or 1 time etc) and also denote quantifiers like greedy
(X? search greedily for 0 or 1 occurrence), reluctant (X?? search reluctantly for 0 or 1 occurrence) and possessive (X?+ search
possessively for 0 or 1 occurrence). If you say that they are wild characters then you have not used regex before.
In Java platform (J2SE 1.4 onwards) a package called java.util.regex enable you to use regular expressions. E.g.
public static void main(String[] args) {
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("j",Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); // look for letter ‘j’
Matcher m = p.matcher("java Q&A, java/j2EE Q&A, j2EE Q&A ");
boolean result = m.find();
StringBuffer out = new StringBuffer();
while(result) {
m.appendReplacement(out,"J"); // replace with uppercase letter “J”
result = m.find();
}
m.appendTail(out);
System.out.println(out.toString());
p = Pattern.compile(","); // pattern to split on comma delimited
String[] outArray = p.split(out); // Split based on the pattern
for (int i = 0; i < outArray.length; i++) {
System.out.println(i+1 + " - " + outArray[i].trim());
}
}
Output is:
Java Q&A, Java/J2EE Q&A, J2EE Q&A
1 - Java Q&A
2 - Java/J2EE Q&A
3 - J2EE Q&A
[Java Q&A, Java/J2EE Q&A, J2EE Q&A ]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-206-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – RUP & UML 211
Sequence Diagram
anEntry : OrderEntry
client anOrder : Order
check if sufficient details
makeAnOrder() makeAnOrder() are available
for each lineItem
iteration [for each ...]()
hasSufficientDetails()
confirm : Confirmation
printConfirmation()
Note: Each vertical dotted line is a life line. Each arrow is a message. The rectangular boxes on the life
line are called the activation bar which represents the duration of execution of message.
Collaboration diagrams: Collaboration diagrams are also interaction diagrams. Collaboration diagrams convey
the same message as the sequence diagrams. But the collaboration diagrams focus on the object roles instead
of the times at which the messages are sent.
The collaboration diagrams use the decimal sequence numbers as shown in the diagram below to make it clear
which operation is calling which other operation, although it can be harder to see the overall sequence. The top-
level message is numbered 1. The messages at the same level have the same decimal prefix but different suffixes
of 1, 2 etc according to when they occur.
Collaboration Diagram
client object
1.1 : makeAnOrder()
message sequence
number
1.1.1: makeAnOrder() 1.1.1.2 : hasSufficientDetails()
*
anOrder : Order anEntry : OrderEntry confirm: Confirmation
1
self-link
1.1.1.1: for each (iteration)
When to use interaction diagrams?
When you want to look at behavior of several objects within a single use case. If you want to look at a single
object across multiple use cases then use statechart diagram as described below.
State chart diagrams: Objects have behavior and state. The state of an object depends on its current activity or
condition. This diagram shows the possible states of the object and the transitions that cause a change in its state.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-212-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Web and Application servers 219
In this scenario, both www.company1.com and www.company2.com are registered with the standard domain
name service (DNS) registry as having the IP address 192.168.0.10. A user types in the URL
http://www.company1.com/hello.jsp in their browser. The user's computer resolves the name
www.company1.com to the IP address 192.168.0.10. The Web server on the machine that has the IP address
192.168.0.10, so it receives the request. The Web server determines which virtual host to use by matching the
request URL It gets from an HTTP header submitted by the browser with the “ServerName” parameter in the
configuration file shown above.
Name-based virtual hosting is usually easier, since you have to only configure your DNS server to map each
hostname to a single IP address and then configure the Web server to recognize the different hostnames as
discussed in the previous paragraph. Name-based virtual hosting also eases the demand for scarce IP
addresses limited by physical network connections [but modern operation systems support use of virtual
interfaces, which are also known as IP aliases]. Therefore you should use name-based virtual hosting unless
there is a specific reason to choose IP-based virtual hosting. Some reasons why you might consider using IP-
based virtual hosting:
Name-based virtual hosting cannot be used with SSL based secure servers because of the nature of the
SSL protocol.
Some operating systems and network equipment implement bandwidth management techniques that cannot
differentiate between hosts unless they are on separate IP addresses.
IP based virtual hosts are useful, when you want to manage more than one site (like live, demo, staging etc)
on the same server where hosts inherit the characteristics defined by your main host. But when using SSL
for example, a unique IP address is necessary.
For example in development environment when using the test client and the server on the same machine we can
define the host file as shown below:
UNIX user: /etc/hosts
Windows user: C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32DRIVERSETCHOSTS
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.company1.com
127.0.0.1 www.company2.com
[Reference: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/vhosts/]
Q 120: What is application server clustering? SI
A 120: An application server cluster consists of a number of application servers loosely coupled on a network. The
server cluster or server group is generally distributed over a number of machines or nodes. The important point
to note is that the cluster appears as a single server to its clients.
The goals of application server clustering are:
Scalability: should be able to add new servers on the existing node or add new additional nodes to
enable the server to handle increasing loads without performance degradation, and in a manner
transparent to the end users.
Load balancing: Each server in the cluster should process a fair share of client load, in proportion to its
processing power, to avoid overloading of some and under utilization of other server resources. Load
distribution should remain balanced even as load changes with time.
High availability: Clients should be able to access the server at almost all times. Server usage should be
transparent to hardware and software failures. If a server or node fails, its workload should be moved
over to other servers, automatically as fast as possible and the application should continue to run
uninterrupted. This method provides a fair degree of application system fault-tolerance. After failure, the
entire load should be redistributed equally among working servers of the system.
[Good read: Uncover the hood of J2EE clustering by Wang Yu on http://www.theserverside.com ]
Q 121: Explain Java Management Extensions (JMX)? SF
A 121: JMX framework can improve the manageability of your application by](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-220-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Best practices and performance considerations 223
manner or shared values can be stored in a database table. Single threaded model can adversely affect
performance.
Apply the following JSP best practices:
Place data access logic in JavaBeans: The code within the JavaBean is readily accessible to other
JSPs and Servlets.
Factor shared behavior out of Custom Tags into common JavaBeans classes: The custom tags
are not used outside JSPs. To avoid duplication of behavior or business logic, move the logic into
JavaBeans and get the custom tags to utilize the beans.
Choose the right “include” mechanism: What are the differences between static and a dynamic
include? Using includes will improve code reuse and maintenance through modular design. Which one
to use? Refer Q31 in Enterprise section.
Use style sheets (e.g. css), template mechanism (e.g. struts tiles etc) and appropriate comments
(both hidden and output comments).
If you are using EJBs apply the EJB best practices as described in Q82 in Enterprise section.
Use the J2EE standard packaging specification to improve portability across Application Servers.
Use proven frameworks like Struts, Spring, Hibernate, JSF etc.
Apply appropriate proven J2EE design patterns to improve performance and minimize network
communications cost (Session façade pattern, Value Object pattern etc).
Batch database requests to improve performance. For example
Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(……).
Statement stmt = con.createStatement().
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Address…………”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Contact…………”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Personal”);
int[] countUpdates = stmt.executeBatch();
Use “PreparedStatements” instead of ordinary “Statements” for repeated reads.
Avoid resource leaks by
Closing all database connections after you have used them.
Cleaning up the objects after you have finished with them especially when an object having a long life
cycle refers to a number of objects with short life cycles, then you have the potential for memory leak.
Having the resource (i.e. database connections, statements, etc) clean up code in a finally {} block,
which is always executed, even if an exception is thrown.
Handle and propagate exceptions correctly. Decide between checked and unchecked (i.e. RunTime)
exceptions.
Q 125: Explain some of the J2EE best practices to improve performance? BP PI FAQ
A 125: In short, manage valuable resources wisely and recycle them where possible, minimize network overheads and
serialization cost, and optimize all your database operations.
Manage and recycle your valuable resources by either pooling or caching. You should create a limited
number of resources and share them from a common pool (e.g. pool of threads, pool of database
connections, pool of objects etc). Caching is simply another type of pooling where instead of pooling a
connection or object, you are pooling remote data (database data), and placing it in memory (using
Hashtable etc). Unused stateful session beans must be removed explicitly and appropriate idle timeout
should be set to control stateful session bean life cycle.
Use effective design patterns to minimize network overheads (Session facade, Value Object etc Refer
Q84, Q85 in Enterprise section), use of fast-lane reader pattern for database access (Refer Q86 in
Enterprise section). Caching of retrieved JNDI InitialContexts, factory objects (e.g. EJB homes) etc. using](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-224-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment 225
Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment
Q 126: Give an overview of Log4J? SF FAQ
A 126: Log4j is a logging framework for Java. Log4J is designed to be fast and flexible. Log4J has 3 main components
which work together to enable developers to log messages:
Loggers [was called Category prior to version 1.2]
Appenders
Layout
Logger: The foremost advantage of any logging API like Log4J over plain System.out.println is its ability to
disable certain log statements while allowing others to print unhindered. Loggers are hierarchical. The root
logger exists at the top of the hierarchy. The root logger always exists and it cannot be retrieved by name. The
hierarchical nature of the logger is denoted by “.” notation. For example the logger “java.util” is the parent of child
logger “java.util.Vector” and so on. Loggers may be assigned priorities such as DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR
and FATAL. If a given logger is not assigned a priority, then it inherits the priority from its closest ancestor. The
logging requests are made by invoking one of the following printing methods of the logger instance: debug(),
info(), warn(), error(), and fatal().
Appenders and Layouts: In addition to selectively enabling and disabling logging requests based on the logger,
the Log4J allows logging requests to multiple destinations. In Log4J terms the output destination is an appender.
There are appenders for console, files, remote sockets, JMS, etc. One logger can have more than one
appender. A logging request for a given logger will be forwarded to all the appenders in that logger plus the other
appenders higher in the hierarchy. In addition to the output destination the output format can be categorized as
well. This is accomplished by associating layout with an appender. The layout is responsible for formatting the
logging request according to user’s settings.
Sample configuration file:
#set the root logger priority to DEBUG and its appender to App1
log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, App1
#App1 is set to a console appender
log4j.appender.App1=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
#appender App1 uses a pattern layout
log4j.appender.App1.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout.
log4j.appender.App1.layout.ConversionPattern=%-4r [%t] %-5p %c %x -%m%n
# Print only messages of priority WARN or above in the package com.myapp
log4j.Logger.com.myapp=WARN
XML configuration for Log4j is available, and is usually the best practice. If you have both the log4j.xml and
log4j.properties, then log4j.xml takes precedence.
Q 127: How do you initialize and use Log4J? SF CO
A 127:
public class MyApp {
//Logger is a utility wrapper class to be written with appropriate printing methods
static Logger log = Logger.getLogger (MyApp.class.getName());
public void my method() {
if(log.isDebugEnabled())
log.debug(“This line is reached………………………..” + var1 + “-” + var2);
)
}
}
Q 128: What is the hidden cost of parameter construction when using Log4J? SF PI
A 128:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-226-320.jpg)
![226 Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment
Do not use in frequently accessed methods or loops: CO
log.debug (“Line number” + intVal + “ is less than ” + String.valueOf(array[i]));
The above construction has a performance cost in frequently accessed methods and loops in constructing
the message parameter, concatenating the String etc regardless of whether the message will be logged or not.
Do use in frequently accessed methods or loops: CO
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug (“Line number” + intVal + “ is less than ” + String.valueOf(array[i]));
}
The above construction will avoid the parameter construction cost by only constructing the message parameter
when you are in debug mode. But it is not a best practice to place log.isDebugEnabled() around all debug code.
Q 129: What is the test phases and cycles? SD FAQ
A 129:
Unit tests (e.g. JUnit etc, carried out by developers).
There are two popular approaches to testing server-side classes: mock objects, which test classes by
simulating the server container, and in-container testing, which tests classes running in the actual server
container. If you are using Struts framework, StrutsTestCase for JUnit allows you to use either approach,
with very minimal impact on your actual unit test code.
System tests or functional tests (carried out by business analysts and/or testers).
Integration tests (carried out by business analysts, testers, developers etc).
Regression tests (carried out by business analysts and testers).
Stress volume tests or load tests (carried out by technical staff).
User acceptance tests (UAT – carried out by end users).
Each of the above test phases will be carried out in cycles. Refer Q14 in How would you go about… section for
JUnit, which is an open source unit-testing framework.
Q 130: Brief on deployment environments you are familiar with? FAQ
A 130: Differ from project team to project team [Hint] :
Application environments where “ear” files get deployed.
Development box: can have the following instances of environments in the same machine (need not be
clustered).
Development environment used by developers.
System testing environment used by business analysts.
Staging box: can have the following instances of environments in the same machine (preferably clustered
servers with load balancing)
Integration testing environment used for integration testing, user acceptance testing etc.
Pre-prod environment used for user acceptance testing, regression testing, and load testing or stress
volume testing (SVT). [This environment should be exactly same as the production environment].
Production box:
Production environment live site used by actual users.
Data environments (Database)
Note: Separate boxes [not the same boxes as where applications (i.e. ear files) are deployed]
Development box (database).
Used by applications on development and system testing environments. Separate instances can be
created on the same box for separate environments like development and system testing.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-227-320.jpg)
![228 Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Q 131: Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your
most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? Why should we hire you and
what kind of contributions will you make? FAQ
A 131: [Hint:] Pick your recent projects and enthusiastically brief on it. Interviewer will be looking for how passionate
you are about your past experience and achievements. Also is imperative that during your briefing, you
demonstrate on a high level(without getting too technical) how you applied your skills and knowledge in some of
the following key areas:
Design Concepts: Refer Q02, Q03, Q19, Q20, Q21, Q91, Q98, and Q101.
Design Patterns: Refer Q03, Q24, Q25, Q83, Q84, Q85, Q86, Q87, Q88 and Q111.
Performance issues: Refer Q10, Q16, Q45, Q46, Q97, Q98, Q100, Q123, and Q125.
Memory issues: Refer Q45 and Q93
Multi-threading (Concurrency issues): Refer Q16, Q34, and Q113
Exception Handling: Refer Q76 and Q77
Transactional issues: Refer Q43, Q71, Q72, Q73, Q74, Q75 and Q77.
Security issues: Refer Q23, Q58, and Q81
Scalability issues: Refer Q20, Q21, Q120 and Q122.
Best practices: Refer Q10, Q16, Q39, Q40, Q46, Q82, Q124, and Q125
Refer Q75 – Q89 in Java section for frequently asked non-technical questions.
Q. Give me a high level description of your experience with the Java platform? What APIs do you have
experience with?
[Hint:] Servlet, JSP, JDBC, JNDI, EJB, JMS, Swing, Applet, etc.
Q 132: Have you used any load testing tools? What source control systems have you used? What operating systems
are you comfortable with? Which on-line technical resources do you use to resolve any design and/or
development issues or to keep your knowledge up to date apart from Google? SD
A 132:
Load testing tools: Rational Robot, JMeter, LoadRunner, etc.
Source control systems: CVS, Subversion, VSS (Visual Source Safe), Rational clear case etc. Refer Q14 in
How would you go about section…. for CVS.
Operating systems: NT, Unix, Linux, Solaris etc
Online technical resources : http://www.javaranch.com, http://www.theserverside.com, http://java.sun.com/
etc.
Q 133: Tell me a time where you had to deal with a difficult person? Why was this person difficult? How did you handle
that person? FAQ
A 133:
Situation: When you had started a new job as a technical lead with an insurance company, where you had to
manage a small team of 4-5 developers. All your team members were quite co-operative and friendly except for
one member whom you would like to call Mr. X. Every time you had to talk to Mr. X you could sense some
resistance to co-operate and disclose any work related information. Mr. X is also in disagreement with your
views, opinion etc. Why was this person difficult? The root cause for this behavior was due to Mr. X was
overlooked for the position of technical lead after having worked on the system for about 3 years.
Action: How did you handle that person? You had decided to be patient and tactful with Mr. X to earn his
respect. After talking to a few members of the team and with your own observation you had determined that Mr.
X was very technically talented but was not too popular with the business users because he always looked at
things only from the technology perspective and failed to look at things from the business perspective and
consequently turned a deaf year to some of the business requirements and also did not build a good rapport with
the business. You always believed that having a good rapport and effective communication with the business is
vital for the success of a project. So you decided to organize a two day workshop for your team and key](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-229-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational 229
business users on agile development methodology with the focus on building a better communication with the
business. You had organized an external off-site workshop with the help of an external facilitator. You could feel
during and after the workshop that Mr.X started to realize the importance of building a good rapport with the
business. At early stages you minimized any contacts with Mr.X to avoid any confrontational situations and with
time and patience you managed to earn his respect by being flexible and tactful, being genuinely appreciative of
Mr. X’s technical skills and contribution, being able to get Mr. X to realize the importance of building a good
rapport with the business, giving Mr. X more responsibility and making him feel important.
Results: Mr. X became more co-operative and also endeavored to build a better rapport with the business.
Note: Some times you would be put in a difficult situation with the question, what would you do if no matter
what you do, you cannot get along with a person say Mr Y? You could say that you would try to be patient and
minimize or if possible avoid any contacts with Mr. Y to prevent any unpleasant situations. If that is not possible
then you would have a discussion with your manager to see if he/she could improve the situation by mediating
between you and Mr. Y. If none of the above approaches work then you would either move to a different team
within the same organization or to another organization in the best interest of you and your organization.
Q 134: What did you like best and least about your previous company? FAQ
A 134: The above question reveals a lot about you. You need to make sure that what you like about your last job should
be appealing to the job you are being interviewed for and what you liked least is not much importance.
Liked best: You could say that you were able to enhance your skills in problem solving, coping with stressful
situations, ability to meet deadlines etc. Also can say that you acquired new technical skills and experience by
learning new frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry etc.
Liked least: You could say that you were self-motivated and worked hard to achieve your deadlines but some of
your team mates slacked off from time to time and you had to pick up the extra work to achieve the team goal.
Note: The above answer discusses a negative aspect with a positive spin. You could also say that it was not
challenging enough for you, but be prepared to explain, why it was not challenging enough for you.
Q 135: Describe a situation when working as a team produced more successful results than if you had completed the
project on your own? FAQ
A 135:
Situation: You could say that you have enjoyed working independently and as a member of the team,
throughout your career and you could do both equally well. You could then say that you were involved in a
project, which had a very tight deadline because it had to be completed before the end of financial year. You had
to work in a team of 5 developers.
Action: You tried to get everyone involved coming up with an effective solution to meet the deadline without
compromising on quality by making time for brain-storming sessions with your team members where there are
no right or wrong ideas. The creativity, collective experiences and skills of a group of people were going to be
greater than that of one person and this can achieve better results through co-operation and motivation.
Results: Team involvement motivated team members work smart and at times work long hours. You were able
to meet the tight dead-line as a team without compromising on quality.
General Tip #8:
Some interviewers would like to ask questions that are impossible to answer to evaluate your problem solving skills. I was
once asked How many gas stations are there in Sydney? Do not get upset. Try to solve it creatively because the
interviewer is not looking for an exact answer but how well you go about solving it. My answer to the above question was
looking up a Sydney street directory or ringing up Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) for number of major intersections
in Sydney and multiply that by 2 (i.e. on average 2 gas stations per intersection). Alternatively you could say that there
are 3 million people in Sydney of which 60% are above 18 years (i.e. 3,000,000 * 0.60 = 1.8 million) and hence hold a
license. Say every 5 minutes a car pull up at a gas station (i.e. Say in 20 hours 240 cars will be serviced ). So to serve 1.8
million cars you would require 1,800,000/240 = 7500 gas stations. Another possible question might be, How many hair
dressers are there in Sydney? How many liters of paint is required to paint the Sydney harbor? [Hint: Make a
replica to a reduced scale say 1:100,000 (i.e. replica:actual) and evaluate the liters of paint required by painting the
replica first and then multiply the result by 100,000. ]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-230-320.jpg)
![230 Enterprise – Software development process
Enterprise – Software development process
Q 136: What software development processes/principles are you familiar with? Which one have you liked the most and
which one have you liked the least? SD FAQ
A 136: Agile (i.e. lightweight) software development process is gaining popularity and momentum across
organizations.
Agile software development manifesto [Good read: http://www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html].
Highest priority is to satisfy the customer.
Welcome requirement changes even late in development life cycle.
Business people and developers should work collaboratively.
Form teams with motivated individuals who produce best designs and architectures.
Teams should be pro-active on how to become more effective without becoming complacent.
Quality working software is the primary measure of progress.
Why is iterative development with vertical slicing used in agile development? Your overall software quality
can be improved through iterative development, which provides you with constant feedback.
Traditional Vs Agile approach
Traditional approach
With the tradional approach, Say for
Presentation Layer example we have a fundamental flaw in the
technical scope
data layer, if this flaw gets only picked up
milestone 1
after the milestone 3, then there will be lot
milestone 2
milestone 3
Business Layer Business Layer of rework to be done to the business and
the presentation layer. This is the major
drawback with the traditional development
Data Layer Data Layer Data Layer approach where there is no vertical slicing.
project time
Agile (light weight )approach
Presen Presentation
tation Layer Presentation Layer As you can see with the agile iterative
technical scope
Layer
approach, a vertical slice is built for each
iteration. So any fundamental flaw in
iteration 1
iteration 2
iteration 3
Busine Business layer
ss Business Layer design or coding can be picked up early
layesr
and rectified. Even deployment and testing
Data
will be carried out in vertical slices.
Data Layer Data Layer
Layer
project time
Several methodologies fit under this agile development methodology banner. All these methodologies share
many characteristics like iterative and incremental development, test driven development, stand up
meetings to improve communication, automatic testing, build and continuous integration of code etc.
Among all the agile methodologies XP is the one which has got the most attention. Different companies use
different flavors of agile methodologies by using different combinations of methodologies.
How does vertical slicing influence customer perception? With the iterative and incremental approach,
customer will be comfortable with the progress of the development as opposed to traditional big bang approach.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-231-320.jpg)
![Enterprise – Software development process 231
Traditional Vs Agile perceived functionality
As far as the developer is concerned As far as the developer is concerned
65% of coding has been completed but 65% of coding has been completed and
Traditional from the customer's view only 20% of
Agile from the customer's view 65% of the
the functionality has been completed functionality has been completed. So
the customer is happy.
Presentation Layer Presentation Layer
Business Layer Business Layer
Data Layer Data Layer
EXtreme Programming [XP] simple design, pair programming, unit testing, refactoring, collective code
ownership, coding standards, etc. Refer Q10 in “How would you go about…” section. XP has four key
values: Communication, Feedback, Simplicity and Courage. It then builds up some tried and tested
practices and techniques. XP has a strong emphasis on testing where tests are integrated into continuous
integration and build process, which yields a highly stable platform. XP is designed for smaller teams of 20
– 30 people.
RUP (Rational Unified Process) Model driven architecture, design and development; customizable
frameworks for scalable process; iterative development methodology; Re-use of architecture, code,
component, framework, patterns etc. RUP can be used as an agile process for smaller teams of 20-30
people, or as a heavy weight process for larger teams of 50-100 people. Refer Q103 – Q105 in Enterprise
section.
Feature Driven Development [FDD] Jeff De Luca and long time OO guru Peter Coad developed feature
Driven Development (FDD). Like the other adaptive methodologies, it focuses on short iterations that
deliver tangible functionality. FDD was originally designed for larger project teams of around 50 people. In
FDD's case the iterations are two weeks long. FDD has five processes. The first three are done at the
beginning of the project. The last two are done within each iteration.
Develop an Overall Model Build a Features List Plan by Feature Design by Feature Build
by Feature
The developers come in two kinds: class owners and chief programmers. The chief programmers are the
most experienced developers. They are assigned features to be built. However they don't build them alone.
Instead the chief programmer identifies which classes are involved in implementing the feature and gathers
their class owners together to form a feature team for developing that feature. The chief programmer acts
as the coordinator, lead designer, and mentor while the class owners do much of the coding of the feature.
Test Driven Development [TDD] TDD is an iterative software development process where you first write
the test with the idea that it must fail. Refer Q1 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section…
Scrum Scrum divides a project into sprints (aka iterations) of 30 days. Before you begin a sprint you
define the functionality required for that sprint and leave](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/85/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-232-320.jpg)
![14 Java - Fundamentals
Java – Fundamentals
Q 01: Give a few reasons for using Java? LF DC FAQ
A 01: Java is a fun language. Let’s look at some of the reasons:
Built-in support for multi-threading, socket communication, and memory management (automatic garbage
collection).
Object Oriented (OO).
Better portability than other languages across operating systems.
Supports Web based applications (Applet, Servlet, and JSP), distributed applications (sockets, RMI, EJB etc)
and network protocols (HTTP, JRMP etc) with the help of extensive standardized APIs (Application
Programming Interfaces).
Q 02: What is the main difference between the Java platform and the other software platforms? LF
A 02: Java platform is a software-only platform, which runs on top of other hardware-based platforms like UNIX, NT etc.
The Java platform has 2 components:
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) – ‘JVM’ is a software that can be ported onto various hardware platforms. Byte
codes are the machine language of the JVM.
Java Application Programming Interface (Java API) – set of classes written using the Java language and run
on the JVM.
Q 03: What is the difference between C++ and Java? LF
A 03: Both C++ and Java use similar syntax and are Object Oriented, but:
Java does not support pointers. Pointers are inherently tricky to use and troublesome.
Java does not support multiple inheritances because it causes more problems than it solves. Instead Java
supports multiple interface inheritance, which allows an object to inherit many method signatures from
different interfaces with the condition that the inheriting object must implement those inherited methods. The
multiple interface inheritance also allows an object to behave polymorphically on those methods. [Refer Q9
and Q10 in Java section.]
Java does not support destructors but adds a finalize() method. Finalize methods are invoked by the garbage
collector prior to reclaiming the memory occupied by the object, which has the finalize() method. This means
you do not know when the objects are going to be finalized. Avoid using finalize() method to release non-
memory resources like file handles, sockets, database connections etc because Java has only a finite
number of these resources and you do not know when the garbage collection is going to kick in to release
these resources through the finalize() method.
Java does not include structures or unions because the traditional data structures are implemented as an
object oriented framework (Java Collections Framework – Refer Q16, Q17 in Java section).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-15-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 15
All the code in Java program is encapsulated within classes therefore Java does not have global variables or
functions.
C++ requires explicit memory management, while Java includes automatic garbage collection. [Refer Q37 in
Java section].
Q 04: What are the usages of Java packages? LF
A 04: It helps resolve naming conflicts when different packages have classes with the same names. This also helps you
organize files within your project. For example: java.io package do something related to I/O and java.net
package do something to do with network and so on. If we tend to put all .java files into a single package, as the
project gets bigger, then it would become a nightmare to manage all your files.
You can create a package as follows with package keyword, which is the first keyword in any Java program
followed by import statements. The java.lang package is imported implicitly by default and all the other packages
must be explicitly imported.
package com.xyz.client ;
import java.io.File;
import java.net.URL;
Q 05: Explain Java class loaders? If you have a class in a package, what do you need to do to run it? Explain dynamic
class loading? LF
A 05: Class loaders are hierarchical. Classes are introduced into the JVM as they are referenced by name in a class that
is already running in the JVM. So, how is the very first class loaded? The very first class is especially loaded with
the help of static main( ) method declared in your class. All the subsequently loaded classes are loaded by the
classes, which are already loaded and running. A class loader creates a namespace. All JVMs include at least one
class loader that is embedded within the JVM called the primordial (or bootstrap) class loader. Now let’s look at
non-primordial class loaders. The JVM has hooks in it to allow user defined class loaders to be used in place of
primordial class loader. Let us look at the class loaders created by the JVM.
CLASS LOADER reloadable? Explanation
Bootstrap No Loads JDK internal classes, java.* packages. (as defined in the sun.boot.class.path
(primordial) system property, typically loads rt.jar and i18n.jar)
Extensions No Loads jar files from JDK extensions directory (as defined in the java.ext.dirs system
property – usually lib/ext directory of the JRE)
System No Loads classes from system classpath (as defined by the java.class.path property, which
is set by the CLASSPATH environment variable or –classpath or –cp command line
options)
JVM class loaders
Bootstrap
(primordial)
Classes loaded by Bootstrap class loader have no visibility into classes
(rt.jar, i18.jar)
loaded by its descendants (ie Extensions and Systems class loaders).
Extensions The classes loaded by system class loader have visibility into classes loaded
(lib/ext) by its parents (ie Extensions and Bootstrap class loaders).
If there were any sibling class loaders they cannot see classes loaded by
System each other. They can only see the classes loaded by their parent class
(-classpath) loader. For example Sibling1 class loader cannot see classes loaded by
Sibling2 class loader
Sibling1 Sibling2 Both Sibling1 and Sibling2 class loaders have visibilty into classes loaded
classloader classloader by their parent class loaders (eg: System, Extensions, and Bootstrap)
Class loaders are hierarchical and use a delegation model when loading a class. Class loaders request their
parent to load the class first before attempting to load it themselves. When a class loader loads a class, the child
class loaders in the hierarchy will never reload the class again. Hence uniqueness is maintained. Classes loaded](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-16-2048.jpg)
![16 Java - Fundamentals
by a child class loader have visibility into classes loaded by its parents up the hierarchy but the reverse is not true
as explained in the above diagram.
Q. What do you need to do to run a class with a main() method in a package?
Example: Say, you have a class named “Pet” in a project folder “c:myProject” and package named
com.xyz.client, will you be able to compile and run it as it is?
package com.xyz.client;
public class Pet {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("I am found in the classpath");
}
}
To run c:myProject> java com.xyz.client.Pet
The answer is no and you will get the following exception: “Exception in thread "main" java.lang.-
NoClassDefFoundError: com/xyz/client/Pet”. You need to set the classpath. How can you do that? One of the
following ways:
1. Set the operating system CLASSPATH environment variable to have the project folder “c:myProject”. [Shown
in the above diagram as the System –classpath class loader]
2. Set the operating system CLASSPATH environment variable to have a jar file “c:/myProject/client.jar”, which
has the Pet.class file in it. [Shown in the above diagram as the System –classpath class loader].
3. Run it with –cp or –classpath option as shown below:
c:>java –cp c:/myProject com.xyz.client.Pet
OR
c:>java -classpath c:/myProject/client.jar com.xyz.client.Pet
Important: Two objects loaded by different class loaders are never equal even if they carry the same values, which mean a
class is uniquely identified in the context of the associated class loader. This applies to singletons too, where each class
loader will have its own singleton. [Refer Q51 in Java section for singleton design pattern]
Q. Explain static vs. dynamic class loading?
Static class loading Dynamic class loading
Classes are statically loaded with Java’s Dynamic loading is a technique for programmatically invoking the functions of a
“new” operator. class loader at run time. Let us look at how to load classes dynamically.
class MyClass { Class.forName (String className); //static method which returns a Class
public static void main(String args[]) {
Car c = new Car(); The above static method returns the class object associated with the class
} name. The string className can be supplied dynamically at run time. Unlike the
} static loading, the dynamic loading will decide whether to load the class Car or
the class Jeep at runtime based on a properties file and/or other runtime
conditions. Once the class is dynamically loaded the following method returns an
instance of the loaded class. It’s just like creating a class object with no
arguments.
class.newInstance (); //A non-static method, which creates an instance of a
//class (i.e. creates an object).
Jeep myJeep = null ;
//myClassName should be read from a .properties file or a Constants class.
// stay away from hard coding values in your program. CO
String myClassName = "au.com.Jeep" ;
Class vehicleClass = Class.forName(myClassName) ;
myJeep = (Jeep) vehicleClass.newInstance();
myJeep.setFuelCapacity(50);
A NoClassDefFoundException is A ClassNotFoundException is thrown when an application tries to load in a
thrown if a class is referenced with class through its string name using the following methods but no definition for the
Java’s “new” operator (i.e. static loading) class with the specified name could be found:
but the runtime system cannot find the
referenced class. The forName(..) method in class - Class.
The findSystemClass(..) method in class - ClassLoader.
The loadClass(..) method in class - ClassLoader.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-17-2048.jpg)
![18 Java - Fundamentals
their parent's setup() method, you, as a user, need to remember to invoke theirs after you wrote your initialization
code:
public class DBUnitTestCase extends TestCase {
public void setUp() {
super.setUp();
// do my own initialization
}
}
public void cleanUp() throws Throwable
{
try {
… // Do stuff here to clean up your object(s).
}
catch (Throwable t) {}
finally{
super.cleanUp(); //clean up your parent class. Unlike constructors
// super.regularMethod() can be called at any line.
}
}
Q 07: What are the advantages of Object Oriented Programming Languages (OOPL)? DC FAQ
A 07: The Object Oriented Programming Languages directly represent the real life objects like Car, Jeep, Account,
Customer etc. The features of the OO programming languages like polymorphism, inheritance and
encapsulation make it powerful. [Tip: remember pie which, stands for Polymorphism, Inheritance and
Encapsulation are the 3 pillars of OOPL]
Q 08: How does the Object Oriented approach improve software development? DC
A 08: The key benefits are:
Re-use of previous work: using implementation inheritance and object composition.
Real mapping to the problem domain: Objects map to real world and represent vehicles, customers,
products etc: with encapsulation.
Modular Architecture: Objects, systems, frameworks etc are the building blocks of larger systems.
The increased quality and reduced development time are the by-products of the key benefits discussed above.
If 90% of the new application consists of proven existing components then only the remaining 10% of the code
have to be tested from scratch.
Q 09: How do you express an ‘is a’ relationship and a ‘has a’ relationship or explain inheritance and composition? What
is the difference between composition and aggregation? DC FAQ
A 09: The ‘is a’ relationship is expressed with inheritance and ‘has a’ relationship is expressed with composition. Both
inheritance and composition allow you to place sub-objects inside your new class. Two of the main techniques for
code reuse are class inheritance and object composition.
Inheritance [ is a ] Vs Composition [ has a ]
Building is a is a [House is a Building] has a [House has a Bathroom]
class Building{ class House {
has a ....... Bathroom room = new Bathroom() ;
} ....
public void getTotMirrors(){
class House extends Building{ room.getNoMirrors();
Bathroom ......... ....
House
} }
}
Inheritance is uni-directional. For example House is a Building. But Building is not a House. Inheritance uses
extends key word. Composition: is used when House has a Bathroom. It is incorrect to say House is a](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-19-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 21
super.withdraw (amount); // get code reuse // composed helper class (i.e. composition).
// do something else AccountHelper helper = new AccountHelperImpl ();
}
} public double calculateInterest (double amount) {
// calculate interest for SavingsAccount
public class TermDepositAccount extends Account { return amount * 0.03;
}
public double calculateInterest (double amount) {
// calculate interest for SavingsAccount public void deposit (double amount) {
return amount * 0.05; helper.deposit( amount); // code reuse via composition
} }
public void deposit(double amount) { public void withdraw (double amount) {
super.deposit (amount); // get code reuse helper.withdraw (amount); // code reuse via composition
// do something else }
} }
public void withdraw(double amount) { public class TermDepositAccountImpl implements Account {
super.withdraw (amount); // get code reuse
// do something else // composed helper class (i.e. composition).
} AccountHelper helper = new AccountHelperImpl ();
}
public double calculateInterest (double amount) {
//calculate interest for SavingsAccount
return amount * 0.05;
}
public void deposit (double amount) {
helper.deposit (amount) ; // code reuse via composition
}
public void withdraw (double amount) {
helper.withdraw (amount) ; // code reuse via composition
}
}
The Test class:
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Account acc1 = new SavingsAccountImpl();
acc1.deposit(50.0);
Account acc2 = new TermDepositAccountImpl();
acc2.deposit(25.0);
acc1.withdraw(25);
acc2.withdraw(10);
double cal1 = acc1.calculateInterest(100.0);
double cal2 = acc2.calculateInterest(100.0);
System.out.println("Savings --> " + cal1);
System.out.println("TermDeposit --> " + cal2);
}
}
The output:
depositing 50.0
depositing 25.0
withdrawing 25.0
withdrawing 10.0
Savings --> 3.0
TermDeposit --> 5.0
Q. Why would you prefer code reuse via composition over inheritance? Both the approaches make use of
polymorphism and gives code reuse (in different ways) to achieve the same results but:
The advantage of class inheritance is that it is done statically at compile-time and is easy to use. The disadvantage of
class inheritance is that because it is static, implementation inherited from a parent class cannot be changed at run-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-22-2048.jpg)
![24 Java - Fundamentals
The isNegative() method should be true before and after any method completes, each public method and
constructor should contain the following assert statement immediately prior to its return.
assert isNegative();
Explain the assertion construct? The assertion statements have two forms as shown below:
assert Expression1;
assert Expression1 : Expression2;
Where:
Expression1 is a boolean expression. If the Expression1 evaluates to false, it throws an AssertionError without any
detailed message.
Expression2 if the Expression1 evaluates to false throws an AssertionError with using the value of the Expression2 as
the error’s detailed message.
Note: If you are using assertions (available from JDK1.4 onwards), you should supply the JVM argument to
enable it by package name or class name.
java -ea[:packagename...|:classname] or java -enableassertions[:packagename...|:classname]
java –ea:Account
Q 12: What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface and when should you use them? LF DP DC
FAQ
A 12: In design, you want the base class to present only an interface for its derived classes. This means, you don’t want
anyone to actually instantiate an object of the base class. You only want to upcast to it (implicit upcasting, which
gives you polymorphic behavior), so that its interface can be used. This is accomplished by making that class
abstract using the abstract keyword. If anyone tries to make an object of an abstract class, the compiler prevents
it.
The interface keyword takes this concept of an abstract class a step further by preventing any method or function
implementation at all. You can only declare a method or function but not provide the implementation. The class,
which is implementing the interface, should provide the actual implementation. The interface is a very useful and
commonly used aspect in OO design, as it provides the separation of interface and implementation and
enables you to:
Capture similarities among unrelated classes without artificially forcing a class relationship.
Declare methods that one or more classes are expected to implement.
Reveal an object's programming interface without revealing its actual implementation.
Model multiple interface inheritance in Java, which provides some of the benefits of full on multiple
inheritances, a feature that some object-oriented languages support that allow a class to have more than one
superclass.
Abstract class Interface
Have executable methods and abstract methods. Have no implementation code. All methods are abstract.
Can only subclass one abstract class. A class can implement any number of interfaces.
Diamond problem & use of interface
Shape <<Interface>>
ShapeIF
Circle Square CircleOnSquare
Circle Square
<<Interface>> <<Interface>>
CircleIF SquareIF
CircleOnSquare
Multiple interface inheritance in JAVA
No multiple inheritance in JAVA](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-25-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 27
For classes that don’t implement Comparable interface, or when one needs even more control over ordering based on
multiple attributes, a Comparator interface should be used.
Comparable interface Comparator interface
The “Comparable” allows itself to compare with another The Comparator is used to compare two different objects. The
similar object (i.e. A class that implements Comparable following method is specified in the Comparator interface.
becomes an object to be compared with). The method
compareTo() is specified in the interface. public int compare(Object o1, Object o2)
Many of the standard classes in the Java library like String, You can have more control by writing your Comparator class. Let us
Integer, Date, File etc implement the Comparable interface write a Comparator for the Pet class shown on the left. For most cases
to give the class a "Natural Ordering". For example String natural ordering is fine as shown on the left but say we require a
class uses the following methods: special scenario where we need to first sort by the “petId” and then by
the “petType”. We can achieve this by writing a “Comparator” class.
public int compareTo(o)
public int compareToIgnoreCase(str) ...imports
You could also implement your own method in your public class PetComparator implements Comparator, Serializable{
own class as shown below:
public int compare(Object o1, Object o2) {
int result = 0;
...imports
Pet pet = (Pet)o1;
public class Pet implements Comparable { Pet petAnother = (Pet)o2;
int petId; //use Integer class's natural ordering
String petType; Integer pId = new Integer(pet.getPetId());
Integer pAnotherId = new Integer(petAnother.getPetId());
public Pet(int argPetId, String argPetType) {
petId = argPetId; result = pId.compareTo(pAnotherId);
this.petType = argPetType;
} //if ids are same compare by petType
if(result == 0) {
public int compareTo(Object o) { result= pet.getPetType().compareTo
Pet petAnother = (Pet)o; (petAnother.getPetType());
}
//natural alphabetical ordering by type
//if equal returns 0, if greater returns +ve int, return result;
//if less returns -ve int }
return this.petType.compareTo(petAnother.petType);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
List list = new ArrayList();
public static void main(String[] args) { list.add(new Pet(2, "Dog"));
List list = new ArrayList(); list.add(new Pet(1, "Parrot"));
list.add(new Pet(2, "Dog")); list.add(new Pet(2, "Cat"));
list.add(new Pet(1, "Parrot"));
list.add(new Pet(2, "Cat")); Collections.sort(list, new PetComparator());
Collections.sort(list); // sorts using compareTo method for (Iterator iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext();){
Pet element = (Pet) iter.next();
for (Iterator iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext();) { System.out.println(element);
Pet element = (Pet) iter.next(); }
System.out.println(element); }
} }
}
public String toString() {
Output: Parrot, Cat, Dog.
return petType;
}
Note: some methods are not shown for brevity.
}
Output: Cat, Dog, Parrot
Important: The ordering imposed by a java.util.Comparator “myComp” on a set of elements “mySet” should be
consistent with equals() method, which means for example:
if compare(o1,o2) == 0 then o1.equals(o2) should be true.
if compare(o1,o2) != 0 then o1.equals(o2) should be false.
If a comparator “myComp” on a set of elements “mySet” is inconsistent with equals() method, then SortedSet or
SortedMap will behave strangely and is hard to debug. For example if you add two objects o1, o2 to a TreeSet](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-28-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 29
JAVA collection framework
<interface>
Collection AbstractCollection java.util.Collections
extends
<interface> asList Arrays
List <interface>
<interface>
Map
AbstractList Set
AbstractMap
AbstractSet
Abstract <interface>
Sequential <interface> SortedMap
List SortedSet
<interface> Identity
Random HashMap
Access TreeSet TreeMap
LinkedList Weak
HashMap
implements ArrayList
HashSet HashMap
Vector
<interface> Linked
Stack Linked
Comparator HashMap
HashSet
(Diagram sourced from: http://www.wilsonmar.com/1arrays.htm)
What are the benefits of the Java Collections Framework? Collections framework provides flexibility, performance,
and robustness.
Polymorphic algorithms – sorting, shuffling, reversing, binary search etc.
Set algebra - such as finding subsets, intersections, and unions between objects.
Performance - collections have much better performance compared to the older Vector and Hashtable classes with
the elimination of synchronization overheads.
Thread-safety - when synchronization is required, wrapper implementations are provided for temporarily
synchronizing existing collection objects. For J2SE 5.0 use java.util.concurrent package.
Immutability - when immutability is required wrapper implementations are provided for making a collection
immutable.
Extensibility - interfaces and abstract classes provide an excellent starting point for adding functionality and
features to create specialized object collections.
Q. What are static factory methods? CO
Some of the above mentioned features like searching, sorting, shuffling, immutability etc are achieved with
java.util.Collections class and java.util.Arrays utility classes. The great majority of these implementations are provided
via static factory methods in a single, non-instantiable (i.e. private constrctor) class. Speaking of static factory
methods, they are an alternative to creating objects through constructors. Unlike constructors, static factory methods are
not required to create a new object (i.e. a duplicate object) each time they are invoked (e.g. immutable instances can be
cached) and also they have a more meaningful names like valueOf, instanceOf, asList etc. For example:
Instead of:
String[] myArray = {"Java", "J2EE", "XML", "JNDI"};
for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
System.out.println(myArray[i]);
}
You can use:
String[] myArray = {"Java", "J2EE", "XML", "JNDI"};
System.out.println(Arrays.asList(myArray)); //factory method Arrays.asList(…)
For example: The following static factory method (an alternative to a constructor) example converts a boolean primitive
value to a Boolean wrapper object.
public static Boolean valueOf(boolean b) {
return (b ? Boolean.TRUE : Boolean.FALSE)
}](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-30-2048.jpg)
![32 Java - Fundamentals
code. If an index position changes for some reason, then LineItemVO item1 = new LineItemVO();
you will have to change every occurrence, otherwise it Item1.setItemId(1);
breaks your application. Item1.setProductName(“BBQ”);
The above coding approaches are analogous to storing LineItemVO item2 = new LineItemVO();
disparate items in a storage system without proper Item1.setItemId(2);
labeling and just relying on its grid position. Item1.setProductName(“Outdoor chair”);
//to add line items to order
myOrder.add(item1);
myOrder.add(item2);
…
Q. How can you code better without nested loops? CO Avoid nested loops where possible (e.g. for loop within
another for loop etc) and instead make use of an appropriate java collection.
How to avoid nested loops with Java collection classes
Code to test if there are duplicate values in an array.
Avoid where possible -- nested loops Better approach -- using a collections class like a Set
public class NonNestedLoop {
public class NestedLoops {
private static String[] strArray = {"Cat", "Dog", "Tiger", "Lion", "Lion"};
private static String[] strArray = {"Cat", "Dog", "Tiger", "Lion", "Lion"};
public static boolean isThereDuplicateUsingCollection() {
public static boolean isThereDuplicateUsingLoop() {
boolean duplicateFound = false;
boolean duplicateFound = false;
int loopCounter = 0;
int loopCounter = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strArray.length; i++) {
Set setValues = new HashSet(10); // create a set
String str = strArray[i];
int countDuplicate = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strArray.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < strArray.length; j++) {
String str = strArray[i];
String str2 = strArray[j];
if(setValues.contains(str)) { // check if already has this value
if(str.equalsIgnoreCase(str2)) {
duplicateFound = true;
countDuplicate++;
System.out.println("duplicate found for " + str);
}
}
setValues.add(str); // add the value to the set
if(countDuplicate > 1) {
duplicateFound = true;
loopCounter++;
System.out.println("duplicate found for " + str);
}
if(duplicateFound) {
loopCounter++;
break;
}//end of inner nested for loop
}
} // end of for loop
if(duplicateFound) {
break;
System.out.println("looped " + loopCounter + " times");
}
return duplicateFound;
}//end of outer for loop
}
System.out.println("looped " + loopCounter + " times");
public static void main(String[] args) {
return duplicateFound;
isThereDuplicateUsingCollection();
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
isThereDuplicateUsingLoop();
output:
}
duplicate found for Lion
}
looped 5 times
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
output: The approach using a Set is more readable and easier to
duplicate found for Lion maintain and performs slightly better. If you have an array with
looped 20 times 100 items then nested loops will loop through 9900 times and
utilizing a collection class will loop through only 100 times.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-33-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 33
Q 18: What is the difference between “==” and equals(…) method? What is the difference between shallow comparison
and deep comparison of objects? LF CO FAQ
A 18: The questions Q18, Q19, and Q20 are vital for effective coding. These three questions are vital when you are
using a collection of objects for Example: using a java.util.Set of persistable Hibernate objects etc. It is easy to
implement these methods incorrectly and consequently your program can behave strangely and also is hard to
debug. So, you can expect these questions in your interviews.
== [ shallow comparison ] equals( ) [deep comparison ]
The == returns true, if the variable reference points to The equals() - returns the results of running the equals() method of a
the same object in memory. This is a “shallow user supplied class, which compares the attribute values. The equals()
comparison”. method provides “deep comparison” by checking if two objects are
logically equal as opposed to the shallow comparison provided by the
operator ==.
If equals() method does not exist in a user supplied class then the
inherited Object class's equals() method is run which evaluates if the
references point to the same object in memory. The object.equals() works
just like the "==" operator (i.e shallow comparison).
Overriding the Object class may seem simple but there are many ways to
get it wrong, and consequence can be unpredictable behavior. Refer Q19
in Java section.
== (identity) equals() method
If (a== b) returns false If (a.equals(b)) returns true
id=1
name
(both objects have same attribute values of id=1
=”Cat and name=”Cat”)
”
Pet a = new Pet(); id=1
Pet Object name
=”Cat
id=1
Pet a = new Pet(); ”
name Pet Object
=”Cat
Pet b = new Pet(); ” id=1
name
Pet Object Pet b = new Pet(); =”Cat
”
If (a== b) returns true (a,b points to the Pet Object
same object, after a is set to b with a=b)
id=1 If (a.equals(b)) returns true
name id=1
=”Cat
a=b ” a=b name
=”Cat
Pet Object ”
Pet Object
a id=1 a
name id=1
=”Cat name
b ” b =”Cat
”
Pet Object
Pet Object
Note: String assignment with the “new” operator follow the same rule as == and equals( ) as mentioned above.
String str = new String(“ABC”); //Wrong. Avoid this because a new String instance
//is created each time it is executed.
Variation to the above rule:
The “literal” String assignment is shown below, where if the assignment value is identical to another String assignment
value created then a new String object is not created. A reference to the existing String object is returned.
String str = “ABC”; //Right because uses a single instance rather than
//creating a new instance each time it is executed.
Let us look at an example:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-34-2048.jpg)
![34 Java - Fundamentals
public class StringBasics {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s1 = new String("A"); //not recommended, use String s1 = "A"
String s2 = new String("A"); //not recommended, use String s2 = "A"
//standard: follows the == and equals() rule like plain java objects.
if (s1 == s2) { //shallow comparison
System.out.println("references/identities are equal"); //never reaches here
}
if (s1.equals(s2)) { //deep comparison
System.out.println("values are equal"); // this line is printed
}
//variation: does not follow the == and equals rule
String s3 = "A"; //goes into a String pool.
String s4 = "A"; //refers to String already in the pool.
if (s3 == s4) { //shallow comparison
System.out.println("references/identities are equal"); //this line is printed
}
if (s3.equals(s4)) { //deep comparison
System.out.println("values are equal"); //this line is also printed
}
}
}
Design pattern: String class is designed with Flyweight design pattern. When you create a String constant as shown
above in the variation, (i.e. String s3 = “A”, s4= “A”), it will be checked to see if it is already in the String pool. If it is in the
pool, it will be picked up from the pool instead of creating a new one. Flyweights are shared objects and using them can
result in substantial performance gains.
Q. What is an intern() method in the String class?
A pool of Strings is maintained by the String class. When the intern() method is invoked equals(…) method is invoked to
determine if the String already exist in the pool. If it does then the String from the pool is returned. Otherwise, this String
object is added to the pool and a reference to this object is returned. For any two Strings s1 & s2, s1.intern() ==
s2.intern() only if s1.equals(s2) is true.
Q 19: What are the non-final methods in Java Object class, which are meant primarily for extension? LF CO
A 19: The non-final methods are equals(), hashCode(), toString(), clone(), and finalize(). The other methods like
wait(), notify(), notifyAll(), getClass() etc are final methods and therefore cannot be overridden. Let us look at
these non-final methods, which are meant primarily for extension (i.e. inheritance).
Important: The equals() and hashCode() methods prove to be very important, when objects implementing these two
methods are added to collections. If implemented incorrectly or not implemented at all then your objects stored in a
collection like a Set, List or Map may behave strangely and also is hard to debug.
Method Explanation
name
equals() This method checks if some other object passed to it as an argument is equal the object in which this method is
invoked. It is easy to implement the equals() method incorrectly, if you do not understand the contract. The contract
can be stated in terms of 6 simple principles as follows:
method with
1. o1.equals(o1) which means an Object (e.g. o1) should be equal to itself. (aka Reflexive).
public
access 2. o1.equals(o2) if and only o2.equals(o1) So it will be incorrect to have your own class say “MyPet” to have a
modifier equals() method that has a comparison with an Object of class “java.lang.String” class or with any other built-in
Java class. (aka Symmetric) .
3. o1.equals(o2) && o2.equals(o3) implies that o1.equals(o3) as well It means that if the first object o1 equals to
the second object o2 and the second object o2 is equal to the third object o3 then the first object o1 is equal to
the third object o3. For example, imagine that X, Y and Z are 3 different classes. The classes X and Y both
implement the equals() method in such a way that it provides comparison for objects of class X and class Y. Now
if you decide to modify the equals() method of class Y so that it also provides equality comparison with class Z,
then you will be violating this principle because no proper equals comparison exist for class X and class Z
objects. So, if two objects agree that they are equal and follow the above mentioned symmetric principle, then](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-35-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 39
numbers (e.g. java.lang.Integer, java.lang.Float, java.lang.BigDecimal etc are immutable objects), enumerated
types, colors (e.g. java.awt.Color is an immutable object), short lived objects like events, messages etc.
Q. What are the benefits of immutable objects?
• Immutable classes can greatly simplify programming by freely allowing you to cache and share the references to
the immutable objects without having to defensively copy them or without having to worry about their values
becoming stale or corrupted.
• Immutable classes are inherently thread-safe and you do not have to synchronize access to them to be used in a
multi-threaded environment. So there is no chance of negative performance consequences.
• Eliminates the possibility of data becoming inaccessible when used as keys in HashMaps or as elements in
Sets. These types of errors are hard to debug and fix. Refer Q20 in Java section under “Q. Why it is a best
practice to implement the user defined key class as an immutable object? “
Q. How will you write an immutable class? CO
Writing an immutable class is generally easy but there can be some tricky situations. Follow the following guidelines:
1. A class is declared final (i.e. final classes cannot be extended).
public final class MyImmutable { … }
2. All its fields are final (final fields cannot be mutated once assigned).
private final int[] myArray; //do not declare as private final int[] myArray = null;
3. Do not provide any methods that can change the state of the immutable object in any way – not just setXXX
methods, but any methods which can change the state.
4. The “this” reference is not allowed to escape during construction from the immutable class and the immutable
class should have exclusive access to fields that contain references to mutable objects like arrays, collections
and mutable classes like Date etc by:
• Declaring the mutable references as private.
• Not returning or exposing the mutable references to the caller (this can be done by defensive copying)
Wrong way to write an immutable class Right way to write an immutable class
Wrong way to write a constructor: Right way is to copy the array before assigning in the constructor.
public final class MyImmutable { public final class MyImmutable {
private final int[] myArray; private final int[] myArray;
public MyImmutable(int[] anArray) { public MyImmutable(int[] anArray) {
this.myArray = anArray; // wrong this.myArray = anArray.clone(); // defensive copy
} }
public String toString() { public String toString() {
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Numbers are: "); StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Numbers are: ");
for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) { for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
sb.append(myArray[i] + " "); sb.append(myArray[i] + " ");
} }
return sb.toString(); return sb.toString();
} }
} }
// the caller could change the array after calling the // the caller cannot change the array after calling the constructor.
constructor.
int[] array = {1,2};
int[] array = {1,2}; MyImmutable myImmutableRef = new MyImmutable(array) ;
MyImmutable myImmutableRef = new MyImmutable(array) ; System.out.println("Before constructing " + myImmutableRef);
System.out.println("Before constructing " + myImmutableRef); array[1] = 5; // change (i.e. mutate) the element
array[1] = 5; // change (i.e. mutate) the element System.out.println("After constructing " + myImmutableRef);
System.out.println("After constructing " + myImmutableRef);
Out put:
Out put: Before constructing Numbers are: 1 2
Before constructing Numbers are: 1 2](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-40-2048.jpg)
![40 Java - Fundamentals
After constructing Numbers are: 1 5 After constructing Numbers are: 1 2
As you can see in the output that the “MyImmutable” object As you can see in the output that the “MyImmutable” object has not
has been mutated. This is because the object reference gets been mutated.
copied as discussed in Q22 in Java section.
Wrong way to write an accessor. A caller could get the array Right way to write an accessor by cloning.
reference and then change the contents:
public int[] getAray() {
public int[] getArray() { return (int[]) myArray.clone();
return myArray; }
}
Important: Beware of using the clone() method on a collection like a Map, List, Set etc because they are not only difficult
to implement correctly refer Q19 in Java section but also the default behavior of an object’s clone() method automatically
yields a shallow copy. You have to deep copy the mutable objects referenced by your immutable class. Refer Q26 in Java
section for deep vs. shallow cloning and Q22 in Java section for why you will be modifying the original object if you do not
deep copy.
Q. How would you defensively copy a Date field in your immutable class?
public final class MyDiary {
private Date myDate = null;
public MyDiary(Date aDate){
this.myDate = new Date(aDate.getTime()); // defensive copying by not exposing the “myDate” reference
}
public Date getDate() {
return new Date(myDate.getTime); // defensive copying by not exposing the “myDate” reference
}
}
Q 22: What is the main difference between pass-by-reference and pass-by-value? LF PI FAQ
A 22: Other languages use pass-by-reference or pass-by-pointer. But in Java no matter what type of argument you
pass the corresponding parameter (primitive variable or object reference) will get a copy of that data, which is
exactly how pass-by-value (i.e. copy-by-value) works.
In Java, if a calling method passes a reference of an object as an argument to the called method then the passed-
in reference gets copied first and then passed to the called method. Both the original reference that was
passed-in and the copied reference will be pointing to the same object. So no matter which reference you use, you
will be always modifying the same original object, which is how the pass-by-reference works as well.
Pass-by-value for primitive variables vs Object references
Primitive variables Object references
i = 10
public void first(){ stores i public void first(){ ref c
int i= 10; Car c = new Car("red") re
f
int x = second(i); //At this point
copy of c
//At this point Copy of i //color is Red Car object
//value of i is still 10 k = 10 second(c);
String color = red
//value of x is 11 i //At this point
ies
} cop //color is Blue
public int second(int k) { } ref d
k++; acts on k k = 11 public void second(Car d) Changes
return k ; { color = blue
} d.setColor(blue); modifies the original
modifies the copy k
but not the original.
//color is blue object through copied
} reference
If your method call involves inter-process (e.g. between two JVMs) communication, then the reference of the
calling method has a different address space to the called method sitting in a separate process (i.e. separate](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-41-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 49
All Java methods are automatically re-entrant. It means that several threads can be executing the same method
at once, each with its own copy of the local variables. A Java method may call itself without needing any special
declarations. This is known as a recursive method call. Given enough stack space, recursive method calls are
perfectly valid in Java though it is tough to debug. Recursive methods are useful in removing iterations from many
sorts of algorithms. All recursive functions are re-entrant but not all re-entrant functions are recursive. Idempotent
methods are methods, which are written in such a way that repeated calls to the same method with the same
arguments yield same results. For example clustered EJBs, which are written with idempotent methods, can
automatically recover from a server failure as long as it can reach another server (i.e. scalable).
Q 35: Explain Outer and Inner classes (or Nested classes) in Java? When will you use an Inner Class? LF SE
A 35: In Java not all classes have to be defined separate from each other. You can put the definition of one class inside
the definition of another class. The inside class is called an inner class and the enclosing class is called an outer
class. So when you define an inner class, it is a member of the outer class in much the same way as other
members like attributes, methods and constructors.
Q. Where should you use inner classes? Code without inner classes is more maintainable and readable.
When you access private data members of the outer class, the JDK compiler creates package-access member
functions in the outer class for the inner class to access the private members. This leaves a security hole. In
general we should avoid using inner classes. Use inner class only when an inner class is only relevant in the
context of the outer class and/or inner class can be made private so that only outer class can access it. Inner
classes are used primarily to implement helper classes like Iterators, Comparators etc which are used in the
context of an outer class. CO
Member inner class Anonymous inner class
public class MyStack { public class MyStack {
private Object[] items = null; private Object[] items = null;
… …
public Iterator iterator() { public Iterator iterator() {
return new StackIterator(); return new Iterator {
} …
//inner class public boolean hasNext() {…}
class StackIterator implements Iterator{ }
… }
public boolean hasNext(){…} }
}
}
Explain outer and inner classes?
Class Type Description Example + Class name
Outer Package Top level class. Only type JVM //package scope
class member class can recognize. class Outside{}
or interface
Outside.class
Inner static nested Defined within the context of the //package scope
class class or top-level class. Must be static & class Outside {
interface can access static members of its static class Inside{ }
containing class. No relationship }
between the instances of outside
and Inside classes. Outside.class ,Outside$Inside.class
Inner Member class Defined within the context of class Outside{
class outer class, but non-static. Until class Inside(){}
an object of Outside class has }
been created you can’t create
Inside. Outside.class , Outside$Inside.class
Inner Local class Defined within a block of code. class Outside {
class Can use final local variables and void first() {
final method parameters. Only final int i = 5;
visible within the block of code class Inside{}
that defines it. }
}
Outside.class , Outside$1$Inside.class](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-50-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 57
Process vs Threads
Process (JVM)
Thread 1 Thread 2 Thread 3
Stack Stack Stack
Each thread has its
own stack memory
method1() method1() method1()
Single heap per process Heap
Object
Object1
shared by all the threads 2
A JVM runs in a single process and threads in a JVM share the heap belonging to that process. That is why
several threads may access the same object. Threads share the heap and have their own stack space. This is
how one thread’s invocation of a method and its local variables are kept thread safe from other threads. But the
heap is not thread-safe and must be synchronized for thread safety.
Q 43: Explain different ways of creating a thread? LF FAQ
A 43: Threads can be used by either :
Extending the Thread class
Implementing the Runnable interface.
class Counter extends Thread {
//method where the thread execution will start
public void run(){
//logic to execute in a thread
}
//let’s see how to start the threads
public static void main(String[] args){
Thread t1 = new Counter();
Thread t2 = new Counter();
t1.start(); //start the first thread. This calls the run() method.
t2.start(); //this starts the 2nd thread. This calls the run() method.
}
}
class Counter extends Base implements Runnable {
//method where the thread execution will start
public void run(){
//logic to execute in a thread
}
//let us see how to start the threads
public static void main(String[] args){
Thread t1 = new Thread(new Counter());
Thread t2 = new Thread(new Counter());
t1.start(); //start the first thread. This calls the run() method.
t2.start(); //this starts the 2nd thread. This calls the run() method.
}
}
Q. Which one would you prefer and why? The Runnable interface is preferred, as it does not require your
object to inherit a thread because when you need multiple inheritance, only interfaces can help you. In the above
example we had to extend the Base class so implementing Runnable interface is an obvious choice. Also note
how the threads are started in each of the different cases as shown in the code sample. In an OO approach you](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-58-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 63
sf = new SimpleShapeFactory();
public class ShapeFactory { }
public abstract Shape getShape(int shapeId); else if (type == TYPE_COMPLEX) {
} sf = new ComplexShapeFactory();
}
public class SimpleShapeFactory extends else throw new BadShapeFactoryException(“No factory!!”);
ShapeFactory throws BadShapeException {
public Shape getShape(int shapeTypeId){ return sf;
Shape shape = null; }
if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_CIRCLE) { }
//in future can reuse or cache objects.
shape = new Circle(); Now let’s look at the calling code, which uses the factory:
}
else if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_SQUARE) { ShapeFactoryType abFac = new ShapeFactoryType();
//in future can reuse or cache objects ShapeFactory factory = null;
shape = new Square(); Shape s = null;
}
else throw new BadShapeException //returns a ShapeFactory but whether it is a
(“ShapeTypeId=”+ shapeTypeId); //SimpleShapeFactory or a ComplexShapeFactory is not
//known to the caller.
return shape;
} factory = abFac.getShapeFactory(1);//returns SimpleShapeFactory
}
//returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a Pentagon is
Now let’s look at the calling code, which uses the //not known to the caller.
factory:
s = factory.getShape(2); //returns square.
ShapeFactory factory = new SimpleShapeFactory(); s.draw(); //draws a square
//returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a //returns a ShapeFactory but whether it is a
//Square is not known to the caller. //SimpleShapeFactory or a ComplexShapeFactory is not
Shape s = factory.getShape(1); //known to the caller.
s.draw(); // circle is drawn
factory = abFac.getShapeFactory(2);
//returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a //returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a Pentagon is
//Square is not known to the caller. //not known to the caller.
s = factory.getShape(2); s = factory.getShape(3); //returns a pentagon.
s.draw(); //Square is drawn s.draw(); //draws a pentagon
Q. Why use factory pattern or abstract factory pattern? Factory pattern returns an instance of several (product
hierarchy) subclasses (like Circle, Square etc), but the calling code is unaware of the actual implementation class.
The calling code invokes the method on the interface for example Shape and using polymorphism the correct
draw() method gets invoked [Refer Q10 in Java section for polymorphism]. So, as you can see, the factory pattern
reduces the coupling or the dependencies between the calling code and called objects like Circle, Square etc. This
is a very powerful and common feature in many frameworks. You do not have to create a new Circle or a new
Square on each invocation as shown in the sample code, which is for the purpose of illustration and simplicity. In
future, to conserve memory you can decide to cache objects or reuse objects in your factory with no changes
required to your calling code. You can also load objects in your factory based on attribute(s) read from an external
properties file or some other condition. Another benefit going for the factory is that unlike calling constructors
directly, factory patterns have more meaningful names like getShape(…), getInstance(…) etc, which may make
calling code more clear.
Q. Can we use the singleton pattern within our factory pattern code? Yes. Another important aspect to
consider when writing your factory class is that, it does not make sense to create a new factory object for each
invocation as it is shown in the sample code, which is just fine for the illustration purpose.
ShapeFactory factory = new SimpleShapeFactory();
To overcome this, you can incorporate the singleton design pattern into your factory pattern code. The singleton
design pattern will create only a single instance of your SimpleShapeFactory class. Since an abstract factory
pattern is unlike factory pattern, where you need to have an instance for each of the two factories (i.e.
SimpleShapeFactory and ComplexShapeFactory) returned, you can still incorporate the singleton pattern as an
access point and have an instance of a HashMap, store your instances of both factories. Now your calling method
uses a static method to get the same instance of your factory, hence conserving memory and promoting object
reuse:
ShapeFactory factory = ShapeFactory. getFactoryInstance();//returns a singleton
factory.getShape();](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-64-2048.jpg)
![64 Java - Fundamentals
Note: Since questions on singleton pattern and factory pattern are commonly asked in the interviews, they are included as part
of this section. To learn more about design patterns refer Q11, Q12 in How would you go about section…?
Q 53: What is a socket? How do you facilitate inter process communication in Java? LF
A 53: A socket is a communication channel, which facilitates inter-process communication (For example
communicating between two JVMs, which may or may not be running on two different physical machines). A
socket is an endpoint for communication. There are two kinds of sockets, depending on whether one wishes to
use a connectionless or a connection-oriented protocol. The connectionless communication protocol of the
Internet is called UDP. The connection-oriented communication protocol of the Internet is called TCP. UDP
sockets are also called datagram sockets. Each socket is uniquely identified on the entire Internet with two
numbers. The first number is a 32-bit (IPV4 or 128-bit is IPV6) integer called the Internet Address (or IP address).
The second number is a 16-bit integer called the port of the socket. The IP address is the location of the machine,
which you are trying to connect to and the port number is the port on which the server you are trying to connect is
running. The port numbers 0 to 1023 are reserved for standard services such as e-mail, FTP, HTTP etc.
S o c k e ts
S e n d in g P ro c e s s (J V M ) R e c e ivin g P ro c e s s (J V M )
p o rt: 6 6 7 8 s o c k e ts
IP a d d re s s : 1 2 7 .0 .0 .1
p o rt: 6 6 7 8
O p e ra tin g S ys te m O p e ra tin g S ys te m
N e tw o rk c o m m u n ic a tio n
The lifetime of the socket is made of 3 phases: Open Socket Read and Write to Socket Close Socket
To make a socket connection you need to know two things: An IP address and port on which to listen/connect. In
Java you can use the Socket (client side) and ServerSocket (Server side) classes.
Q 54: How will you call a Web server from a stand alone Java application/Swing client/Applet? LF
A 54: Using the java.net.URLConnection and its subclasses like HttpURLConnection and JarURLConnection.
URLConnection HttpClient (i.e. a browser)
Supports HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and Supports HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and
OPTIONS OPTIONS.
Does not support cookies. Does support cookies.
Can handle protocols other than http like ftp, gopher, mailto Handles only http.
and file.
public class TestServletWriter {
public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception{
String host = "localhost"; //i.e 127.0.0.1
String protocol = "http"; //request/response paradigm
int port = 18080;
String strURL = protocol + "://" + host + ":" + port + "/myRootContext/myServlet";
java.net.URL servletURL = new java.net.URL(strURL);
java.net.URLConnection con = servletURL.openConnection();
con.setDoInput(true);
con.setDoOutput(true);
con.setUseCaches(false);
con.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
// Write the arguments as post data
ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(con.getOutputStream());
out.writeObject("Hello Servlet"); //write a serializable object to the servlet.
out.flush();
out.close();](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-65-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 65
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(con.getInputStream());//this line is a must
// even if you have nothing to read back from the web server because http is a
// request/response paradigm.
String msg = (String)ois.readObject();
System.out.println(msg);
}
}
Note: Sun provides JSSE (Java Secure Socket Extension) as the technology to accomplish HTTPS over the Web.
This section would not be complete without discussing some of the exciting changes in the J2SE external version 5.0 and
the internal version 1.5.0 (“Tiger”) release.
Q 55: Explain some of the new features in J2SE 5.0, which improves ease of development? LF FAQ
A 55: The J2SE 5.0 release is focused along the key areas of ease of development, scalability, performance, quality,
etc. The new features include generics, metadata (aka annotations), autoboxing and auto-unboxing of
primitive types, enhanced “for” loop, enumerated type, static import, C style formatted output, formatted
input, varargs, etc. The following code sample depicts some of these new features. Brief explanation follows the
sample code, so if you do not understand any part of the code, come back to it after reading the brief explanation.
package sample;
//static import
import static sample.SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class CombinedNewFeatures {
enum OddEven {odd,even} //use of enum keyword. An enum is a special classs.
public static void main(String[] args) {
//read from keyboard using the java.util.Scanner
Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter your first number?");
int i1 = keyboard.nextInt();
System.out.println("Enter your second number?");
int i2 = keyboard.nextInt();
//using generics for type safety
List<Integer> numList = new ArrayList<Integer>();
//using auto-boxing to convert primitive int i1,i2 to wrapper Integer object.
numList.add(i1);
numList.add(i2);
//numList.add("just to prove type safety");//won't compile! Requires an Integer to be added
//":" should be read as "foreach". So should read as, foreach "num" value in numList.
for (Integer num : numList) {
//using auto-unboxing feature to convert wrapper Integer object "num" to primitive.
if(num >= 9){
// C style printf. System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).
// this feature is possible due to var-args feature.
System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size());
//"%" symbol means we are using the format specifier, "1" means first arg.
// Refer java.util.Formatter class API for the format specification details.
}
//need not do SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO due to static import feature
if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){
System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even);
}
else {](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-66-2048.jpg)
![Java - Fundamentals 67
…
}
Auto boxing/unboxing makes a programmer’s life easier by not having to write manual code for conversion between
primitive types such as int, float etc and wrapper types Integer, Float etc. The J2SE 5.0 will automatically box and unbox
this for you. So this is a convenience feature and is not a performance booster.
//using auto-boxing to convert primitive int i1,i2 to wrapper Integer object.
numList.add(i1); // no more code like -> numList.add(new Integer(i1)); autoboxed for you
numList.add(i2); // no more code like -> numList.add(new Integer(i2)); autoboxed for you
…
for (Integer num : numList) {
//using auto-unboxing feature to convert wrapper Integer object "num" to primitive.
if(num >= 9){ // no more code like if(num.intValue() >= 9) unboxed for you
…
}
printf method (C style) takes the arguments of a format string and varargs format specifiers. The varargs feature
allows you to have as many format specifiers as you want. Refer java.util.Formatter API for format details. The printf()
feature would not be possible if not for varargs feature, which will be discussed next.
// System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).this feature is possible due to var-args feature.
System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size());//format specifiers in bold
//"%" symbol means we are using the format specifier, "1" means first arg.
//Refer java.util.Formatter class API for the format specification details.
Varargs enables the compiler to assemble the array for you based on the argument list you pass to a method. The three
periods next to the parameter type (e.g. public void myMethod(Object … args)) denotes varargs. The type must be Object
and it must be the last argument or the only argument to the method. You can also pass primitive values due to the new
Autoboxing feature.
//method using varargs
public void addNumbers(Object ...args){ //only argument to the method. … means varargs
int sum = 0;
for (Object object : args) { // compiler converts to an object array Object[] args
sum += (Integer)object;
}
System.out.println("sum is " + sum);
}
The above method can be called following ways:
//invoking methods using varargs
cnf.addNumbers(i1); // one arg -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 1
cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2); // two arguments -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 2
cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2,5); // three arguments -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 3
The printf() method would not be possible, if not for varargs feature.
// C style printf. System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).
// this feature is possible due to var-args feature.
System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size()); // two arguments
Static imports let you avoid qualifying static members with class names. Once the static member is imported then you
can use it in your code without the class name prefix.
//static import
import static sample.SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO;
…
//need not do SampleConstants.NUM_ZERO due to static import feature
if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){
System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even);
}
package sample;
public class SampleStaticValues {
public static int NUM_ZERO = 0;
public static int NUM_ONE = 0;](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-68-2048.jpg)
![Java - Swing 69
Java – Swing
Q 56: What is the difference between AWT and Swing? LF DC
A 56: Swing provides a richer set of components than AWT. They are 100% Java-based. There are a few other
advantages to Swing over AWT:
• Swing provides both additional components like JTable, JTree etc and added functionality to AWT-replacement
components.
• Swing components can change their appearance based on the current “look and feel” library that’s being used.
• Swing components follow the Model-View-Controller (MVC) paradigm, and thus can provide a much more
flexible UI.
• Swing provides “extras” for components, such as: icons on many components, decorative borders for
components, tool tips for components etc.
• Swing components are lightweight (less resource intensive than AWT).
• Swing provides built-in double buffering (which means an off-screen buffer [image] is used during drawing
and then the resulting bits are copied onto the screen. The resulting image is smoother, less flicker and quicker
than drawing directly on the screen).
• Swing provides paint debugging support for when you build your own component i.e.-slow motion rendering.
Swing also has a few disadvantages:
• If you’re not very careful when programming, it can be slower than AWT (all components are drawn).
• Swing components that look like native components might not behave exactly like native components.
Q 57: How will you go about building a Swing GUI client? LF
A 57: The steps involved in building a Swing GUI are:
• Firstly, you need a container like a Frame, a Window, or an Applet to display components like panels, buttons,
text areas etc. The job of a container is to hold and display components. A container is also a component
(note: uses a composite design pattern). A JPanel is a container as well.
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
public class MyFrame extends JFrame {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Frame Title");
...// rest of the code to follow
}
}
• Create some components such as panels, buttons, text areas etc.
//create a component to add to the frame
final JTextArea comp = new JTextArea();
JButton btn = new JButton("click");
• Add your components to your display area and arrange or layout your components using the LayoutManagers.
You can use the standard layout managers like FlowLayout, BorderLayout, etc. Complex layouts can be
simplified by using nested containers for example having JPanels within JPanels and each JPanel can use its
own LayoutManager. You can create components and add them to whichever JPanels you like and JPanels
can be added to the JFrame’s content pane.
// Add the component to the frame's content pane;
// by default, the content pane has a border layout
frame.getContentPane().add(comp, BorderLayout.CENTER);
frame.getContentPane().add(btn, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
• Attach listeners to your components. Interacting with a Component causes an Event to occur. To associate a
user action with a component, attach a listener to it. Components send events and listeners listen for events.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-70-2048.jpg)
![Java - Swing 71
manager and double-buffering code, which means an off-screen buffer [image] is used during drawing and
then the resulting bits are copied onto the screen. The resulting image is smoother, less flicker and quicker
than drawing directly on the screen.
• Swing components generally repaint themselves whenever necessary. For example when you invoke the
setTextt() on a component etc. This happens behind the scenes using a callback mechanism by invoking the
repaint() method. If a component’s size or position needs to change then the call to revalidate() method
precedes the call to repaint() method.
• Like event handling code, painting code executes on the event-dispatching thread (Refer Q62 in Java
Section). So while an event is being handled, no painting will occur and similarly while painting is happening
no events will take place.
• You can provide your own painting by overriding the paintComponent() method. This is one of 3 methods
used by JComponents to paint themselves.
public class MyFramePainting extends JFrame {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Frame Title");
MyPanel panel = new MyPanel();
panel.setOpaque(true); //if opaque (i.e. solid) then Swing painting system
//does not waste time painting behind the component.
panel.setBackground(Color.white);
panel.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
...//add to contentPane, display logic etc
}
}
public class MyPanel extends JPanel implements MouseListener{
Color col = Color.blue;
public void paintComponent(Graphics gr){
super.paintComponent(gr);
gr.setColor(col);
gr.drawLine(5,5, 200,200);
}
public MyPanel(){
addMouseListener(this); //i.e the Panel itself
}
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent ev){
col = Color.red;
repaint(); //invokes paintComponent(). Never invoke paintComponent() method directly
}
...//other mouse events like onMousePressed etc
}
By default, the paintComponent() method paints the background if the component is opaque, then it performs
any custom painting. The other two methods are paintBorder(Graphics g) and paintChildren(Graphics g),
which tells to paint any border and paint any components contained by this component respectively. You
should not invoke or override these two methods.
Q. How will you improve the painting performance?
• On components with complex output, the repaint() method should be invoked with arguments which define
only the clip rectangle that needs updating (rectangle origin is on top left corner). Note: No paintXXXX()
methods (including paint() method) should not be explicitly invoked. Only repaint() method can be explicitly
invoked (which implicitly calls paintComponent() method) and only paintComponent() should be overridden if
required.
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent ev){
col = Color.red;
repaint(0,0,50,50); //invokes paintComponent with a rectangle. The origin is at top left.
}](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-72-2048.jpg)
![Java - Applet 77
S ig n e d A p p le t
R e m o te C o d e
lo c a lc o d e
S ig n e d u n s ig n e d
JVM
Sandbox
c a ss
ac
n
ce
V a lu a b le re s o u rc e s lik e file s
e tc
Q 71: What is the difference between an applet and an application? Can you use an applet as an application? LF FAQ
A 71:
Applet Application
Applets don’t have a main method. They operate on life Has a static main() method.
cycle methods init(), start(), stop(), destroy() etc.
Applets can be embedded in HTML pages and Has no support for embedding or downloading. Has
downloaded over the Internet. Has a sandbox security no inherent security restriction.
model.
Can only be executed within a Java compatible Applications are executed at command line by java
container like browser, appletviewer etc. tool.
Q. Can you use an applet as an application? Yes, by adding a main(String[] args) method to an applet.
Tech Tip #1:
-- If you want to create a new list (i.e. using java.util.List) of items from an array of objects, then it is more efficient and it is
a best practice to use Arrays.asList(…) method as opposed to executing in a loop and copying all elements of an array
one by one.
-- If you want to copy data from one array to another array then it is faster and it is a best practice to use
System.arraycopy(…) method as opposed to executing in a loop and copying all elements of an array one by one.
Q. Which of the following approaches would you prefer and why?
Approach-1
if (“Peter”.equals(name)) {
//….
}
Approach-2
if (name.equals(“Peter”)) {
//….
}
Approach-1 is preferred because the Approach-2 can throw a java.lang.NullPointerException if name is null.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-78-2048.jpg)
![Java – Performance and Memory issues 81
Q. Rank the above attributes in order of importance?
There is no one correct answer for this question. [Hint] It can vary from application to application but typically if
you write 1 - extendable, 2 - maintainable and 3 – ease of use code with some high level performance
considerations, then it should allow you to optimize/tune for 4 - performance and 5 - scale. But if you write a code,
which only performs fast but not flexible enough to grow with the additional requirements, then you may end up re-
writing or carrying out a major revamp to your code. Refer SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) Q15 in How
would you go about… section.
Q 73: How would you detect and minimize memory leaks in Java? MI BP FAQ
A 73: In Java, memory leaks are caused by poor program design where object references are long lived and the
garbage collector is unable to reclaim those objects.
Detecting memory leaks:
Use tools like JProbe, OptimizeIt etc to detect memory leaks.
Use operating system process monitors like task manager on NT systems, ps, vmstat, iostat, netstat etc on
UNIX systems.
Write your own utility class with the help of totalMemory() and freeMemory() methods in the Java Runtime
class. Place these calls in your code strategically for pre and post memory recording where you suspect to be
causing memory leaks. An even better approach than a utility class is using dynamic proxies (Refer Q11 in
How would you go about section…) or Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) for pre and post memory
recording where you have the control of activating memory measurement only when needed. (Refer Q3 – Q5
in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section).
Minimizing memory leaks:
In Java, typically memory leak occurs when an object of a longer lifecycle has a reference to objects of a short life cycle.
This prevents the objects with short life cycle being garbage collected. The developer must remember to remove the references
to the short-lived objects from the long-lived objects. Objects with the same life cycle do not cause any issues because the
garbage collector is smart enough to deal with the circular references (Refer Q38 in Java section).
Design applications with an object’s life cycle in mind, instead of relying on the clever features of the JVM.
Letting go of the object’s reference in one’s own class as soon as possible can mitigate memory problems.
Example: myRef = null;
Unreachable collection objects can magnify a memory leak problem. In Java it is easy to let go of an entire
collection by setting the root of the collection to null. The garbage collector will reclaim all the objects (unless
some objects are needed elsewhere).
Use weak references (Refer Q37 in Java section) if you are the only one using it. The WeakHashMap is a
combination of HashMap and WeakReference. This class can be used for programming problems where you
need to have a HashMap of information, but you would like that information to be garbage collected if you are
the only one referencing it.
Free native system resources like AWT frame, files, JNI etc when finished with them. Example: Frame,
Dialog, and Graphics classes require that the method dispose() be called on them when they are no longer
used, to free up the system resources they reserve.
Q 74: Why does the JVM crash with a core dump or a Dr.Watson error? MI
A 74: Any problem in pure Java code throws a Java exception or error. Java exceptions or errors will not cause a core
dump (on UNIX systems) or a Dr.Watson error (on WIN32systems). Any serious Java problem will result in an
OutOfMemoryError thrown by the JVM with the stack trace and consequently JVM will exit. These Java stack
traces are very useful for identifying the cause for an abnormal exit of the JVM. So is there a way to know that
OutOfMemoryError is about to occur? The Java J2SE 5.0 has a package called java.lang.management which
has useful JMX beans that we can use to manage the JVM. One of these beans is the MemoryMXBean.
An OutOfMemoryError can be thrown due to one of the following 4 reasons:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-82-2048.jpg)
![82 Java – Performance and Memory issues
JVM may have a memory leak due to a bug in its internal heap management implementation. But this is highly
unlikely because JVMs are well tested for this.
The application may not have enough heap memory allocated for its running. You can allocate more JVM
heap size (with –Xmx parameter to the JVM) or decrease the amount of memory your application takes to
overcome this. To increase the heap space:
java -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M
Care should be taken not to make the –Xmx value too large because it can slow down your application. The
secret is to make the maximum heap size value the right size.
Another not so prevalent cause is the running out of a memory area called the “perm” which sits next to the
heap. All the binary code of currently running classes is archived in the “perm” area. The ‘perm’ area is
important if your application or any of the third party jar files you use dynamically generate classes. For
example: “perm” space is consumed when XSLT templates are dynamically compiled into classes, J2EE
application servers, JasperReports, JAXB etc use Java reflection to dynamically generate classes and/or
large amount of classes in your application. To increase perm space:
java -XX:PermSize=256M -XX:MaxPermSize=256M
The fourth and the most common reason is that you may have a memory leak in your application as
discussed in Q73 in Java section.
[Good read/reference: “Know your worst friend, the Garbage Collector” http://java.sys-
con.com/read/84695.htm by Romain Guy]
Q. So why does the JVM crash with a core dump or Dr.Watson error?
Both the core dump on UNIX operating system and Dr.Watson error on WIN32 systems mean the same thing. The
JVM is a process like any other and when a process crashes a core dump is created. A core dump is a memory
map of a running process. This can happen due to one of the following reasons:
Using JNI (Java Native Interface) code, which has a fatal bug in its native code. Example: using Oracle OCI
drivers, which are written partially in native code or JDBC-ODBC bridge drivers, which are written in non Java
code. Using 100% pure Java drivers (communicates directly with the database instead of through client
software utilizing the JNI) instead of native drivers can solve this problem. We can use Oracle thin driver,
which is a 100% pure Java driver.
The operating system on which your JVM is running might require a patch or a service pack.
The JVM implementation you are using may have a bug in translating system resources like threads, file
handles, sockets etc from the platform neutral Java byte code into platform specific operations. If this JVM’s
translated native code performs an illegal operation then the operating system will instantly kill the
process and mostly will generate a core dump file, which is a hexadecimal file indicating program’s state
in memory at the time of error. The core dump files are generated by the operating system in response to
certain signals. Operating system signals are responsible for notifying certain events to its threads and
processes. The JVM can also intercept certain signals like SIGQUIT which is kill -3 < process id > from the
operating system and it responds to this signal by printing out a Java stack trace and then continue to run.
The JVM continues to run because the JVM has a special built-in debug routine, which will trap the signal -3.
On the other hand signals like SIGSTOP (kill -23 <process id>) and SIGKILL (kill -9 <process id>) will cause
the JVM process to stop or die. The following JVM argument will indicate JVM not to pause on SIGQUIT
signal from the operating system.
java –Xsqnopause](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-83-2048.jpg)
![Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational 83
Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Q 75: Did you have to use any design patterns in your Java project? DP FAQ
A 75: Yes. Refer Q12 [Strategy], Q16 [Iterator], Q24 [Decorator], Q36 [Visitor], Q51 [Singleton], Q52 [Factory],
Q58 [Command], Q61 [Composite], and Q63 [MVC-Model View Controller] in Java section and Q11, Q12 in
How would you go about… section for a detailed discussion on design patterns with class diagrams and
examples.
Resource: http://www.patterndepot.com/put/8/JavaPatterns.htm.
Why use design patterns, you may ask (Refer Q5 in Enterprise section). Design patterns are worthy of mention in
your CV and interviews. Design patterns have a number of advantages:
Capture design experience from the past.
Promote reuse without having to reinvent the wheel.
Define the system structure better.
Provide a common design vocabulary.
Some advice if you are just starting on your design pattern journey:
If you are not familiar with UML, now is the time. UML is commonly used to describe patterns in pattern
catalogues, including class diagrams, sequence diagrams etc. (Refer Q106 - Q109 in Enterprise section).
When using patterns, it is important to define a naming convention. It will be much easier to manage a project
as it grows to identify exactly what role an object plays with the help of a naming convention e.g.
AccountFacilityBusinessDelegate, AccountFacilityFactory, AccountFacilityValueObject, AccountDecorator,
AccountVisitor, AccountTransferObject (or AccountFacilityVO or AccountTO).
Make a list of requirements that you will be addressing and then try to identify relevant patterns that are
applicable. You should not just apply a pattern for the sake of learning or applying a pattern because it could
become an anti-pattern.
IMPORTANT: Technical skills alone are not sufficient for you to perform well in your interviews and progress in your
career. Your technical skills must be complemented with business skills (i.e. knowledge/understanding of the business,
ability to communicate and interact effectively with the business users/customers, ability to look at things from the user’s
perspective as opposed to only technology perspective, ability to persuade/convince business with alternative solutions,
which can provide a win/win solution from users’ perspective as well as technology perspective), ability to communicate
effectively with your fellow developers, immediate and senior management, ability to work in a team as well as
independently, problem solving/analytical skills, organizational skills, ability to cope with difficult situations like stress due
to work load, deadlines etc and manage or deal with difficult people, being a good listener with the right attitude (It is
sometimes possible to have “I know it all attitude”, when you have strong technical skills. This can adversely affect your
ability to be a good listener, ability to look at things in a different perspective, ability to work well in a team and
consequently your progression in your career) etc. Some of these aspects are covered below and should be prepared for
prior to your job interview(s).
Q 76: Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your
most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? Why should we hire you and
what kind of contributions will you make? FAQ
A 76: [Hint:] Pick your recent projects and enthusiastically brief on it. Interviewer will be looking for how passionate
you are about your past experience and achievements. Also is imperative that during your briefing, you
demonstrate on a high level(without getting too technical) how you applied your skills and knowledge in some of
the following key areas:
Design concepts and design patterns: How you understood and applied them.
Performance and memory issues: How you identified and fixed them.
Exception handling and best practices: How you understood and applied them.
Multi-threading and concurrent access: How you identified and fixed them.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-84-2048.jpg)
![84 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Some of the questions in this section can help you prepare your answers by relating them to your current or past
work experience. For example:
Design Concepts: Refer Q7, Q8, Q9, Q10, Q11 etc
Design Patterns: Refer Q12, Q16, Q24, Q36, Q51, Q52, Q58, Q61, and Q63 in Java section and Q11, Q12
in “How would you go about…?” section for a more detailed discussion.
Performance issues: Refer Q25, Q72 etc
Memory issues: Refer Q37, Q38, Q42, Q73, and Q74
Exception Handling: Refer Q39, Q40 etc
Multi-threading (Concurrency issues): Refer Q15, Q17, Q21, Q34, Q42 and Q46 etc
Demonstrating your knowledge in the above mentioned areas will improve your chances of being successful in
your Java/J2EE interviews. 90% of the interview questions are asked based on your own resume. So in my view it
is also very beneficial to mention how you demonstrated your knowledge/skills by stepping through a recent
project on your resume.
The two other areas, which I have not mentioned in this section, which are also very vital, are transactions and
security. These two areas will be covered in the next section, which is the Enterprise section (J2EE, JDBC, EJB,
JMS, SQL, XML etc).
Even if you have not applied these skills knowingly or you have not applied them at all, just demonstrating that you
have the knowledge and an appreciation will help you improve your chances in the interviews. Also mention any
long hours worked to meet the deadline, working under pressure, fixing important issues like performance issues,
running out of memory issues etc.
The job seekers should also ask questions to make an impression on the interviewer. Write out specific questions
you want to ask and then look for opportunities to ask them during the interview. For example:
Do you have any performance or design related issues? Succinctly demonstrate how you would go about
solving them or how you solved similar problems in your previous assignments.
Do you follow any software development processes like agile methodology, XP, RUP etc? Briefly
demonstrate your experience, understanding and/or familiarity with the development methodology of
relevance.
Do you use any open source frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry etc? Any build tools like Ant, Maven
etc, and testing tools like JUnit etc briefly demonstrate your experience, understanding and/or familiarity
with the framework(s) of relevance.
Many interviewers end with a request to the applicant as to whether they have anything they wish to add. This is
an opportunity for you to end on a positive note by making succinct statements about why you are the best person
for the job by demonstrating your understanding of the key areas and how you applied them in your previous jobs.
Reflect back on your past jobs and pick two to five instances where you used your skills in the key areas
very successfully.
Q 77: Why are you leaving your current position? FAQ
A 77: [Hint]
Do not criticize your previous employer or co-workers or sound too opportunistic.
It is fine to mention a major problem like a buy out, budget constraints, merger or liquidation.
You may also say that your chance to make a contribution is very low due to company wide changes or
looking for a more challenging senior or designer role.
Q 78: What do you like and/or dislike most about your current and/or last position? FAQ
A 78: [Hint]
The interviewer is trying to find the compatibility with the open position. So
Do not say anything like:
You dislike overtime.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-85-2048.jpg)
![Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational 85
You dislike management or co-workers etc.
It is safe to say:
You like challenges.
Opportunity to grow into design, architecture, performance tuning etc
Opportunity to learn and/or mentor junior developers..
You dislike frustrating situations like identifying a memory leak problem or a complex transactional or a
concurrency issue. You want to get on top of it as soon as possible.
Q 79: How do you handle pressure? Do you like or dislike these situations? FAQ
A 79: [Hint] These questions could mean that the open position is pressure-packed and may be out of control. Know
what you are getting into. If you do perform well under stress then give a descriptive example. High achievers tend
to perform well in pressure situations.
Q 80: What are your strengths and weaknesses? Can you describe a situation where you took initiative? Can you
describe a situation where you applied your problem solving skills? FAQ
A 80: [Hint]
Strengths:
Taking initiatives and being pro-active: You can illustrate how you took initiative to fix a transactional issue,
a performance problem or a memory leak problem.
Design skills: You can illustrate how you designed a particular application using OO concepts.
Problem solving skills: Explain how you will break a complex problem into more manageable sub-sections
and then apply brain storming and analytical skills to solve the complex problem. Illustrate how you went
about identifying a scalability issue or a memory leak problem.
Communication skills: Illustrate that you can communicate effectively with all the team members, business
analysts, users, testers, stake holders etc.
Ability to work in a team environment as well as independently: Illustrate that you are technically sound
to work independently as well as have the interpersonal skills to fit into any team environment.
Hard working, honest, and conscientious etc are the adjectives to describe you.
Weaknesses:
Select a trait and come up with a solution to overcome your weakness. Stay away from personal qualities and
concentrate more on professional traits for example:
I pride myself on being an attention to detail guy but sometimes miss small details. So I am working on
applying the 80/20 principle to manage time and details. Spend 80% of my effort and time on 20% of the
tasks, which are critical and important to the task at hand.
Some times when there is a technical issue or a problem I tend to work continuously until I fix it without having
a break. But what I have noticed and am trying to practice is that taking a break away from the problem and
thinking outside the square will assist you in identifying the root cause of the problem sooner.
Q 81: What are your career goals? Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? FAQ
A 81: [Hint] Be realistic. For example
Next 2-3 years to become a senior developer or a team lead.
Next 3-5 years to become a solution designer or an architect.
Situational questions: The open-ended questions like last two questions are asked by interviewers to identify specific
characteristics like taking initiative, performance standards, accountability, adaptability, flexibility, sensitivity,
communication skills, ability to cope stress etc. These questions are known as behavioral or situational questions. This](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-86-2048.jpg)
![86 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
behavioral technique is used to evaluate a candidate’s future success from past behaviors. The answers to these
questions must describe in detail a particular situation like an event, a project or an experience and how you acted on that
situation and what the results were. Prepare your answers prior to the interview using the “Situation Action Result (SAR)”
approach and avoid fabricating or memorizing your answers. You should try to relate back to your past experiences at
your previous employments, community events, sporting events etc. Sample questions and answers are shown below:
Q 82: Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to achieve it? Give me an example of a time you
showed initiatiative and took the lead? Tell me about a difficult decision you made in the last year? Give me an
example of a time you motivated others? Tell me about a most complex project you were involved in? FAQ
A 82:
Situation: When you were working for the ZCC Software Technology Corporation, the overnight batch process
called the “Data Pacakager” was developed for a large fast food chain which has over 100 stores. This overnight
batch process is responsible for performing a very database intensive search and compute changes like cost of
ingredients, selling price, new menu item etc made in various retail stores and package those changes into XML
files and send those XML data to the respective stores where they get uploaded into their point of sale registers to
reflect the changes. This batch process had been used for the past two years, but since then the number of stores
had increased and so did the size of the data in the database. The batch process, which used to take 6-8 hours to
complete, had increased to 14-16 hours, which obviously started to adversely affect the daily operations of these
stores. The management assigned you with the task of improving the performance of the batch process to 5-6
hours (i.e. suppose to be an overnight process).
Action: After having analyzed the existing design and code for the “Data Packager”, you had to take the
difficult decision to let the management know that this batch process needed to be re-designed and re-written as
opposed to modifying the existing code, since it was poorly designed. It is hard to extend, maintain (i.e. making a
change in one place can break the code some where else and so on) and had no object reuse through caching
(makes too many unnecessary network trips to the database) etc. The management was not too impressed with
this approach and concerned about the time required to rewrite this batch process since the management had
promised the retail stores to provide a solution within 8-12 weeks. You took the initiative and used your
persuasive skills to convince the management that you would be able to provide a re-designed and re-written
solution within the 8-12 weeks with the assistance of 2-3 additional developers and two testers. You were
entrusted with the task to rewrite the batch process and you set your goal to complete the task in 8 weeks. You
decided to build the software iteratively by building individual vertical slices as opposed to the big bang waterfall
approach [Refer subsection “Enterprise – Software development process” in Enterprise – Java section]. You
redesigned and wrote the code for a typical use case from end to end (i.e. full vertical slice) within 2 weeks and
subsequently carried out functional and integration testing to iron out any unforeseen errors or issues. Once the
first iteration is stable, you effectively communicated the architecture to the management and to your fellow
developers. Motivated and mentored your fellow developers to build the other iterations, based on the first
iteration. At the end of iteration, it was tested by the testers, while the developers moved on to the next iteration.
Results: After having enthusiastically worked to your plan with hard work, dedication and teamwork, you were
able to have the 90% of the functionality completed in 9 weeks and spent the next 3 weeks fixing bugs, tuning
performance and coding rest of the functionality. The fully functional data packager was completed in 12 weeks
and took only 3-4 hours to package XML data for all the stores. The team was under pressure at times but you
made them believe that it is more of a challenge as opposed to think of it as a stressful situation. The newly
designed data packager was also easier to maintain and extend. The management was impressed with the
outcome and rewarded the team with an outstanding achievement award. The performance of the newly
developed data packager was further improved by 20% by tuning the database (i.e. partitioning the tables,
indexing etc).
Q 83: Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills? Give me an
example of a time when you used your fact finding skills to solve a problem? Describe a time when you applied
your analytical and/or problem solving skills? FAQ
A 83:
Situation: When you were working for the Surething insurance corporation pty ltd, you were responsible for the
migration of an online insurance application (i.e. external website) to a newer version of application server (i.e. the
current version is no longer supported by the vendor). The migration happened smoothly and after a couple of
days of going live, you started to experience “OutOfMemoryError”, which forced you to restart the application
server every day. This raised a red alert and the immediate and the senior management were very concerned and
consequently constantly calling for meetings and updates on the progress of identifying the root cause of this
issue. This has created a stressful situation.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-87-2048.jpg)
![88 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
A 85:
Mastering EJB by Ed Roman.
EJB design patterns by Floyd Marinescu.
Bitter Java by Bruce Tate.
Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel.
Effective Java by Joshua Bloch.
Q. What is your favorite technical book? Effective Java by Joshua Bloch
Q 86: Which Java related website(s) or resource(s) do you use to keep your knowledge up to date beyond Google? FAQ
A 86:
http://www.theserverside.com, http://www.javaworld.com, http://www-136.ibm.com/developerworks/Java,
http://www.precisejava.com, http://www.allapplabs.com, http://java.sun.com, http://www.martinfowler.com,
http://www.ambysoft.com etc.
Q 87: What past accomplishments gave you satisfaction? What makes you want to work hard? FAQ
A 87:
Material rewards such as salary, perks, benefits etc naturally come into play but focus on your
achievements or accomplishments than on rewards.
Explain how you took pride in fixing a complex performance issue or a concurrency issue. You could
substantiate your answer with a past experience. For example while you were working for Bips telecom, you
pro-actively identified a performance issue due to database connection resource leak. You subsequently took
the initiative to notify your team leader and volunteered to fix it by adding finally {} blocks to close the
resources. [Discussed in the Enterprise Java section]
If you are being interviewed for a position, which requires your design skills then you could explain that in your
previous job with an insurance company you had to design and develop a sub-system, which gave you
complete satisfaction. You were responsible for designing the data model using entity relationship diagrams
(E-R diagrams) and the software model using the component diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams
etc. [Discussed in the Enterprise Java section]
If you are being interviewed for a position where you have to learn new pieces of technology/framework like
dependency injection (e.g. Spring framework), component based web development frameworks like Tapestry,
JSF etc, object to relational mapping frameworks like hibernate etc then you can explain with examples from
your past experience where you were not only motivated to acquire new skills/knowledge but also proved that
you are a quick and a pro-active learner. [Discussed in the Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section]
If the job you are being interviewed for requires production support from time to time, then you could explain
that it gives you satisfaction because you would like to interact with the business users and/or customers to
develop your business and communication skills by getting an opportunity to understand a system from the
users perspective and also gives you an opportunity to sharpen your technical and problem solving skills. If
you are a type of person who enjoys more development work then you can be honest about it and indicate that
you would like to have a balance between development work and support work, where you can develop
different aspects of your skills/knowledge. You could also reflect an experience from a past job, where each
developer was assigned a weekly roster to provide support.
You could say that, you generally would like to work hard but would like to work even harder when there are
challenges.
Q 88: Do you have any role models in software development?
A 88:
Scott W. Ambler, Martin Fowler, Ed Roman, Floyd Marinescu, Grady Booch etc.
Gavin King (Hibernate persistence framework), Rod Johnson (Spring framework), Howard M. Lewis Ship
(Tapestry web framework and Hivemind framework), Dennis Sosnoski (JiBX XML binding framework) etc.
Q 89: Why do you want to work for us? What motivates you? What demotivates you? What are you looking for in your
next job? What is your definition of an ideal job? FAQ (Research the company prior to the interview). Look at their
website. Know their product lines and their competitors. Learn about their achievements or strengths.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-89-2048.jpg)
![Java – Behaving right in an interview 89
Java – Behaving right in an interview
Arrive 5-10 minutes before the interview. Never arrive too late or too early. If you are running late due to some
unavoidable situation, call ahead and make sure that the interviewers know your situation. Also, be apologetic for
arriving late due to unfortunate situation.
First impressions are everything: Firm handshake, maintain eye contact, smile, watch your body language, be
pleasant, dress neatly and know the names of your interviewers and thank them by their names for the
opportunity.
Try, not to show that you are nervous. Every body is nervous for interviews but try not to show it. [Hint: Just think that
even if you do not get the job, it is a good learning experience and you would do better in your next interview and
appreciate yourself for getting this far. You can always learn from your mistakes and do better at your next interview.]
It is good to be confident but do not make up your answer or try to bluff. If you put something in your resume then
better be prepared to back it up. Be honest to answer technical questions because you are not expected to remember
everything (for example, you might know a few design patterns but not all of them etc). If you have not used a design
pattern in question, request the interviewer, if you could describe a different design pattern. Also, try to provide brief
answers, which means not too long and not too short like yes or no. Give examples of times you performed that
particular task. If you would like to expand on your answer, ask the interviewer if you could elaborate or go on. It is
okay to verify your answers every now and then but avoid verifying or validating your answers too often because
the interviewer might think that you lack self-confidence or you cannot work independently. But if you do not know the
answer to a particular question and keen to know the answer, you could politely request for an answer but should not
request for answers too often. If you think you could find the answer(s) readily on the internet then try to remember the
question and find the answer(s) soon after your interview.
You should also ask questions to make an impression on the interviewer. Write out specific questions you want to
ask and then look for opportunities to ask them during the interview. Many interviewers end with a request to the
applicant as to whether they have anything they wish to add. This is an opportunity for you to end on a positive note
by making succinct statements about why you are the best person for the job.
Try to be yourself. Have a good sense of humor, a smile and a positive outlook. Be friendly but you should not tell
the sagas of your personal life. If you cross your boundaries then the interviewer might feel that your personal life will
interfere with your work.
Be confident. I have addressed many of the popular technical questions in this book and it should improve your
confidence. If you come across a question relating to a new piece of technology you have no experience with like
AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) or IoC (Inversion of Control) or a framework like Tapestry, then you can mention
that you have a very basic understanding and demonstrate that you are a quick leaner by reflecting back on your past
job where you had to quickly learn a new piece of a technology or a framework. Also, you can mention that you keep
a good rapport with a network of talented Java/J2EE developers or mentors to discuss any design alternatives or work
a rounds to a pressing problem.
Unless asked, do not talk about money. Leave this topic until the interviewer brings it up or you can negotiate this
with your agent once you have been offered the position. At the interview you should try to sell or promote your
technical skills, business skills, ability to adapt to changes, and interpersonal skills. Prior to the interview find
out what skills are required by thoroughly reading the job description or talking to your agent for the specific job and
be prepared to promote those skills (Some times you would be asked why you are the best person for the job?).
You should come across as you are more keen on technical challenges, learning a new piece of technology,
improving your business skills etc as opposed to coming across as you are only interested in money.
Speak clearly, firmly and with confidence but should not be aggressive and egoistical. You should act interested in
the company and the job and make all comments in a positive manner. Should not speak negatively about past
colleagues or employers. Should not excuse yourself halfway through the interview, even if you have to use the
bathroom. Should not ask for refreshments or coffee but accept it if offered.
At the end of the interview, thank the interviewers by their names for their time with a firm handshake, maintain
eye contact and ask them about the next steps if not already mentioned to know where you are at the process and
show that you are interested.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-90-2048.jpg)
![90 Java – Behaving right in an interview
In short, arrive on time, be polite, firm hand with a smile and do not act superior, act interested and enthusiastic but not desperate, make
eye contact at all times, ask questions but should not over do it by talking too much, it is okay to be nervous but try not to show it and be
honest with your answers because you are not expected to know the answers for all the technical questions. Unless asked, do not talk
about money and find every opportunity to sell your technical, business and interpersonal skills without over doing it. Finish the interview
with a positive note by asking about the next steps if not already mentioned, a firm hand shake with a “thank you for the interviewer’s
time” with an eye contact and a smile.
General Tip #1:
Try to find out the needs of the project in which you will be working and the needs of the people within the project.
80% of the interview questions are based on your own resume.
Where possible briefly demonstrate how you applied your skills/knowledge in the key areas [design concepts, transactional issues,
performance issues, memory leaks etc], business skills, and interpersonal skills as described in this book. Find the right time to
raise questions and answer those questions to show your strength.
Be honest to answer technical questions, you are not expected to remember everything (for example you might know a few design
patterns but not all of them etc). If you have not used a design pattern in question, request the interviewer, if you could describe a
different design pattern.
Do not be critical, focus on what you can do. Also try to be humorous to show your smartness.
Do not act superior. [Technical skills must be complemented with good interpersonal skills ]
General Tip #2:
Prepare a skills/knowledge matrix in your Resume. This is very useful for someone who gained wide range of skills/knowledge in a short
span by being a pro-active learner (e.g. extra reading, additional projects, outside work development projects etc). For example:
Java 1.3 – 5.0 18 months
Servlets / JSP 12 months
J2EE (EJB, JMS, JNDI etc) 12 months
XML, XSD, XSLT etc 6 months
Hibernate 6 months
OOA & OOD 12 months
UML 4 months
Design patterns 5 months
SQL 12 months
General Tip #3:
Unless you are applying for a position as a junior or a beginner developer, having your resume start with all the Java training and
certifications may lead to a misunderstanding that you are a beginner. Your first page should concentrate on your achievements and
skills summary (As in General Tip #2) to show that you are a skilled professional. For example:
• Re-designed the data packager application for the XYZ Corporation, to make it more scalable, maintainable and extendable. [Shows
that you have design skills]
• Identified and fixed memory leak issues for the master lock application and consequently improved performance by 20% and further
improved performance by introducing multi-threading and other performance tuning strategies. Identified and fixed some
transactional issues for the Endeavor project, which is a web based e-commerce application. [Shows that you are a pro-active
developer with good understanding of multi-threading, transactional, performance and memory issues. Also shows that
you have worked on transactional and multi-threaded systems and have an eye for identifying potential failures.]
• Received an outstanding achievement award for my design and development work using Java/J2EE at the ABC Corporation.
Published an article entitled “Java Tips and Tricks”. [Shows that you take pride in your achievements]
• Mentored junior developers at JKL Corporation. [Shows that you are an experienced developer who would like to mentor
junior developers and you are not only a technology oriented person but also a people oriented person].
Reference your achievements and accomplishments with specific examples and/or relevant paperwork (but avoid overloading the hiring
manager with paperwork).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-91-2048.jpg)
![Java – Key Points 93
2. Optimizing your I/O operations.
3. Minimizing network overheads, calls to Date, Calendar related classes, use of “casting” or runtime type
checking like “instanceof” in frequently executed methods/loops, JNI calls, etc
4. Managing your objects efficiently by caching or recycling them without having to rely on garbage collection.
5. Using a StringBuffer as opposed to String and ArrayList or HashMap as oppose to Vector or Hashtable
6. Applying multi-threading where applicable.
7. Minimizing any potential memory leaks.
Finally, very briefly familiarize yourself with some of the key design patterns like:
1. Decorator design pattern: used by Java I/O API. A popular design pattern.
2. Reactor design pattern/Observer design pattern: used by Java NIO API.
3. Visitor design pattern: can be used to avoid instanceof and typecast constructs.
4. Factory method/abstract factory design pattern: popular pattern, which gets frequently asked in interviews.
5. Singleton pattern: popular pattern, which gets frequently asked in interviews.
6. Composite design pattern: used by GUI components and also a popular design pattern
7. MVC design pattern/architecture: used by Swing components and also a popular pattern.
8. Command pattern: used by Swing action architecture and also a popular design pattern.
9. Strategy design pattern: A popular design pattern used by AWT layout managers.
Refer Q11 in “How would you go about…” section for a detailed discussion and code samples on GoF (Gang of Four)
design patterns.
Recommended reading:
The famous Gang of Four book: Design Patterns, Eric Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides
(Addiso-Wesley Publishing Co., 1995; ISBN: 0201633612).
Effective Java Programming Language Guide – by Joshua Bloch
Tech Tip #2:
Always have the Java API handy and use the standard library to take advantage of the knowledge of the experts who
wrote it and the experience of those who have used it and tested it before you. Every developer should be familiar with
the following key libraries: java.lang and java.util are used very often and java.math and java.io are used less often.
The other libraries can be learned as and when required. If you have a specialized need then first look for a library and if
you cannot find one then you can implement your own. E.g.
//To copy an array to another array:
String[] array1 = {"a", "b", "c"};
String[] array2 = new String[2] ;
java.lang.System.arraycopy(array1,0,array2,0,2);
//convert an array to a list
List list = java.util.Arrays.asList(array2);
System.out.println(list);//prints [a, b]
//convert the list back to an array
String[] array3 = (String[])list.toArray(new String[0]);
Tech Tip #3:
The data types float and double are primarily designed for engineering and scientific calculations. They are not suited for
financial calculations of monetary values. Use BigDecimal instead. For non decimal values you could either use the
primitive values such as int, long etc or wrapper classes such as Integer, Long etc. Example If you are using hibernate
as your object to relational mapper and would like to map a monetary data field of “amount” with database data type
numeric (10,2) then prefer using BigDecimal as your object data type.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-94-2048.jpg)
![100 Enterprise – J2EE Overview
J2E E M V C (M odel-V iew -C ontroller)
M odel
(E ntity/Sessio n B ean s (EJB ),
P lain Java C lasses )
Encapsulates business logic and
application state.
y
pla
st
dis
ate
o
ch
ta t
an
Da
ge
get
V iew C ontroller
(JSP , JavaB ean s, S w in g, U ser A ction(eg: subm itting a
form , clicking a button etc) (Servlet etc)
C u sto m T ag s, etc ) controls application behavior
R enders the m odel & has M aps user actions to m odel.
only display logic. selects view for response.
Sends user actions to the View selection ( eg: selecting the next usually one for each
controller JSP page to display as a response ) functionality.
Allow s controller to select a
view .
C on tro ller
1. R equ est
Servlet 2.
in
st
Browser
an
4 .f o rw a tia
rd te
s
V iew M o del
3. rea d/u pda te
6. R espo nse 5 E JB or Plain Java data database
JSP
class
C lient Tier M iddle Tier (A pplication Tier) D ata Tier
N ote: Typical M V C architecture is show n above. V ariations are possible (e.g.: M odel 1 vs. M odel 2
M V C)
A model represents the core business logic and state. A model commonly maps to data in the database and will
also contain core business logic.
A view renders the contents of a model. A view accesses the data from the model and adds display logic to
present the data.
A controller acts as the glue between a model and a view. A controller translates interactions with the view into
actions to be performed by the model. User interactions in a Web application appear as GET and POST HTTP
requests. The actions performed by a model include activating business processes or changing the state of the
model. Based on the user interactions and the outcome of the model actions, the controller responds by selecting
an appropriate view.
Q 04: How to package a module, which is, shared by both the Web and the EJB modules? SF
A 04: Package the modules shared by both Web and EJB modules as dependency jar files. Define the Class-Path:
property in the MANIFEST.MF file in the EJB jar and the Web war files to refer to the shared modules. [Refer Q7
in Enterprise section for diagram: J2EE deployment structure].
The MANIFEST.MF files in the EJB jar and Web war modules should look like:
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Created-By: Apache Ant 1.5
Class-Path: myAppsUtil.jar](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-101-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Servlet 111
Session Management
Client Server
(Browser)
A new session is created on the Server
side with JSESSIONID where JSESSIONID Name Value
1. Initial Request[No session]
state can be maintained as
name/value pair. xsder12345 Firstname Peter
2. JSESSIONID is passed to client with
the response through xsder12345 LastName Smith
r the
ation fo
cookies or URL re-writing tate informNID
stored s SIO
3. Client uses the JSESSIONID retrieve supplied JSES
for subsequent requests
Q. Session tracking uses cookies by default. What would you do if the cookies are turned off?
If cookies are turned off, you can still enable session tracking using URL rewriting. This involves including the
session ID within the link as the name/value pair as shown below.
http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do;jsessionid=4FB61319542B5D310B243E4BDD6DC64B
Adding session ID to each and every link is cumbersome and hence is simplified by the following methods:
response.encodeURL(givenURL) to associate a session ID with a given URL and if you are using redirection
then response.encodeRedirectURL(givenURL).
//set a value in the session
public class CRMServlet extends HttpServlet {
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws
ServletException, IOException {
req.getSession().setAttribute("key", "ItemNo-1245");
String url = resp.encodeURL("/myWebCtxt/purchase.do");
PrintWriter pw = resp.getWriter();
pw.println("<html>Sample encoded URL --><a href='" + url + "'>purchase</a></html>");
}
}
//retrieve the previously set value from the session
public class PurchaseServlet extends HttpServlet {
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws
ServletException, IOException {
String value = (String)req.getSession().getAttribute("key");
PrintWriter pw = resp.getWriter();
pw.println("<html>Item to purchase is --> " + value +"</html>");
}
}
When you invoke the method encodeURL(givenURL) with the cookies turned on, then session ID is not appended
to the URL. Now turn the cookies off and restart the browser. If you invoke the encodeURL(givenURL) with the
cookies turned off, the session ID is automatically added to the URL as follows:
http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do;jsessionid=4FB61319542B5D310B243E4BDD6DC64B
Q. What is the difference between using getSession(true) and getSession(false) methods?
getSession(true): This method will check whether there is already a session exists for the user. If a session
exists, it returns that session object. If a session does not already exist then it creates a new session for the user.
getSession(false): This method will check whether there is already a session exists for the user. If a session
exists, it returns that session object. If a session does not already exist then it returns null.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-112-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Servlet 113
Should not be used for sensitive or private information.
The performance is moderate.
Cookies There is a limit for cookie size.
The browser may turn off cookies.
The performance is moderate.
The benefit of the cookies is that state information can be stored regardless of which server the client talks to
and even if all servers go down. Also, if required, state information can be retained across sessions.
Q 11: Explain the life cycle methods of a servlet? SF FAQ
A 11: The Web container is responsible for managing the servlet’s life cycle. The Web container creates an instance of
the servlet and then the container calls the init() method. At the completion of the init() method the servlet is in
ready state to service requests from clients. The container calls the servlet’s service() method for handling each
request by spawning a new thread for each request from the Web container’s thread pool [It is also possible to
have a single threaded Servlet, refer Q16 in Enterprise section]. Before destroying the instance the container will
call the destroy() method. After destroy() the servlet becomes the potential candidate for garbage collection.
S e r v le t L ife C y c le
in s ta n tia te
& c a ll in it()
c a lle d o n c e in it()
re a d y to s e rv e re q u e s ts
th re a d 1 : c lie n t re q u e s t h a n d le m u ltip le
th re a d 2 : c lie n t re q u e s t
th re a d 3 : c lie n t re q u e s t re q u e s ts a n d s e n d
s e rv ic e ()
re s p o n s e .
c a lle d o n c e d e s tro y ()
Q. What would be an effective use of the Servlet init() method? One effective use of the Servlet init() method
is the creation and caching of thread-safe resource acquisition mechanisms such, as JDBC DataSources, EJB
Homes, and Web Services SOAP Mapping Registry.
Q. How would you call a method in the EJB from a servlet?
…
MyBeanHome home = null;
…
public void init (ServletConfig config) throws ServletException {
//1. JNDI lookup is hard coded for illustration purpose but should use a declarative
//approach involving web.xml file and server specific deployment descriptor files because
//if the server location changes, hardcoding may require reasonable amount of changes &
//testing. Lookup for JBoss server is shown below:
Properties jndiProps = new Properties();
jndiProps.setProperty(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
“org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory”);
jndiProps.setProperty(Context.URL_PKG_PREFIXES,”org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces”);
jndiProps.setProperty(Context.PROVIDER_URL, “jnp://localhost:1099”);
Context ctx = new InitialContext(jndiProps);
//2. lookup home(or localHome) interface. Shown for illustration. Should prefer using the
//Service Locator pattern. Refer Q87 in Enterprise section.
Object ref = ctx.lookup(“ejb/MyBean”);
home = (MyBeanHome)PortableRemoteObject.narrow(ref, MyBeanHome.class);
}](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-114-2048.jpg)
![128 Enterprise – JSP
objects used by the JSP as well as deciding, which JSP page to forward or redirect the request to (i.e. flow
control) depending on the data submitted by the user. The JSP page is responsible for retrieving any objects or
beans that may have been previously created by the servlet, and as a template for rendering the view as a
response to be sent to the user as an HTML.
Model-2 pattern (Model, View, Controller architecture)
internet
Web Container
Servlet Java Beans
(Controller) (Model)
1. request 2. instantiate 3
e.g. CRMServlet with e.g. crm.class with Database
control logic processing logic
user
4
5
JSP page
(View)
6. response
e.g. crm.jsp with
display logic
Q. If you set a request attribute in your JSP, would you be able to access it in your subsequent request
within your servlet code? [This question can be asked to determine if you understand the request/response paradigm]
The answer is no because your request goes out of scope, but if you set a request attribute in your servlet then
you would be able to access it in your JSP.
U n d e rstan d in g th e re q u es t/re sp o n se p a rad ig m
H ttp req u es t
H ttp res p o n s e A p p lica tio n S e rve r
o n h o s t “lo ca lh o s t” p o rt:8 0 80
C lie n t
C R M S e rv le t.c la s s
P re se n ta tio n
C lie n t ... T ie r
T ie r pu b lic cla ss C R M S e rvle t exten d s H ttp S ervlet {
...
p rote cte d vo id d oP o st(H ttp S e rvle tR e q ue st re q, H ttp S e rvle tR e spo n se resp )
h ttp ://lo c alh o s t:8 0 80 /m y W e b C tx t/c rm .d o 1 . re q u e st thro w s S e rvle tE xcep tion , IO E xcep tion {
S tring na m e = "S ervletT ext";
S trin g v a lu e = "req u e s t a ttrib u te se t b y se rvle t";
re q .s e tA ttrib u te (n a m e , v a lu e );
//fo rw a rd the req ue st to JS P
re q .g e tR e qu e stD isp atch er("/crm .jsp").forw ard (re q , re sp );
}
...
inte rne t }
2.
h tm l s e n t fro m J S P to th e b ro w s e r fo rw a rd
c rm .js p
<!D O C T YP E htm l PU BLIC "-//W 3C //D T D X H T M L
1.0 T ransitional//E N " "http://w w w .w 3.org/T R / < % @ p a ge co n ten tT yp e= "te xt/h tm l" % >
xhtm l1/D T D /xhtm l1-transitional.dtd"> < !D O C T Y P E h tm l P U B L IC "-//W 3C //D T D X H T M L 1.0
<!-- sim ple JS P P age --> T ra n sition a l//E N " "http ://w w w .w 3 .org /T R /xh tm l1 /D T D /xhtm l1 -tra n sitio na l.dtd ">
< !-- sim ple JS P P a ge -->
<htm l> < htm l>
< title> S im ple JS P P a ge < /title>
<title>S im ple JS P P age</title> < h 1> O utp ut to B row ser< /h 1 >
<h1>O utput to B row ser</h1> < b od y>
W ritten as h tm l fro m a JS P . A ttrib ute se t by se rvle t:
<body> 3. re sp on s e < !-- retrieve attribu te set b y S ervlet-->
W ritten as htm l from a JSP . Attribute set by < % = re q u e st.g etA ttrib u te("S e rvle tT e x t") % >
servlet: < br/>
<!-- retrieve attribute set by Servlet-->
req u est attrib ute set by servlet < % -- if y o u s et a re q u e st attrib u te, it g o es o u t o f sc o p e afte r re sp o n s e h as
<br/> b e e n s en t an d a n e w re q u e st o b je ct w ill b e cre ate d . --% >
</body>
< % req u e s t.s e tA ttrib u te ("J S P T ex t", "A ttrib u te s et b y J S P " );% >
</htm l> < /b od y>
< /h tm l>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-129-2048.jpg)
![138 Enterprise – JSP
session Session Refers to the user’s session.
application Application Same as ServletContext. Refers to the web application’s environment.
out Page Refers to the outputstream.
config Page same as ServletConfig. Refers to the servlet’s configuration.
page Page Refers to the page’s Servlet instance.
exception Page exception created on this page. Used for error handling. Only available if it is an
errorPage with the following directive:
<%@ page isErrorPage="true" %>
The “exception” implicit object is not available for global error pages declared through
web.xml. You can retrieve the java.lang.Throwable object as follows:
<%= request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.exception") %>
<%
String username = null;
username = request.getParameter("userName"); //”request” is an implicit object
out.print(username); //”out” is an implicit object
%>
Note: Care should be taken not to name your objects the same name as the implicit objects. If you have your own object with
the same name, then the implicit objects take precedence over your own object.
Q. What is JSP EL (Expression Language)?
One major component of JSP 2.0 is the new expression language named EL. EL is used extensively in JSTL
(Java Standard Tag Library). However EL is a feature of JSP and not of JSTL. The EL is a language for
accessing runtime data from various sources. JSP EL variables come from one of 2 ways:
1. Implicit variables as shown below:
Implicit variable Description Example
param A collection of all
Parameter values, request parameters as a <c:if test=”${param.name==’peter’} “ >
headers and cookies single string value for Welcome Peter !!
for the current request. each parameter. </c:if>
paramValues A collection of all
request parameters as a
string array value for
each parameter.
header A collection of all
request headers as a ${header['User-Agent']}
single string value for
each header. you must use the array syntax for the header, because the
headerValues A collection of all name includes a dash. otherwise it would be interpreted as
request headers as a the value of the variable expression “header.User” minus
string array value for the value of the variable named “Agent”.
each header.
cookie A collection of all <c:if test=”${ ! empty cookie.userName}”>
request cookies as a Welcome back
single <c:out value=”${cookie.userName.value}”>
javax.servlet.http.Cookie </c:if>
instance value for each
cookie.
Defined in web.xml initParam A collection of all
application init ${initParam.dataSource}
parameters as a single
string value for each
parameter.
Access to the JSP pageContext An instance of the PageContext.getRequest () ${pageContext.request}
objects that represent javax.servlet.jspPageCo PageContext.getResponse () ${pageContext.response}
request, response, ntext class. PageContext.getSession() ${pageContext.session}
session, application PageContext.getServletContext()
etc. ${pageContext.servletContext}
<c:if test=”${pageContext.request.method=’POST’}”>
….
</c:if>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-139-2048.jpg)
![142 Enterprise – JSP
</taglib>
</web-app>
STEP: 4
The JSP file declares and then uses the tag library as shown below:
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/MyTagURI" prefix="myTag" %>
<myTag:tag1 attr=”abc”></myTag:tag1> or < myTag:tag1 attr=”abc” />
Q 37: What is a TagExtraInfo class? SF
A 37: A TagExtraInfo class provides extra information about tag attributes to the JSP container at translation time.
Returns information about the scripting variables that the tag makes available to the rest of the JSP page
to use. The method used is:
VariableInfo[] getVariableInfo(TagData td)
Example
<html>
<myTag:addObjectsToArray name=”myArray” />
<myTag:displayArray name=”myArray” />
</html>
Without the use of TagExtraInfo, if you want to manipulate the attribute “myArray” in the above code in a
scriptlet, it will not be possible. This is because it does not place the “myArray” object on the page. You can
still use pageContext.getAttribute() but that may not be a cleaner approach because it relies on the page
designer to correctly cast to object type. The TagExtraInfo can be used to make items stored in the
pageContext via setAttribute() method available to the scriptlet as shown below.
<html>
<myTag:addObjectsToArray name=”myArray” />
<%-- scriptlet code %>
<%
for(int i=0; i<myArray.length;i++){
html += <LI> + myArray[i] + </LI>;
}
%>
</html>
Validates the attributes passed to the Tag at translation time.
Example It can validate the array “myArray” to have not more than 100 objects. The method used is:
boolean isValid(TagData data)
Q 38: What is the difference between custom JSP tags and JavaBeans? SF
A 38: In the context of a JSP page, both accomplish similar goals but the differences are:
Custom Tags JavaBeans
Can manipulate JSP content. Can’t manipulate JSP content.
Custom tags can simplify the complex operations much Easier to set up.
better than the bean can. But require a bit more work to
set up.
Used only in JSPs in a relatively self-contained manner. Can be used in both Servlets and JSPs. You can define a bean in
one Servlet and use them in another Servlet or a JSP page.
JavaBeans declaration and usage example: CO
<jsp:useBean id="identifier" class="packageName.className"/>
<jsp:setProperty name="identifier" property="classField" value="someValue" />
<jsp:getProperty name="identifier" property="classField" /> <%=identifier.getclassField() %>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-143-2048.jpg)
![152 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA
Q. How will you control two concurrent transactions accessing a database?
You can use isolation levels. An isolation level defines how concurrent transactions accessing a relational database are
isolated from each other for read purpose. Refer Q72 in Enterprise section. These isolation levels can prevent one or
more of the phenomena that happen during concurrent transactions:
• Dirty reads: A transaction reads uncommitted changes from another transaction.
• Nonrepeatable reads: A transaction reads a row in a database table, a second transaction changes the same row
and the first transaction re-reads the row and gets a different value.
• Phantom reads: A transaction executes a query, returning a set of rows that satisfies a search condition and a
second transaction inserts another row and the first re-executes the same query and get an additional record
returned.
Isolation Level (in ascending order of Dirty read Nonrepeatable read Phantom read
data integrity)
TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITED Possible Possible Possible
TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITED Not possible Possible Possible
TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ Not possible Not possible Possible
TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE Not possible Not possible Not possible
You should use a highest possible isolation level that gives acceptable performance. It is basically a tradeoff between
data integrity and performance. For example the isolation level “TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE” attribute guarantees
the highest level of data integrity but adversely affects performance because even simple reads must wait in line.
Q 44: What is the difference between JDBC-1.0 and JDBC-2.0? What are Scrollable ResultSets, Updateable ResultSets,
RowSets, and Batch updates? SF
A 44: JDBC2.0 has the following additional features or functionality:
JDBC 1.0 JDBC 2.0
With JDBC-1.0 the With JDBC 2.0 ResultSets are updateable and also you can move forward and backward.
ResultSet functionality
was limited. There was no Example This example creates an updateable and scroll-sensitive ResultSet
support for updates of any
kind and scrolling through Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement(ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_SENSITIVE,
the ResultSets was ResultSet.CONCUR_UPDATEABLE)
forward only (no going
back)
With JDBC-1.0 the With JDBC-2.0 statement objects can be grouped into a batch and executed at once. You call
statement objects submits addBatch() multiple times to create your batch and then you call executeBatch() to send the SQL
updates to the database statements off to database to be executed as a batch (this minimizes the network overhead).
individually within same or
separate transactions. Example
This is very inefficient
when large amounts of Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement();
data need to be updated. stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (1,”ABC”)”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (2,”DEF”)”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (3,”XYZ”)”);
…
int[] countInserts = stmt.executeBatch();
- The JDBC-2.0 optional package provides a RowSet interface, which extends the ResultSet. One
of the implementations of the RowSet is the CachedRowSet, which can be considered as a
disconnected ResultSet.
Q 45: How to avoid the “running out of cursors” problem? DC PI MI FAQ
A 45: A database can run out of cursors if the connection is not closed properly or the DBA has not allocated enough
cursors. In a Java code it is essential that we close all the valuable resources in a try{} and finally{} block. The
finally{} block is always executed even if there is an exception thrown from the catch {} block. So the resources like
connections and statements should be closed in a finally {} block. CO](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-153-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – JMS 187
Transactional Transactional behavior is controlled at the session level. When a session is transacted, the message
behavior oriented middleware (MOM) stages the message until the client either commits or rolls back the
transaction. The completion of a session’s current transaction automatically begins a new transaction.
The use of transactions in messaging affects both the producers and consumers of the messages as
shown below:
Messaging - Transactional behavior
1. send
1. commit 3. commit
Message MOM
Message
Producer (aka Broker) 4. roll back
2. roll back Consumer
4. resend
3. dispose of
2. dispose of
the message
the message
Producers [As per the above diagram]:
1’s Commit: The MOM send the group of messages that have been staged.
2’s Rollback: The MOM disposes of the group of messages that have been staged.
Consumers [As per the above diagram] :
3’s Commit: The MOM disposes of the group of messages that have been staged.
4’s Rollback: The MOM resends the group of messages that have been staged.
Transaction In JMS, a transaction organizes a message or a group of messages into an atomic processing unit. So, if a
modes message delivery is failed, then the failed message may be re-delivered. Calling the commit() method
commits all the messages the session receives and calling the rollback method rejects all the messages.
InitialContext ic = new InitialContext(…);
QueueConnectionFactory qcf =
(QueueConnectionFactory)ic.lookup(“AccountConnectionFactory”);
QueueConnection qc = qcf.createQueueConnection();
QueueSession session = qc.createQueueSession(true, -1);
In the above code sample, the transaction mode is set to true and acknowledgement mode is set to -1,
which means acknowledgement mode has no use in this mode. Let us look at transaction modes:
Message Driven Bean (MDB) with container managed transaction demarcation: A MDB participates in
a container transaction by specifying the transaction attributes in its deployment descriptor. A transaction
automatically starts when the JMS provider removes the message from the destination and delivers it to
the MDB’s onMessage(…) method. Transaction is committed on successful completion of the onMessage()
method. A MDB can notify the container that a transaction should be rolled back by setting the
MessageDrivenContext to setRollBackOnly(). When a transaction is rolled back, the message is re-
delivered.
public void onMessage(Message aMessage) {
…
if(someCondtionIsTrue) {
mdbContext.setRollbackOnly();
}
else{
//everything is good. Transaction will be committed automatically on
//completion of onMessage(..) method.
}
}
Message Driven Bean (MDB) with bean managed transaction demarcation: If a MDB chooses not to
participate in a container managed transaction then the MDB programmer has to design and code
programmatic transactions. This is achieved by creating a UserTransaction object from the MDB’s
MessageDrivenContext as shown below and then invoking the commit() and rollback() methods on this
UserTransaction object.
public void onMessage(Message aMessage) {
UserTransaction uT = mdbContext.getUserTransaction();](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-188-2048.jpg)
![192 Enterprise – XML
XML because they are written in XML. <xs:sequence>
• Better data communication with the help of data <xs:element name="to" type="xs:string"/>
types. For example a date like 03-04-2005 will be <xs:element name="from" type="xs:string"/>
rd
interpreted in some countries as 3 of April 2005 and <xs:element name="title" type="xs:string"/>
th
in some other countries as 04 March 2005. <xs:element name="content" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
<xs:attribute name="language" type=”xs:string”
use=”Required” />
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
XSL XSL stands for eXtensible Stylesheet Language. The XSL To convert the Sample.xml file to a XHTML file let us apply the
consists of 3 parts: following Sample.xsl through XALAN parser.
• XSLT: Language for transforming XML documents Sample.xsl
from one to another.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
• XPath: Language for defining the parts of an XML <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl">
document. <xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:apply-templates select="note " />
• XSL-FO: Language for formatting XML documents. </xsl:template>
For example to convert an XML document to a PDF
document etc. <xsl:template match="note">
<html>
XSL can be thought of as a set of languages that can : <head>
<title><xsl:value-of
• Define parts of an XML. select="content/@language">
• Transform an XML document to XHTML (eXtensible </title>
Hyper Text Markup Language) document. </head>
• Convert an XML document to a PDF document. </html>
• Filter and sort XML data. </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
You get the following output XHTML file:
XSLT processor example: Xalan (from Apache).
Sample.xhtml
<html>
PDF Processor example: FOP (Formatting Objects <head>
Processor from Apache) <title>English</title>
</head>
</html>
Now to convert the Sample.xml into a PDF file apply the
following FO (Formatting Objects) file Through the FOP
processor.
Sample.fo
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
<fo:layout-master-set>
<fo:simple-page-master master-name="A4">
</fo:simple-page-master>
</fo:layout-master-set>
<fo:page-sequence master-reference="A4">
<fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
<fo:block>
<xsl:value-of select="content[@language='English']">
</fo:block>
</fo:flow>
</fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>
which gives a basic Sample.pdf which has the following line
Not Much
XPath Xml Path Language, a language for addressing parts of an As per Sample.xsl](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-193-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – XML 193
XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and
XPointer. We can write both the patterns (context-free) and <xsl:template match=”content[@language=’English’]”>
expressions using the XPATH Syntax. XPATH is also used ………
in XQuery. <td><xsl:value-of select=”content/@language” /></td>
JAXP Stands for Java API for XML Processing. This provides a DOM example using JAXP:
common interface for creating and using SAX, DOM, and
XSLT APIs in Java regardless of which vendor’s DocumentBuilderFactory dbf =
implementation is actually being used (just like the JDBC, DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
JNDI interfaces). JAXP has the following packages: DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc =
db.parse(new File("xml/Test.xml"));
JAXP NodeList nl = doc.getElementsByTagName("to");
Node n = nl.item(0);
SAXParser implements System.out.println(n.getFirstChild().getNodeValue());
Factory Content
Handler
SAX example using JAXP:
SAXExample
SAXReader
Error
Handler SAXParserFactory spf =
SAXParser
DTD SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
Handler SAXParser sp = spf.newSAXParser();
XML SAXExample se = new SAXExample();
Entity
Sample. sp.parse(new File("xml/Sample.xml"),se);
Resolver
xml
where SAXExample.Java code snippet
public class SAXExample extends DefaultHandler {
DocumentBuilder
Factory
public void startElement(
Document String uri,
(DOM) String localName,
XML Document String qName,
Sample. Builder note Attributes attr)
xml throws SAXException {
to from
System.out.println("--->" + qName);
}
...
Transformer
}
Factory
The DefaultHandler implements ContentHandler,
DTDHandler, EntityResolver, ErrorHandler
Source Result
sample. Transformer sample.
XSLT example using JAXP:
xml xhtml
StreamSource xml =
Transformation new StreamSource(new File("/xml/Sample.xml"));
instructions StreamSource xsl = new StreamSource(
sample.xsl new File("xml/Sample.xsl"));
StreamResult result =
new StreamResult(new File("xml/Sample.xhtml"));
TransformerFactory tf =
• javax.xml.parsers common interface for different TransformerFactory.newInstance();
vendors of SAX, DOM parsers). Transformer t = tf.newTransformer(xsl);
• org.xml.sax Defines basic SAX API. t.transform(xml, result);
• org.w3c.dom Defines Document Object Model and
its componenets. This gives you Sample.xhtml
• javax.xml.transform Defines the XSLT API which
allows you to transform XML into other forms like <html>
PDF, XHTML etc. <head>
<title>English</title>
Required JAR files are jaxp.jar, dom.jar, xalan.jar, </head>
xercesImpl.jar. </html>
JAXB Stands for Java API for XML Binding. This standard Let’s look at some code:
defines a mechanism for writing out Java objects as XML
(Marshaling) and for creating Java objects from XML For binding:
structures (unMarshaling). (You compile a class
description to create the Java classes, and use those xjc.sh –p com.binding sample.xsd –d work
classes in your application.)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-194-2048.jpg)
![194 Enterprise – XML
-p identifies the package for the generated Java files (i.e.
*.Java)
JAXB
-d option identifies the target.
XML
UnMarshaling the XML document:
schema
Sample.xsd
JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(
“com.binding”);
Unmarshaller um = jc.createUnmarshaller();
compiler
binding
Object o = um.unMarshall(
xjc new File(“/xml/”));
Note n = (Note) n;
System.out.println(n.getFrom().getContent().get(0));
System.out.println(n.getTo().getContent().get(0));
Now to modify the in memory object content:
Java files
(*.java interfaces
& n. getFrom().getContent().set(0, “newValue”);
implementations)
Marshaling the change back to different XML file:
Marshaller m = jc.createMarshaller();
javac
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(
new File(“/xml/SampleNew.xml”));
Java
class files m.marshall(n, fos);
*.class
e
us
Application Java content
XML unmarshall Objects
Sample. JAXB note
xml API
marshall
to from
Refer Q14 in How would you go about section for XML based standards/protocols like SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI relating to Web
services, which enable interoperability between disparate systems (e.g. Between .Net and J2EE etc). These standards provide a
common and interoperable approach for defining (i.e. WSDL), publishing (i.e. UDDI) and using (i.e. SOAP) Web services. The J2EE
1.4 platform provides comprehensive support for Web services through the JAX-RPC (Java API for XML based RPC (Remote
Procedure Call)) and JAXR (Java API for XML Registries).
Q. What is version information in XML?
A. Version information in an XML is a processing instruction.
<?xml version=”1.0” ?>
Tags that begin with <? and end with ?> are called processing instructions. The processing instructions can also be
used to call a style sheet for an XML as shown below:
<?xml-stylesheet type=”text/css” href=”MyStyle.css” ?>
Q. What is a CDATA section in an XML?
A. If you want to write about elements and attributes in your XML document then you will have to prevent your parser
from interpreting them and just display them as a regular text. To do this, you must enclose such information in a
CDATA section.
<![CDATA[ <customername id=”123” > John </customername> ]]>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-195-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – XML 195
Q. How will you embed an XML content within an XML document?
A. By using a CDATA section.
<message>
<from>LoansSystem</from>
<to>DocumentSystem</to>
<body>
<![CDATA[
<application>
<number>456</number>
<name>Peter</name>
<detail>blah blah</detail>
</application>
]]>
</body>
</message>
Q. How do you write comments in an XML document?
A. <!-- This is an XML comment -->
Q. How do you write an attribute value with single quotes? How do you write an element value of “> 500.00”?
A. You need to use an internal entity reference like < for <, > for >, & for &, " for “, ' for ‘.
<customer name=”"Mr. Smith"” />
<cost> > 500.00</cost>
Q. What is a well-formed XML document?
A. A well formed document adheres to the following rules for writing an XML.
• A root element is required. A root element is an element, which completely contains all the other elements.
• Closing tags are required. <cust>abc</cust> or <cust/>
• Elements must be properly nested.
• XML is case sensitive. <CUSTOMER> and <Customer> elements are considered completely separate.
• An attribute’s value must always be enclosed in either single or double quotes.
• Entity references must be declared in a DTD before being used except for the 5 built-in (<, > etc)
discussed in the previous question.
Q. What is a valid XML document?
A. For an XML document to be valid, it must conform to the rules of the corresponding DTD (Document Type Definition –
internal or external) or XSD (XML Schema Definition).
Q. How will you write an empty element?
A.
<name age=”25”></name>
or
<name age=”25” />
Q. What is a namespace in an XML document?
A. Namespaces are used in XML documents to distinguish one similarly titled element from another. A namespace must
have an absolutely unique and permanent name. In an XML, name space names are in the form of a URL. A default
namespace for an element and all its children can be declared as follows:
<accounts xmlns=”http://www.bank1.com/ns/account”>
…
</accounts>
Individual elements can be labeled as follows:
<accounts xmlns=”http://www.bank1.com/ns/account” xmlns:bank2=”http://www.bank2.com/ns/account”>
<name>FlexiDirect</name> <!-- uses the default name space -->
<bank2:name>Loan</bank2:name> <!-- >
…
</accounts>](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-196-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping 205
clustered indexes can be created
on a table? What are the Indexes are of two types. Clustered indexes and non-clustered indexes. When you
advantages and disadvantages of create a clustered index on a table, all the rows in the table are stored in the order of the
creating separate index on each clustered index key. So, there can be only one clustered index per table. Non-clustered
column of a table? indexes have their own storage separate from the table data storage. The row located
could be the RowID or the clustered index key, depending up on the absence or
presence of clustered index on the table.
If you create an index on each column of a table, it improves the query (i.e. SELECT)
performance, as the query optimizer can choose from all the existing indexes to come up
with an efficient execution plan. At the same time, data modification operations (such as
INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE) will become slow, as every time data changes in the
table, all the indexes need to be updated. Another disadvantage is that, indexes need
disk space, the more indexes you have, more disk space is used.
Technical Tip #6
Q. How would you build a regex (regular expression) to filter out email addresses? The reason for asking this question,
is that even if you cannot answer it straight away (because regular expressions actually form a miniature language in their own right), if
you know what regular expressions are, know where to and when to use them and comfortable with it then you can write any pattern with
a help of a reference guide, examples (http://www.regexlib.com) and the Java regex API. You can think of regular expressions as a kind
of SQL query for free flowing text.
[Hint] String emailRegex = “(w+)@(w+.)(w+)(.w+)*”;
The above pattern will satisfy: peter@company.com , peter@company.net.au , peter@company.inet.net.au
w a word character, . any character, + occurring 1 or more times, * occurring 0 or more
times, ? occurring 0 or 1 time, . use to escape special meaning of . (which is any
character), to escape in Java because has a special meaning in Java.
Important: ?, *, + are not wild characters. They denote occurrence of a pattern (o or 1 time etc) and also denote quantifiers like greedy
(X? search greedily for 0 or 1 occurrence), reluctant (X?? search reluctantly for 0 or 1 occurrence) and possessive (X?+ search
possessively for 0 or 1 occurrence). If you say that they are wild characters then you have not used regex before.
In Java platform (J2SE 1.4 onwards) a package called java.util.regex enable you to use regular expressions. E.g.
public static void main(String[] args) {
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("j",Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); // look for letter ‘j’
Matcher m = p.matcher("java Q&A, java/j2EE Q&A, j2EE Q&A ");
boolean result = m.find();
StringBuffer out = new StringBuffer();
while(result) {
m.appendReplacement(out,"J"); // replace with uppercase letter “J”
result = m.find();
}
m.appendTail(out);
System.out.println(out.toString());
p = Pattern.compile(","); // pattern to split on comma delimited
String[] outArray = p.split(out); // Split based on the pattern
for (int i = 0; i < outArray.length; i++) {
System.out.println(i+1 + " - " + outArray[i].trim());
}
}
Output is:
Java Q&A, Java/J2EE Q&A, J2EE Q&A
1 - Java Q&A
2 - Java/J2EE Q&A
3 - J2EE Q&A
[Java Q&A, Java/J2EE Q&A, J2EE Q&A ]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-206-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – RUP & UML 211
Sequence Diagram
anEntry : OrderEntry
client anOrder : Order
check if sufficient details
makeAnOrder() makeAnOrder() are available
for each lineItem
iteration [for each ...]()
hasSufficientDetails()
confirm : Confirmation
printConfirmation()
Note: Each vertical dotted line is a life line. Each arrow is a message. The rectangular boxes on the life
line are called the activation bar which represents the duration of execution of message.
Collaboration diagrams: Collaboration diagrams are also interaction diagrams. Collaboration diagrams convey
the same message as the sequence diagrams. But the collaboration diagrams focus on the object roles instead
of the times at which the messages are sent.
The collaboration diagrams use the decimal sequence numbers as shown in the diagram below to make it clear
which operation is calling which other operation, although it can be harder to see the overall sequence. The top-
level message is numbered 1. The messages at the same level have the same decimal prefix but different suffixes
of 1, 2 etc according to when they occur.
Collaboration Diagram
client object
1.1 : makeAnOrder()
message sequence
number
1.1.1: makeAnOrder() 1.1.1.2 : hasSufficientDetails()
*
anOrder : Order anEntry : OrderEntry confirm: Confirmation
1
self-link
1.1.1.1: for each (iteration)
When to use interaction diagrams?
When you want to look at behavior of several objects within a single use case. If you want to look at a single
object across multiple use cases then use statechart diagram as described below.
State chart diagrams: Objects have behavior and state. The state of an object depends on its current activity or
condition. This diagram shows the possible states of the object and the transitions that cause a change in its state.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-212-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Web and Application servers 219
In this scenario, both www.company1.com and www.company2.com are registered with the standard domain
name service (DNS) registry as having the IP address 192.168.0.10. A user types in the URL
http://www.company1.com/hello.jsp in their browser. The user's computer resolves the name
www.company1.com to the IP address 192.168.0.10. The Web server on the machine that has the IP address
192.168.0.10, so it receives the request. The Web server determines which virtual host to use by matching the
request URL It gets from an HTTP header submitted by the browser with the “ServerName” parameter in the
configuration file shown above.
Name-based virtual hosting is usually easier, since you have to only configure your DNS server to map each
hostname to a single IP address and then configure the Web server to recognize the different hostnames as
discussed in the previous paragraph. Name-based virtual hosting also eases the demand for scarce IP
addresses limited by physical network connections [but modern operation systems support use of virtual
interfaces, which are also known as IP aliases]. Therefore you should use name-based virtual hosting unless
there is a specific reason to choose IP-based virtual hosting. Some reasons why you might consider using IP-
based virtual hosting:
Name-based virtual hosting cannot be used with SSL based secure servers because of the nature of the
SSL protocol.
Some operating systems and network equipment implement bandwidth management techniques that cannot
differentiate between hosts unless they are on separate IP addresses.
IP based virtual hosts are useful, when you want to manage more than one site (like live, demo, staging etc)
on the same server where hosts inherit the characteristics defined by your main host. But when using SSL
for example, a unique IP address is necessary.
For example in development environment when using the test client and the server on the same machine we can
define the host file as shown below:
UNIX user: /etc/hosts
Windows user: C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32DRIVERSETCHOSTS
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.company1.com
127.0.0.1 www.company2.com
[Reference: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/vhosts/]
Q 120: What is application server clustering? SI
A 120: An application server cluster consists of a number of application servers loosely coupled on a network. The
server cluster or server group is generally distributed over a number of machines or nodes. The important point
to note is that the cluster appears as a single server to its clients.
The goals of application server clustering are:
Scalability: should be able to add new servers on the existing node or add new additional nodes to
enable the server to handle increasing loads without performance degradation, and in a manner
transparent to the end users.
Load balancing: Each server in the cluster should process a fair share of client load, in proportion to its
processing power, to avoid overloading of some and under utilization of other server resources. Load
distribution should remain balanced even as load changes with time.
High availability: Clients should be able to access the server at almost all times. Server usage should be
transparent to hardware and software failures. If a server or node fails, its workload should be moved
over to other servers, automatically as fast as possible and the application should continue to run
uninterrupted. This method provides a fair degree of application system fault-tolerance. After failure, the
entire load should be redistributed equally among working servers of the system.
[Good read: Uncover the hood of J2EE clustering by Wang Yu on http://www.theserverside.com ]
Q 121: Explain Java Management Extensions (JMX)? SF
A 121: JMX framework can improve the manageability of your application by](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-220-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Best practices and performance considerations 223
manner or shared values can be stored in a database table. Single threaded model can adversely affect
performance.
Apply the following JSP best practices:
Place data access logic in JavaBeans: The code within the JavaBean is readily accessible to other
JSPs and Servlets.
Factor shared behavior out of Custom Tags into common JavaBeans classes: The custom tags
are not used outside JSPs. To avoid duplication of behavior or business logic, move the logic into
JavaBeans and get the custom tags to utilize the beans.
Choose the right “include” mechanism: What are the differences between static and a dynamic
include? Using includes will improve code reuse and maintenance through modular design. Which one
to use? Refer Q31 in Enterprise section.
Use style sheets (e.g. css), template mechanism (e.g. struts tiles etc) and appropriate comments
(both hidden and output comments).
If you are using EJBs apply the EJB best practices as described in Q82 in Enterprise section.
Use the J2EE standard packaging specification to improve portability across Application Servers.
Use proven frameworks like Struts, Spring, Hibernate, JSF etc.
Apply appropriate proven J2EE design patterns to improve performance and minimize network
communications cost (Session façade pattern, Value Object pattern etc).
Batch database requests to improve performance. For example
Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(……).
Statement stmt = con.createStatement().
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Address…………”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Contact…………”);
stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Personal”);
int[] countUpdates = stmt.executeBatch();
Use “PreparedStatements” instead of ordinary “Statements” for repeated reads.
Avoid resource leaks by
Closing all database connections after you have used them.
Cleaning up the objects after you have finished with them especially when an object having a long life
cycle refers to a number of objects with short life cycles, then you have the potential for memory leak.
Having the resource (i.e. database connections, statements, etc) clean up code in a finally {} block,
which is always executed, even if an exception is thrown.
Handle and propagate exceptions correctly. Decide between checked and unchecked (i.e. RunTime)
exceptions.
Q 125: Explain some of the J2EE best practices to improve performance? BP PI FAQ
A 125: In short, manage valuable resources wisely and recycle them where possible, minimize network overheads and
serialization cost, and optimize all your database operations.
Manage and recycle your valuable resources by either pooling or caching. You should create a limited
number of resources and share them from a common pool (e.g. pool of threads, pool of database
connections, pool of objects etc). Caching is simply another type of pooling where instead of pooling a
connection or object, you are pooling remote data (database data), and placing it in memory (using
Hashtable etc). Unused stateful session beans must be removed explicitly and appropriate idle timeout
should be set to control stateful session bean life cycle.
Use effective design patterns to minimize network overheads (Session facade, Value Object etc Refer
Q84, Q85 in Enterprise section), use of fast-lane reader pattern for database access (Refer Q86 in
Enterprise section). Caching of retrieved JNDI InitialContexts, factory objects (e.g. EJB homes) etc. using](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-224-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment 225
Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment
Q 126: Give an overview of Log4J? SF FAQ
A 126: Log4j is a logging framework for Java. Log4J is designed to be fast and flexible. Log4J has 3 main components
which work together to enable developers to log messages:
Loggers [was called Category prior to version 1.2]
Appenders
Layout
Logger: The foremost advantage of any logging API like Log4J over plain System.out.println is its ability to
disable certain log statements while allowing others to print unhindered. Loggers are hierarchical. The root
logger exists at the top of the hierarchy. The root logger always exists and it cannot be retrieved by name. The
hierarchical nature of the logger is denoted by “.” notation. For example the logger “java.util” is the parent of child
logger “java.util.Vector” and so on. Loggers may be assigned priorities such as DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR
and FATAL. If a given logger is not assigned a priority, then it inherits the priority from its closest ancestor. The
logging requests are made by invoking one of the following printing methods of the logger instance: debug(),
info(), warn(), error(), and fatal().
Appenders and Layouts: In addition to selectively enabling and disabling logging requests based on the logger,
the Log4J allows logging requests to multiple destinations. In Log4J terms the output destination is an appender.
There are appenders for console, files, remote sockets, JMS, etc. One logger can have more than one
appender. A logging request for a given logger will be forwarded to all the appenders in that logger plus the other
appenders higher in the hierarchy. In addition to the output destination the output format can be categorized as
well. This is accomplished by associating layout with an appender. The layout is responsible for formatting the
logging request according to user’s settings.
Sample configuration file:
#set the root logger priority to DEBUG and its appender to App1
log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, App1
#App1 is set to a console appender
log4j.appender.App1=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
#appender App1 uses a pattern layout
log4j.appender.App1.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout.
log4j.appender.App1.layout.ConversionPattern=%-4r [%t] %-5p %c %x -%m%n
# Print only messages of priority WARN or above in the package com.myapp
log4j.Logger.com.myapp=WARN
XML configuration for Log4j is available, and is usually the best practice. If you have both the log4j.xml and
log4j.properties, then log4j.xml takes precedence.
Q 127: How do you initialize and use Log4J? SF CO
A 127:
public class MyApp {
//Logger is a utility wrapper class to be written with appropriate printing methods
static Logger log = Logger.getLogger (MyApp.class.getName());
public void my method() {
if(log.isDebugEnabled())
log.debug(“This line is reached………………………..” + var1 + “-” + var2);
)
}
}
Q 128: What is the hidden cost of parameter construction when using Log4J? SF PI
A 128:](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-226-2048.jpg)
![226 Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment
Do not use in frequently accessed methods or loops: CO
log.debug (“Line number” + intVal + “ is less than ” + String.valueOf(array[i]));
The above construction has a performance cost in frequently accessed methods and loops in constructing
the message parameter, concatenating the String etc regardless of whether the message will be logged or not.
Do use in frequently accessed methods or loops: CO
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug (“Line number” + intVal + “ is less than ” + String.valueOf(array[i]));
}
The above construction will avoid the parameter construction cost by only constructing the message parameter
when you are in debug mode. But it is not a best practice to place log.isDebugEnabled() around all debug code.
Q 129: What is the test phases and cycles? SD FAQ
A 129:
Unit tests (e.g. JUnit etc, carried out by developers).
There are two popular approaches to testing server-side classes: mock objects, which test classes by
simulating the server container, and in-container testing, which tests classes running in the actual server
container. If you are using Struts framework, StrutsTestCase for JUnit allows you to use either approach,
with very minimal impact on your actual unit test code.
System tests or functional tests (carried out by business analysts and/or testers).
Integration tests (carried out by business analysts, testers, developers etc).
Regression tests (carried out by business analysts and testers).
Stress volume tests or load tests (carried out by technical staff).
User acceptance tests (UAT – carried out by end users).
Each of the above test phases will be carried out in cycles. Refer Q14 in How would you go about… section for
JUnit, which is an open source unit-testing framework.
Q 130: Brief on deployment environments you are familiar with? FAQ
A 130: Differ from project team to project team [Hint] :
Application environments where “ear” files get deployed.
Development box: can have the following instances of environments in the same machine (need not be
clustered).
Development environment used by developers.
System testing environment used by business analysts.
Staging box: can have the following instances of environments in the same machine (preferably clustered
servers with load balancing)
Integration testing environment used for integration testing, user acceptance testing etc.
Pre-prod environment used for user acceptance testing, regression testing, and load testing or stress
volume testing (SVT). [This environment should be exactly same as the production environment].
Production box:
Production environment live site used by actual users.
Data environments (Database)
Note: Separate boxes [not the same boxes as where applications (i.e. ear files) are deployed]
Development box (database).
Used by applications on development and system testing environments. Separate instances can be
created on the same box for separate environments like development and system testing.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-227-2048.jpg)
![228 Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational
Q 131: Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your
most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? Why should we hire you and
what kind of contributions will you make? FAQ
A 131: [Hint:] Pick your recent projects and enthusiastically brief on it. Interviewer will be looking for how passionate
you are about your past experience and achievements. Also is imperative that during your briefing, you
demonstrate on a high level(without getting too technical) how you applied your skills and knowledge in some of
the following key areas:
Design Concepts: Refer Q02, Q03, Q19, Q20, Q21, Q91, Q98, and Q101.
Design Patterns: Refer Q03, Q24, Q25, Q83, Q84, Q85, Q86, Q87, Q88 and Q111.
Performance issues: Refer Q10, Q16, Q45, Q46, Q97, Q98, Q100, Q123, and Q125.
Memory issues: Refer Q45 and Q93
Multi-threading (Concurrency issues): Refer Q16, Q34, and Q113
Exception Handling: Refer Q76 and Q77
Transactional issues: Refer Q43, Q71, Q72, Q73, Q74, Q75 and Q77.
Security issues: Refer Q23, Q58, and Q81
Scalability issues: Refer Q20, Q21, Q120 and Q122.
Best practices: Refer Q10, Q16, Q39, Q40, Q46, Q82, Q124, and Q125
Refer Q75 – Q89 in Java section for frequently asked non-technical questions.
Q. Give me a high level description of your experience with the Java platform? What APIs do you have
experience with?
[Hint:] Servlet, JSP, JDBC, JNDI, EJB, JMS, Swing, Applet, etc.
Q 132: Have you used any load testing tools? What source control systems have you used? What operating systems
are you comfortable with? Which on-line technical resources do you use to resolve any design and/or
development issues or to keep your knowledge up to date apart from Google? SD
A 132:
Load testing tools: Rational Robot, JMeter, LoadRunner, etc.
Source control systems: CVS, Subversion, VSS (Visual Source Safe), Rational clear case etc. Refer Q14 in
How would you go about section…. for CVS.
Operating systems: NT, Unix, Linux, Solaris etc
Online technical resources : http://www.javaranch.com, http://www.theserverside.com, http://java.sun.com/
etc.
Q 133: Tell me a time where you had to deal with a difficult person? Why was this person difficult? How did you handle
that person? FAQ
A 133:
Situation: When you had started a new job as a technical lead with an insurance company, where you had to
manage a small team of 4-5 developers. All your team members were quite co-operative and friendly except for
one member whom you would like to call Mr. X. Every time you had to talk to Mr. X you could sense some
resistance to co-operate and disclose any work related information. Mr. X is also in disagreement with your
views, opinion etc. Why was this person difficult? The root cause for this behavior was due to Mr. X was
overlooked for the position of technical lead after having worked on the system for about 3 years.
Action: How did you handle that person? You had decided to be patient and tactful with Mr. X to earn his
respect. After talking to a few members of the team and with your own observation you had determined that Mr.
X was very technically talented but was not too popular with the business users because he always looked at
things only from the technology perspective and failed to look at things from the business perspective and
consequently turned a deaf year to some of the business requirements and also did not build a good rapport with
the business. You always believed that having a good rapport and effective communication with the business is
vital for the success of a project. So you decided to organize a two day workshop for your team and key](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-229-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational 229
business users on agile development methodology with the focus on building a better communication with the
business. You had organized an external off-site workshop with the help of an external facilitator. You could feel
during and after the workshop that Mr.X started to realize the importance of building a good rapport with the
business. At early stages you minimized any contacts with Mr.X to avoid any confrontational situations and with
time and patience you managed to earn his respect by being flexible and tactful, being genuinely appreciative of
Mr. X’s technical skills and contribution, being able to get Mr. X to realize the importance of building a good
rapport with the business, giving Mr. X more responsibility and making him feel important.
Results: Mr. X became more co-operative and also endeavored to build a better rapport with the business.
Note: Some times you would be put in a difficult situation with the question, what would you do if no matter
what you do, you cannot get along with a person say Mr Y? You could say that you would try to be patient and
minimize or if possible avoid any contacts with Mr. Y to prevent any unpleasant situations. If that is not possible
then you would have a discussion with your manager to see if he/she could improve the situation by mediating
between you and Mr. Y. If none of the above approaches work then you would either move to a different team
within the same organization or to another organization in the best interest of you and your organization.
Q 134: What did you like best and least about your previous company? FAQ
A 134: The above question reveals a lot about you. You need to make sure that what you like about your last job should
be appealing to the job you are being interviewed for and what you liked least is not much importance.
Liked best: You could say that you were able to enhance your skills in problem solving, coping with stressful
situations, ability to meet deadlines etc. Also can say that you acquired new technical skills and experience by
learning new frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry etc.
Liked least: You could say that you were self-motivated and worked hard to achieve your deadlines but some of
your team mates slacked off from time to time and you had to pick up the extra work to achieve the team goal.
Note: The above answer discusses a negative aspect with a positive spin. You could also say that it was not
challenging enough for you, but be prepared to explain, why it was not challenging enough for you.
Q 135: Describe a situation when working as a team produced more successful results than if you had completed the
project on your own? FAQ
A 135:
Situation: You could say that you have enjoyed working independently and as a member of the team,
throughout your career and you could do both equally well. You could then say that you were involved in a
project, which had a very tight deadline because it had to be completed before the end of financial year. You had
to work in a team of 5 developers.
Action: You tried to get everyone involved coming up with an effective solution to meet the deadline without
compromising on quality by making time for brain-storming sessions with your team members where there are
no right or wrong ideas. The creativity, collective experiences and skills of a group of people were going to be
greater than that of one person and this can achieve better results through co-operation and motivation.
Results: Team involvement motivated team members work smart and at times work long hours. You were able
to meet the tight dead-line as a team without compromising on quality.
General Tip #8:
Some interviewers would like to ask questions that are impossible to answer to evaluate your problem solving skills. I was
once asked How many gas stations are there in Sydney? Do not get upset. Try to solve it creatively because the
interviewer is not looking for an exact answer but how well you go about solving it. My answer to the above question was
looking up a Sydney street directory or ringing up Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) for number of major intersections
in Sydney and multiply that by 2 (i.e. on average 2 gas stations per intersection). Alternatively you could say that there
are 3 million people in Sydney of which 60% are above 18 years (i.e. 3,000,000 * 0.60 = 1.8 million) and hence hold a
license. Say every 5 minutes a car pull up at a gas station (i.e. Say in 20 hours 240 cars will be serviced ). So to serve 1.8
million cars you would require 1,800,000/240 = 7500 gas stations. Another possible question might be, How many hair
dressers are there in Sydney? How many liters of paint is required to paint the Sydney harbor? [Hint: Make a
replica to a reduced scale say 1:100,000 (i.e. replica:actual) and evaluate the liters of paint required by painting the
replica first and then multiply the result by 100,000. ]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-230-2048.jpg)
![230 Enterprise – Software development process
Enterprise – Software development process
Q 136: What software development processes/principles are you familiar with? Which one have you liked the most and
which one have you liked the least? SD FAQ
A 136: Agile (i.e. lightweight) software development process is gaining popularity and momentum across
organizations.
Agile software development manifesto [Good read: http://www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html].
Highest priority is to satisfy the customer.
Welcome requirement changes even late in development life cycle.
Business people and developers should work collaboratively.
Form teams with motivated individuals who produce best designs and architectures.
Teams should be pro-active on how to become more effective without becoming complacent.
Quality working software is the primary measure of progress.
Why is iterative development with vertical slicing used in agile development? Your overall software quality
can be improved through iterative development, which provides you with constant feedback.
Traditional Vs Agile approach
Traditional approach
With the tradional approach, Say for
Presentation Layer example we have a fundamental flaw in the
technical scope
data layer, if this flaw gets only picked up
milestone 1
after the milestone 3, then there will be lot
milestone 2
milestone 3
Business Layer Business Layer of rework to be done to the business and
the presentation layer. This is the major
drawback with the traditional development
Data Layer Data Layer Data Layer approach where there is no vertical slicing.
project time
Agile (light weight )approach
Presen Presentation
tation Layer Presentation Layer As you can see with the agile iterative
technical scope
Layer
approach, a vertical slice is built for each
iteration. So any fundamental flaw in
iteration 1
iteration 2
iteration 3
Busine Business layer
ss Business Layer design or coding can be picked up early
layesr
and rectified. Even deployment and testing
Data
will be carried out in vertical slices.
Data Layer Data Layer
Layer
project time
Several methodologies fit under this agile development methodology banner. All these methodologies share
many characteristics like iterative and incremental development, test driven development, stand up
meetings to improve communication, automatic testing, build and continuous integration of code etc.
Among all the agile methodologies XP is the one which has got the most attention. Different companies use
different flavors of agile methodologies by using different combinations of methodologies.
How does vertical slicing influence customer perception? With the iterative and incremental approach,
customer will be comfortable with the progress of the development as opposed to traditional big bang approach.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-231-2048.jpg)
![Enterprise – Software development process 231
Traditional Vs Agile perceived functionality
As far as the developer is concerned As far as the developer is concerned
65% of coding has been completed but 65% of coding has been completed and
Traditional from the customer's view only 20% of
Agile from the customer's view 65% of the
the functionality has been completed functionality has been completed. So
the customer is happy.
Presentation Layer Presentation Layer
Business Layer Business Layer
Data Layer Data Layer
EXtreme Programming [XP] simple design, pair programming, unit testing, refactoring, collective code
ownership, coding standards, etc. Refer Q10 in “How would you go about…” section. XP has four key
values: Communication, Feedback, Simplicity and Courage. It then builds up some tried and tested
practices and techniques. XP has a strong emphasis on testing where tests are integrated into continuous
integration and build process, which yields a highly stable platform. XP is designed for smaller teams of 20
– 30 people.
RUP (Rational Unified Process) Model driven architecture, design and development; customizable
frameworks for scalable process; iterative development methodology; Re-use of architecture, code,
component, framework, patterns etc. RUP can be used as an agile process for smaller teams of 20-30
people, or as a heavy weight process for larger teams of 50-100 people. Refer Q103 – Q105 in Enterprise
section.
Feature Driven Development [FDD] Jeff De Luca and long time OO guru Peter Coad developed feature
Driven Development (FDD). Like the other adaptive methodologies, it focuses on short iterations that
deliver tangible functionality. FDD was originally designed for larger project teams of around 50 people. In
FDD's case the iterations are two weeks long. FDD has five processes. The first three are done at the
beginning of the project. The last two are done within each iteration.
Develop an Overall Model Build a Features List Plan by Feature Design by Feature Build
by Feature
The developers come in two kinds: class owners and chief programmers. The chief programmers are the
most experienced developers. They are assigned features to be built. However they don't build them alone.
Instead the chief programmer identifies which classes are involved in implementing the feature and gathers
their class owners together to form a feature team for developing that feature. The chief programmer acts
as the coordinator, lead designer, and mentor while the class owners do much of the coding of the feature.
Test Driven Development [TDD] TDD is an iterative software development process where you first write
the test with the idea that it must fail. Refer Q1 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section…
Scrum Scrum divides a project into sprints (aka iterations) of 30 days. Before you begin a sprint you
define the functionality required for that sprint and leave](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/javaj2eejobinterviewcompanionebook-130324212724-phpapp01/75/Java-j2ee-job-interview-companion-ebook-232-2048.jpg)
Java j2ee job interview companion ebook
- 2. 1 Learn Java/J2EE core concepts and key areas With Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion By K.Arulkumaran & A.Sivayini Technical Reviewers Craig Malone Stuart Watson Arulazi Dhesiaseelan Lara D’Albreo Cover Design, Layout, & Editing A.Sivayini Acknowledgements A. Sivayini Mr. & Mrs. R. Kumaraswamipillai
- 3. 2 Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion Copy Right 2005-2007 ISBN 978-1-4116-6824-9 The author has made every effort in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information. However, information in this book is sold without warranty either expressed or implied. The author will not be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused either directly or indirectly by this book. Please e-mail feedback & corrections (technical, grammatical and/or spelling) to java-interview@hotmail.com First Edition (220+ Q&A): Dec 2005 Second Edition (400+ Q&A): March 2007
- 4. 3 Outline SECTION DESCRIPTION What this book will do for you? Motivation for this book Key Areas index SECTION 1 Interview questions and answers on: Java Fundamentals Swing Applet Performance and Memory issues Personal and Behavioral/Situational Behaving right in an interview Key Points SECTION 2 Interview questions and answers on: Enterprise Java J2EE Overview Servlet JSP JDBC / JTA JNDI / LDAP RMI EJB JMS XML SQL, Database, and O/R mapping RUP & UML Struts Web and Application servers. Best practices and performance considerations. Testing and deployment. Personal and Behavioral/Situational Key Points SECTION 3 Putting it all together section. How would you go about…? 1. How would you go about documenting your Java/J2EE application? 2. How would you go about designing a Java/J2EE application? 3. How would you go about identifying performance problems and/or memory leaks in your Java application? 4. How would you go about minimizing memory leaks in your Java/J2EE application? 5. How would you go about improving performance of your Java/J2EE application? 6. How would you go about identifying any potential thread-safety issues in your Java/J2EE application? 7. How would you go about identifying any potential transactional issues in your Java/J2EE
- 5. 4 application? 8. How would you go about applying the Object Oriented (OO) design concepts in your Java/J2EE application? 9. How would you go about applying the UML diagrams in your Java/J2EE project? 10. How would you go about describing the software development processes you are familiar with? 11. How would you go about applying the design patterns in your Java/J2EE application? 12. How would you go about designing a Web application where the business tier is on a separate machine from the presentation tier. The business tier should talk to 2 different databases and your design should point out the different design patterns? 13. How would you go about determining the enterprise security requirements for your Java/J2EE application? 14. How would you go about describing the open source projects like JUnit (unit testing), Ant (build tool), CVS (version control system) and log4J (logging tool) which are integral part of most Java/J2EE projects? 15. How would you go about describing Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web services? SECTION 4 Emerging Technologies/Frameworks Test Driven Development (TDD). Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP). Inversion of Control (IoC) (Also known as Dependency Injection). Annotations or attributes based programming (xdoclet etc). Spring framework. Hibernate framework. EJB 3.0. JavaServer Faces (JSF) framework. SECTION 5 Sample interview questions … Java Web Components Enterprise Design General GLOSSARY OF TERMS RESOURCES INDEX
- 6. 5 Table of contents Outline_________________________________________________________________________________________3 Table of contents ________________________________________________________________________________ 5 What this book will do for you? ____________________________________________________________________ 7 Motivation for this book __________________________________________________________________________ 8 Key Areas Index ________________________________________________________________________________ 11 Java – Interview questions & answers _____________________________________________________________ 13 Java – Fundamentals _____________________________________________________________________________________ 14 Java – Swing ____________________________________________________________________________________________ 69 Java – Applet____________________________________________________________________________________________ 76 Java – Performance and Memory issues _____________________________________________________________________ 78 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational __________________________________________________________________ 83 Java – Behaving right in an interview________________________________________________________________________ 89 Java – Key Points ________________________________________________________________________________________ 91 Enterprise Java – Interview questions & answers ____________________________________________________ 94 Enterprise - J2EE Overview ________________________________________________________________________________ 95 Enterprise - Servlet ______________________________________________________________________________________ 108 Enterprise - JSP ________________________________________________________________________________________ 126 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA _________________________________________________________________________________ 145 Enterprise – JNDI & LDAP ________________________________________________________________________________ 155 Enterprise - RMI ________________________________________________________________________________________ 159 Enterprise – EJB 2.x _____________________________________________________________________________________ 163 Enterprise - JMS ________________________________________________________________________________________ 180 Enterprise - XML ________________________________________________________________________________________ 190 Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping _______________________________________________________________ 197 Enterprise - RUP & UML __________________________________________________________________________________ 206 Enterprise - Struts_______________________________________________________________________________________ 214 Enterprise - Web and Application servers ___________________________________________________________________ 218 Enterprise - Best practices and performance considerations ___________________________________________________ 222 Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment _______________________________________________________________ 225 Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational_____________________________________________________________ 228 Enterprise – Software development process _________________________________________________________________ 230 Enterprise – Key Points __________________________________________________________________________________ 233 How would you go about…?_____________________________________________________________________ 238 Q 01: How would you go about documenting your Java/J2EE application? FAQ ________________________________ 239 Q 02: How would you go about designing a Java/J2EE application? FAQ _____________________________________ 240 Q 03: How would you go about identifying performance and/or memory issues in your Java/J2EE application? FAQ _ 243 Q 04: How would you go about minimizing memory leaks in your Java/J2EE application? FAQ __________________ 244 Q 05: How would you go about improving performance in your Java/J2EE application? FAQ _____________________ 244 Q 06: How would you go about identifying any potential thread-safety issues in your Java/J2EE application? FAQ __ 245 Q 07: How would you go about identifying any potential transactional issues in your Java/J2EE application? FAQ __ 246
- 7. 6 Q 08: How would you go about applying the Object Oriented (OO) design concepts in your Java/J2EE application? FAQ 247 Q 09: How would you go about applying the UML diagrams in your Java/J2EE project? FAQ _____________________249 Q 10: How would you go about describing the software development processes you are familiar with? FAQ ________251 Q 11: How would you go about applying the design patterns in your Java/J2EE application? _____________________253 Q 12: How would you go about designing a Web application where the business tier is on a separate machine from the presentation tier. The business tier should talk to 2 different databases and your design should point out the different design patterns? FAQ ____________________________________________________________________________________286 Q 13: How would you go about determining the enterprise security requirements for your Java/J2EE application? ___287 Q 14: How would you go about describing the open source projects like JUnit (unit testing), Ant (build tool), CVS (version control system) and log4J (logging tool) which are integral part of most Java/J2EE projects? ________________292 Q 15: How would you go about describing Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web services? FAQ ___________299 Emerging Technologies/Frameworks… ____________________________________________________________311 Q 01: What is Test Driven Development (TDD)? FAQ _______________________________________________________312 Q 02: What is the point of Test Driven Development (TDD)? What do you think of TDD?__________________________313 Q 03: What is aspect oriented programming (AOP)? Do you have any experience with AOP? _____________________313 Q 04: What are the differences between OOP and AOP? ____________________________________________________317 Q 05: What are the benefits of AOP?_____________________________________________________________________317 Q 06: What is attribute or annotation oriented programming? FAQ ___________________________________________317 Q 07: What are the pros and cons of annotations over XML based deployment descriptors? FAQ _________________318 Q 08: What is XDoclet? ________________________________________________________________________________319 Q 09: What is inversion of control (IoC) (also known more specifically as dependency injection)? FAQ_____________319 Q 10: What are the different types of dependency injections? FAQ ___________________________________________321 Q 11: What are the benefits of IoC (aka Dependency Injection)? FAQ _________________________________________322 Q 12: What is the difference between a service locator pattern and an inversion of control pattern? _______________323 Q 13: Why dependency injection is more elegant than a JNDI lookup to decouple client and the service? ___________323 Q 14: Explain Object-to-Relational (O/R) mapping? ________________________________________________________323 Q 15: Give an overview of hibernate framework? FAQ ______________________________________________________324 Q 16: Explain some of the pitfalls of Hibernate and explain how to avoid them? Give some tips on Hibernate best practices? FAQ _________________________________________________________________________________________333 Q 17: Give an overview of the Spring framework? What are the benefits of Spring framework? FAQ _______________334 Q 18: How would EJB 3.0 simplify your Java development compared to EJB 1.x, 2.x ? FAQ ______________________337 Q 19: Briefly explain key features of the JavaServer Faces (JSF) framework? __________________________________339 Q 20: How would the JSF framework compare with the Struts framework? How would a Spring MVC framework compare with Struts framework?___________________________________________________________________________________341 Sample interview questions… ____________________________________________________________________344 Java___________________________________________________________________________________________________345 Web components________________________________________________________________________________________345 Enterprise ______________________________________________________________________________________________345 Design_________________________________________________________________________________________________347 General ________________________________________________________________________________________________347 GLOSSARY OF TERMS__________________________________________________________________________348 RESOURCES __________________________________________________________________________________350 INDEX ________________________________________________________________________________________352
- 8. 7 What this bookwill do for you? Have you got the time to read 10 or more books and articles to add value prior to the interview? This book has been written mainly from the perspective of Java/J2EE job seekers and interviewers. There are numerous books and articles on the market covering specific topics like Java, J2EE, EJB, Design Patterns, ANT, CVS, Multi-Threading, Servlets, JSP, emerging technologies like AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming), Test Driven Development (TDD), Dependency Injection Dl (aka IoC – Inversion of Control) etc. But from an interview perspective it is not possible to brush up on all these books where each book usually has from 300 pages to 600 pages. The basic purpose of this book is to cover all the core concepts and key areas, which all Java/J2EE developers, designers and architects should be conversant with to perform well in their current jobs and to launch a successful career by doing well at interviews. The interviewer can also use this book to make sure that they hire the right candidate depending on their requirements. This book contains a wide range of topics relating to Java/J2EE development in a concise manner supplemented with diagrams, tables, sample codes and examples. This book is also appropriately categorized to enable you to choose the area of interest to you. This book will assist all Java/J2EE practitioners to become better at what they do. Usually it takes years to understand all the core concepts and key areas when you rely only on your work experience. The best way to fast track this is to read appropriate technical information and proactively apply these in your work environment. It worked for me and hopefully it will work for you as well. I was also at one stage undecided whether to name this book “Java/J2EE core concepts and key areas” or “Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion”. The reason I chose “Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion” is because the core concepts and key areas discussed in this book helped me to be successful in my interviews, helped me to survive and succeed at my work regardless what my job (junior developer, senior developer, technical lead, designer, contractor etc) was and also gave me thumbs up in code reviews. This book also has been set out as a handy reference guide and a roadmap for building enterprise Java applications.
- 9. 8 Motivation for thisbook I started using Java in 1999 when I was working as a junior developer. During those two years as a permanent employee, I pro-actively spent many hours studying the core concepts behind Java/J2EE in addition to my hands on practical experience. Two years later I decided to start contracting. Since I started contracting in 2001, my career had a much- needed boost in terms of contract rates, job satisfaction, responsibility etc. I moved from one contract to another with a view of expanding my skills and increasing my contract rates. In the last 5 years of contracting, I have worked for 5 different organizations both medium and large on 8 different projects. For each contract I held, on average I attended 6-8 interviews with different companies. In most cases multiple job offers were made and consequently I was in a position to negotiate my contract rates and also to choose the job I liked based on the type of project, type of organization, technology used, etc. I have also sat for around 10 technical tests and a few preliminary phone interviews. The success in the interviews did not come easily. I spent hours prior to each set of interviews wading through various books and articles as a preparation. The motivation for this book was to collate all this information into a single book, which will save me time prior to my interviews but also can benefit others in their interviews. What is in this book has helped me to go from just a Java/J2EE job to a career in Java/J2EE in a short time. It has also given me the job security that ‘I can find a contract/permanent job opportunity even in the difficult job market’. I am not suggesting that every one should go contracting but by performing well at the interviews you can be in a position to pick the permanent role you like and also be able to negotiate your salary package. Those of you who are already in good jobs can impress your team leaders, solution designers and/or architects for a possible promotion by demonstrating your understanding of the key areas discussed in this book. You can discuss with your senior team members about performance issues, transactional issues, threading issues (concurrency issues) and memory issues. In most of my previous contracts I was in a position to impress my team leads and architects by pinpointing some of the critical performance, memory, transactional and threading issues with the code and subsequently fixing them. Trust me it is not hard to impress someone if you understand the key areas. For example: Struts action classes are not thread-safe (Refer Q113 in Enterprise section). JSP variable declaration is not thread-safe (Refer Q34 in Enterprise section). Valuable resources like database connections should be closed properly to avoid any memory and performance issues (Refer Q45 in Enterprise section). Throwing an application exception will not rollback the transaction in EJB. (Refer Q77 in Enterprise section). The other key areas, which are vital to any software development, are a good understanding of some of key design concepts, design patterns, and a modeling language like UML. These key areas are really worthy of a mention in your resume and interviews. For example: Know how to use inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation (Refer Q7, Q8, Q9, and Q10 in Java section.). Why use design patterns? (Refer Q5 in Enterprise section). Why is UML important? (Refer Q106 in Enterprise section). If you happen to be in an interview with an organization facing serious issues with regards to their Java application relating to memory leaks, performance problems or a crashing JVM etc then you are likely to be asked questions on these topics. Refer Q72 – Q74 in Java section and Q123, Q125 in Enterprise section. If you happen to be in an interview with an organization which is working on a pilot project using a different development methodology like agile methodology etc or has just started adopting a newer development process or methodology then you are likely to be asked questions on this key area. If the team lead/architect of the organization you are being interviewed for feels that the current team is lacking skills in the key areas of design concepts and design patterns then you are likely to be asked questions on these key areas.
- 10. 9 Another good reasonwhy these key areas like transactional issues, design concepts, design patterns etc are vital are because solution designers, architects, team leads, and/or senior developers are usually responsible for conducting the technical interviews. These areas are their favorite topics because these are essential to any software development. Some interviewers request you to write a small program during interview or prior to getting to the interview stage. This is to ascertain that you can code using object oriented concepts and design patterns. So I have included a coding key area to illustrate what you need to look for while coding. Apply OO concepts like inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation: Refer Q10 in Java section. Program to interfaces not to implementations: Refer Q12, Q17 in Java section. Use of relevant design patterns: Refer Q11, Q12 in How would you go about… section. Use of Java collections API and exceptions correctly: Refer Q16 and Q39 in Java section. Stay away from hard coding values: Refer Q05 in Java section. L anguage F u n d a m e n ta ls H o w m a n y b o o k s d o I h a v e to re a d to P e rfo rm a n c e u n d e rs ta n d a n d p u t to g e th e r a ll th e s e Is s u e s k e y a re a s ? H o w m a n y y e a rs o f e x p e rie n c e s h o u ld I h a v e to u n d e rs ta n d a ll th e s e S p e c ific a tio n k e y a re a s ? E x c e p tio n F u n d a m e n ta ls H a n d lin g W ill th e s e k e y a re a s h e lp m e p ro g re s s in m y c a re e r? S o ftw a re D e v e lo p m e n t P ro c e s s W ill th e s e k e y a re a s h e lp m e c u t q u a lity c o d e ? D e s ig n D e s ig n C o n c e p ts S E c u rity P a tte rn s T ra n s a c tio n a l Is s u e s B est C o n c u rre n c y S c a la b ility P ra c tic e s Is s u e s Iss u e s M e m o ry Is su e s C O d in g LF DC CI PI SE EH SD DP SF MI SI TI BP CO This book aims to solve the above dilemma. My dad keeps telling me to find a permanent job (instead of contracting), which in his view provides better job security but I keep telling him that in my view in Information Technology the job security is achieved only by keeping your knowledge and skills sharp and up to date. The 8 contract positions I held over the last 5.5 years have given me broader experience in Java/J2EE and related technologies. It also kept me motivated since there was always something new to learn in each assignment, and not all companies will appreciate your skills and expertise until you decide to leave. Do the following statements sound familiar to you when you hand in your resignation or decide not to extend your contract after getting another job offer? “Can I tempt you to come back? What can I do to keep you here?” etc. You might even think why you waited so long. The best way to make an impression in any organizations is to understand and proactively apply and
- 11. 10 resolve the issuesrelating to the Key Areas discussed in this book. But be a team player, be tactful and don’t be critical of everything, do not act in a superior way and have a sense of humor. “Technical skills must be complemented with good business and interpersonal skills.” Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated Give me an example your coping skills? of a time when you set a goal and were able to achieve it? Development team You Knowledge/understanding of the business. Ability to communicate and interact effectively with the business users/customers. Ability to look at things from the user's perspective as opposed to only technology perspective. Ability to persuade/convince business with alternative solutions. Ability to communicate effectively with your fellow developers, immediate and senior management. Immediate Business users/ Ability to work in a team as well as independently. management External customers Problem solving/analytical skills. Organizational skills. Ability to cope with difficult situations like stress due to work load, deadlines etc and manage or deal with difficult people. Being a good listener with the right attitude. Give me an example of a time you Describe a time when you had to motivated others? Or dealt with a work with others in the organization difficult person? to accomplish the organizational goals? Senior management IMPORTANT: Technical skills alone are not sufficient for you to perform well in your interviews and progress in your career. Your technical skills must be complemented with business skills (i.e. knowledge/understanding of the business, ability to communicate and interact effectively with the business users/customers, ability to look at things from the users’ perspective as opposed to only from technology perspective, ability to persuade/convince business with alternative solutions, which can provide a win/win solution from users’ perspective as well as technology perspective), ability to communicate effectively with your fellow developers, immediate and senior management, ability to work in a team as well as independently, problem solving/analytical skills, organizational skills, ability to cope with difficult situations like stress due to work load, deadlines etc and manage or deal with difficult people, being a good listener with the right attitude (It is sometimes possible to have “I know it all attitude”, when you have strong technical skills. These are discussed in “Java – Personal” and “Enterprise Java – Personal” sub-sections with examples. Quick Read guide: It is recommended that you go through all the questions in all the sections (all it takes is to read a few questions & answers each day) but if you are pressed for time or would like to read it just before an interview then follow the steps shown below: -- Read/Browse all questions marked as “FAQ” in all four sections. -- Read/Browse Key Points in Java and Enterprise Java sections.
- 12. 11 Key Areas Index Ihave categorized the core concepts and issues into 14 key areas as listed below. These key areas are vital for any good software development. This index will enable you to refer to the questions based on key areas. Also note that each question has an icon next to it to indicate which key area or areas it belongs to. Additional reading is recommended for beginners in each of the key areas. Key Areas icon --------------------------------------- Question Numbers ------------------------------------------------ Java section Enterprise Java section How Emerging would you Technologies go / Frameworks about…? Language Q1-Q6, Q12-Q16, Q18- - Q10, Q15, Fundamentals Q24, Q26-Q33, Q35- Q17, Q19 LF Q38, Q41-Q50, Q53-Q71 Specification - Q1, Q2, Q4, Q6, Q7-Q15, Q15 Fundamentals Q17-Q19, Q22, Q26-Q33, Q35-Q38, Q41, Q42, Q44, Q46-Q81, Q89-Q93, Q95- SF Q97, Q99, 102, Q110, Q112-Q115, Q118-Q119, Q121, Q126, Q127, Q128 Design Concepts Q1, Q7-Q12, Q15, Q26, Q2, Q3, Q19, Q20, Q21, Q02, Q08, Q3 - Q13, Q22, Q56 Q31, Q45, Q91, Q94, Q98, Q09, Q15 Q13, Q14, DC Q101, Q106, Q107, Q108, Q16, Q17, Q109, Q111 Q18, Q20 Design Patterns Q12, Q16, Q24, Q36, Q5, Q5, Q22, Q24, Q25, Q11, Q12 Q9 - Q13 Q51, Q52, Q58, Q63, Q41, Q83, Q84, Q85, Q86, DP Q75 Q87, Q88, Q110, Q111, Q116 Transactional - Q43, Q71, Q72, Q73, Q74, Q7 Issues TI Q75, Q77, Q78, Q79 Concurrency Issues Q15, Q17, Q21, Q34, Q16, Q34, Q72, Q78, Q6 CI Q42, Q46, Q62 Q113 Performance Issues Q15, Q17,Q20-Q26, Q10, Q16, Q43, Q45, Q46, Q3, Q5 Q46, Q62, Q72 Q72, Q83-Q88, Q93, Q97, PI Q98, Q100, Q102, Q123, Q125, Q128 Memory Issues Q26, Q34, Q37,Q38, Q45, Q93 Q3, Q4 MI Q42, Q51, Q73, Q74 Scalability Issues Q23, Q24 Q20, Q21, Q120, Q122 SI Exception Handling Q39, Q40 Q76, Q77 EH Security Q10, Q35, Q70 Q12, Q13, Q23, Q35, Q46, Q13 SE Q51, Q58, Q81, Q92 Best Practices Q17, Q25, Q39, Q72, Q10, Q16, Q39, Q40, Q41, Q1, Q2 BP Q73 Q46, Q82, Q124, Q125
- 13. 12 Software - Q103-Q109, Q129, Q130, Q1, Q9, Q1, Q2 Development SD Q132, Q136 Q10, Q14 Process Coding1 Q05, Q10, Q12, Q14 – Q10, Q18, Q21, Q23, Q36, Q11, Q12 Q21, Q23, Q25, Q26, Q38, Q42, Q43, Q45, Q74, CO Q33, Q35, Q39, Q51, Q75, Q76, Q77, Q112, Q52, Q55 Q114, Q127, Q128 Frequently Asked Q1, Q6, Q7, Q9, Q10, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q7, Q10, Q11, Q1, Q2, Q1, Q6, Q7, Questions Q12, Q13, Q14, Q15, Q12, Q13, Q16, Q19, Q22, Q3, Q4, Q9, Q10, Q11, Q16, Q18, Q20, Q21, Q24, Q25, Q27, Q28, Q30, Q5, Q6, Q15, Q16, Q22, Q23, Q27, Q28, Q31, Q32, Q34, Q35, Q36, Q7, Q8, Q17, Q18 Q29, Q30, Q31, Q32, Q39, Q40, Q41, Q42, Q43, Q9, Q10, Q36, Q37, Q43, Q45, Q45, Q46, Q48, Q49, Q50, Q12, Q15 Q46, Q48, Q51, Q52, Q52, Q53, Q61, Q63, Q65, Q55, Q58, Q60, Q62, Q66, Q69, Q70, Q71, Q72, FAQ Q63, Q64, Q67, Q68, Q73, Q76, Q77, Q82, Q83, Q69, Q70, Q71 Q84, Q85, Q86, Q87, Q90, Q72 – Q86 Q91, Q93, Q95, Q96, Q97, Q98, Q100, Q101, Q102, Q107, Q108, Q110, Q113, Q115, Q116, Q118, Q123, Q124, Q125, Q126, Q129, Q130, Q131, Q133, Q134, Q135, Q136. 1 Some interviewers request you to write a small program during interview or prior to getting to the interview stage. This is to ascertain that you can code using object oriented concepts and design patterns. I have included a coding key area to illustrate what you need to look for while coding. Unlike other key areas, the CO is not always shown against the question but shown above the actual section of relevance within a question.
- 14. Java 13 SECTION ONE Java – Interview questions & answers Language Fundamentals LF K E Design Concepts DC Y Design Patterns DP Concurrency Issues CI A Performance Issues PI R Memory Issues MI E Exception Handling EH A S Security SE Scalability Issues SI Coding1 CO FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions 1 Unlike other key areas, the CO is not always shown against the question but shown above the actual content of relevance within a question.
- 15. 14 Java - Fundamentals Java – Fundamentals Q 01: Give a few reasons for using Java? LF DC FAQ A 01: Java is a fun language. Let’s look at some of the reasons: Built-in support for multi-threading, socket communication, and memory management (automatic garbage collection). Object Oriented (OO). Better portability than other languages across operating systems. Supports Web based applications (Applet, Servlet, and JSP), distributed applications (sockets, RMI, EJB etc) and network protocols (HTTP, JRMP etc) with the help of extensive standardized APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Q 02: What is the main difference between the Java platform and the other software platforms? LF A 02: Java platform is a software-only platform, which runs on top of other hardware-based platforms like UNIX, NT etc. The Java platform has 2 components: Java Virtual Machine (JVM) – ‘JVM’ is a software that can be ported onto various hardware platforms. Byte codes are the machine language of the JVM. Java Application Programming Interface (Java API) – set of classes written using the Java language and run on the JVM. Q 03: What is the difference between C++ and Java? LF A 03: Both C++ and Java use similar syntax and are Object Oriented, but: Java does not support pointers. Pointers are inherently tricky to use and troublesome. Java does not support multiple inheritances because it causes more problems than it solves. Instead Java supports multiple interface inheritance, which allows an object to inherit many method signatures from different interfaces with the condition that the inheriting object must implement those inherited methods. The multiple interface inheritance also allows an object to behave polymorphically on those methods. [Refer Q9 and Q10 in Java section.] Java does not support destructors but adds a finalize() method. Finalize methods are invoked by the garbage collector prior to reclaiming the memory occupied by the object, which has the finalize() method. This means you do not know when the objects are going to be finalized. Avoid using finalize() method to release non- memory resources like file handles, sockets, database connections etc because Java has only a finite number of these resources and you do not know when the garbage collection is going to kick in to release these resources through the finalize() method. Java does not include structures or unions because the traditional data structures are implemented as an object oriented framework (Java Collections Framework – Refer Q16, Q17 in Java section).
- 16. Java - Fundamentals 15 All the code in Java program is encapsulated within classes therefore Java does not have global variables or functions. C++ requires explicit memory management, while Java includes automatic garbage collection. [Refer Q37 in Java section]. Q 04: What are the usages of Java packages? LF A 04: It helps resolve naming conflicts when different packages have classes with the same names. This also helps you organize files within your project. For example: java.io package do something related to I/O and java.net package do something to do with network and so on. If we tend to put all .java files into a single package, as the project gets bigger, then it would become a nightmare to manage all your files. You can create a package as follows with package keyword, which is the first keyword in any Java program followed by import statements. The java.lang package is imported implicitly by default and all the other packages must be explicitly imported. package com.xyz.client ; import java.io.File; import java.net.URL; Q 05: Explain Java class loaders? If you have a class in a package, what do you need to do to run it? Explain dynamic class loading? LF A 05: Class loaders are hierarchical. Classes are introduced into the JVM as they are referenced by name in a class that is already running in the JVM. So, how is the very first class loaded? The very first class is especially loaded with the help of static main( ) method declared in your class. All the subsequently loaded classes are loaded by the classes, which are already loaded and running. A class loader creates a namespace. All JVMs include at least one class loader that is embedded within the JVM called the primordial (or bootstrap) class loader. Now let’s look at non-primordial class loaders. The JVM has hooks in it to allow user defined class loaders to be used in place of primordial class loader. Let us look at the class loaders created by the JVM. CLASS LOADER reloadable? Explanation Bootstrap No Loads JDK internal classes, java.* packages. (as defined in the sun.boot.class.path (primordial) system property, typically loads rt.jar and i18n.jar) Extensions No Loads jar files from JDK extensions directory (as defined in the java.ext.dirs system property – usually lib/ext directory of the JRE) System No Loads classes from system classpath (as defined by the java.class.path property, which is set by the CLASSPATH environment variable or –classpath or –cp command line options) JVM class loaders Bootstrap (primordial) Classes loaded by Bootstrap class loader have no visibility into classes (rt.jar, i18.jar) loaded by its descendants (ie Extensions and Systems class loaders). Extensions The classes loaded by system class loader have visibility into classes loaded (lib/ext) by its parents (ie Extensions and Bootstrap class loaders). If there were any sibling class loaders they cannot see classes loaded by System each other. They can only see the classes loaded by their parent class (-classpath) loader. For example Sibling1 class loader cannot see classes loaded by Sibling2 class loader Sibling1 Sibling2 Both Sibling1 and Sibling2 class loaders have visibilty into classes loaded classloader classloader by their parent class loaders (eg: System, Extensions, and Bootstrap) Class loaders are hierarchical and use a delegation model when loading a class. Class loaders request their parent to load the class first before attempting to load it themselves. When a class loader loads a class, the child class loaders in the hierarchy will never reload the class again. Hence uniqueness is maintained. Classes loaded
- 17. 16 Java - Fundamentals by a child class loader have visibility into classes loaded by its parents up the hierarchy but the reverse is not true as explained in the above diagram. Q. What do you need to do to run a class with a main() method in a package? Example: Say, you have a class named “Pet” in a project folder “c:myProject” and package named com.xyz.client, will you be able to compile and run it as it is? package com.xyz.client; public class Pet { public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.println("I am found in the classpath"); } } To run c:myProject> java com.xyz.client.Pet The answer is no and you will get the following exception: “Exception in thread "main" java.lang.- NoClassDefFoundError: com/xyz/client/Pet”. You need to set the classpath. How can you do that? One of the following ways: 1. Set the operating system CLASSPATH environment variable to have the project folder “c:myProject”. [Shown in the above diagram as the System –classpath class loader] 2. Set the operating system CLASSPATH environment variable to have a jar file “c:/myProject/client.jar”, which has the Pet.class file in it. [Shown in the above diagram as the System –classpath class loader]. 3. Run it with –cp or –classpath option as shown below: c:>java –cp c:/myProject com.xyz.client.Pet OR c:>java -classpath c:/myProject/client.jar com.xyz.client.Pet Important: Two objects loaded by different class loaders are never equal even if they carry the same values, which mean a class is uniquely identified in the context of the associated class loader. This applies to singletons too, where each class loader will have its own singleton. [Refer Q51 in Java section for singleton design pattern] Q. Explain static vs. dynamic class loading? Static class loading Dynamic class loading Classes are statically loaded with Java’s Dynamic loading is a technique for programmatically invoking the functions of a “new” operator. class loader at run time. Let us look at how to load classes dynamically. class MyClass { Class.forName (String className); //static method which returns a Class public static void main(String args[]) { Car c = new Car(); The above static method returns the class object associated with the class } name. The string className can be supplied dynamically at run time. Unlike the } static loading, the dynamic loading will decide whether to load the class Car or the class Jeep at runtime based on a properties file and/or other runtime conditions. Once the class is dynamically loaded the following method returns an instance of the loaded class. It’s just like creating a class object with no arguments. class.newInstance (); //A non-static method, which creates an instance of a //class (i.e. creates an object). Jeep myJeep = null ; //myClassName should be read from a .properties file or a Constants class. // stay away from hard coding values in your program. CO String myClassName = "au.com.Jeep" ; Class vehicleClass = Class.forName(myClassName) ; myJeep = (Jeep) vehicleClass.newInstance(); myJeep.setFuelCapacity(50); A NoClassDefFoundException is A ClassNotFoundException is thrown when an application tries to load in a thrown if a class is referenced with class through its string name using the following methods but no definition for the Java’s “new” operator (i.e. static loading) class with the specified name could be found: but the runtime system cannot find the referenced class. The forName(..) method in class - Class. The findSystemClass(..) method in class - ClassLoader. The loadClass(..) method in class - ClassLoader.
- 18. Java - Fundamentals 17 Q. What are “static initializers” or “static blocks with no function names”? When a class is loaded, all blocks that are declared static and don’t have function name (i.e. static initializers) are executed even before the constructors are executed. As the name suggests they are typically used to initialize static fields. CO public class StaticInitializer { public static final int A = 5; public static final int B; //note that it is not public static final int B = null; //note that since B is final, it can be initialized only once. //Static initializer block, which is executed only once when the class is loaded. static { if(A == 5) B = 10; else B = 5; } public StaticInitializer(){} //constructor is called only after static initializer block } The following code gives an Output of A=5, B=10. public class Test { System.out.println("A =" + StaticInitializer.A + ", B =" + StaticInitializer.B); } Q 06: What is the difference between constructors and other regular methods? What happens if you do not provide a constructor? Can you call one constructor from another? How do you call the superclass’s constructor? LF FAQ A 06: Constructors Regular methods Constructors must have the same name as the class Regular methods can have any name and can be called any number of name and cannot return a value. The constructors times. E.g. for a Pet.class. are called only once per creation of an object while regular methods can be called many times. E.g. for a public void Pet(){} // regular method has a void return type. Pet.class Note: method name is shown starting with an uppercase to public Pet() {} // constructor differentiate a constructor from a regular method. Better naming convention is to have a meaningful name starting with a lowercase like: public void createPet(){} // regular method has a void return type Q. What happens if you do not provide a constructor? Java does not actually require an explicit constructor in the class description. If you do not include a constructor, the Java compiler will create a default constructor in the byte code with an empty argument. This default constructor is equivalent to the explicit “Pet(){}”. If a class includes one or more explicit constructors like “public Pet(int id)” or “Pet(){}” etc, the java compiler does not create the default constructor “Pet(){}”. Q. Can you call one constructor from another? Yes, by using this() syntax. E.g. public Pet(int id) { this.id = id; // “this” means this object } public Pet (int id, String type) { this(id); // calls constructor public Pet(int id) this.type = type; // ”this” means this object } Q. How to call the superclass constructor? If a class called “SpecialPet” extends your “Pet” class then you can use the keyword “super” to invoke the superclass’s constructor. E.g. public SpecialPet(int id) { super(id); //must be the very first statement in the constructor. } To call a regular method in the super class use: “super.myMethod( );”. This can be called at any line. Some frameworks based on JUnit add their own initialization code, and not only do they need to remember to invoke
- 19. 18 Java - Fundamentals their parent's setup() method, you, as a user, need to remember to invoke theirs after you wrote your initialization code: public class DBUnitTestCase extends TestCase { public void setUp() { super.setUp(); // do my own initialization } } public void cleanUp() throws Throwable { try { … // Do stuff here to clean up your object(s). } catch (Throwable t) {} finally{ super.cleanUp(); //clean up your parent class. Unlike constructors // super.regularMethod() can be called at any line. } } Q 07: What are the advantages of Object Oriented Programming Languages (OOPL)? DC FAQ A 07: The Object Oriented Programming Languages directly represent the real life objects like Car, Jeep, Account, Customer etc. The features of the OO programming languages like polymorphism, inheritance and encapsulation make it powerful. [Tip: remember pie which, stands for Polymorphism, Inheritance and Encapsulation are the 3 pillars of OOPL] Q 08: How does the Object Oriented approach improve software development? DC A 08: The key benefits are: Re-use of previous work: using implementation inheritance and object composition. Real mapping to the problem domain: Objects map to real world and represent vehicles, customers, products etc: with encapsulation. Modular Architecture: Objects, systems, frameworks etc are the building blocks of larger systems. The increased quality and reduced development time are the by-products of the key benefits discussed above. If 90% of the new application consists of proven existing components then only the remaining 10% of the code have to be tested from scratch. Q 09: How do you express an ‘is a’ relationship and a ‘has a’ relationship or explain inheritance and composition? What is the difference between composition and aggregation? DC FAQ A 09: The ‘is a’ relationship is expressed with inheritance and ‘has a’ relationship is expressed with composition. Both inheritance and composition allow you to place sub-objects inside your new class. Two of the main techniques for code reuse are class inheritance and object composition. Inheritance [ is a ] Vs Composition [ has a ] Building is a is a [House is a Building] has a [House has a Bathroom] class Building{ class House { has a ....... Bathroom room = new Bathroom() ; } .... public void getTotMirrors(){ class House extends Building{ room.getNoMirrors(); Bathroom ......... .... House } } } Inheritance is uni-directional. For example House is a Building. But Building is not a House. Inheritance uses extends key word. Composition: is used when House has a Bathroom. It is incorrect to say House is a
- 20. Java - Fundamentals 19 Bathroom. Composition simply means using instance variables that refer to other objects. The class House will have an instance variable, which refers to a Bathroom object. Q. Which one to favor, composition or inheritance? The guide is that inheritance should be only used when subclass ‘is a’ superclass. Don’t use inheritance just to get code reuse. If there is no ‘is a’ relationship then use composition for code reuse. Overuse of implementation inheritance (uses the “extends” key word) can break all the subclasses, if the superclass is modified. Do not use inheritance just to get polymorphism. If there is no ‘is a’ relationship and all you want is polymorphism then use interface inheritance with composition, which gives you code reuse (Refer Q10 in Java section for interface inheritance). What is the difference between aggregation and composition? Aggregation Composition Aggregation is an association in which one class Composition is an association in which one class belongs to a belongs to a collection. This is a part of a whole collection. This is a part of a whole relationship where a part relationship where a part can exist without a whole. cannot exist without a whole. If a whole is deleted then all parts are For example a line item is a whole and product is a deleted. For example An order is a whole and line items are parts. part. If a line item is deleted then corresponding If an order is deleted then all corresponding line items for that product need not be deleted. So aggregation has a order should be deleted. So composition has a stronger weaker relationship. relationship. Q 10: What do you mean by polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation, and dynamic binding? DC SE FAQ A 10: Polymorphism – means the ability of a single variable of a given type to be used to reference objects of different types, and automatically call the method that is specific to the type of object the variable references. In a nutshell, polymorphism is a bottom-up method call. The benefit of polymorphism is that it is very easy to add new classes of derived objects without breaking the calling code (i.e. getTotArea() in the sample code shown below) that uses the polymorphic classes or interfaces. When you send a message to an object even though you don’t know what specific type it is, and the right thing happens, that’s called polymorphism. The process used by object-oriented programming languages to implement polymorphism is called dynamic binding. Let us look at some sample code to demonstrate polymorphism: CO Sam ple code: //client or calling code <<abstract>> For exam ple: given a base Shape double dim = 5.0; //ie 5 m eters radius or width List listShapes = new ArrayList(20); class/interface Shape, polymorphism allows the +area() : double Shape s = new Circle(); program m er to define listShapes.add(s); //add circle different area(double s = new Square(); dim 1) methods for any Circle listShapes.add(s); //add square number of derived classes Square such as Circle, Square etc. +area() : double getTotArea (listShapes,dim ); //returns 78.5+25.0=103.5 N o m atter what shape an +area() : double //Later on, if you decide to add a half circle then define object is, applying the area //a HalfCircle class, which extends Circle and then provide an m ethod to it will return the H alfC ircle //area(). m ethod but your called m ethod getTotArea(...) rem ains right results. //sam e. +area() : double s = new H alfCircle(); Later on H alfCicle can be listShapes.add(s); //add HalfC ircle added without breaking your called code i.e. getTotArea (listShapes,dim ); //returns 78.5+25.0+39.25=142.75 m ethod getTotalArea(...) «interface» Shape /** called m ethod: m ethod which adds up areas of various +area() : double ** shapes supplied to it. **/ Depending on what the public double getTotArea(List listShapes, double dim ){ shape is, appropriate Iterator it = listShapes.iterator(); area(double dim ) m ethod Circle Square double totalArea = 0.0; gets called and calculated. //loop through different shapes Circle area is 78.5sqm +area() : double +area() : double w hile(it.hasNext()) { Shape s = (Shape) it.next(); Square area is 25sqm totalArea += s.area(dim ); //polym orphic m ethod call HalfC ircle area is 39.25 HalfCircle } sqm return totalArea ; } +area() : double
- 21. 20 Java - Fundamentals Inheritance – is the inclusion of behavior (i.e. methods) and state (i.e. variables) of a base class in a derived class so that they are accessible in that derived class. The key benefit of Inheritance is that it provides the formal mechanism for code reuse. Any shared piece of business logic can be moved from the derived class into the base class as part of refactoring process to improve maintainability of your code by avoiding code duplication. The existing class is called the superclass and the derived class is called the subclass. Inheritance can also be defined as the process whereby one object acquires characteristics from one or more other objects the same way children acquire characteristics from their parents. There are two types of inheritances: 1. Implementation inheritance (aka class inheritance): You can extend an application’s functionality by reusing functionality in the parent class by inheriting all or some of the operations already implemented. In Java, you can only inherit from one superclass. Implementation inheritance promotes reusability but improper use of class inheritance can cause programming nightmares by breaking encapsulation and making future changes a problem. With implementation inheritance, the subclass becomes tightly coupled with the superclass. This will make the design fragile because if you want to change the superclass, you must know all the details of the subclasses to avoid breaking them. So when using implementation inheritance, make sure that the subclasses depend only on the behavior of the superclass, not on the actual implementation. For example in the above diagram, the subclasses should only be concerned about the behavior known as area() but not how it is implemented. 2. Interface inheritance (aka type inheritance): This is also known as subtyping. Interfaces provide a mechanism for specifying a relationship between otherwise unrelated classes, typically by specifying a set of common methods each implementing class must contain. Interface inheritance promotes the design concept of program to interfaces not to implementations. This also reduces the coupling or implementation dependencies between systems. In Java, you can implement any number of interfaces. This is more flexible than implementation inheritance because it won’t lock you into specific implementations which make subclasses difficult to maintain. So care should be taken not to break the implementing classes by modifying the interfaces. Which one to use? Prefer interface inheritance to implementation inheritance because it promotes the design concept of coding to an interface and reduces coupling. Interface inheritance can achieve code reuse with the help of object composition. If you look at Gang of Four (GoF) design patterns, you can see that it favors interface inheritance to implementation inheritance. CO Implementation inheritance Interface inheritance with composition Let’s assume that savings account and term deposit account Let’s look at an interface inheritance code sample, which makes use have a similar behavior in terms of depositing and of composition for reusability. In the following example the methods withdrawing money, so we will get the super class to deposit(…) and withdraw(…) share the same piece of code in implement this behavior and get the subclasses to reuse this AccountHelper class. The method calculateInterest(…) has its specific behavior. But saving account and term deposit account implementation in its own class. have specific behavior in calculating the interest. Super class Account has reusable code as methods public interface Account { deposit (double amount) and withdraw (double amount). public abstract double calculateInterest(double amount); public abstract void deposit(double amount); public abstract class Account { public abstract void withdraw(double amount); public void deposit (double amount) { } System.out.println("depositing " + amount); } Code to interface so that the implementation can change. public void withdraw (double amount) { public interface AccountHelper { System.out.println ("withdrawing " + amount); public abstract void deposit (double amount); } public abstract void withdraw (double amount); } public abstract double calculateInterest(double amount); } class AccountHelperImpl has reusable code as methods deposit (double amount) and withdraw (double amount). public class SavingsAccount extends Account { public class AccountHelperImpl implements AccountHelper { public void deposit(double amount) { public double calculateInterest (double amount) { System.out.println("depositing " + amount); // calculate interest for SavingsAccount } return amount * 0.03; } public void withdraw(double amount) { System.out.println("withdrawing " + amount); public void deposit (double amount) { } super.deposit (amount); // get code reuse // do something else } } public void withdraw (double amount) { public class SavingsAccountImpl implements Account {
- 22. Java - Fundamentals 21 super.withdraw (amount); // get code reuse // composed helper class (i.e. composition). // do something else AccountHelper helper = new AccountHelperImpl (); } } public double calculateInterest (double amount) { // calculate interest for SavingsAccount public class TermDepositAccount extends Account { return amount * 0.03; } public double calculateInterest (double amount) { // calculate interest for SavingsAccount public void deposit (double amount) { return amount * 0.05; helper.deposit( amount); // code reuse via composition } } public void deposit(double amount) { public void withdraw (double amount) { super.deposit (amount); // get code reuse helper.withdraw (amount); // code reuse via composition // do something else } } } public void withdraw(double amount) { public class TermDepositAccountImpl implements Account { super.withdraw (amount); // get code reuse // do something else // composed helper class (i.e. composition). } AccountHelper helper = new AccountHelperImpl (); } public double calculateInterest (double amount) { //calculate interest for SavingsAccount return amount * 0.05; } public void deposit (double amount) { helper.deposit (amount) ; // code reuse via composition } public void withdraw (double amount) { helper.withdraw (amount) ; // code reuse via composition } } The Test class: public class Test { public static void main(String[] args) { Account acc1 = new SavingsAccountImpl(); acc1.deposit(50.0); Account acc2 = new TermDepositAccountImpl(); acc2.deposit(25.0); acc1.withdraw(25); acc2.withdraw(10); double cal1 = acc1.calculateInterest(100.0); double cal2 = acc2.calculateInterest(100.0); System.out.println("Savings --> " + cal1); System.out.println("TermDeposit --> " + cal2); } } The output: depositing 50.0 depositing 25.0 withdrawing 25.0 withdrawing 10.0 Savings --> 3.0 TermDeposit --> 5.0 Q. Why would you prefer code reuse via composition over inheritance? Both the approaches make use of polymorphism and gives code reuse (in different ways) to achieve the same results but: The advantage of class inheritance is that it is done statically at compile-time and is easy to use. The disadvantage of class inheritance is that because it is static, implementation inherited from a parent class cannot be changed at run-
- 23. 22 Java - Fundamentals time. In object composition, functionality is acquired dynamically at run-time by objects collecting references to other objects. The advantage of this approach is that implementations can be replaced at run-time. This is possible because objects are accessed only through their interfaces, so one object can be replaced with another just as long as they have the same type. For example: the composed class AccountHelperImpl can be replaced by another more efficient implementation as shown below if required: public class EfficientAccountHelperImpl implements AccountHelper { public void deposit(double amount) { System.out.println("efficient depositing " + amount); } public void withdraw(double amount) { System.out.println("efficient withdrawing " + amount); } } Another problem with class inheritance is that the subclass becomes dependent on the parent class implementation. This makes it harder to reuse the subclass, especially if part of the inherited implementation is no longer desirable and hence can break encapsulation. Also a change to a superclass can not only ripple down the inheritance hierarchy to subclasses, but can also ripple out to code that uses just the subclasses making the design fragile by tightly coupling the subclasses with the super class. But it is easier to change the interface/implementation of the composed class. Due to the flexibility and power of object composition, most design patterns emphasize object composition over inheritance whenever it is possible. Many times, a design pattern shows a clever way of solving a common problem through the use of object composition rather then a standard, less flexible, inheritance based solution. Encapsulation – refers to keeping all the related members (variables and methods) together in an object. Specifying member variables as private can hide the variables and methods. Objects should hide their inner workings from the outside view. Good encapsulation improves code modularity by preventing objects interacting with each other in an unexpected way, which in turn makes future development and refactoring efforts easy. CO Sample code Class MyMarks { private int vmarks = 0; k) in private String name; ar tg Member t m et (in M ar variables are ks encapsulated, public void setMarks(int mark) ar ks () throws MarkException { tM so that they if(mark > 0) se can only be this.vmarks = mark; accessed via else { private int vmarks; encapsulating throw new MarkException("No negative private String name; methods. Values"); } se tN ) } am e( e m (S tri tNa public int getMarks(){ ng ge na g return vmarks; rin } m e) St //getters and setters for attribute name goes here. } Being able to encapsulate members of a class is important for security and integrity. We can protect variables from unacceptable values. The sample code above describes how encapsulation can be used to protect the MyMarks object from having negative values. Any modification to member variable “vmarks” can only be carried out through the setter method setMarks(int mark). This prevents the object “MyMarks” from having any negative values by throwing an exception. Q 11: What is design by contract? Explain the assertion construct? DC A 11: Design by contract specifies the obligations of a calling-method and called-method to each other. Design by contract is a valuable technique, which should be used to build well-defined interfaces. The strength of this programming methodology is that it gets the programmer to think clearly about what a function does, what pre and post conditions it must adhere to and also it provides documentation for the caller. Java uses the assert statement to implement pre- and post-conditions. Java’s exceptions handling also support design by contract especially checked exceptions (Refer Q39 in Java section for checked exceptions). In design by contract in addition to specifying programming code to carrying out intended operations of a method the programmer also specifies:
- 24. Java - Fundamentals 23 1. Preconditions – This is the part of the contract the calling-method must agree to. Preconditions specify the conditions that must be true before a called method can execute. Preconditions involve the system state and the arguments passed into the method at the time of its invocation. If a precondition fails then there is a bug in the calling-method or calling software component. On public methods On non-public methods Preconditions on public methods are enforced by explicit checks You can use assertion to check the parameters of the that throw particular, specified exceptions. You should not use non-public methods. assertion to check the parameters of the public methods but can use for the non-public methods. Assert is inappropriate private void setCalculatedRate(int rate) { because the method guarantees that it will always enforce the assert (rate > 0 && rate < MAX_RATE) : rate; argument checks. It must check its arguments whether or not //calculate the rate and set it. assertions are enabled. Further, assert construct does not throw } an exception of a specified type. It can throw only an AssertionError. Assertions can be disabled, so programs must not assume that assert construct will be always executed: public void setRate(int rate) { if(rate <= 0 || rate > MAX_RATE){ //Wrong: throw new IllegalArgumentException(“Invalid rate ” + rate); //if assertion is disabled, “pilotJob” never gets removed } assert jobsAd.remove(pilotJob); setCalculatedRate(rate); } //Correct: boolean pilotJobRemoved = jobsAd.remove(pilotJob); assert pilotJobRemoved; 2. Postconditions – This is the part of the contract the called-method agrees to. What must be true after a method completes successfully. Postconditions can be used with assertions in both public and non-public methods. The postconditions involve the old system state, the new system state, the method arguments and the method’s return value. If a postcondition fails then there is a bug in the called-method or called software component. public double calcRate(int rate) { if(rate <= 0 || rate > MAX_RATE){ throw new IllegalArgumentException(“Invalid rate !!! ”); } //logic to calculate the rate and set it goes here assert this.evaluate(result) < 0 : this; //message sent to AssertionError on failure return result; } 3. Class invariants - what must be true about each instance of a class? A class invariant as an internal invariant that can specify the relationships among multiple attributes, and should be true before and after any method completes. If an invariant fails then there could be a bug in either calling-method or called-method. There is no particular mechanism for checking invariants but it is convenient to combine all the expressions required for checking invariants into a single internal method that can be called by assertions. For example if you have a class, which deals with negative integers then you define the isNegative() convenient internal method: class NegativeInteger { Integer value = new Integer (-1); //invariant //constructor public NegativeInteger(Integer int) { //constructor logic goes here assert isNegative(); } // rest of the public and non-public methods goes here. public methods should call // assert isNegative(); prior to its return // convenient internal method for checking invariants. // Returns true if the integer value is negative private boolean isNegative(){ return value.intValue() < 0 ; } }
- 25. 24 Java - Fundamentals The isNegative() method should be true before and after any method completes, each public method and constructor should contain the following assert statement immediately prior to its return. assert isNegative(); Explain the assertion construct? The assertion statements have two forms as shown below: assert Expression1; assert Expression1 : Expression2; Where: Expression1 is a boolean expression. If the Expression1 evaluates to false, it throws an AssertionError without any detailed message. Expression2 if the Expression1 evaluates to false throws an AssertionError with using the value of the Expression2 as the error’s detailed message. Note: If you are using assertions (available from JDK1.4 onwards), you should supply the JVM argument to enable it by package name or class name. java -ea[:packagename...|:classname] or java -enableassertions[:packagename...|:classname] java –ea:Account Q 12: What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface and when should you use them? LF DP DC FAQ A 12: In design, you want the base class to present only an interface for its derived classes. This means, you don’t want anyone to actually instantiate an object of the base class. You only want to upcast to it (implicit upcasting, which gives you polymorphic behavior), so that its interface can be used. This is accomplished by making that class abstract using the abstract keyword. If anyone tries to make an object of an abstract class, the compiler prevents it. The interface keyword takes this concept of an abstract class a step further by preventing any method or function implementation at all. You can only declare a method or function but not provide the implementation. The class, which is implementing the interface, should provide the actual implementation. The interface is a very useful and commonly used aspect in OO design, as it provides the separation of interface and implementation and enables you to: Capture similarities among unrelated classes without artificially forcing a class relationship. Declare methods that one or more classes are expected to implement. Reveal an object's programming interface without revealing its actual implementation. Model multiple interface inheritance in Java, which provides some of the benefits of full on multiple inheritances, a feature that some object-oriented languages support that allow a class to have more than one superclass. Abstract class Interface Have executable methods and abstract methods. Have no implementation code. All methods are abstract. Can only subclass one abstract class. A class can implement any number of interfaces. Diamond problem & use of interface Shape <<Interface>> ShapeIF Circle Square CircleOnSquare Circle Square <<Interface>> <<Interface>> CircleIF SquareIF CircleOnSquare Multiple interface inheritance in JAVA No multiple inheritance in JAVA
- 26. Java - Fundamentals 25 Q. When to use an abstract class?: In case where you want to use implementation inheritance then it is usually provided by an abstract base class. Abstract classes are excellent candidates inside of application frameworks. Abstract classes let you define some default behavior and force subclasses to provide any specific behavior. Care should be taken not to overuse implementation inheritance as discussed in Q10 in Java section. Q. When to use an interface?: For polymorphic interface inheritance, where the client wants to only deal with a type and does not care about the actual implementation use interfaces. If you need to change your design frequently, you should prefer using interface to abstract. CO Coding to an interface reduces coupling and interface inheritance can achieve code reuse with the help of object composition. For example: The Spring framework’s dependency injection promotes code to an interface principle. Another justification for using interfaces is that they solve the ‘diamond problem’ of traditional multiple inheritance as shown in the figure. Java does not support multiple inheritance. Java only supports multiple interface inheritance. Interface will solve all the ambiguities caused by this ‘diamond problem’. Design pattern: Strategy design pattern lets you swap new algorithms and processes into your program without altering the objects that use them. Strategy design pattern: Refer Q11 in How would you go about… section. Q 13: Why there are some interfaces with no defined methods (i.e. marker interfaces) in Java? LF FAQ A 13: The interfaces with no defined methods act like markers. They just tell the compiler that the objects of the classes implementing the interfaces with no defined methods need to be treated differently. Example java.io.Serializable (Refer Q23 in Java section), java.lang.Cloneable, java.util.EventListener etc. Marker interfaces are also known as “tag” interfaces since they tag all the derived classes into a category based on their purpose. Q 14: When is a method said to be overloaded and when is a method said to be overridden? LF CO FAQ A 14: Method Overloading Method Overriding Overloading deals with multiple methods in the same class Overriding deals with two methods, one in the parent class and with the same name but different method signatures. the other one in the child class and has the same name and signatures. class MyClass { public void getInvestAmount(int rate) {…} class BaseClass{ public void getInvestAmount(int rate) {…} public void getInvestAmount(int rate, long principal) } { … } } class MyClass extends BaseClass { public void getInvestAmount(int rate) { …} Both the above methods have the same method names } but different method signatures, which mean the methods are overloaded. Both the above methods have the same method names and the signatures but the method in the subclass MyClass overrides the method in the superclass BaseClass. Overloading lets you define the same operation in Overriding lets you define the same operation in different different ways for different data. ways for different object types. Q 15: What is the main difference between an ArrayList and a Vector? What is the main difference between HashMap and Hashtable? What is the difference between a stack and a queue? LF DC PI CI FAQ A 15: Vector / Hashtable ArrayList / HashMap Original classes before the introduction of Collections So if you don’t need a thread safe collection, use the ArrayList or API. Vector & Hashtable are synchronized. Any HashMap. Why pay the price of synchronization unnecessarily at method that touches their contents is thread-safe. the expense of performance degradation. Q. So which is better? As a general rule, prefer ArrayList/HashMap to Vector/Hashtable. If your application is a multithreaded application and at least one of the threads either adds or deletes an entry into the collection then use new Java collections API‘s external synchronization facility as shown below to temporarily synchronize your collections as needed: CO Map myMap = Collections.synchronizedMap (myMap); // single lock for the entire map List myList = Collections.synchronizedList (myList); // single lock for the entire list
- 27. 26 Java - Fundamentals J2SE 5.0: If you are using J2SE5, you should use the new “java.util.concurrent” package for improved performance because the concurrent package collections are not governed by a single synchronized lock as shown above. The “java.util.concurrent” package collections like ConcurrentHashMap is threadsafe and at the same time safely permits any number of concurrent reads as well as tunable number of concurrent writes. The “java.util.concurrent” package also provides an efficient scalable thread-safe non-blocking FIFO queue like ConcurrentLinkedQueue. J2SE 5.0: The “java.util.concurrent” package also has classes like CopyOnWriteArrayList, CopyOnWrite- ArraySet, which gives you thread safety with the added benefit of immutability to deal with data that changes infrequently. The CopyOnWriteArrayList behaves much like the ArrayList class, except that when the list is modified, instead of modifying the underlying array, a new array is created and the old array is discarded. This means that when a caller gets an iterator (i.e. copyOnWriteArrayListRef.iterator() ), which internally holds a reference to the underlying CopyOnWriteArrayList object’s array, which is immutable and therefore can be used for traversal without requiring either synchronization on the list copyOnWriteArrayListRef or need to clone() the copyOnWriteArrayListRef list before traversal (i.e. there is no risk of concurrent modification) and also offers better performance. Array List / Stack etc Java arrays are even faster than using an ArrayList/Vector ArrayList/Vector are specialized data structures that internally and perhaps therefore may be preferable if you know the uses an array with some convenient methods like add(..), size of your array upfront (because arrays cannot grow remove(…) etc so that they can grow and shrink from their initial as Lists do). size. ArrayList also supports index based searches with indexOf(Object obj) and lastIndexOf(Object obj) methods. In an array, any item can be accessed. These are more abstract than arrays and access is restricted. For example, a stack allows access to only last item inserted. Queue<E> (added in J2SE 5.0) Stack First item to be inserted is the first one to be removed. Allows access to only last item inserted. This mechanism is called First In First Out (FIFO). An item is inserted or removed from one end called the “top” of the stack. This is called Last In First Out (LIFO) mechanism. Placing an item in the queue is called “enqueue or Placing the data at the top is called “pushing” and removing an insertion” and removing an item from a queue is called item from the top is called “popping”. If you want to reverse “dequeue or deletion”. Pre J2SE 5.0, you should write your “XYZ” ZYX, then you can use a java.util.Stack own Queue class with enqueue() and dequeue() methods using an ArrayList or a LinkedList class. J2SE 5.0 has a java.util.Queue<E> interface. Q 16: Explain the Java Collections Framework? LF DP FAQ A 16: The key interfaces used by the collections framework are List, Set and Map. The List and Set extends the Collection interface. Should not confuse the Collection interface with the Collections class which is a utility class. Set (HashSet , TreeSet) List (ArrayList, LinkedList, Vector etc) A Set is a collection with unique elements and prevents A List is a collection with an ordered sequence of elements duplication within the collection. HashSet and TreeSet are and may contain duplicates. ArrayList, LinkedList and implementations of a Set interface. A TreeSet is an Vector are implementations of a List interface. (i.e. an index ordered HashSet, which implements the SortedSet based) interface. The Collections API also supports maps, but within a hierarchy distinct from the Collection interface. A Map is an object that maps keys to values, where the list of keys is itself a collection object. A map can contain duplicate values, but the keys in a map must be distinct. HashMap, TreeMap and Hashtable are implementations of a Map interface. A TreeMap is an ordered HashMap, which implements the SortedMap interface. Q. How to implement collection ordering? SortedSet and SortedMap interfaces maintain sorted order. The classes, which implement the Comparable interface, impose natural order. By implementing Comparable, sorting an array of objects or a collection (List etc) is as simple as: Arrays.sort(myArray); Collections.sort(myCollection); // do not confuse “Collections” utility class with the // “Collection” interface without an “s”.
- 28. Java - Fundamentals 27 For classes that don’t implement Comparable interface, or when one needs even more control over ordering based on multiple attributes, a Comparator interface should be used. Comparable interface Comparator interface The “Comparable” allows itself to compare with another The Comparator is used to compare two different objects. The similar object (i.e. A class that implements Comparable following method is specified in the Comparator interface. becomes an object to be compared with). The method compareTo() is specified in the interface. public int compare(Object o1, Object o2) Many of the standard classes in the Java library like String, You can have more control by writing your Comparator class. Let us Integer, Date, File etc implement the Comparable interface write a Comparator for the Pet class shown on the left. For most cases to give the class a "Natural Ordering". For example String natural ordering is fine as shown on the left but say we require a class uses the following methods: special scenario where we need to first sort by the “petId” and then by the “petType”. We can achieve this by writing a “Comparator” class. public int compareTo(o) public int compareToIgnoreCase(str) ...imports You could also implement your own method in your public class PetComparator implements Comparator, Serializable{ own class as shown below: public int compare(Object o1, Object o2) { int result = 0; ...imports Pet pet = (Pet)o1; public class Pet implements Comparable { Pet petAnother = (Pet)o2; int petId; //use Integer class's natural ordering String petType; Integer pId = new Integer(pet.getPetId()); Integer pAnotherId = new Integer(petAnother.getPetId()); public Pet(int argPetId, String argPetType) { petId = argPetId; result = pId.compareTo(pAnotherId); this.petType = argPetType; } //if ids are same compare by petType if(result == 0) { public int compareTo(Object o) { result= pet.getPetType().compareTo Pet petAnother = (Pet)o; (petAnother.getPetType()); } //natural alphabetical ordering by type //if equal returns 0, if greater returns +ve int, return result; //if less returns -ve int } return this.petType.compareTo(petAnother.petType); } public static void main(String[] args) { List list = new ArrayList(); public static void main(String[] args) { list.add(new Pet(2, "Dog")); List list = new ArrayList(); list.add(new Pet(1, "Parrot")); list.add(new Pet(2, "Dog")); list.add(new Pet(2, "Cat")); list.add(new Pet(1, "Parrot")); list.add(new Pet(2, "Cat")); Collections.sort(list, new PetComparator()); Collections.sort(list); // sorts using compareTo method for (Iterator iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext();){ Pet element = (Pet) iter.next(); for (Iterator iter = list.iterator(); iter.hasNext();) { System.out.println(element); Pet element = (Pet) iter.next(); } System.out.println(element); } } } } public String toString() { Output: Parrot, Cat, Dog. return petType; } Note: some methods are not shown for brevity. } Output: Cat, Dog, Parrot Important: The ordering imposed by a java.util.Comparator “myComp” on a set of elements “mySet” should be consistent with equals() method, which means for example: if compare(o1,o2) == 0 then o1.equals(o2) should be true. if compare(o1,o2) != 0 then o1.equals(o2) should be false. If a comparator “myComp” on a set of elements “mySet” is inconsistent with equals() method, then SortedSet or SortedMap will behave strangely and is hard to debug. For example if you add two objects o1, o2 to a TreeSet
- 29. 28 Java - Fundamentals (implements SortedSet) such that o1.equals(o2) == true and compare(o1,o2) != 0 the second add operation will return false and will not be added to your set because o1 and o2 are equivalent from the TreeSet’s perspective. TIP: It is always a good practice and highly recommended to keep the Java API documentation handy and refer to it as required while coding. Please refer to java.util.Comparator interface API for further details. Design pattern: Q. What is an Iterator? An Iterator is a use once object to access the objects stored in a collection. Iterator design pattern (aka Cursor) is used, which is a behavioral design pattern that provides a way to access elements of a collection sequentially without exposing its internal representation. Q. Why do you get a ConcurrentModificationException when using an iterator? CO Problem: The java.util Collection classes are fail-fast, which means that if one thread changes a collection while another thread is traversing it through with an iterator the iterator.hasNext() or iterator.next() call will throw ConcurrentModificationException. Even the synchronized collection wrapper classes SynchronizedMap and SynchronizedList are only conditionally thread-safe, which means all individual operations are thread-safe but compound operations where flow of control depends on the results of previous operations may be subject to threading issues. Collection<String> myCollection = new ArrayList<String>(10); myCollection.add("123"); myCollection.add("456"); myCollection.add("789"); for (Iterator it = myCollection.iterator(); it.hasNext();) { String myObject = (String)it.next(); System.out.println(myObject); if (someConditionIsTrue) { myCollection.remove(myObject); //can throw ConcurrentModificationException in single as //well as multi-thread access situations. } } Solutions 1-3: for multi-thread access situation: Solution 1: You can convert your list to an array with list.toArray() and iterate on the array. This approach is not recommended if the list is large. Solution 2: You can lock the entire list while iterating by wrapping your code within a synchronized block. This approach adversely affects scalability of your application if it is highly concurrent. Solution 3: If you are using JDK 1.5 then you can use the ConcurrentHashMap and CopyOnWriteArrayList classes, which provide much better scalability and the iterator returned by ConcurrentHashMap.iterator() will not throw ConcurrentModificationException while preserving thread-safety. Solution 4: for single-thread access situation: Use: it.remove(); // removes the current object via the Iterator “it” which has a reference to // your underlying collection “myCollection”. Also can use solutions 1-3. Avoid: myCollection.remove(myObject); // avoid by-passing the Iterator. When it.next() is called, can throw the exception // ConcurrentModificationException Note: If you had used any Object to Relational (OR) mapping frameworks like Hibernate, you may have encountered this exception “ConcurrentModificationException” when you tried to remove an object from a collection such as a java.util Set with the intention of deleting that object from the underlying database. This exception is not caused by Hibernate but rather caused by your java.util.Iterator (i.e. due to your it.next() call). You can use one of the solutions given above. Q. What is a list iterator? The java.util.ListIterator is an iterator for lists that allows the programmer to traverse the list in either direction (i.e. forward and or backward) and modify the list during iteration.
- 30. Java - Fundamentals 29 JAVA collection framework <interface> Collection AbstractCollection java.util.Collections extends <interface> asList Arrays List <interface> <interface> Map AbstractList Set AbstractMap AbstractSet Abstract <interface> Sequential <interface> SortedMap List SortedSet <interface> Identity Random HashMap Access TreeSet TreeMap LinkedList Weak HashMap implements ArrayList HashSet HashMap Vector <interface> Linked Stack Linked Comparator HashMap HashSet (Diagram sourced from: http://www.wilsonmar.com/1arrays.htm) What are the benefits of the Java Collections Framework? Collections framework provides flexibility, performance, and robustness. Polymorphic algorithms – sorting, shuffling, reversing, binary search etc. Set algebra - such as finding subsets, intersections, and unions between objects. Performance - collections have much better performance compared to the older Vector and Hashtable classes with the elimination of synchronization overheads. Thread-safety - when synchronization is required, wrapper implementations are provided for temporarily synchronizing existing collection objects. For J2SE 5.0 use java.util.concurrent package. Immutability - when immutability is required wrapper implementations are provided for making a collection immutable. Extensibility - interfaces and abstract classes provide an excellent starting point for adding functionality and features to create specialized object collections. Q. What are static factory methods? CO Some of the above mentioned features like searching, sorting, shuffling, immutability etc are achieved with java.util.Collections class and java.util.Arrays utility classes. The great majority of these implementations are provided via static factory methods in a single, non-instantiable (i.e. private constrctor) class. Speaking of static factory methods, they are an alternative to creating objects through constructors. Unlike constructors, static factory methods are not required to create a new object (i.e. a duplicate object) each time they are invoked (e.g. immutable instances can be cached) and also they have a more meaningful names like valueOf, instanceOf, asList etc. For example: Instead of: String[] myArray = {"Java", "J2EE", "XML", "JNDI"}; for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) { System.out.println(myArray[i]); } You can use: String[] myArray = {"Java", "J2EE", "XML", "JNDI"}; System.out.println(Arrays.asList(myArray)); //factory method Arrays.asList(…) For example: The following static factory method (an alternative to a constructor) example converts a boolean primitive value to a Boolean wrapper object. public static Boolean valueOf(boolean b) { return (b ? Boolean.TRUE : Boolean.FALSE) }
- 31. 30 Java - Fundamentals Q 17: What are some of the best practices relating to Java collection? BP PI CI A 17: Use ArrayList, HashMap etc as opposed to Vector, Hashtable etc, where possible to avoid any synchronization overhead. Even better is to use just arrays where possible. If multiple threads concurrently access a collection and at least one of the threads either adds or deletes an entry into the collection, then the collection must be externally synchronized. This is achieved by: Map myMap = Collections.synchronizedMap (myMap); //conditional thread-safety List myList = Collections.synchronizedList (myList); //conditional thread-safety // use java.util.concurrent package for J2SE 5.0 Refer Q16 in Java section under ConcurrentModificationException Set the initial capacity of a collection appropriately (e.g. ArrayList, HashMap etc). This is because Collection classes like ArrayList, HashMap etc must grow periodically to accommodate new elements. But if you have a very large array, and you know the size in advance then you can speed things up by setting the initial size appropriately. For example: HashMaps/Hashtables need to be created with sufficiently large capacity to minimize rehashing (which happens every time the table grows). HashMap has two parameters initial capacity and load factor that affect its performance and space requirements. Higher load factor values (default load factor of 0.75 provides a good trade off between performance and space) will reduce the space cost but will increase the lookup cost of myMap.get(…) and myMap.put(…) methods. When the number of entries in the HashMap exceeds the current capacity * loadfactor then the capacity of the HasMap is roughly doubled by calling the rehash function. It is also very important not to set the initial capacity too high or load factor too low if iteration performance or reduction in space is important. Program in terms of interface not implementation: CO For example you might decide a LinkedList is the best choice for some application, but then later decide ArrayList might be a better choice for performance reason. CO Use: List list = new ArrayList(100); // program in terms of interface & set the initial capacity. Instead of: ArrayList list = new ArrayList(); Return zero length collections or arrays as opposed to returning null: CO Returning null instead of zero length collection (use Collections.EMPTY_SET, Collections.EMPTY_LIST, Collections.EMPTY_MAP) is more error prone, since the programmer writing the calling method might forget to handle a return value of null. Immutable objects should be used as keys for the HashMap: CO Generally you use a java.lang.Integer or a java.lang.String class as the key, which are immutable Java objects. If you define your own key class then it is a best practice to make the key class an immutable object (i.e. do not provide any setXXX() methods etc). If a programmer wants to insert a new key then he/she will always have to instantiate a new object (i.e. cannot mutate the existing key because immutable key object class has no setter methods). Refer Q20 in Java section under “Q. Why is it a best practice to implement the user defined key class as an immutable object?” Encapsulate collections: CO In general collections are not immutable objects. So care should be taken not to unintentionally expose the collection fields to the caller. Avoid where possible Better approach The following code snippet exposes the Set “setCars” This approach prevents the caller from directly using directly to the caller. This approach is riskier because the underlying variable “cars”. the variable “cars” can be modified unintentionally. public class CarYard{ public class CarYard{ //... private Set<Car> cars = new HashSet<Car>(); private Set<Car> cars = new HashSet<Car>(); //... public void addCar(Car car) { //exposes the cars to the caller cars.add(car); public Set<Car> getCars() { } return cars; } public void removeCar(Car car) { cars.remove(car); //exposes the cars to the caller } public void setCars(Set<Car> cars) {
- 32. Java - Fundamentals 31 this.cars = cars; public Set<Car> getCars() { } //use factory method from the Collections return Collections.unmodifiableSet (cars); //... } } } Avoid storing unrelated or different types of objects into same collection: CO This is analogous to storing items in pigeonholes without any labeling. To store items use value objects or data objects (as opposed to storing every attribute in an ArrayList or HashMap). Provide wrapper classes around your collections API classes like ArrayList, HashMap etc as shown in better approach column. Also where applicable consider using composite design pattern, where an object may represent a single object or a collection of objects. Refer Q61 in Java section for UML diagram of a composite design pattern. If you are using J2SE 5.0 then make use of “generics”. Refer Q55 in Java section for generics. Avoid where possible Better approach The code below is hard to maintain and understand by When storing items into a collection define value objects as shown others. Also gets more complicated as the requirements below: (VO is an acronym for Value Object). grow in the future because we are throwing different types of objects like Integer, String etc into a list just public class LineItemVO { based on the indices and it is easy to make mistakes private int itemId; while casting the objects back during retrieval. private String productName; List myOrder = new ArrayList() public int getLineItemId(){return accountId ;} public int getAccountName(){return accountName;} ResultSet rs = … public void setLineItemId(int accountId ){ While (rs.hasNext()) { this.accountId = accountId } List lineItem = new ArrayList(); //implement other getter & setter methods } lineItem.add (new Integer(rs.getInt(“itemId”))); lineItem.add (rs.getString(“description”)); Now let’s define our base wrapper class, which represents an order: …. myOrder.add( lineItem); public abstract class Order { } int orderId; List lineItems = null; return myOrder; public abstract int countLineItems(); Example 2: public abstract boolean add(LineItemVO itemToAdd); public abstract boolean remove(LineItemVO itemToAdd); List myOrder = new ArrayList(10); public abstract Iterator getIterator(); public int getOrderId(){return this.orderId; } //create an order } OrderVO header = new OrderVO(); header.setOrderId(1001); Now a specific implementation of our wrapper class: … //add all the line items public class OverseasOrder extends Order { LineItemVO line1 = new LineItemVO(); public OverseasOrder(int inOrderId) { line1.setLineItemId(1); this.lineItems = new ArrayList(10); LineItemVO line2 = new LineItemVO(); this.orderId = inOrderId; Line2.setLineItemId(2); } List lineItems = new ArrayList(); public int countLineItems() { //logic to count } lineItems.add(line1); lineItems.add(line2); public boolean add(LineItemVO itemToAdd){ …//additional logic or checks //to store objects return lineItems.add(itemToAdd); myOrder.add(order);// index 0 is an OrderVO object } myOrder.add(lineItems);//index 1 is a List of line items public boolean remove(LineItemVO itemToAdd){ //to retrieve objects return lineItems.remove(itemToAdd); myOrder.get(0); } myOrder.get(1); public ListIterator getIterator(){ return lineItems.Iterator();} Above approaches are bad because disparate objects } are stored in the lineItem collection in example-1 and example-2 relies on indices to store disparate objects. Now to use: The indices based approach and storing disparate objects are hard to maintain and understand because Order myOrder = new OverseasOrder(1234) ; indices are hard coded and get scattered across the
- 33. 32 Java - Fundamentals code. If an index position changes for some reason, then LineItemVO item1 = new LineItemVO(); you will have to change every occurrence, otherwise it Item1.setItemId(1); breaks your application. Item1.setProductName(“BBQ”); The above coding approaches are analogous to storing LineItemVO item2 = new LineItemVO(); disparate items in a storage system without proper Item1.setItemId(2); labeling and just relying on its grid position. Item1.setProductName(“Outdoor chair”); //to add line items to order myOrder.add(item1); myOrder.add(item2); … Q. How can you code better without nested loops? CO Avoid nested loops where possible (e.g. for loop within another for loop etc) and instead make use of an appropriate java collection. How to avoid nested loops with Java collection classes Code to test if there are duplicate values in an array. Avoid where possible -- nested loops Better approach -- using a collections class like a Set public class NonNestedLoop { public class NestedLoops { private static String[] strArray = {"Cat", "Dog", "Tiger", "Lion", "Lion"}; private static String[] strArray = {"Cat", "Dog", "Tiger", "Lion", "Lion"}; public static boolean isThereDuplicateUsingCollection() { public static boolean isThereDuplicateUsingLoop() { boolean duplicateFound = false; boolean duplicateFound = false; int loopCounter = 0; int loopCounter = 0; for (int i = 0; i < strArray.length; i++) { Set setValues = new HashSet(10); // create a set String str = strArray[i]; int countDuplicate = 0; for (int i = 0; i < strArray.length; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < strArray.length; j++) { String str = strArray[i]; String str2 = strArray[j]; if(setValues.contains(str)) { // check if already has this value if(str.equalsIgnoreCase(str2)) { duplicateFound = true; countDuplicate++; System.out.println("duplicate found for " + str); } } setValues.add(str); // add the value to the set if(countDuplicate > 1) { duplicateFound = true; loopCounter++; System.out.println("duplicate found for " + str); } if(duplicateFound) { loopCounter++; break; }//end of inner nested for loop } } // end of for loop if(duplicateFound) { break; System.out.println("looped " + loopCounter + " times"); } return duplicateFound; }//end of outer for loop } System.out.println("looped " + loopCounter + " times"); public static void main(String[] args) { return duplicateFound; isThereDuplicateUsingCollection(); } } } public static void main(String[] args) { --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- isThereDuplicateUsingLoop(); output: } duplicate found for Lion } looped 5 times ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ output: The approach using a Set is more readable and easier to duplicate found for Lion maintain and performs slightly better. If you have an array with looped 20 times 100 items then nested loops will loop through 9900 times and utilizing a collection class will loop through only 100 times.
- 34. Java - Fundamentals 33 Q 18: What is the difference between “==” and equals(…) method? What is the difference between shallow comparison and deep comparison of objects? LF CO FAQ A 18: The questions Q18, Q19, and Q20 are vital for effective coding. These three questions are vital when you are using a collection of objects for Example: using a java.util.Set of persistable Hibernate objects etc. It is easy to implement these methods incorrectly and consequently your program can behave strangely and also is hard to debug. So, you can expect these questions in your interviews. == [ shallow comparison ] equals( ) [deep comparison ] The == returns true, if the variable reference points to The equals() - returns the results of running the equals() method of a the same object in memory. This is a “shallow user supplied class, which compares the attribute values. The equals() comparison”. method provides “deep comparison” by checking if two objects are logically equal as opposed to the shallow comparison provided by the operator ==. If equals() method does not exist in a user supplied class then the inherited Object class's equals() method is run which evaluates if the references point to the same object in memory. The object.equals() works just like the "==" operator (i.e shallow comparison). Overriding the Object class may seem simple but there are many ways to get it wrong, and consequence can be unpredictable behavior. Refer Q19 in Java section. == (identity) equals() method If (a== b) returns false If (a.equals(b)) returns true id=1 name (both objects have same attribute values of id=1 =”Cat and name=”Cat”) ” Pet a = new Pet(); id=1 Pet Object name =”Cat id=1 Pet a = new Pet(); ” name Pet Object =”Cat Pet b = new Pet(); ” id=1 name Pet Object Pet b = new Pet(); =”Cat ” If (a== b) returns true (a,b points to the Pet Object same object, after a is set to b with a=b) id=1 If (a.equals(b)) returns true name id=1 =”Cat a=b ” a=b name =”Cat Pet Object ” Pet Object a id=1 a name id=1 =”Cat name b ” b =”Cat ” Pet Object Pet Object Note: String assignment with the “new” operator follow the same rule as == and equals( ) as mentioned above. String str = new String(“ABC”); //Wrong. Avoid this because a new String instance //is created each time it is executed. Variation to the above rule: The “literal” String assignment is shown below, where if the assignment value is identical to another String assignment value created then a new String object is not created. A reference to the existing String object is returned. String str = “ABC”; //Right because uses a single instance rather than //creating a new instance each time it is executed. Let us look at an example:
- 35. 34 Java - Fundamentals public class StringBasics { public static void main(String[] args) { String s1 = new String("A"); //not recommended, use String s1 = "A" String s2 = new String("A"); //not recommended, use String s2 = "A" //standard: follows the == and equals() rule like plain java objects. if (s1 == s2) { //shallow comparison System.out.println("references/identities are equal"); //never reaches here } if (s1.equals(s2)) { //deep comparison System.out.println("values are equal"); // this line is printed } //variation: does not follow the == and equals rule String s3 = "A"; //goes into a String pool. String s4 = "A"; //refers to String already in the pool. if (s3 == s4) { //shallow comparison System.out.println("references/identities are equal"); //this line is printed } if (s3.equals(s4)) { //deep comparison System.out.println("values are equal"); //this line is also printed } } } Design pattern: String class is designed with Flyweight design pattern. When you create a String constant as shown above in the variation, (i.e. String s3 = “A”, s4= “A”), it will be checked to see if it is already in the String pool. If it is in the pool, it will be picked up from the pool instead of creating a new one. Flyweights are shared objects and using them can result in substantial performance gains. Q. What is an intern() method in the String class? A pool of Strings is maintained by the String class. When the intern() method is invoked equals(…) method is invoked to determine if the String already exist in the pool. If it does then the String from the pool is returned. Otherwise, this String object is added to the pool and a reference to this object is returned. For any two Strings s1 & s2, s1.intern() == s2.intern() only if s1.equals(s2) is true. Q 19: What are the non-final methods in Java Object class, which are meant primarily for extension? LF CO A 19: The non-final methods are equals(), hashCode(), toString(), clone(), and finalize(). The other methods like wait(), notify(), notifyAll(), getClass() etc are final methods and therefore cannot be overridden. Let us look at these non-final methods, which are meant primarily for extension (i.e. inheritance). Important: The equals() and hashCode() methods prove to be very important, when objects implementing these two methods are added to collections. If implemented incorrectly or not implemented at all then your objects stored in a collection like a Set, List or Map may behave strangely and also is hard to debug. Method Explanation name equals() This method checks if some other object passed to it as an argument is equal the object in which this method is invoked. It is easy to implement the equals() method incorrectly, if you do not understand the contract. The contract can be stated in terms of 6 simple principles as follows: method with 1. o1.equals(o1) which means an Object (e.g. o1) should be equal to itself. (aka Reflexive). public access 2. o1.equals(o2) if and only o2.equals(o1) So it will be incorrect to have your own class say “MyPet” to have a modifier equals() method that has a comparison with an Object of class “java.lang.String” class or with any other built-in Java class. (aka Symmetric) . 3. o1.equals(o2) && o2.equals(o3) implies that o1.equals(o3) as well It means that if the first object o1 equals to the second object o2 and the second object o2 is equal to the third object o3 then the first object o1 is equal to the third object o3. For example, imagine that X, Y and Z are 3 different classes. The classes X and Y both implement the equals() method in such a way that it provides comparison for objects of class X and class Y. Now if you decide to modify the equals() method of class Y so that it also provides equality comparison with class Z, then you will be violating this principle because no proper equals comparison exist for class X and class Z objects. So, if two objects agree that they are equal and follow the above mentioned symmetric principle, then
- 36. Java - Fundamentals 35 one of them cannot decide to have a similar contract with another object of different class. (aka Transitive) 4. o1.equals(o2) returns the same as long as o1 and o2 are unmodified if two objects are equal, they must remain equal as long as they are not modified. Similarly, if they are not equal, they must remain non-equal as long as they are not modified. (aka Consistent) 5. !o1.equals(null) which means that any instantiable object is not equal to null. So if you pass a null as an argument to your object o1, then it should return false. (aka null comparison) 6. o1.equals(o2) implies o1.hashCode() == o2.hashCode() This is very important. If you define a equals() method then you must define a hashCode() method as well. Also it means that if you have two objects that are equal then they must have the same hashCode, however the reverse is not true (i.e. if two objects have the same hashCode does not mean that they are equal). So, If a field is not used in equals(), then it must not be used in hashCode() method. (equals() and hashCode() relationship) public class Pet { int id; String name; public boolean equals(Object obj){ if(this == obj) return true; // if both are referring to the same object if ((obj == null) || (obj.getClass() != this.getClass())) { return false; } Pet rhs = (Pet) obj; return id == rhs.id && (name == rhs.name || (name != null && name.equals(rhs.name)) ); } //hashCode() method must be implemented here. … } hashCode() This method returns a hashCode() value as an Integer and is supported for the benefit of hashing based java.util.Collection classes like Hashtable, HashMap, HashSet etc. If a class overrides the equals() method, it must implement the hashCode() method as well. The general contract of the hashCode() method is that: method with 1. Whenever hashCode() method is invoked on the same object more than once during an execution of a Java public program, this method must consistently return the same integer result. The integer result need not remain access consistent from one execution of the program to the next execution of the same program. modifier 2. If two objects are equal as per the equals() method, then calling the hashCode() method in each of the two objects must return the same integer result. So, If a field is not used in equals(), then it must not be used in hashCode() method. 3. If two objects are unequal as per the equals() method, each of the two objects can return either two different integer results or same integer results (i.e. if 2 objects have the same hashCode() result does not mean that they are equal, but if two objects are equal then they must return the same hashCode() result). public class Pet { int id; String name; public boolean equals(Object obj){ //as shown above. } //both fields id & name are used in equals(), so both fields must be used in //hashCode() as well. public int hashCode() { int hash = 9; hash = (31 * hash) + id; hash = (31 * hash) + (null == name ? 0 : name.hashCode()); return hash; } } toString() The toString() method provided by the java.lang.Object returns a string, which consists of the class name
- 37. 36 Java - Fundamentals followed by an “@” sign and then unsigned hexadecimal representation of the hashcode, for example Pet@162b91. This hexadecimal representation is not what the users of your class want to see. method with public Providing your toString() method makes your class much more pleasant to use and it is recommended access that all subclasses override this method. The toString() method is invoked automatically when your object modifier is passed to println(), assert() or the string concatenation operator (+). public class Pet { int id; String name; public boolean equals(Object obj){ //as shown above. } public int hashCode() { //as shown before } public String toString() { StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(); sb.append(“id=”).append(id); sb.append(“,name=”).append(name); return sb.toString(); } } clone() You should override the clone() method very judiciously. Implementing a properly functioning clone method is complex and it is rarely necessary. You are better off providing some alternative means of object copying (refer Q26 in Java section) or simply not providing the capability. A better approach is to provide a copy constructor or a static factory method in place of a constructor. method with protected //constructor access public Pet(Pet petToCopy){ modifier … } //static factory method public static Pet newInstance(Pet petToCopy){ … } The clone() method can be disabled as follows: public final Object clone() throws CloneNotSupportedException { throw new CloneNotSupportedException(); } finalize() Unlike C++ destructors, the finalize() method in Java is unpredictable, often dangerous and generally unnecessary. Use try{} finally{} blocks as discussed in Q32 in Java section & Q45 in Enterprise section. The finalize() method should method only be used in rare instances as a safety net or to terminate non-critical native resources. If you do happen to call the finalize() method in some rare instances then remember to call the super.finalize() as shown below: with protected protected void finalize() throws Throwable { access try{ modifier //finalize subclass state } finally { super.finalize(); } } Q 20: When providing a user defined key class for storing objects in the HashMaps or Hashtables, what methods do you have to provide or override (i.e. method overriding)? LF PI CO FAQ A 20: You should override the equals() and hashCode() methods from the Object class. The default implementation of the equals() and hashcode(), which are inherited from the java.lang.Object uses an object instance’s memory location (e.g. MyObject@6c60f2ea). This can cause problems when two instances of the car objects have the same color but the inherited equals() will return false because it uses the memory location, which is different for
- 38. Java - Fundamentals 37 the two instances. Also the toString() method can be overridden to provide a proper string representation of your object. hashCode() & equals() methods myMap (HashMap) Map myMap = new HashMap(); Because often two or more 345678965 76854676 keys can hash storing value: Key index array …. (hash value for (hash value for to the same myMap.put(“John”, “Sydney”); “John”) “Sam”) hash value the 1. c tore n all 2. s itio HashMap e pos maintains a d th linked list of oun 4. f List of keys keys that were d hasCode() “John” etc mapped to the fin “Sam” etc l to ition use list of keys which hash to the same hash al s n, and C 3. e po ositio esent value. retrieving value: this p r same hash value 345678065. th eys at ey is p st of k see if the k ugh li od to p thro List of values myMap.get(“John”); 5. Loo quals() meth “Melbourne” the e “Sydney” etc use List of values for the etc s corresponding list of keys equals() If the key is not found (i.e. equals() method returns false for all items in the list), then it assumes that the key is not present in the HashMap “myMap”. Note: It is simplified for clarity. myMap.containsKey(“John”) also calls hashCode() & equals() methods. If two keys are equal then they must have the same hashCode() value, But if two keys have the same hashCode() value does not mean that they are equal. Q. What are the primary considerations when implementing a user defined key? • If a class overrides equals(), it must override hashCode(). • If 2 objects are equal, then their hashCode values must be equal as well. • If a field is not used in equals(), then it must not be used in hashCode(). • If it is accessed often, hashCode() is a candidate for caching to enhance performance. • It is a best practice to implement the user defined key class as an immutable (refer Q21) object. Q. Why it is a best practice to implement the user defined key class as an immutable object? Problem: As per the code snippet shown below if you use a mutable user defined class “UserKey” as a HashMap key and subsequently if you mutate (i.e. modify via setter method e.g. key.setName(“Sam”)) the key after the object has been added to the HashMap then you will not be able to access the object later on. The original key object will still be in the HashMap (i.e. you can iterate through your HashMap and print it – both prints as “Sam” as opposed to “John” & Sam) but you cannot access it with map.get(key) or querying it with map.containsKey(key) will return false because the key “John” becomes “Sam” in the “List of keys” at the key index “345678965” if you mutate the key after adding. These types of errors are very hard to trace and fix. Map myMap = new HashMap(10); //add the key “John” UserKey key = new UserKey(“John”); //Assume UserKey class is mutable myMap.put(key, “Sydney”); //now to add the key “Sam” key.setName(“Sam”); // same key object is mutated instead of creating a new instance. // This line modifies the key value “John” to “Sam” in the “List of keys” // as shown in the diagram above. This means that the key “John” cannot be // accessed. There will be two keys with “Sam” in positions with hash // values 345678965 and 76854676. myMap.put(key, “Melbourne”); myMap.get(new UserKey(“John”)); // key cannot be accessed. The key hashes to the same position // 345678965 in the “Key index array” but cannot be found in the “List of keys” Solution: Generally you use a java.lang.Integer or a java.lang.String class as the key, which are immutable Java objects. If you define your own key class then it is a best practice to make the key class an immutable object (i.e. do not provide any setXXX() methods in your key class. e.g. no setName(…) method in the UserKey class). If a programmer wants to insert a new key then he/she will always have to instantiate a new object (i.e. cannot mutate the existing key because immutable key object class has no setter methods).
- 39. 38 Java - Fundamentals Map myMap = new HashMap(10); //add the key “John” UserKey key1 = new UserKey(“John”); //Assume UserKey is immutable myMap.put(key1, “Sydney”); //add the key “Sam” UserKey key2 = new UserKey(“Sam”); //Since UserKey is immutable, new instance is created. myMap.put(key2, “Melbourne”); myMap.get(new UserKey(“John”)); //Now the key can be accessed Similar issues are possible with the Set (e.g. HashSet) as well. If you add an object to a “Set” and subsequently modify the added object and later on try to query the original object it may not be present. mySet.contains(originalObject) may return false. J2SE 5.0 introduces enumerated constants, which improves readability and maintainability of your code. Java programming language enums are more powerful than their counterparts in other languages. Example: As shown below a class like “Weather” can be built on top of simple enum type “Season” and the class “Weather” can be made immutable, and only one instance of each “Weather” can be created, so that your Weather class does not have to override equals() and hashCode() methods. public class Weather { public enum Season {WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL} private final Season season; private static final List<Weather> listWeather = new ArrayList<Weather> (); private Weather (Season season) { this.season = season;} public Season getSeason () { return season;} static { for (Season season : Season.values()) { //using J2SE 5.0 for each loop listWeather.add(new Weather(season)); } } } public static ArrayList<Weather> getWeatherList () { return listWeather; } public String toString(){ return season;} //takes advantage of toString() method of Season. } Q 21: What is the main difference between a String and a StringBuffer class? LF PI CI CO FAQ A 21: String StringBuffer / StringBuilder (added in J2SE 5.0) String is immutable: you can’t modify a string StringBuffer is mutable: use StringBuffer or StringBuilder when you want object but can replace it by creating a new to modify the contents. StringBuilder was added in Java 5 and it is instance. Creating a new instance is rather identical in all respects to StringBuffer except that it is not synchronized, expensive. which makes it slightly faster at the cost of not being thread-safe. //Inefficient version using immutable String //More efficient version using mutable StringBuffer String output = “Some text” StringBuffer output = new StringBuffer(110);// set an initial size of 110 Int count = 100; output.append(“Some text”); for(int i =0; i<count; i++) { for(int i =0; i<count; i++) { output += i; output.append(i); } } return output; return output.toString(); The above code would build 99 new String The above code creates only two new objects, the StringBuffer and the objects, of which 98 would be thrown away final String that is returned. StringBuffer expands as needed, which is immediately. Creating new objects is not costly however, so it would be better to initialize the StringBuffer with the efficient. correct size from the start as shown. Another important point is that creation of extra strings is not limited to overloaded mathematical operator “+” but there are several methods like concat(), trim(), substring(), and replace() in String classes that generate new string instances. So use StringBuffer or StringBuilder for computation intensive operations, which offer better performance. Q. What is an immutable object? Immutable objects whose state (i.e. the object’s data) does not change once it is instantiated (i.e. it becomes a read-only object after instantiation). Immutable classes are ideal for representing
- 40. Java - Fundamentals 39 numbers (e.g. java.lang.Integer, java.lang.Float, java.lang.BigDecimal etc are immutable objects), enumerated types, colors (e.g. java.awt.Color is an immutable object), short lived objects like events, messages etc. Q. What are the benefits of immutable objects? • Immutable classes can greatly simplify programming by freely allowing you to cache and share the references to the immutable objects without having to defensively copy them or without having to worry about their values becoming stale or corrupted. • Immutable classes are inherently thread-safe and you do not have to synchronize access to them to be used in a multi-threaded environment. So there is no chance of negative performance consequences. • Eliminates the possibility of data becoming inaccessible when used as keys in HashMaps or as elements in Sets. These types of errors are hard to debug and fix. Refer Q20 in Java section under “Q. Why it is a best practice to implement the user defined key class as an immutable object? “ Q. How will you write an immutable class? CO Writing an immutable class is generally easy but there can be some tricky situations. Follow the following guidelines: 1. A class is declared final (i.e. final classes cannot be extended). public final class MyImmutable { … } 2. All its fields are final (final fields cannot be mutated once assigned). private final int[] myArray; //do not declare as private final int[] myArray = null; 3. Do not provide any methods that can change the state of the immutable object in any way – not just setXXX methods, but any methods which can change the state. 4. The “this” reference is not allowed to escape during construction from the immutable class and the immutable class should have exclusive access to fields that contain references to mutable objects like arrays, collections and mutable classes like Date etc by: • Declaring the mutable references as private. • Not returning or exposing the mutable references to the caller (this can be done by defensive copying) Wrong way to write an immutable class Right way to write an immutable class Wrong way to write a constructor: Right way is to copy the array before assigning in the constructor. public final class MyImmutable { public final class MyImmutable { private final int[] myArray; private final int[] myArray; public MyImmutable(int[] anArray) { public MyImmutable(int[] anArray) { this.myArray = anArray; // wrong this.myArray = anArray.clone(); // defensive copy } } public String toString() { public String toString() { StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Numbers are: "); StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("Numbers are: "); for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) { for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) { sb.append(myArray[i] + " "); sb.append(myArray[i] + " "); } } return sb.toString(); return sb.toString(); } } } } // the caller could change the array after calling the // the caller cannot change the array after calling the constructor. constructor. int[] array = {1,2}; int[] array = {1,2}; MyImmutable myImmutableRef = new MyImmutable(array) ; MyImmutable myImmutableRef = new MyImmutable(array) ; System.out.println("Before constructing " + myImmutableRef); System.out.println("Before constructing " + myImmutableRef); array[1] = 5; // change (i.e. mutate) the element array[1] = 5; // change (i.e. mutate) the element System.out.println("After constructing " + myImmutableRef); System.out.println("After constructing " + myImmutableRef); Out put: Out put: Before constructing Numbers are: 1 2 Before constructing Numbers are: 1 2
- 41. 40 Java - Fundamentals After constructing Numbers are: 1 5 After constructing Numbers are: 1 2 As you can see in the output that the “MyImmutable” object As you can see in the output that the “MyImmutable” object has not has been mutated. This is because the object reference gets been mutated. copied as discussed in Q22 in Java section. Wrong way to write an accessor. A caller could get the array Right way to write an accessor by cloning. reference and then change the contents: public int[] getAray() { public int[] getArray() { return (int[]) myArray.clone(); return myArray; } } Important: Beware of using the clone() method on a collection like a Map, List, Set etc because they are not only difficult to implement correctly refer Q19 in Java section but also the default behavior of an object’s clone() method automatically yields a shallow copy. You have to deep copy the mutable objects referenced by your immutable class. Refer Q26 in Java section for deep vs. shallow cloning and Q22 in Java section for why you will be modifying the original object if you do not deep copy. Q. How would you defensively copy a Date field in your immutable class? public final class MyDiary { private Date myDate = null; public MyDiary(Date aDate){ this.myDate = new Date(aDate.getTime()); // defensive copying by not exposing the “myDate” reference } public Date getDate() { return new Date(myDate.getTime); // defensive copying by not exposing the “myDate” reference } } Q 22: What is the main difference between pass-by-reference and pass-by-value? LF PI FAQ A 22: Other languages use pass-by-reference or pass-by-pointer. But in Java no matter what type of argument you pass the corresponding parameter (primitive variable or object reference) will get a copy of that data, which is exactly how pass-by-value (i.e. copy-by-value) works. In Java, if a calling method passes a reference of an object as an argument to the called method then the passed- in reference gets copied first and then passed to the called method. Both the original reference that was passed-in and the copied reference will be pointing to the same object. So no matter which reference you use, you will be always modifying the same original object, which is how the pass-by-reference works as well. Pass-by-value for primitive variables vs Object references Primitive variables Object references i = 10 public void first(){ stores i public void first(){ ref c int i= 10; Car c = new Car("red") re f int x = second(i); //At this point copy of c //At this point Copy of i //color is Red Car object //value of i is still 10 k = 10 second(c); String color = red //value of x is 11 i //At this point ies } cop //color is Blue public int second(int k) { } ref d k++; acts on k k = 11 public void second(Car d) Changes return k ; { color = blue } d.setColor(blue); modifies the original modifies the copy k but not the original. //color is blue object through copied } reference If your method call involves inter-process (e.g. between two JVMs) communication, then the reference of the calling method has a different address space to the called method sitting in a separate process (i.e. separate
- 42. Java - Fundamentals 41 JVM). Hence inter-process communication involves calling method passing objects as arguments to called method by-value in a serialized form, which can adversely affect performance due to marshaling and unmarshaling cost. Note: As discussed in Q69 in Enterprise section, EJB 2.x introduced local interfaces, where enterprise beans that can be used locally within the same JVM using Java’s form of pass-by-reference, hence improving performance. Q 23: What is serialization? How would you exclude a field of a class from serialization or what is a transient variable? What is the common use? What is a serial version id? LF SI PI FAQ A 23: Serialization is a process of reading or writing an object. It is a process of saving an object’s state to a sequence of bytes, as well as a process of rebuilding those bytes back into a live object at some future time. An object is marked serializable by implementing the java.io.Serializable interface, which is only a marker interface -- it simply allows the serialization mechanism to verify that the class can be persisted, typically to a file. Transient variables cannot be serialized. The fields marked transient in a serializable object will not be transmitted in the byte stream. An example would be a file handle, a database connection, a system thread etc. Such objects are only meaningful locally. So they should be marked as transient in a serializable class. Serialization o dese te t rializ class Car implements Serializable { wri e String color = null; File transient File fh = null; serialize byte stream Class Car implements deserialize Serializable { } String color = null; } Car Object1 Car Object 2 Serialization can adversely affect performance since it: Depends on reflection. Has an incredibly verbose data format. Is very easy to send surplus data. Q. When to use serialization? Do not use serialization if you do not have to. A common use of serialization is to use it to send an object over the network or if the state of an object needs to be persisted to a flat file or a database. (Refer Q57 on Enterprise section). Deep cloning or copy can be achieved through serialization. This may be fast to code but will have performance implications (Refer Q26 in Java section). To serialize the above “Car” object to a file (sample for illustration purpose only, should use try {} catch {} block): Car car = new Car(); // The “Car” class implements a java.io.Serializable interface FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(filename); ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(fos); out.writeObject(car); // serialization mechanism happens here out.close(); The objects stored in an HTTP session should be serializable to support in-memory replication of sessions to achieve scalability (Refer Q20 in Enterprise section). Objects are passed in RMI (Remote Method Invocation) across network using serialization (Refer Q57 in Enterprise section). Q. What is Java Serial Version ID? Say you create a “Car” class, instantiate it, and write it out to an object stream. The flattened car object sits in the file system for some time. Meanwhile, if the “Car” class is modified by adding a new field. Later on, when you try to read (i.e. deserialize) the flattened “Car” object, you get the java.io.InvalidClassException – because all serializable classes are automatically given a unique identifier. This exception is thrown when the identifier of the class is not equal to the identifier of the flattened object. If you really think about it, the exception is thrown because of the addition of the new field. You can avoid this exception being thrown by controlling the versioning yourself by declaring an explicit serialVersionUID. There is also a small
- 43. 42 Java - Fundamentals performance benefit in explicitly declaring your serialVersionUID (because does not have to be calculated). So, it is best practice to add your own serialVersionUID to your Serializable classes as soon as you create them as shown below: public class Car { static final long serialVersionUID = 1L; //assign a long value } Note: Alternatively you can use the serialver tool comes with Sun’s JDK. This tool takes a full class name on the command line and returns the serialVersionUID for that compiled class. For example: static final long serialVersionUID = 10275439472837494L; //generated by serialver tool. Q 24: Explain the Java I/O streaming concept and the use of the decorator design pattern in Java I/O? LF DP PI SI A 24: Java input and output is defined in terms of an abstract concept called a “stream”, which is a sequence of data. There are 2 kinds of streams. Byte streams (8 bit bytes) Abstract classes are: InputStream and OutputStream Character streams (16 bit UNICODE) Abstract classes are: Reader and Writer Design pattern: java.io.* classes use the decorator design pattern. The decorator design pattern attaches responsibilities to objects at runtime. Decorators are more flexible than inheritance because the inheritance attaches responsibility to classes at compile time. The java.io.* classes use the decorator pattern to construct different combinations of behavior at runtime based on some basic classes. Attaching responsibilities to classes at Attaching responsibilities to objects at runtime using a decorator compile time using subclassing. design pattern. Inheritance (aka subclassing) attaches By attaching responsibilities to objects at runtime, you can apply changes responsibilities to classes at compile time. When to each individual object you want to change. you extend a class, each individual changes you make to child class will affect all instances of the File file = new File(“c:/temp”); child classes. Defining many classes using FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file); inheritance to have all possible combinations is BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(fis); problematic and inflexible. Decorators decorate an object by enhancing or restricting functionality of an object it decorates. The decorators add or restrict functionality to decorated objects either before or after forwarding the request. At runtime the BufferedInputStream (bis), which is a decorator (aka a wrapper around decorated object), forwards the method call to its decorated object FileInputStream (fis). The “bis” will apply the additional functionality of buffering around the lower level file (i.e. fis) I/O. java.io.* class hierarchy java.lang.Object java.io.InputStream java.io.OutputStream java.lang.System java.io.Reader java.io.Writer java.io.FileInputStream java.io.FileOutputStream java.io.InputStreamReader java.io.OutputStreamWriter Note: Only a few subclasses of abstract classes are java.io.BufferedReader java.io.FileReader java.io.FileWriter shown for clarity. Q. How does the new I/O (NIO) offer better scalability and better performance?
- 44. Java - Fundamentals 43 Java has long been not suited for developing programs that perform a lot of I/O operations. Furthermore, commonly needed tasks such as file locking, non-blocking and asynchronous I/O operations and ability to map file to memory were not available. Non-blocking I/O operations were achieved through work around such as multithreading or using JNI. The New I/O API (aka NIO) in J2SE 1.4 has changed this situation. A server’s ability to handle several client requests effectively depends on how it uses I/O streams. When a server has to handle hundreds of clients simultaneously, it must be able to use I/O services concurrently. One way to cater for this scenario in Java is to use threads but having almost one-to-one ratio of threads (100 clients will have 100 threads) is prone to enormous thread overhead and can result in performance and scalability problems due to consumption of memory stacks (i.e. each thread has its own stack. Refer Q34, Q42 in Java section) and CPU context switching (i.e. switching between threads as opposed to doing real computation.). To overcome this problem, a new set of non-blocking I/O classes have been introduced to the Java platform in java.nio package. The non-blocking I/O mechanism is built around Selectors and Channels. Channels, Buffers and Selectors are the core of the NIO. Non-blocking I/O (i.e. New I/O) Demultiplexing Process Multiplexing Client-1 Channel Key-5 Key-4 Key-3 Key-2 Key-1 client-2 client-1 client-3 client-2 client-1 Selector Client-2 Channel sequentially processed (unlike threads, no context switching and separate stack allocations are required ) Client-3 Channel A Channel class represents a bi-directional communication channel (similar to InputStream and OutputStream) between datasources such as a socket, a file, or an application component, which is capable of performing one or more I/O operations such as reading or writing. Channels can be non-blocking, which means, no I/O operation will wait for data to be read or written to the network. The good thing about NIO channels is that they can be asynchronously interrupted and closed. So if a thread is blocked in an I/O operation on a channel, another thread can interrupt that blocked thread. A Selector class enables multiplexing (combining multiple streams into a single stream) and demultiplexing (separating a single stream into multiple streams) I/O events and makes it possible for a single thread to efficiently manage many I/O channels. A Selector monitors selectable channels, which are registered with it for I/O events like connect, accept, read and write. The keys (i.e. Key1, Key2 etc represented by the SelectionKey class) encapsulate the relationship between a specific selectable channel and a specific selector. Buffers hold data. Channels can fill and drain Buffers. Buffers replace the need for you to do your own buffer management using byte arrays. There are different types of Buffers like ByteBuffer, CharBuffer, DoubleBuffer, etc. Design pattern: NIO uses a reactor design pattern, which demultiplexes events (separating single stream into multiple streams) and dispatches them to registered object handlers. The reactor pattern is similar to an observer pattern (aka publisher and subscriber design pattern), but an observer pattern handles only a single source of events (i.e. a single publisher with multiple subscribers) where a reactor pattern handles multiple event sources (i.e. multiple publishers with multiple subscribers). The intent of an observer pattern is to define a one-to-many dependency so that when one object (i.e. the publisher) changes its state, all its dependents (i.e. all its subscribers) are notified and updated correspondingly. Another sought after functionality of NIO is its ability to map a file to memory. There is a specialized form of a Buffer known as “MappedByteBuffer”, which represents a buffer of bytes mapped to a file. To map a file to “MappedByteBuffer”, you must first get a channel for a file. Once you get a channel then you map it to a buffer and subsequently you can access it like any other “ByteBuffer”. Once you map an input file to a “CharBuffer”, you can do pattern matching on the file contents. This is similar to running “grep” on a UNIX file system.
- 45. 44 Java - Fundamentals Another feature of NIO is its ability to lock and unlock files. Locks can be exclusive or shared and can be held on a contiguous portion of a file. But file locks are subject to the control of the underlying operating system. Q 25: How can you improve Java I/O performance? PI BP A 25: Java applications that utilize Input/Output are excellent candidates for performance tuning. Profiling of Java applications that handle significant volumes of data will show significant time spent in I/O operations. This means substantial gains can be had from I/O performance tuning. Therefore, I/O efficiency should be a high priority for developers looking to optimally increase performance. The basic rules for speeding up I/O performance are Minimize accessing the hard disk. Minimize accessing the underlying operating system. Minimize processing bytes and characters individually. Let us look at some of the techniques to improve I/O performance. CO Use buffering to minimize disk access and underlying operating system. As shown below, with buffering large chunks of a file are read from a disk and then accessed a byte or character at a time. Without buffering : inefficient code With Buffering: yields better performance try{ try{ File f = new File("myFile.txt"); File f = new File("myFile.txt"); FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(f); FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(f); int count = 0; BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(fis); int b = 0; int count = 0; while((b = fis.read()) != -1){ int b = 0 ; if(b== 'n') { while((b = bis.read()) != -1){ count++; if(b== 'n') { } count++; } } // fis should be closed in a finally block. } fis.close() ; //bis should be closed in a finally block. } bis.close() ; catch(IOException io){} } catch(IOException io){} Note: fis.read() is a native method call to the underlying operating system. Note: bis.read() takes the next byte from the input buffer and only rarely access the underlying operating system. Instead of reading a character or a byte at a time, the above code with buffering can be improved further by reading one line at a time as shown below: FileReader fr = new FileReader(f); BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(fr); while (br.readLine() != null) count++; By default the System.out is line buffered, which means that the output buffer is flushed when a new line character (i.e. “n”) is encountered. This is required for any interactivity between an input prompt and display of output. The line buffering can be disabled for faster I/O operation as follows: FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(file); BufferedOutputStream bos = new BufferedOutputStream(fos, 1024); PrintStream ps = new PrintStream(bos,false); // To redirect standard output to a file instead of the “System” console which is the default for both “System.out” (i.e. // standard output) and “System.err” (i.e. standard error device) variables System.setOut(ps); while (someConditionIsTrue) System.out.println(“blah…blah…”); }
- 46. Java - Fundamentals 45 It is recommended to use logging frameworks like Log4J with SLF4J (Simple Logging Façade for Java), which uses buffering instead of using default behavior of System.out.println(…..) for better performance. Frameworks like Log4J are configurable, flexible, extensible and easy to use. Use the NIO package, if you are using JDK 1.4 or later, which uses performance-enhancing features like buffers to hold data, memory mapping of files, non-blocking I/O operations etc. I/O performance can be improved by minimizing the calls to the underlying operating systems. The Java runtime itself cannot know the length of a file, querying the file system for isDirectory(), isFile(), exists() etc must query the underlying operating system. Where applicable caching can be used to improve performance by reading in all the lines of a file into a Java Collection class like an ArrayList or a HashMap and subsequently access the data from an in-memory collection instead of the disk. Q 26: What is the main difference between shallow cloning and deep cloning of objects? DC LF MI PI A 26: The default behavior of an object’s clone() method automatically yields a shallow copy. So to achieve a deep copy the classes must be edited or adjusted. Shallow copy: If a shallow copy is performed on obj-1 as shown in fig-2 then it is copied but its contained objects are not. The contained objects Obj-1 and Obj-2 are affected by changes to cloned Obj-2. Java supports shallow cloning of objects by default when a class implements the java.lang.Cloneable interface. Deep copy: If a deep copy is performed on obj-1 as shown in fig-3 then not only obj-1 has been copied but the objects contained within it have been copied as well. Serialization can be used to achieve deep cloning. Deep cloning through serialization is faster to develop and easier to maintain but carries a performance overhead. Shallow Vs Deep cloning O bj-1 O bj-1 C loned O bj-1 O bj-2 contains contains contained contained contained contained contained contained O bj-1 O bj-2 O bj-1 O bj-2 O bj-1 O bj-2 contained contained O bj-1 O bj-2 C loned Fig-3:D eep cloning O bj-2 Fig-1:O riginal O bject Fig-2:Shallow cloning For example invoking clone() method on a collection like HashMap, List etc returns a shallow copy of HashMap, List, instances. This means if you clone a HashMap, the map instance is cloned but the keys and values themselves are not cloned. If you want a deep copy then a simple method is to serialize the HashMap to a ByteArrayOutputSream and then deserialize it. This creates a deep copy but does require that all keys and values in the HashMap are Serializable. Main advantage of this approach is that it will deep copy any arbitrary object graph. Refer Q23 in Java section for deep copying using Serialization. Alternatively you can provide a static factory method to deep copy. Example: to deep copy a list of Car objects. public static List deepCopy(List listCars) { List copiedList = new ArrayList(10); for (Object object : listCars) { //JDK 1.5 for each loop Car original = (Car)object; Car carCopied = new Car(); //instantiate a new Car object carCopied.setColor((original.getColor())); copiedList.add(carCopied); } return copiedList; }
- 47. 46 Java - Fundamentals Q 27: What is the difference between an instance variable and a static variable? How does a local variable compare to an instance or a static variable? Give an example where you might use a static variable? LF FAQ A 27: Static variables Instance variables Class variables are called static variables. There is only one Instance variables are non-static and there is one occurrence of a class variable per JVM per class loader. occurrence of an instance variable in each class instance When a class is loaded the class variables (aka static (i.e. each object). Also known as a member variable or a variables) are initialized. field. A static variable is used in the singleton pattern. (Refer Q51 in Java section). A static variable is used with a final modifier to define constants. Local variables Instance and static variables Local variables have a narrower scope than instance Instance variables have a narrower scope than static variables. variables. The lifetime of a local variable is determined by execution Instance and static variables are associated with objects and path and local variables are also known as stack variables therefore live in the heap. Refer Q34 in Java section for because they live on the stack. Refer Q34 for stack & heap. stack & heap. For a local variable, it is illegal for code to fail to assign it a Both the static and instance variables always have a value. If value. It is the best practice to declare local variables only your code does not assign them a value then the run-time where required as opposed to declaring them upfront and system will implicitly assign a default value (e.g. cluttering up your code with some local variables that never null/0/0.0/false). get used. Note: Java does not support global, universally accessible variables. You can get the same sorts of effects with classes that have static variables. Q 28: Give an example where you might use a static method? LF FAQ A 28: Static methods prove useful for creating utility classes, singleton classes and factory methods (Refer Q51, Q52 in Java section). Utility classes are not meant to be instantiated. Improper coding of utility classes can lead to procedural coding. java.lang.Math, java.util.Collections etc are examples of utility classes in Java. Q 29: What are access modifiers? LF FAQ A 29: Modifier Used with Description public Outer classes, interfaces, A class or interface may be accessed from outside the constructors, Inner classes, methods package. Constructors, inner classes, methods and field and field variables variables may be accessed wherever their class is accessed. protected Constructors, inner classes, methods, Accessed by other classes in the same package or any and field variables. subclasses of the class in which they are referred (i.e. same package or different package). private Constructors, inner classes, Accessed only within the class in which they are declared methods and field variables, No modifier: Outer classes, inner classes, Accessed only from within the package in which they are (Package by interfaces, constructors, methods, and declared. default). field variables Q 30: Where and how can you use a private constructor? LF FAQ A 30: Private constructor is used if you do not want other classes to instantiate the object and to prevent subclassing. The instantiation is done by a public static method (i.e. a static factory method) within the same class. Used in the singleton design pattern. (Refer Q51 in Java section). Used in the factory method design pattern (Refer Q52 in Java section). e.g. java.util.Collections class (Refer Q16 in Java section). Used in utility classes e.g. StringUtils etc. Q 31: What is a final modifier? Explain other Java modifiers? LF FAQ A 31: A final class can’t be extended i.e. A final class can not be subclassed. A final method can’t be overridden when its class is inherited. You can’t change value of a final variable (i.e. it is a constant).
- 48. Java - Fundamentals 47 Modifier Class Method Variable static A static inner class is just an inner A static method is called by classname.method Class variables are class associated with the class, (e.g Math.random()), can only access static called static variables. rather than with an instance of the variables. There is only one class. occurrence of a class variable per JVM per class loader. abstract An abstract class cannot be Method is defined but contains no N/A instantiated, must be a superclass implementation code (implementation code is and a class must be declared included in the subclass). If a method is abstract whenever one or more abstract then the entire class must be abstract. methods are abstract. synchronized N/A Acquires a lock on the class for static N/A methods. Acquires a lock on the instance for non- static methods. transient N/A N/A variable should not be serialized. final Class cannot be inherited (i.e. Method cannot be overridden. Makes the variable extended) immutable. native N/A Platform dependent. No body, only signature. N/A Note: Be prepared for tricky questions on modifiers like, what is a “volatile”? Or what is a “const”? Etc. The reason it is tricky is that Java does have these keywords “const” and “volatile” as reserved, which means you can’t name your variables with these names but modifier “const” is not yet added in the language and the modifier “volatile” is very rarely used. The “volatile” modifier is used on instance variables that may be modified simultaneously by other threads. The modifier volatile only synchronizes the variable marked as volatile whereas “synchronized” modifier synchronizes all variables. Since other threads cannot see local variables, there is no need to mark local variables as volatile. For example: volatile int number; volatile private List listItems = null; Java uses the “final” modifier to declare constants. A final variable or constant declared as “final” has a value that is immutable and cannot be modified to refer to any other objects other than one it was initialized to refer to. So the “final” modifier applies only to the value of the variable itself, and not to the object referenced by the variable. This is where the “const” modifier can come in very useful if added to the Java language. A reference variable or a constant marked as “const” refers to an immutable object that cannot be modified. The reference variable itself can be modified, if it is not marked as “final”. The “const” modifier will be applicable only to non-primitive types. The primitive types should continue to use the modifier “final”. Q. If you want to extend the “java.lang.String” class, what methods will you override in your extending class? You would be tempted to say equals(), hashCode() and toString() based on Q19, Q20 in Java section but the “java.lang.String” class is declared final and therefore it cannot be extended. Q 32: What is the difference between final, finally and finalize() in Java? LF FAQ A 32: final - constant declaration. Refer Q31 in Java section. finally - handles exception. The finally block is optional and provides a mechanism to clean up regardless of what happens within the try block (except System.exit(0) call). Use the finally block to close files or to release other system resources like database connections, statements etc. (Refer Q45 in Enterprise section) finalize() - method helps in garbage collection. A method that is invoked before an object is discarded by the garbage collector, allowing it to clean up its state. Should not be used to release non-memory resources like file handles, sockets, database connections etc because Java has only a finite number of these resources and you do not know when the garbage collection is going to kick in to release these non-memory resources through the finalize() method. Refer Q19 in Java Section. Q 33: Why would you prefer a short circuit “&&, ||” operators over logical “& , |” operators? LF A 33: Firstly NullPointerException is by far the most common RuntimeException. If you use the logical operator you can get a NullPointerException. This can be avoided easily by using a short circuit “&&” operator as shown below.
- 49. 48 Java - Fundamentals There are other ways to check for null but short circuit && operator can simplify your code by not having to declare separate if clauses. if((obj != null) & obj.equals(newObj)) { //can cause a NullPointerException if obj == null ... // because obj.equals(newObj) is always executed. } Short-circuiting means that an operator only evaluates as far as it has to, not as far as it can. If the variable 'obj' equals null, it won't even try to evaluate the 'obj.equals(newObj)’ clause as shown in the following example. This protects the potential NullPointerException. if((obj != null) && obj.equals(newObj)) { //cannot get a NullPointerException because ... //obj.equals(newObj) is executed only if obj != null } Secondly, short-circuit “&&” and “||” operators can improve performance in certain situations. For example: if((number <= 7) || (doComputeIntensiveAnalysis(number) <= 13)) { //the CPU intensive .... //computational method in bold is executed only if number > 7. } Q 34: How does Java allocate stack and heap memory? Explain re-entrant, recursive and idempotent methods/functions? MI CI A 34: Each time an object is created in Java it goes into the area of memory known as heap. The primitive variables like int and double are allocated in the stack (i.e. Last In First Out queue), if they are local variables and in the heap if they are member variables (i.e. fields of a class). In Java methods and local variables are pushed into stack when a method is invoked and stack pointer is decremented when a method call is completed. In a multi-threaded application each thread will have its own stack but will share the same heap. This is why care should be taken in your code to avoid any concurrent access issues in the heap space. The stack is thread-safe because each thread will have its own stack with say 1MB RAM allocated for each thread but the heap is not thread-safe unless guarded with synchronization through your code. The stack space can be increased with the –Xss option. J a v a s t a c k & h e a p m e m o r y a llo c a t i o n S ta c k p u b lic c la s s S t a c k R e f { p u b lic v o id f ir s t ( ) { s e c o n d (); 1 // a f te r } 4 fir s t ( ) 2 s e c o n d () fir s t ( ) p u b lic v o id s e c o n d ( ) { C a r c = n e w C a r(); } Heap 3 } s e c o n d () re f c C ar fir s t ( ) p u b lic c la s s H e a p R e f{ C ar c C a r c = n e w C a r(); 1 R ef p u b lic v o id fir s t( ) { c = n e w C a r(); } } 2 C ar c C ar R ef
- 50. Java - Fundamentals 49 All Java methods are automatically re-entrant. It means that several threads can be executing the same method at once, each with its own copy of the local variables. A Java method may call itself without needing any special declarations. This is known as a recursive method call. Given enough stack space, recursive method calls are perfectly valid in Java though it is tough to debug. Recursive methods are useful in removing iterations from many sorts of algorithms. All recursive functions are re-entrant but not all re-entrant functions are recursive. Idempotent methods are methods, which are written in such a way that repeated calls to the same method with the same arguments yield same results. For example clustered EJBs, which are written with idempotent methods, can automatically recover from a server failure as long as it can reach another server (i.e. scalable). Q 35: Explain Outer and Inner classes (or Nested classes) in Java? When will you use an Inner Class? LF SE A 35: In Java not all classes have to be defined separate from each other. You can put the definition of one class inside the definition of another class. The inside class is called an inner class and the enclosing class is called an outer class. So when you define an inner class, it is a member of the outer class in much the same way as other members like attributes, methods and constructors. Q. Where should you use inner classes? Code without inner classes is more maintainable and readable. When you access private data members of the outer class, the JDK compiler creates package-access member functions in the outer class for the inner class to access the private members. This leaves a security hole. In general we should avoid using inner classes. Use inner class only when an inner class is only relevant in the context of the outer class and/or inner class can be made private so that only outer class can access it. Inner classes are used primarily to implement helper classes like Iterators, Comparators etc which are used in the context of an outer class. CO Member inner class Anonymous inner class public class MyStack { public class MyStack { private Object[] items = null; private Object[] items = null; … … public Iterator iterator() { public Iterator iterator() { return new StackIterator(); return new Iterator { } … //inner class public boolean hasNext() {…} class StackIterator implements Iterator{ } … } public boolean hasNext(){…} } } } Explain outer and inner classes? Class Type Description Example + Class name Outer Package Top level class. Only type JVM //package scope class member class can recognize. class Outside{} or interface Outside.class Inner static nested Defined within the context of the //package scope class class or top-level class. Must be static & class Outside { interface can access static members of its static class Inside{ } containing class. No relationship } between the instances of outside and Inside classes. Outside.class ,Outside$Inside.class Inner Member class Defined within the context of class Outside{ class outer class, but non-static. Until class Inside(){} an object of Outside class has } been created you can’t create Inside. Outside.class , Outside$Inside.class Inner Local class Defined within a block of code. class Outside { class Can use final local variables and void first() { final method parameters. Only final int i = 5; visible within the block of code class Inside{} that defines it. } } Outside.class , Outside$1$Inside.class
- 51. 50 Java - Fundamentals Inner Anonymous Just like local class, but no //AWT example class class name is used. Useful when only class Outside{ one instance is used in a void first() { method. Most commonly used in button.addActionListener ( new ActionListener() AWT/SWING event model, { Spring framework hibernate call public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { back methods etc. System.out.println(“The button was pressed!”); } }); } } Outside.class , Outside$1.class Note: If you have used the Spring framework with the Hibernate framework (Both are very popular frameworks, Refer section “Emerging Technologies/Frameworks”), it is likely that you would have used an anonymous inner class (i.e. a class declared inside a method) as shown below: //anonymous inner classes can only access local variables if they are declared as final public Pet getPetById(final String id) { return (Pet) getHibernateTemplate().execute(new HibernateCallback() { public Object doInHibernate(Session session) { HibernateTemplate ht = getHibernateTemplate(); // … can access variable “id” return myPet; } }); } Q. Are the following valid java statements? Line: OuterClass.StaticNestedClass nestedObject = new OuterClass.StaticNestedClass(); Yes. The above line is valid. It is an instantiation of a static nested inner class. OuterClass outerObject = new OuterClass(); Line: OuterClass.InnerClass innerObject = outerObject.new InnerClass(); Yes. The above line is valid. It is an instantiation of a member inner class. An instance of an inner class can exist only within an instance of an outer class. The sample code for the above is shown below: public class OuterClass { static class StaticNestedClass { StaticNestedClass(){ System.out.println("StaticNestedClass"); } } class InnerClass { InnerClass(){ System.out.println("InnerClass"); } } } Q 36: What is type casting? Explain up casting vs. down casting? When do you get ClassCastException? LF DP FAQ A 36: Type casting means treating a variable of one type as though it is another type. When up casting primitives as shown below from left to right, automatic conversion occurs. But if you go from right to left, down casting or explicit casting is required. Casting in Java is safer than in C or other languages that allow arbitrary casting. Java only lets casts occur when they make sense, such as a cast between a float and an int. However you can't cast between an int and a String (is an object in Java). byte short int long float double int i = 5; long j = i; //Right. Up casting or implicit casting byte b1 = i; //Wrong. Compile time error “Type Mismatch”. byte b2 = (byte) i ; //Right. Down casting or explicit casting is required.
- 52. Java - Fundamentals 51 When it comes to object references you can always cast from a subclass to a superclass because a subclass object is also a superclass object. You can cast an object implicitly to a super class type (i.e. upcasting). If this were not the case polymorphism wouldn’t be possible. Upcasting vs Downcasting Vehicle v1 = new Car(); //Right.upcasting or implicit casting Object Vehicle v2 = new Vehicle(); Car c0 = v1; //Wrong. compile time error "Type Mismatch". Vehicle //Explicit or down casting is required Car c1 = (Car)v1; // Right. down casting or explicit casting. // v1 has knowledge of Car due to line1 Bus Car Car c2 = (Car)v2; //Wrong. Runtime exception ClassCastException //v2 has no knowledge of Car. Bus b1 = new BMW(); //Wrong. compile time error "Type Mismatch" BMW Car c3 = new BMW(); //Right.upcasting or implicit casting Car c4 = (BMW)v1; //Wrong. Runtime exception ClassCastException Object o = v1; //v1 can only be upcast to its parent or Car c5 = (Car)v1; //v1 can be down cast to Car due to line 1. You can cast down the hierarchy as well but you must explicitly write the cast and the object must be a legitimate instance of the class you are casting to. The ClassCastException is thrown to indicate that code has attempted to cast an object to a subclass of which it is not an instance. If you are using J2SE 5.0 then “generics” will eliminate the need for casting (Refer Q55 in Java section) and otherwise you can deal with the problem of incorrect casting in two ways: Use the exception handling mechanism to catch ClassCastException. try{ Object o = new Integer(1); System.out.println((String) o); } catch(ClassCastException cce) { logger.log(“Invalid casting, String is expected…Not an Integer”); System.out.println(((Integer) o).toString()); } Use the instanceof statement to guard against incorrect casting. if(v2 instanceof Car) { Car c2 = (Car) v2; } Design pattern: The “instanceof” and “typecast” constructs are shown for the illustration purpose only. Using these constructs can be unmaintainable due to large if and elseif statements and can affect performance if used in frequently accessed methods or loops. Look at using visitor design pattern to avoid these constructs where applicable. (Refer Q11 in How would you go about section…). Points-to-ponder: You can also get a ClassCastException when two different class loaders load the same class because they are treated as two different classes. Q 37: What do you know about the Java garbage collector? When does the garbage collection occur? Explain different types of references in Java? LF MI FAQ A 37: Each time an object is created in Java, it goes into the area of memory known as heap. The Java heap is called the garbage collectable heap. The garbage collection cannot be forced. The garbage collector runs in low memory situations. When it runs, it releases the memory allocated by an unreachable object. The garbage collector runs on a low priority daemon (i.e. background) thread. You can nicely ask the garbage collector to collect garbage by calling System.gc() but you can’t force it.
- 53. 52 Java - Fundamentals What is an unreachable object? G a r b a g e C o ll e c t io n & U n re a c h a b l e O b je c ts Heap Case 1 re f a 1 r e a c h a b le C a r a = n e w C a r ( ); C a r o b je c t C a r b = n e w C a r() re f b 2 r e a c h a b le C a r o b je c t Case 2 1 u n r e a c h a b le C a r o b je c t re f b 2 r e a c h a b le a = n e w C a r( ) C a r o b je c t re f a 3 r e a c h a b le C a r o b je c t Case 3 1 u n r e a c h a b le C a r o b je c t a = b 2 u n re a c h a b le re C a r o b je c t f a re f b 3 r e a c h a b le C a r o b je c t Case 4 1 u n r e a c h a b le C a r o b je c t 2 u n re a c h a b le a = n u ll; C a r o b je c t b = n u ll; 3 u n re a c h a b le C a r o b je c t An object’s life has no meaning unless something has reference to it. If you can’t reach it then you can’t ask it to do anything. Then the object becomes unreachable and the garbage collector will figure it out. Java automatically collects all the unreachable objects periodically and releases the memory consumed by those unreachable objects to be used by the future reachable objects. We can use the following options with the Java command to enable tracing for garbage collection events. java -verbose:gc //reports on each garbage collection event. Explain types of references in Java? java.lang.ref package can be used to declare soft, weak and phantom references. Garbage Collector won’t remove a strong reference. A soft reference will only get removed if memory is low. So it is useful for implementing caches while avoiding memory leaks. A weak reference will get removed on the next garbage collection cycle. Can be used for implementing canonical maps. The java.util.WeakHashMap implements a HashMap with keys held by weak references. A phantom reference will be finalized but the memory will not be reclaimed. Can be useful when you want to be notified that an object is about to be collected.
- 54. Java - Fundamentals 53 Q 38: If you have a circular reference of objects, but you no longer reference it from an execution thread, will this object be a potential candidate for garbage collection? LF MI A 38: Yes. Refer diagram below. Garbage Collecting Circular References Before buildCar() returns After buildCar() returns sample code Stack Heap Stack Heap public void buildCar() { Car c = new Car(); Engine e = new Engine(); Car Car //lets create a circular reference c.engine = e; e.car = c; buildCar() Engine Engine } Both the Car & Engine are not reachable and potential candidate for Garbage Collection. Q 39: Discuss the Java error handling mechanism? What is the difference between Runtime (unchecked) exceptions and checked exceptions? What is the implication of catching all the exceptions with the type “Exception”? EH BP FAQ A 39: Errors: When a dynamic linking failure or some other “hard” failure in the virtual machine occurs, the virtual machine throws an Error. Typical Java programs should not catch Errors. In addition, it’s unlikely that typical Java programs will ever throw Errors either. Exceptions: Most programs throw and catch objects that derive from the Exception class. Exceptions indicate that a problem occurred but that the problem is not a serious JVM problem. An Exception class has many subclasses. These descendants indicate various types of exceptions that can occur. For example, NegativeArraySizeException indicates that a program attempted to create an array with a negative size. One exception subclass has special meaning in the Java language: RuntimeException. All the exceptions except RuntimeException are compiler checked exceptions. If a method is capable of throwing a checked exception it must declare it in its method header or handle it in a try/catch block. Failure to do so raises a compiler error. So checked exceptions can, at compile time, greatly reduce the occurrence of unhandled exceptions surfacing at runtime in a given application at the expense of requiring large throws declarations and encouraging use of poorly- constructed try/catch blocks. Checked exceptions are present in other languages like C++, C#, and Python. Throw able and its subclasses O bject Throwable E rror E xception LinkageE rror IO E xception Runtim eE xception NullP ointerE xception
- 55. 54 Java - Fundamentals Runtime Exceptions (unchecked exception) A RuntimeException class represents exceptions that occur within the Java virtual machine (during runtime). An example of a runtime exception is NullPointerException. The cost of checking for the runtime exception often outweighs the benefit of catching it. Attempting to catch or specify all of them all the time would make your code unreadable and unmaintainable. The compiler allows runtime exceptions to go uncaught and unspecified. If you like, you can catch these exceptions just like other exceptions. However, you do not have to declare it in your “throws" clause or catch it in your catch clause. In addition, you can create your own RuntimeException subclasses and this approach is probably preferred at times because checked exceptions can complicate method signatures and can be difficult to follow. Q. What are the exception handling best practices: BP 1. Q. Why is it not advisable to catch type “Exception”? CO Exception handling in Java is polymorphic in nature. For example if you catch type Exception in your code then it can catch or throw its descendent types like IOException as well. So if you catch the type Exception before the type IOException then the type Exception block will catch the entire exceptions and type IOException block is never reached. In order to catch the type IOException and handle it differently to type Exception, IOException should be caught first (remember that you can’t have a bigger basket above a smaller basket). Catching Exceptions W rong approach try{} catch(Exception ex){ basket //this block is reached } catch(IO Exception ioe) { H int: As shown in the diagram , think basket of catching an exception in a basket. //this block is never reached //There is a bigger basket You should alw ays have the sm aller //above m e who w ill catch it basket above the bigger basket. //before I can. O therwise the bigger basket w ill catch all the exceptions and the } sm aller basket w ill not catch any. Right approach try{} basket catch(IO Exception ioe){ } catch(Exception ex) { basket } The diagram above is an example for illustration only. In practice it is not recommended to catch type “Exception”. We should only catch specific subtypes of the Exception class. Having a bigger basket (i.e. Exception) will hide or cause problems. Since the RunTimeException is a subtype of Exception, catching the type Exception will catch all the run time exceptions (like NullPointerException, ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException) as well. Example: The FileNotFoundException is extended (i.e. inherited) from the IOException. So (subclasses have to be caught first) FileNotFoundException (small basket) should be caught before IOException (big basket). 2. Q. Why should you throw an exception early? CO The exception stack trace helps you pinpoint where an exception occurred by showing you the exact sequence of method calls that lead to the exception. By throwing your exception early, the exception becomes more accurate and more specific. Avoid suppressing or ignoring exceptions. Also avoid using exceptions just to get a flow control. Instead of: // assume this line throws an exception because filename == null. InputStream in = new FileInputStream(fileName); …
- 56. Java - Fundamentals 55 Use the following code because you get a more accurate stack trace: … if(filename == null) { throw new IllegalArgumentException(“file name is null”); } InputStream in = new FileInputStream(fileName); … 3. Why should you catch a checked exception late in a catch {} block? You should not try to catch the exception before your program can handle it in an appropriate manner. The natural tendency when a compiler complains about a checked exception is to catch it so that the compiler stops reporting errors. It is a bad practice to sweep the exceptions under the carpet by catching it and not doing anything with it. The best practice is to catch the exception at the appropriate layer (e.g. an exception thrown at an integration layer can be caught at a presentation layer in a catch {} block), where your program can either meaningfully recover from the exception and continue to execute or log the exception only once in detail, so that user can identify the cause of the exception. 4. Q. When should you use a checked exception and when should you use an unchecked exception? Due to heavy use of checked exceptions and minimal use of unchecked exceptions, there has been a hot debate in the Java community regarding true value of checked exceptions. Use checked exceptions when the client code can take some useful recovery action based on information in exception. Use unchecked exception when client code cannot do anything. For example Convert your SQLException into another checked exception if the client code can recover from it. Convert your SQLException into an unchecked (i.e. RuntimeException) exception, if the client code can not recover from it. (Note: Hibernate 3 & Spring uses RuntimeExceptions prevalently). Important: throw an exception early and catch an exception late but do not sweep an exception under the carpet by catching it and not doing anything with it. This will hide problems and it will be hard to debug and fix. CO A note on key words for error handling: throw / throws – used to pass an exception to the method that called it. try – block of code will be tried but may cause an exception. catch – declares the block of code, which handles the exception. finally – block of code, which is always executed (except System.exit(0) call) no matter what program flow, occurs when dealing with an exception. assert – Evaluates a conditional expression to verify the programmer’s assumption. Q 40: What is a user defined exception? EH A 40: User defined exceptions may be implemented by defining a new exception class by extending the Exception class. public class MyException extends Exception { /* class definition of constructors goes here */ public MyException() { super(); } public MyException (String errorMessage) { super (errorMessage); } } Throw and/or throws statement is used to signal the occurrence of an exception. To throw an exception: throw new MyException(“I threw my own exception.”) To declare an exception: public myMethod() throws MyException {…} Q 41: What are the flow control statements in Java? LF A 41: The flow control statements allow you to conditionally execute statements, to repeatedly execute a block of statements, or to just change the sequential flow of control.
- 57. 56 Java - Fundamentals Flow control Keyword types Looping while, do-while, for The body of the while loop is executed only if the expression is true, so it may not be executed even once: while(i < 5){...} The body of the do-while loop is executed at least once because the test expression is evaluated only after executing the loop body. Also, don't forget the ending semicolon after the while expression. do { … } while(i < 5); The for loop syntax is: for(expr1; expr2; expr3) { // body } expr1 is for initialization, expr2 is the conditional test, and expr3 is the iteration expression. Any of these three sections can be omitted and the syntax will still be legal: for( ; ; ) {} // an endless loop Decision if-else, switch-case making The if-else statement is used for decision-making -- that is, it decides which course of action needs to be taken. if (x == 5) {…} else {..} The switch statement is also used for decision-making, based on an integer expression. The argument passed to the switch and case statements should be int, short, char, or byte. The argument passed to the case statement should be a literal or a final variable. If no case matches, the default statement (which is optional) is executed. int i = 1; switch(i) { case 0: System.out.println("Zero");break; //if break; is omitted case 1: also executed case 1: System.out.println("One");break; //if break; is omitted default: also executed default: System.out.println("Default");break; } Branching break, continue, label:, return The break statement is used to exit from a loop or switch statement, while the continue statement is used to skip just the current iteration and continue with the next. The return is used to return from a method based on a condition. The label statements can lead to unreadable and unmaintainable spaghetti code hence should be avoided. Exception try-catch-finally, throw handling Exceptions can be used to define ordinary flow control. This is a misuse of the idea of exceptions, which are meant only for exceptional conditions and hence should be avoided. Q 42: What is the difference between processes and threads? LF MI CI A 42: A process is an execution of a program but a thread is a single execution sequence within the process. A process can contain multiple threads. A thread is sometimes called a lightweight process.
- 58. Java - Fundamentals 57 Process vs Threads Process (JVM) Thread 1 Thread 2 Thread 3 Stack Stack Stack Each thread has its own stack memory method1() method1() method1() Single heap per process Heap Object Object1 shared by all the threads 2 A JVM runs in a single process and threads in a JVM share the heap belonging to that process. That is why several threads may access the same object. Threads share the heap and have their own stack space. This is how one thread’s invocation of a method and its local variables are kept thread safe from other threads. But the heap is not thread-safe and must be synchronized for thread safety. Q 43: Explain different ways of creating a thread? LF FAQ A 43: Threads can be used by either : Extending the Thread class Implementing the Runnable interface. class Counter extends Thread { //method where the thread execution will start public void run(){ //logic to execute in a thread } //let’s see how to start the threads public static void main(String[] args){ Thread t1 = new Counter(); Thread t2 = new Counter(); t1.start(); //start the first thread. This calls the run() method. t2.start(); //this starts the 2nd thread. This calls the run() method. } } class Counter extends Base implements Runnable { //method where the thread execution will start public void run(){ //logic to execute in a thread } //let us see how to start the threads public static void main(String[] args){ Thread t1 = new Thread(new Counter()); Thread t2 = new Thread(new Counter()); t1.start(); //start the first thread. This calls the run() method. t2.start(); //this starts the 2nd thread. This calls the run() method. } } Q. Which one would you prefer and why? The Runnable interface is preferred, as it does not require your object to inherit a thread because when you need multiple inheritance, only interfaces can help you. In the above example we had to extend the Base class so implementing Runnable interface is an obvious choice. Also note how the threads are started in each of the different cases as shown in the code sample. In an OO approach you
- 59. 58 Java - Fundamentals should only extend a class when you want to make it different from it’s superclass, and change it’s behavior. By implementing a Runnable interface instead of extending the Thread class, you are telling to the user that the class Counter that an object of type Counter will run as a thread. Q 44: Briefly explain high-level thread states? LF A 44: The state chart diagram below describes the thread states. (Refer Q107 in Enterprise section for state chart diagram). Thread states(StateMachine diagram) Object.notify(); Runnable Sleeping Object.notifyAll(); start(); chosen by Waiting scheduler Thread.sleep(); Scheduler swap Object.wait(); or Thread.yield(); Running data/sync Dead done received (executing) Blocked on I/O (finished) or Synchronized another thread closes socket (Diagram sourced from: http://www.wilsonmar.com/1threads.htm) Runnable — waiting for its turn to be picked for execution by the thread scheduler based on thread priorities. Running: The processor is actively executing the thread code. It runs until it becomes blocked, or voluntarily gives up its turn with this static method Thread.yield(). Because of context switching overhead, yield() should not be used very frequently. Waiting: A thread is in a blocked state while it waits for some external processing such as file I/O to finish. Sleeping: Java threads are forcibly put to sleep (suspended) with this overloaded method: Thread.sleep(milliseconds), Thread.sleep(milliseconds, nanoseconds); Blocked on I/O: Will move to runnable after I/O condition like reading bytes of data etc changes. Blocked on synchronization: Will move to Runnable when a lock is acquired. Dead: The thread is finished working. Q 45: What is the difference between yield and sleeping? What is the difference between the methods sleep() and wait()? LF FAQ A 45: When a task invokes yield(), it changes from running state to runnable state. When a task invokes sleep(), it changes from running state to waiting/sleeping state. The method wait(1000), causes the current thread to sleep up to one second. A thread could sleep less than 1 second if it receives the notify() or notifyAll() method call. Refer Q48 in Java section on thread communication. The call to sleep(1000) causes the current thread to sleep for exactly 1 second. Q 46: How does thread synchronization occurs inside a monitor? What levels of synchronization can you apply? What is the difference between synchronized method and synchronized block? LF CI PI FAQ A 46: In Java programming, each object has a lock. A thread can acquire the lock for an object by using the synchronized keyword. The synchronized keyword can be applied in method level (coarse grained lock – can affect performance adversely) or block level of code (fine grained lock). Often using a lock on a method level is too coarse. Why lock up a piece of code that does not access any shared resources by locking up an entire
- 60. Java - Fundamentals 59 method. Since each object has a lock, dummy objects can be created to implement block level synchronization. The block level is more efficient because it does not lock the whole method. class MethodLevel { class BlockLevel { //shared among threads //shared among threads SharedResource x, y ; SharedResource x, y ; //dummy objects for locking pubic void synchronized method1() { Object xLock = new Object(), yLock = new Object(); //multiple threads can't access } pubic void method1() { synchronized(xLock){ pubic void synchronized method2() { //access x here. thread safe //multiple threads can't access } } //do something here but don't use SharedResource x, y public void method3() { // because will not be thread-safe //not synchronized //multiple threads can access synchronized(xLock) { } synchronized(yLock) { } //access x,y here. thread safe } } //do something here but don't use SharedResource x, y //because will not be thread-safe }//end of method1 } The JVM uses locks in conjunction with monitors. A monitor is basically a guardian who watches over a sequence of synchronized code and making sure only one thread at a time executes a synchronized piece of code. Each monitor is associated with an object reference. When a thread arrives at the first instruction in a block of code it must obtain a lock on the referenced object. The thread is not allowed to execute the code until it obtains the lock. Once it has obtained the lock, the thread enters the block of protected code. When the thread leaves the block, no matter how it leaves the block, it releases the lock on the associated object. Q. Why synchronization is important? Without synchronization, it is possible for one thread to modify a shared object while another thread is in the process of using or updating that object’s value. This often causes dirty data and leads to significant errors. The disadvantage of synchronization is that it can cause deadlocks when two threads are waiting on each other to do something. Also synchronized code has the overhead of acquiring lock, which can adversely affect the performance. Q. What is a ThreadLocal class? ThreadLocal is a handy class for simplifying development of thread-safe concurrent programs by making the object stored in this class not sharable between threads. ThreadLocal class encapsulates non-thread-safe classes to be safely used in a multi-threaded environment and also allows you to create per-thread-singleton. For ThreadLocal example: Refer Q15 (What is a Session?) in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section. Refer Q51 in Java section for singleton design pattern. Q 47: What is a daemon thread? LF A 47: Daemon threads are sometimes called "service" or “background” threads. These are threads that normally run at a low priority and provide a basic service to a program when activity on a machine is reduced. An example of a daemon thread that is continuously running is the garbage collector thread. The JVM exits whenever all non- daemon threads have completed, which means that all daemon threads are automatically stopped. To make a thread as a daemon thread in Java myThread.setDaemon(true); Q 48: How can threads communicate with each other? How would you implement a producer (one thread) and a consumer (another thread) passing data (via stack)? LF FAQ A 48: The wait(), notify(), and notifyAll() methods are used to provide an efficient way for threads to communicate with each other. This communication solves the ‘consumer-producer problem’. This problem occurs when the producer thread is completing work that the other thread (consumer thread) will use.
- 61. 60 Java - Fundamentals Example: If you imagine an application in which one thread (the producer) writes data to a file while a second thread (the consumer) reads data from the same file. In this example the concurrent threads share the same resource file. Because these threads share the common resource file they should be synchronized. Also these two threads should communicate with each other because the consumer thread, which reads the file, should wait until the producer thread, which writes data to the file and notifies the consumer thread that it has completed its writing operation. Let’s look at a sample code where count is a shared resource. The consumer thread will wait inside the consume() method on the producer thread, until the producer thread increments the count inside the produce() method and subsequently notifies the consumer thread. Once it has been notified, the consumer thread waiting inside the consume() method will give up its waiting state and completes its method by consuming the count (i.e. decrementing the count). T h re a d c o m m u n ic a tio n (C o n s u m e r v s P ro d u c e r th re a d s ) C lass C o n su m erP ro d u cer { p riv ate in t co u n t; p u b lic syn ch ro n ized v o id co n su m e(){ w h ile(co u n t = = 0 ) { try{ w a it() } catch (In terru p ted E x cep tio n ie) { / / k eep tryin g } } co u n t --; / / co n su m ed } p riv ate syn ch ro n iz ed v o id p ro d u ce(){ co u n t+ + ; n o tify (); / / n o tify th e co n su m er th at co u n t h as b een in crem en ted . } } Note: For regular classes you can use the Observer interface and the Observable class to implement the consumer/producer communications with a model/view/controller architecture. The Java programming language provides support for the Model/View/Controller architecture with two classes: • Observer -- any object that wishes to be notified when the state of another object changes. • Observable -- any object whose state may be of interest, and in whom another object may register an interest. They are suitable for any system wherein objects need to be automatically notified of changes that occur in other objects. E.g. Your ConfigMgr class can be notified to reload resource properties on change to *.properties file(s). Q. What does join() method do? t.join() allows the current thread to wait indefinitely until thread “t” is finished. t.join (5000) allows the current thread to wait for thread “t” to finish but does not wait longer than 5 seconds. try { t.join(5000); //current thread waits for thread “t” to complete but does not wait more than 5 sec if(t.isAlive()){ //timeout occurred. Thread “t” has not finished } else { //thread “t” has finished } }
- 62. Java - Fundamentals 61 Q 49: If 2 different threads hit 2 different synchronized methods in an object at the same time will they both continue? LF A 49: No. Only one method can acquire the lock. Thread synchronization Thread1 run(){ Car1 object car1.method2(); synchronized method1() {} 1. ok . m et } ho d1 () is no t bu sy . b usy synchronized method2() {} d2 ( ) is e th o Thread2 o. m 2. N method3() {} run(){ n iz e d y n c h ro is n o t s car1.method1(); me th o d 3 () ys o k. car2.method1(); 4 . A lw a car1.method3() 3. o k. M e th o d2 () is no Car2 object } t bu sy synchronized method1() {} Thread3 run(){ synchronized method2() {} () is bu sy. 5. No . me tho d1 car2.method2(); car2.method3(); 6.Always ok. method3() is not synchronized method3() {} } Note: If your job requires deeper understanding of threads then please refer to the following articles by Allen Holub at http://www.javaworld.com. There are number of parts (part 1 – Part - 8) to the article entitled “Programming Java threads in the real world”. URLs for some of the parts are: http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-1998/jw-09-threads.html, http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-1998/jw-10-toolbox.html, etc. Q 50: Explain threads blocking on I/O? LF A 50: Occasionally threads have to block on conditions other than object locks. I/O is the best example of this. Threads block on I/O (i.e. enters the waiting state) so that other threads may execute while the I/O operation is performed. When threads are blocked (say due to time consuming reads or writes) on an I/O call inside an object’s synchronized method and also if the other methods of the object are also synchronized then the object is essentially frozen while the thread is blocked. Be sure to not synchronize code that makes blocking calls, or make sure that a non-synchronized method exists on an object with synchronized blocking code. Although this technique requires some care to ensure that the resulting code is still thread safe, it allows objects to be responsive to other threads when a thread holding its locks is blocked. Note: The java.nio.* package was introduced in JDK1.4. The coolest addition is non-blocking I/O (aka NIO that stands for New I/O). Refer Q24 in Java section for NIO. Note: Q51 & Q52 in Java section are very popular questions on design patterns. Q 51: What is a singleton pattern? How do you code it in Java? DP MI CO FAQ A 51: A singleton is a class that can be instantiated only one time in a JVM per class loader. Repeated calls always return the same instance. Ensures that a class has only one instance, and provide a global point of access. It can be an issue if singleton class gets loaded by multiple class loaders or JVMs. public class OnlyOne { private static OnlyOne one = new OnlyOne(); // private constructor. This class cannot be instantiated from outside and // prevents subclassing. private OnlyOne(){} public static OnlyOne getInstance() { return one; } }
- 63. 62 Java - Fundamentals To use it: //No matter how many times you call, you get the same instance of the object. OnlyOne myOne = OnlyOne.getInstance(); Note: The constructor must be explicitly declared and should have the private access modifier, so that it cannot be instantiated from out side the class. The only way to instantiate an instance of class OnlyOne is through the getInstance() method with a public access modifier. Q. When to use: Use it when only a single instance of an object is required in memory for a single point of access. For example the following situations require a single point of access, which gets invoked from various parts of the code. Accessing application specific properties through a singleton object, which reads them for the first time from a properties file and subsequent accesses are returned from in-memory objects. Also there could be another piece of code, which periodically synchronizes the in-memory properties when the values get modified in the underlying properties file. This piece of code accesses the in-memory objects through the singleton object (i.e. global point of access). Accessing in-memory object cache or object pool, or non-memory based resource pools like sockets, connections etc through a singleton object (i.e. global point of access). Q. What is the difference between a singleton class and a static class? Static class is one approach to make a class singleton by declaring all the methods as static so that you can’t create any instance of that class and can call the static methods directly. Q 52: What is a factory pattern? DP CO FAQ A 52: A Factory method pattern (aka Factory pattern) is a creational pattern. The creational patterns abstract the object instantiation process by hiding how the objects are created and make the system independent of the object creation process. An Abstract factory pattern is one level of abstraction higher than a factory method pattern, which means it returns the factory classes. Factory method pattern (aka Factory pattern) Abstract factory pattern Factory for what? Factory pattern returns one of the An Abstract factory pattern is one level of abstraction higher than several product subclasses. You should use a factory a factory method pattern, which means the abstract factory pattern If you have a super class and a number of sub- returns the appropriate factory classes, which will later on classes, and based on some data provided, you have to return one of the product subclasses. Let’s look at a sample code: return the object of one of the subclasses. Let’s look at a sample code: public class ComplexShapeFactory extends ShapeFactory { throws BadShapeException { public Shape getShape(int shapeTypeId){ Factory pattern Shape shape = null; if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_HEXAGON) { Factory Product hierachy shape = new Hexagon();//complex shape } <<abstract>> ShapeFactory else throw new BadShapeException Shape (“shapeTypeId=” + shapeTypeId); return shape; +getShape(int shapeId)() +draw() } } Now let’s look at the abstract factory, which returns one of the SimpleShapeFactory Circle Square types of ShapeFactory: +getShape (int shapeId)() +draw() +draw() public class ShapeFactoryType throws BadShapeFactoryException { instantiates public static final int TYPE_SIMPLE = 1; public static final int TYPE_COMPLEX = 2; public interface Const { public ShapeFactory getShapeFactory(int type) { public static final int SHAPE_CIRCLE =1; public static final int SHAPE_SQUARE =2; ShapeFactory sf = null; public static final int SHAPE_HEXAGON =3; } if(type == TYPE_SIMPLE) {
- 64. Java - Fundamentals 63 sf = new SimpleShapeFactory(); public class ShapeFactory { } public abstract Shape getShape(int shapeId); else if (type == TYPE_COMPLEX) { } sf = new ComplexShapeFactory(); } public class SimpleShapeFactory extends else throw new BadShapeFactoryException(“No factory!!”); ShapeFactory throws BadShapeException { public Shape getShape(int shapeTypeId){ return sf; Shape shape = null; } if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_CIRCLE) { } //in future can reuse or cache objects. shape = new Circle(); Now let’s look at the calling code, which uses the factory: } else if(shapeTypeId == Const.SHAPE_SQUARE) { ShapeFactoryType abFac = new ShapeFactoryType(); //in future can reuse or cache objects ShapeFactory factory = null; shape = new Square(); Shape s = null; } else throw new BadShapeException //returns a ShapeFactory but whether it is a (“ShapeTypeId=”+ shapeTypeId); //SimpleShapeFactory or a ComplexShapeFactory is not //known to the caller. return shape; } factory = abFac.getShapeFactory(1);//returns SimpleShapeFactory } //returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a Pentagon is Now let’s look at the calling code, which uses the //not known to the caller. factory: s = factory.getShape(2); //returns square. ShapeFactory factory = new SimpleShapeFactory(); s.draw(); //draws a square //returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a //returns a ShapeFactory but whether it is a //Square is not known to the caller. //SimpleShapeFactory or a ComplexShapeFactory is not Shape s = factory.getShape(1); //known to the caller. s.draw(); // circle is drawn factory = abFac.getShapeFactory(2); //returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a //returns a Shape but whether it is a Circle or a Pentagon is //Square is not known to the caller. //not known to the caller. s = factory.getShape(2); s = factory.getShape(3); //returns a pentagon. s.draw(); //Square is drawn s.draw(); //draws a pentagon Q. Why use factory pattern or abstract factory pattern? Factory pattern returns an instance of several (product hierarchy) subclasses (like Circle, Square etc), but the calling code is unaware of the actual implementation class. The calling code invokes the method on the interface for example Shape and using polymorphism the correct draw() method gets invoked [Refer Q10 in Java section for polymorphism]. So, as you can see, the factory pattern reduces the coupling or the dependencies between the calling code and called objects like Circle, Square etc. This is a very powerful and common feature in many frameworks. You do not have to create a new Circle or a new Square on each invocation as shown in the sample code, which is for the purpose of illustration and simplicity. In future, to conserve memory you can decide to cache objects or reuse objects in your factory with no changes required to your calling code. You can also load objects in your factory based on attribute(s) read from an external properties file or some other condition. Another benefit going for the factory is that unlike calling constructors directly, factory patterns have more meaningful names like getShape(…), getInstance(…) etc, which may make calling code more clear. Q. Can we use the singleton pattern within our factory pattern code? Yes. Another important aspect to consider when writing your factory class is that, it does not make sense to create a new factory object for each invocation as it is shown in the sample code, which is just fine for the illustration purpose. ShapeFactory factory = new SimpleShapeFactory(); To overcome this, you can incorporate the singleton design pattern into your factory pattern code. The singleton design pattern will create only a single instance of your SimpleShapeFactory class. Since an abstract factory pattern is unlike factory pattern, where you need to have an instance for each of the two factories (i.e. SimpleShapeFactory and ComplexShapeFactory) returned, you can still incorporate the singleton pattern as an access point and have an instance of a HashMap, store your instances of both factories. Now your calling method uses a static method to get the same instance of your factory, hence conserving memory and promoting object reuse: ShapeFactory factory = ShapeFactory. getFactoryInstance();//returns a singleton factory.getShape();
- 65. 64 Java - Fundamentals Note: Since questions on singleton pattern and factory pattern are commonly asked in the interviews, they are included as part of this section. To learn more about design patterns refer Q11, Q12 in How would you go about section…? Q 53: What is a socket? How do you facilitate inter process communication in Java? LF A 53: A socket is a communication channel, which facilitates inter-process communication (For example communicating between two JVMs, which may or may not be running on two different physical machines). A socket is an endpoint for communication. There are two kinds of sockets, depending on whether one wishes to use a connectionless or a connection-oriented protocol. The connectionless communication protocol of the Internet is called UDP. The connection-oriented communication protocol of the Internet is called TCP. UDP sockets are also called datagram sockets. Each socket is uniquely identified on the entire Internet with two numbers. The first number is a 32-bit (IPV4 or 128-bit is IPV6) integer called the Internet Address (or IP address). The second number is a 16-bit integer called the port of the socket. The IP address is the location of the machine, which you are trying to connect to and the port number is the port on which the server you are trying to connect is running. The port numbers 0 to 1023 are reserved for standard services such as e-mail, FTP, HTTP etc. S o c k e ts S e n d in g P ro c e s s (J V M ) R e c e ivin g P ro c e s s (J V M ) p o rt: 6 6 7 8 s o c k e ts IP a d d re s s : 1 2 7 .0 .0 .1 p o rt: 6 6 7 8 O p e ra tin g S ys te m O p e ra tin g S ys te m N e tw o rk c o m m u n ic a tio n The lifetime of the socket is made of 3 phases: Open Socket Read and Write to Socket Close Socket To make a socket connection you need to know two things: An IP address and port on which to listen/connect. In Java you can use the Socket (client side) and ServerSocket (Server side) classes. Q 54: How will you call a Web server from a stand alone Java application/Swing client/Applet? LF A 54: Using the java.net.URLConnection and its subclasses like HttpURLConnection and JarURLConnection. URLConnection HttpClient (i.e. a browser) Supports HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and Supports HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and OPTIONS OPTIONS. Does not support cookies. Does support cookies. Can handle protocols other than http like ftp, gopher, mailto Handles only http. and file. public class TestServletWriter { public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception{ String host = "localhost"; //i.e 127.0.0.1 String protocol = "http"; //request/response paradigm int port = 18080; String strURL = protocol + "://" + host + ":" + port + "/myRootContext/myServlet"; java.net.URL servletURL = new java.net.URL(strURL); java.net.URLConnection con = servletURL.openConnection(); con.setDoInput(true); con.setDoOutput(true); con.setUseCaches(false); con.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); // Write the arguments as post data ObjectOutputStream out = new ObjectOutputStream(con.getOutputStream()); out.writeObject("Hello Servlet"); //write a serializable object to the servlet. out.flush(); out.close();
- 66. Java - Fundamentals 65 ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(con.getInputStream());//this line is a must // even if you have nothing to read back from the web server because http is a // request/response paradigm. String msg = (String)ois.readObject(); System.out.println(msg); } } Note: Sun provides JSSE (Java Secure Socket Extension) as the technology to accomplish HTTPS over the Web. This section would not be complete without discussing some of the exciting changes in the J2SE external version 5.0 and the internal version 1.5.0 (“Tiger”) release. Q 55: Explain some of the new features in J2SE 5.0, which improves ease of development? LF FAQ A 55: The J2SE 5.0 release is focused along the key areas of ease of development, scalability, performance, quality, etc. The new features include generics, metadata (aka annotations), autoboxing and auto-unboxing of primitive types, enhanced “for” loop, enumerated type, static import, C style formatted output, formatted input, varargs, etc. The following code sample depicts some of these new features. Brief explanation follows the sample code, so if you do not understand any part of the code, come back to it after reading the brief explanation. package sample; //static import import static sample.SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.List; import java.util.Scanner; public class CombinedNewFeatures { enum OddEven {odd,even} //use of enum keyword. An enum is a special classs. public static void main(String[] args) { //read from keyboard using the java.util.Scanner Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println("Enter your first number?"); int i1 = keyboard.nextInt(); System.out.println("Enter your second number?"); int i2 = keyboard.nextInt(); //using generics for type safety List<Integer> numList = new ArrayList<Integer>(); //using auto-boxing to convert primitive int i1,i2 to wrapper Integer object. numList.add(i1); numList.add(i2); //numList.add("just to prove type safety");//won't compile! Requires an Integer to be added //":" should be read as "foreach". So should read as, foreach "num" value in numList. for (Integer num : numList) { //using auto-unboxing feature to convert wrapper Integer object "num" to primitive. if(num >= 9){ // C style printf. System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1). // this feature is possible due to var-args feature. System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size()); //"%" symbol means we are using the format specifier, "1" means first arg. // Refer java.util.Formatter class API for the format specification details. } //need not do SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO due to static import feature if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){ System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even); } else {
- 67. 66 Java - Fundamentals System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.odd); } } CombinedNewFeatures cnf = new CombinedNewFeatures(); //invoking methods using varargs cnf.addNumbers(i1); cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2); cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2,5); } //method using varargs public void addNumbers(Object ...args){ int sum = 0; for (Object object : args) { sum += (Integer)object; } System.out.println("sum is " + sum); } @SuppressWarnings("deprecation") //metatag (annotation) public static void end(){ Thread.currentThread().stop(); //stop() is a deprecated method } } package sample; public class SampleStaticValues { public static int NUM_ZERO = 0; public static int NUM_ONE = 0; } package sample; public class ExtendedCombinedNewFeatures extends CombinedNewFeatures { @Override //metatag. If you spell the methodName incorrectly, you will get a compile error. public void addNumbers(Object ...args) { //overrides baseclass methods } @Override //metatag public void addValues(Object ...args) { //compile error! must override a superclass method //… } } Scanner API provide a more robust mechanism for reading in data types rather than simply parsing strings from buffered System.in calls. Prior to Scanner feature was introduced, to read from standard input it would be necessary to write exception handling code and wrap an InputStreamReader and a BufferedReader around System.in. Scanner class throws an unchecked exception InputMismatchException, which you could optionally catch. Scanner API simplifies your code as follows: Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); //no more wrapping with InputStreamReader and //BufferedReader around System.in System.out.println("Enter your first number?"); int i1 = keyboard.nextInt(); //no more parsing strings e.g. new Integer("5").intValue(); System.out.println("Enter your second number?"); int i2 = keyboard.nextInt(); //no more parsing strings e.g. new Integer(str).intValue(); Generics allow you to pass types as arguments to classes just like values are passed to methods as parameters. Generics are mainly intended for Java Collections API. The J2SE 5.0 compiler will check the type for you. So, the error detection has been moved to compile time as opposed to runtime and ClassCastException is not likely to be thrown. It is used in a typsafe manner and you do not have to cast when taking values out of the list. List<Integer> numList = new ArrayList<Integer>(); //used in a typesafe way. … //numList.add("just to prove type safety"); //won't compile! An Integer value is required. //Error detection has been moved to compile time as opposed to Runtime. for (Integer num : numList) { //you do not have to cast when you take values out of the list.
- 68. Java - Fundamentals 67 … } Auto boxing/unboxing makes a programmer’s life easier by not having to write manual code for conversion between primitive types such as int, float etc and wrapper types Integer, Float etc. The J2SE 5.0 will automatically box and unbox this for you. So this is a convenience feature and is not a performance booster. //using auto-boxing to convert primitive int i1,i2 to wrapper Integer object. numList.add(i1); // no more code like -> numList.add(new Integer(i1)); autoboxed for you numList.add(i2); // no more code like -> numList.add(new Integer(i2)); autoboxed for you … for (Integer num : numList) { //using auto-unboxing feature to convert wrapper Integer object "num" to primitive. if(num >= 9){ // no more code like if(num.intValue() >= 9) unboxed for you … } printf method (C style) takes the arguments of a format string and varargs format specifiers. The varargs feature allows you to have as many format specifiers as you want. Refer java.util.Formatter API for format details. The printf() feature would not be possible if not for varargs feature, which will be discussed next. // System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1).this feature is possible due to var-args feature. System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size());//format specifiers in bold //"%" symbol means we are using the format specifier, "1" means first arg. //Refer java.util.Formatter class API for the format specification details. Varargs enables the compiler to assemble the array for you based on the argument list you pass to a method. The three periods next to the parameter type (e.g. public void myMethod(Object … args)) denotes varargs. The type must be Object and it must be the last argument or the only argument to the method. You can also pass primitive values due to the new Autoboxing feature. //method using varargs public void addNumbers(Object ...args){ //only argument to the method. … means varargs int sum = 0; for (Object object : args) { // compiler converts to an object array Object[] args sum += (Integer)object; } System.out.println("sum is " + sum); } The above method can be called following ways: //invoking methods using varargs cnf.addNumbers(i1); // one arg -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 1 cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2); // two arguments -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 2 cnf.addNumbers(i1,i2,5); // three arguments -> gets converted to Object[] args of size 3 The printf() method would not be possible, if not for varargs feature. // C style printf. System.out.printf(String arg0, Object ...arg1). // this feature is possible due to var-args feature. System.out.printf("num is: %1s, list size: %2s n", num, numList.size()); // two arguments Static imports let you avoid qualifying static members with class names. Once the static member is imported then you can use it in your code without the class name prefix. //static import import static sample.SampleStaticValues.NUM_ZERO; … //need not do SampleConstants.NUM_ZERO due to static import feature if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){ System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even); } package sample; public class SampleStaticValues { public static int NUM_ZERO = 0; public static int NUM_ONE = 0;
- 69. 68 Java - Fundamentals } Enhanced for loop eliminates error-proneness of iterators and does not require any index variables. Also known as a “foreach” loop. //":" should be read as "foreach". So should read as, foreach "num" value in numList. for (Integer num : numList) { // no index variables. … } Enumerated types are type safe and force users of your class to use one of the acceptable values. Using static final integer values are type-unsafe and can lead to subtle bugs in your code as shown below: public class PartyNeeds { public static final int PLATES = 1; public static final int CUPS = 2; } For simplicity assume that PartyNeeds has 2 values 1 for plates and 2 for cups, but nothing is stoping the programmer from assigning any other values like 3 or 4. int partyItem = 3; //oops not a proper value as per class PartyNeeds but can happen and go //unnoticed Enum will solve the above problem and it is a special type of class. enum OddEven {odd,even} //use of “enum” keyword. An “enum” is a special classs. … if(num % 2 == NUM_ZERO){ System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.even); } else { System.out.println("The num " + num + " is: " + OddEven.odd); } Metadata lets you avoid writing boilerplate code, by enabling tools to generate it from annotations provided by the coder. This is a declarative style programming. … public class CombinedNewFeatures { … public void addNumbers(Object ...args){ int sum = 0; for (Object object : args) { sum += (Integer)object; } System.out.println("sum is " + sum); } } Now, the subclass of the above class with the @Override annotation can be written as shown below. If you misspell the overridden method name, you will get a compile error. This will safeguard your method from not being called at runtime. By adding the @Override metatag, the compiler complaints if you do not actually perform an override. package sample; public class ExtendedCombinedNewFeatures extends CombinedNewFeatures { @Override //metatag. If you spell the methodName incorrectly, you will get a compile error. public void addNumbers(Object ...args) { //overrides baseclass methods } @Override //metatag public void addValues(Object ...args) { //compile error! must override a superclass method //… } }
- 70. Java - Swing 69 Java – Swing Q 56: What is the difference between AWT and Swing? LF DC A 56: Swing provides a richer set of components than AWT. They are 100% Java-based. There are a few other advantages to Swing over AWT: • Swing provides both additional components like JTable, JTree etc and added functionality to AWT-replacement components. • Swing components can change their appearance based on the current “look and feel” library that’s being used. • Swing components follow the Model-View-Controller (MVC) paradigm, and thus can provide a much more flexible UI. • Swing provides “extras” for components, such as: icons on many components, decorative borders for components, tool tips for components etc. • Swing components are lightweight (less resource intensive than AWT). • Swing provides built-in double buffering (which means an off-screen buffer [image] is used during drawing and then the resulting bits are copied onto the screen. The resulting image is smoother, less flicker and quicker than drawing directly on the screen). • Swing provides paint debugging support for when you build your own component i.e.-slow motion rendering. Swing also has a few disadvantages: • If you’re not very careful when programming, it can be slower than AWT (all components are drawn). • Swing components that look like native components might not behave exactly like native components. Q 57: How will you go about building a Swing GUI client? LF A 57: The steps involved in building a Swing GUI are: • Firstly, you need a container like a Frame, a Window, or an Applet to display components like panels, buttons, text areas etc. The job of a container is to hold and display components. A container is also a component (note: uses a composite design pattern). A JPanel is a container as well. import javax.swing.JFrame; import javax.swing.JTextArea; public class MyFrame extends JFrame { public static void main(String[] args) { JFrame frame = new JFrame("Frame Title"); ...// rest of the code to follow } } • Create some components such as panels, buttons, text areas etc. //create a component to add to the frame final JTextArea comp = new JTextArea(); JButton btn = new JButton("click"); • Add your components to your display area and arrange or layout your components using the LayoutManagers. You can use the standard layout managers like FlowLayout, BorderLayout, etc. Complex layouts can be simplified by using nested containers for example having JPanels within JPanels and each JPanel can use its own LayoutManager. You can create components and add them to whichever JPanels you like and JPanels can be added to the JFrame’s content pane. // Add the component to the frame's content pane; // by default, the content pane has a border layout frame.getContentPane().add(comp, BorderLayout.CENTER); frame.getContentPane().add(btn, BorderLayout.SOUTH); • Attach listeners to your components. Interacting with a Component causes an Event to occur. To associate a user action with a component, attach a listener to it. Components send events and listeners listen for events.
- 71. 70 Java - Swing Different components may send different events, and require different listeners. The listeners are interfaces, not classes. //Anonymous inner class registering a listener // as well as performing the action logic. btn.addActionListener( new ActionListener() { public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae) { comp.setText("Button has been clicked"); } }); • Show the frame. // set the frame size and Show the frame int width = 300; int height = 300; frame.setSize(width, height); frame.setVisible(true); Note: For Applets, you need to write the necessary HTML code. Q 58: Explain the Swing Action architecture? LF DP FAQ A 58: The Swing Action architecture is used to implement shared behavior between two or more user interface components. For example, the menu items and the tool bar buttons will be performing the same action no matter which one is clicked. Another distinct advantage of using actions is that when an action is disabled then all the components, which use the Action, become disabled. Design pattern: The javax.swing.Action interface extends the ActionListener interface and is an abstraction of a command that does not have an explicit UI component bound to it. The Action architecture is an implementation of a command design pattern. This is a powerful design pattern because it allows the separation of controller logic of an application from its visual representation. This allows the application to be easily configured to use different UI elements without having to re-write the control or call-back logic. Defining action classes: class FileAction extends AbstractAction { //Constructor FileAction(String name) { super(name); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){ //add action logic here } } To add an action to a menu bar: JMenu fileMenu = new JMenu(“File”); FileAction newAction = new FileAction(“New”); JMenuItem item = fileMenu.add(newAction); item.setAccelarator(KeyStroke.getKeyStroke(‘N’, Event.CTRL_MASK)); To add action to a toolbar private JToolBar toolbar = new JToolBar(); toolbar.add(newAction); So, an action object is a listener as well as an action. Q 59: How does Swing painting happen? How will you improve the painting performance? LF A 59: If you want to create your own custom painting code or troubleshoot your Swing components, then you need to understand the basic concept of Swing painting. • Swing GUI painting starts with the highest component that needs to be repainted and works it way down the hierarchy of components. This painting process is coordinated by the AWT painting system, but Swing repaint
- 72. Java - Swing 71 manager and double-buffering code, which means an off-screen buffer [image] is used during drawing and then the resulting bits are copied onto the screen. The resulting image is smoother, less flicker and quicker than drawing directly on the screen. • Swing components generally repaint themselves whenever necessary. For example when you invoke the setTextt() on a component etc. This happens behind the scenes using a callback mechanism by invoking the repaint() method. If a component’s size or position needs to change then the call to revalidate() method precedes the call to repaint() method. • Like event handling code, painting code executes on the event-dispatching thread (Refer Q62 in Java Section). So while an event is being handled, no painting will occur and similarly while painting is happening no events will take place. • You can provide your own painting by overriding the paintComponent() method. This is one of 3 methods used by JComponents to paint themselves. public class MyFramePainting extends JFrame { public static void main(String[] args) { JFrame frame = new JFrame("Frame Title"); MyPanel panel = new MyPanel(); panel.setOpaque(true); //if opaque (i.e. solid) then Swing painting system //does not waste time painting behind the component. panel.setBackground(Color.white); panel.setLayout(new FlowLayout()); ...//add to contentPane, display logic etc } } public class MyPanel extends JPanel implements MouseListener{ Color col = Color.blue; public void paintComponent(Graphics gr){ super.paintComponent(gr); gr.setColor(col); gr.drawLine(5,5, 200,200); } public MyPanel(){ addMouseListener(this); //i.e the Panel itself } public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent ev){ col = Color.red; repaint(); //invokes paintComponent(). Never invoke paintComponent() method directly } ...//other mouse events like onMousePressed etc } By default, the paintComponent() method paints the background if the component is opaque, then it performs any custom painting. The other two methods are paintBorder(Graphics g) and paintChildren(Graphics g), which tells to paint any border and paint any components contained by this component respectively. You should not invoke or override these two methods. Q. How will you improve the painting performance? • On components with complex output, the repaint() method should be invoked with arguments which define only the clip rectangle that needs updating (rectangle origin is on top left corner). Note: No paintXXXX() methods (including paint() method) should not be explicitly invoked. Only repaint() method can be explicitly invoked (which implicitly calls paintComponent() method) and only paintComponent() should be overridden if required. public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent ev){ col = Color.red; repaint(0,0,50,50); //invokes paintComponent with a rectangle. The origin is at top left. }
- 73. 72 Java - Swing • You should never turn off double buffering for any Swing components. • The Swing painting efficiency can be optimized by the following two properties: opaque: If the opaque (i.e. solid) property is set to true with myComponent.setOpaque(true) then the Swing painting system does not have to waste time trying to paint behind the component hence improves performance. Swing containment hierarchy using JPanels within JPanels and the painting process Top-level container paints itself JFrame Opaque (solid) First paints its solid grey background and then tells the JPanel to paint itself. If the content pane is not opaque then messy repaints will occur. Content pane Non-opaque (transparent) We could make a JPanel a content pane by setting setOpaque(true). This will remove unnecessary painting of the container content pane. JPanel - 1 (opaque) (using say BorderLayout) If JPanel is opaque (e.g. JPanel -2) , it paints its background first & then the JPanel-2 asks its children JButton 1 and JButton 2 to paint themselves. If JPanel is non-opaque (e.g. JPanel 4), It looks up the containment hierarchy to find the closest opaque component (i.e. JPanel - 1). The opaque container JPanel JPanel - 3 (opaque) JPanel - 4 (non- -1 paints itself first and then ask its children JPanel - 4 and JPanel - 2 (opaque) (using say opaque) JLabel to paint themselves. (using say GridLayout) BorderLayout) (using say FlowLayout) Opaque components like JButton 1, JButton 2 etc paint themselves when repaint() method is called. Non-opaque components like JLabel, look up its hierarchy to find the closest opaque component, which is Jpanel-1 (because JPanel - 4 is opaque as well ). The JPanel -1 paints itself first and then ask its children JPanel - 4 and JLabel JButton 1 JButton 2 JTextField JLabel to paint themselves. optimizedDrawingEnabled: This is a read only property (isOptimizedDrawingEnabled()) in JComponent, so the only way components can change the default value is to subclass and override this method to return the desired value. It’s always possible that a non-ancestor component in the containment tree could overlap your component. In such a case the repainting of a single component within a complex hierarchy could require a lot of tree traversal to ensure 'correct' painting occurs. true: The component indicates that none of its immediate children overlap. false: The component makes no guarantees about whether or not its immediate children overlap Q 60: If you add a component to the CENTER of a border layout, which directions will the component stretch? LF FAQ A 60: The component will stretch both horizontally and vertically. It will occupy the whole space in the middle. Q 61: What is the base class for all Swing components? LF A 61: Design pattern: As you can see from the diagram below, containers collect components. Sometimes you want to add a container to another container. So, a container should be a component. For example container.getPreferredSize() invokes getPreferredSize() of all contained components. Composite design pattern is used in GUI components to achieve this. A composite object is an object, which contains other objects. Composite design pattern manipulates composite objects just like you manipulate individual components. Refer Q11 in How would you go about…? section.
- 74. Java - Swing 73 Composite Design Pattern * Component Client -children +operation1() +operation2() Composite Leaf +operation1() 1 +operation1() +operation2() +operation2() +addComponent() +removeComponent() All the Swing components start with ‘J’. The hierarchy diagram is shown below. JComponent is the base class. Swing Hierarchy Object JText Component JLabel Container JList JComponent JMenuBar Window JOptionPane Panel Frame Dialog JPanel Applet JFrame JDialog JScrollBar JApplet AbstractButton JToggleButton JButton JMenuItem (Diagram source: http://www.particle.kth.se/~fmi/kurs/PhysicsSimulation/Lectures/07A/swingDesign.html) Q 62: Explain the Swing event dispatcher mechanism? LF CI PI FAQ A 62: Swing components can be accessed by the Swing event dispatching thread. A few operations are guaranteed to be thread-safe but most are not. Generally the Swing components should be accessed through this event- dispatching thread. The event-dispatching thread is a thread that executes drawing of components and event- handling code. For example the paint() and actionPerformed() methods are automatically executed in the event- dispatching thread. Another way to execute code in the event-dispatching thread from outside event-handling or
- 75. 74 Java - Swing drawing code, is using SwingUtilities invokeLater() or invokeAndWait() method. Swing lengthy initialization tasks (e.g. I/O bound and computationally expensive tasks), should not occur in the event-dispatching thread because this will hold up the dispatcher thread. If you need to create a new thread for example, to handle a job that’s computationally expensive or I/O bound then you can use the thread utility classes such as SwingWorker or Timer without locking up the event-dispatching thread. • SwingWorker – creates a background thread to execute time consuming operations. • Timer – creates a thread that executes at certain intervals. However after the lengthy initialization the GUI update should occur in the event dispatching thread, for thread safety reasons. We can use invokeLater() to execute the GUI update in the event-dispatching thread. The other scenario where invokeLater() will be useful is that the GUI must be updated as a result of non-AWT event. Q 63: What do you understand by MVC as used in a JTable? LF DP FAQ A 63: MVC stands for Model View Controller architecture. Swing “J” components (e.g. JTable, JList, JTree etc) use a modified version of MVC. MVC separates a model (or data source) from a presentation and the logic that manages it. Sw ing M VC architecture (e.g. JTable) C om ponent (Eg: JTable):View & controller M odel UI Eg: TableM odel U ID elegate M anager for JTable look-and-feel • Component (e.g. JTable, JTree, and JList): coordinates actions of model and the UI delegate. Each generic component class handles its own individual view-and-controller responsibilities. • Model (e.g. TableModel): charged with storing the data. • UIDelegate: responsible for getting the data from model and rendering it to screen. It delegates any look-and- feel aspect of the component to the UI Manager. Q 64: Explain layout managers? LF FAQ A 64: Layout managers are used for arranging GUI components in windows. The standard layout managers are: • FlowLayout: Default layout for Applet and Panel. Lays out components from left to right, starting new rows if necessary. • BorderLayout: Default layout for Frame and Dialog. Lays out components in north, south, east, west and center. All extra space is placed on the center. • CardLayout: stack of same size components arranged inside each other. Only one is visible at any time. Used in TABs. • GridLayout: Makes a bunch of components equal in size and displays them in the requested number of rows and columns. • GridBagLayout: Most complicated but the most flexible. It aligns components by placing them within a grid of cells, allowing some components to span more than one cell. The rows in the grid aren’t necessarily all the same height, similarly, grid columns can have different widths as well.
- 76. Java - Swing 75 • BoxLayout: is a full-featured version of FlowLayout. It stacks the components on top of each other or places them in a row. Complex layouts can be simplified by using nested containers for example having panels within panels and each panel can use its own LayoutManager. It is also possible to write your own layout manager or use manual positioning of the GUI components. Note: Further reading on each LayoutManagers is recommended for Swing developers. Design pattern: The AWT containers like panels, dialog boxes, windows etc do not perform the actual laying out of the components. They delegate the layout functionality to layout managers. The layout managers make use of the strategy design pattern, which encapsulates family of algorithms for laying out components in the containers. If a particular layout algorithm is required other than the default algorithm, an appropriate layout manager can be instantiated and plugged into the container. For example, panels by default use the FlowLayout but it can be changed by executing: panel.setLayout(new GridLayout(4,5)); This enables the layout algorithms to vary independently from the containers that use them. This is one of the key benefits of the strategy pattern. Q 65: Explain the Swing delegation event model? LF A 65: In this model, the objects that receive user events notify the registered listeners of the user activity. In most cases the event receiver is a component. • Event Types: ActionEvent, KeyEvent, MouseEvent, WindowEvent etc. • Event Processors: JButton, JList etc. • EventListeners: ActionListener, ComponentListener, KeyListener etc. Swing Event Delegation Model EVENT distributed EVENT PROCESSOR (eg JButton, JList etc) registers notifies EVENT LISTENER (eg ActionListener etc)
- 77. 76 Java - Applet Java – Applet Q 66: How will you initialize an applet? LF A 66: By writing your initialization code in the applet’s init() method or applet’s constructor. Q 67: What is the order of method invocation in an applet? LF FAQ A 67: The Applet’s life cycle methods are as follows: • public void init() : Initialization method called only once by the browser. • public void start() : Method called after init() and contains code to start processing. If the user leaves the page and returns without killing the current browser session, the start () method is called without being preceded by init (). • public void stop() : Stops all processing started by start (). Done if user moves off page. • public void destroy() : Called if current browser session is being terminated. Frees all resources used by the applet. Q 68: How would you communicate between applets and servlets? LF FAQ A 68: We can use the java.net.URLConnection and java.net.URL classes to open a standard HTTP connection and “tunnel” to a Web server. The server then passes this information to the servlet. Basically, the applet pretends to be a Web browser, and the servlet doesn’t know the difference. As far as the servlet is concerned, the applet is just another HTTP client. Applets can communicate with servlets using GET or POST methods. The parameters can be passed between the applet and the servlet as name value pairs. http://www.foo.com/servlet/TestServlet?LastName=Jones&FirstName=Joe). Objects can also be passed between applet and servlet using object serialization. Objects are serialized to and from the inputstream and outputstream of the connection respectively. Q 69: How will you communicate between two Applets? LF FAQ A 69: All the applets on a given page share the same AppletContext. We obtain this applet context as follows: AppletContext ac = getAppletContext(); AppletContext provides applets with methods such as getApplet(name), getApplets(), getAudioClip(url), getImage(url), showDocument(url) and showStatus(status). Q 70: What is a signed Applet? LF SE FAQ A 70: A signed Applet is a trusted Applet. By default, and for security reasons, Java applets are contained within a “sandbox”. Refer to the diagram below: This means that the applets can’t do anything, which might be construed as threatening to the user’s machine (e.g. reading, writing or deleting local files, putting up message windows, or querying various system parameters). Early browsers had no provisions for Java applets to reach outside of the sandbox. Recent browsers, however (Internet Explorer 4 on Windows etc), have provisions to give “trusted” applets the ability to work outside the sandbox. For this power to be granted to one of your applets, the applet’s code must be digitally signed with your unforgeable digital ID, and then the user must state that he trusts applets signed with your ID. The untrusted applet can request to have privileges outside the sandbox but will have to request the user for privileges every time it executes. But with the trusted applet the user can choose to remember their answer to the request, which means they won’t be asked again.
- 78. Java - Applet 77 S ig n e d A p p le t R e m o te C o d e lo c a lc o d e S ig n e d u n s ig n e d JVM Sandbox c a ss ac n ce V a lu a b le re s o u rc e s lik e file s e tc Q 71: What is the difference between an applet and an application? Can you use an applet as an application? LF FAQ A 71: Applet Application Applets don’t have a main method. They operate on life Has a static main() method. cycle methods init(), start(), stop(), destroy() etc. Applets can be embedded in HTML pages and Has no support for embedding or downloading. Has downloaded over the Internet. Has a sandbox security no inherent security restriction. model. Can only be executed within a Java compatible Applications are executed at command line by java container like browser, appletviewer etc. tool. Q. Can you use an applet as an application? Yes, by adding a main(String[] args) method to an applet. Tech Tip #1: -- If you want to create a new list (i.e. using java.util.List) of items from an array of objects, then it is more efficient and it is a best practice to use Arrays.asList(…) method as opposed to executing in a loop and copying all elements of an array one by one. -- If you want to copy data from one array to another array then it is faster and it is a best practice to use System.arraycopy(…) method as opposed to executing in a loop and copying all elements of an array one by one. Q. Which of the following approaches would you prefer and why? Approach-1 if (“Peter”.equals(name)) { //…. } Approach-2 if (name.equals(“Peter”)) { //…. } Approach-1 is preferred because the Approach-2 can throw a java.lang.NullPointerException if name is null.
- 79. 78 Java – Performance and Memory issues Java – Performance and Memory issues Q. Give me an instance where you made a significant contribution in improving performance ? There is a good chance that the position you are being interviewed for require someone with skills to identify performance and/or memory issues and ability to optimize performance and solve memory issues. If you happen to be in an interview with an organization facing serious issues with regards to their Java application relating to memory leaks, performance problems or a crashing JVM etc then you are likely to be asked questions on these topics. You will find more questions and answers relating to these key areas (i.e. performance and memory issues) in the Enterprise Java section and “How would you go about…” sections. You could also demonstrate your skills in these key areas by reflecting back on your past experiences as discussed in Q82 in Java section. Even though Q82 is a situational or behavioral question, you can streamline your answer to demonstrate your technical strengths relating to these key areas as well as your behavioral ability to cope with stress. Q 72: How would you improve performance of a Java application? PI BP FAQ A 72: Pool valuable system resources like threads, database connections, socket connections etc. Emphasize on reuse of threads from a pool of threads. Creating new threads and discarding them after use can adversely affect performance. Also consider using multi-threading in your single-threaded applications where possible to enhance performance. Optimize the pool sizes based on system and application specifications and requirements. Having too many threads in a pool also can result in performance and scalability problems due to consumption of memory stacks (i.e. each thread has its own stack. Refer Q34, Q42 in Java section) and CPU context switching (i.e. switching between threads as opposed to doing real computation.). Minimize network overheads by retrieving several related items simultaneously in one remote invocation if possible. Remote method invocations involve a network round-trip, marshaling and unmarshaling of parameters, which can cause huge performance problems if the remote interface is poorly designed. (Refer Q125 in Enterprise section). Most applications need to retrieve data from and save/update data into one or more databases. Database calls are remote calls over the network. In general data should be lazily loaded (i.e. load only when required as opposed to pre-loading from the database with a view that it can be used later) from a database to conserve memory but there are use cases (i.e. need to make several database calls) where eagerly loading data and caching can improve performance by minimizing network trips to the database. Data can be eagerly loaded with a help of SQL scripts with complex joins or stored procedures and cached using third party frameworks or building your own framework. At this point your interviewer could intercept you and ask you some pertinent questions relating to caching like: Q: How would you refresh your cache? A: You could say that one of the two following strategies can be used: 1. Timed cache strategy where the cache can be replenished periodically (i.e. every 30 minutes, every hour etc). This is a simple strategy applicable when it is acceptable to show dirty data at times and also the data in the database does not change very frequently. 2. Dirty check strategy where your application is the only one which can mutate (i.e. modify) the data in the database. You can set a “isDirty” flag to true when the data is modified in the database through your application and consequently your cache can be refreshed based on the “isDirty” flag. Q: How would you refresh your cache if your database is shared by more than one application? A: You could use one of the following strategies: 1. Database triggers: You could use database triggers to communicate between applications sharing the same database and write pollers which polls the database periodically to determine when the cache should be refreshed. (Refer Q102 in Enterprise section) 2. XML messaging (Refer Enterprise – JMS subsection in Enterprise section) to communicate between other applications sharing the same database or separate databases to determine when the cache should be refreshed.
- 80. Java – Performanceand Memory issues 79 Optimize your I/O operations: use buffering (Refer Q25 in Java section) when writing to and reading from files and/or streams. Avoid writers/readers if you are dealing with only ASCII characters. You can use streams instead, which are faster. Avoid premature flushing of buffers. Also make use of the performance and scalability enhancing features such as non-blocking and asynchronous I/O, mapping of file to memory etc offered by the NIO (New I/O). Establish whether you have a potential memory problem and manage your objects efficiently: remove references to the short-lived objects from long-lived objects like Java collections etc (Refer Q73 in Java section) to minimize any potential memory leaks. Also reuse objects where possible. It is cheaper to recycle objects than creating new objects each time. Avoid creating extra objects unnecessarily. For example use mutable StringBuffer/StringBuilder classes instead of immutable String objects in computation expensive loops as discussed in Q21 in Java section and use static factory methods instead of constructors to recycle immutable objects as discussed in Q16 in Java section. Automatic garbage collection is one of the most highly touted conveniences of Java. However, it comes at a price. Creating and destroying objects occupies a significant chunk of the JVM's time. Wherever possible, you should look for ways to minimize the number of objects created in your code: o For complex objects that are used frequently, consider creating a pool of recyclable objects rather than always instantiating new objects. This adds additional burden on the programmer to manage the pool, but in selected cases it can represent a significant performance gain. Use flyweight design pattern to create a pool of shared objects. Flyweights are typically instantiated by a flyweight factory that creates a limited number of flyweights based on some criteria. Invoking object does not directly instantiate flyweights. It gets it from the flyweight factory, which checks to see if it has a flyweight that fits a specific criteria (e.g. with or without GST etc) in the pool (e.g. HashMap). If the flyweight exists then return the reference to the flyweight. If it does not exist, then instantiate one for the specific criteria and add it to the pool (e.g. HashMap) and then return it to the invoking object. o If repeating code within a loop, avoid creating new objects for each iteration. Create objects before entering the loop (i.e. outside the loop) and reuse them if possible. o Use lazy initialization when you want to distribute the load of creating large amounts of objects. Use lazy initialization only when there is merit in the design. Where applicable apply the following performance tips in your code: o Use ArrayLists, HashMap etc as opposed to Vector, Hashtable etc where possible. This is because the methods in ArrayList, HashMap etc are not synchronized (Refer Q15 in Java Section). Even better is to use just arrays where possible. o Set the initial capacity of a collection (e.g. ArrayList, HashMap etc) and StringBuffer/StringBuilder appropriately. This is because these classes must grow periodically to accommodate new elements. So, if you have a very large ArrayList or a StringBuffer, and you know the size in advance then you can speed things up by setting the initial size appropriately. (Refer Q17, Q21 in Java Section). o Minimize the use of casting or runtime type checking like instanceof in frequently executed methods or in loops. The “casting” and “instanceof” checks for a class marked as final will be faster. Using “instanceof” construct is not only ugly but also unmaintainable. Look at using visitor pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you go about…? section) to avoid “instanceof” constructs in frequently accessed methods. o Do not compute constants inside a large loop. Compute them outside the loop. For applets compute it in the init() method. Avoid nested loops (i.e. a “for” loop within another “for” loop etc) where applicable and make use of a Collection class as discussed in “How can you code better without nested loops ?” -- Q17 in Java section. o Exception creation can be expensive because it has to create the full stack trace. The stack trace is obviously useful if you are planning to log or display the exception to the user. But if you are using your exception to just control the flow, which is not recommended, then throw an exception, which is pre- created. An efficient way to do this is to declare a public static final Exception in your exception class itself. o Avoid using System.out.println and use logging frameworks like Log4J etc, which uses I/O buffers (Refer Q25 in Java section). o Minimize calls to Date, Calendar, etc related classes. For example:
- 81. 80 Java – Performance and Memory issues //Inefficient code public boolean isInYearCompanyWasEstablished(Date dateSupplied) { Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); cal.set(1998, Calendar.JAN, 01,0,0,0); //Should be read from a .proprerties file Date yearStart = cal.getTime(); cal.setTime(1998,Calendar.DECEMBER, 31,0,0,0);//Should be read from .properties. Date yearEnd = cal.getTime(); return dateSupplied.compareTo(yearStart) >=0 && dateSupplied.compareTo(yearEnd) <= 0; } The above code is inefficient because every time this method is invoked 1 “Calendar” object and two “Date” objects are unnecessarily created. If this method is invoked 50 times in your application then 50 “Calendar” objects and 100 “Date” objects are created. A more efficient code can be written as shown below using a static initializer block: //efficient code private static final YEAR_START; private static final YEAR_END; static{ Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(); cal.set(1998, Calendar.JAN, 01,0,0,0); //Should be read from a .proprerties file Date YEAR_START = cal.getTime(); cal.setTime(1998,Calendar.DECEMBER, 31,0,0,0);//Should be read from .properties. Date YEAR_END = cal.getTime(); } public boolean isInYearCompanyWasEstablished(Date dateSupplied) { return dateSupplied.compareTo(YEAR_START) >=0 && dateSupplied.compareTo(YEAR_END) <= 0; } No matter, how many times you invoke the method isInYearCompanyWasEstablished(…), only 1 “Calendar” object 2 “Date” objects are created, since the static initializer block is executed only once when the class is loaded into the JVM. o Minimize JNI calls in your code. Q. When in the development process should you consider performance issues? Set performance requirements in the specifications, include a performance focus in the analysis and design and also create a performance test environment. Q. When designing your new code, what level of importance would you give to the following attributes? -- Performance -- Maintainability -- Extendibility -- Ease of use -- Scalability You should not compromise on architectural principles for just performance. You should make effort to write architecturally sound programs as opposed to writing only fast programs. If your architecture is sound enough then it would allow your program not only to scale better but also allows it to be optimized for performance if it is not fast enough. If you write applications with poor architecture but performs well for the current requirements, what will happen if the requirements grow and your architecture is not flexible enough to extend and creates a maintenance nightmare where fixing a code in one area would break your code in another area. This will cause your application to be re-written. So you should think about extendibility (i.e. ability to evolve with additional requirements), maintainability, ease of use, performance and scalability (i.e. ability to run in multiple servers or machines) during the design phase. List all possible design alternatives and pick the one which is conducive to sound design architecturally (i.e. scalable, easy to use, maintain and extend) and will allow it to be optimized later if not fast enough. You can build a vertical slice first to validate the above mentioned design attributes as discussed in Q82 in the Java section.
- 82. Java – Performanceand Memory issues 81 Q. Rank the above attributes in order of importance? There is no one correct answer for this question. [Hint] It can vary from application to application but typically if you write 1 - extendable, 2 - maintainable and 3 – ease of use code with some high level performance considerations, then it should allow you to optimize/tune for 4 - performance and 5 - scale. But if you write a code, which only performs fast but not flexible enough to grow with the additional requirements, then you may end up re- writing or carrying out a major revamp to your code. Refer SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) Q15 in How would you go about… section. Q 73: How would you detect and minimize memory leaks in Java? MI BP FAQ A 73: In Java, memory leaks are caused by poor program design where object references are long lived and the garbage collector is unable to reclaim those objects. Detecting memory leaks: Use tools like JProbe, OptimizeIt etc to detect memory leaks. Use operating system process monitors like task manager on NT systems, ps, vmstat, iostat, netstat etc on UNIX systems. Write your own utility class with the help of totalMemory() and freeMemory() methods in the Java Runtime class. Place these calls in your code strategically for pre and post memory recording where you suspect to be causing memory leaks. An even better approach than a utility class is using dynamic proxies (Refer Q11 in How would you go about section…) or Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) for pre and post memory recording where you have the control of activating memory measurement only when needed. (Refer Q3 – Q5 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section). Minimizing memory leaks: In Java, typically memory leak occurs when an object of a longer lifecycle has a reference to objects of a short life cycle. This prevents the objects with short life cycle being garbage collected. The developer must remember to remove the references to the short-lived objects from the long-lived objects. Objects with the same life cycle do not cause any issues because the garbage collector is smart enough to deal with the circular references (Refer Q38 in Java section). Design applications with an object’s life cycle in mind, instead of relying on the clever features of the JVM. Letting go of the object’s reference in one’s own class as soon as possible can mitigate memory problems. Example: myRef = null; Unreachable collection objects can magnify a memory leak problem. In Java it is easy to let go of an entire collection by setting the root of the collection to null. The garbage collector will reclaim all the objects (unless some objects are needed elsewhere). Use weak references (Refer Q37 in Java section) if you are the only one using it. The WeakHashMap is a combination of HashMap and WeakReference. This class can be used for programming problems where you need to have a HashMap of information, but you would like that information to be garbage collected if you are the only one referencing it. Free native system resources like AWT frame, files, JNI etc when finished with them. Example: Frame, Dialog, and Graphics classes require that the method dispose() be called on them when they are no longer used, to free up the system resources they reserve. Q 74: Why does the JVM crash with a core dump or a Dr.Watson error? MI A 74: Any problem in pure Java code throws a Java exception or error. Java exceptions or errors will not cause a core dump (on UNIX systems) or a Dr.Watson error (on WIN32systems). Any serious Java problem will result in an OutOfMemoryError thrown by the JVM with the stack trace and consequently JVM will exit. These Java stack traces are very useful for identifying the cause for an abnormal exit of the JVM. So is there a way to know that OutOfMemoryError is about to occur? The Java J2SE 5.0 has a package called java.lang.management which has useful JMX beans that we can use to manage the JVM. One of these beans is the MemoryMXBean. An OutOfMemoryError can be thrown due to one of the following 4 reasons:
- 83. 82 Java – Performance and Memory issues JVM may have a memory leak due to a bug in its internal heap management implementation. But this is highly unlikely because JVMs are well tested for this. The application may not have enough heap memory allocated for its running. You can allocate more JVM heap size (with –Xmx parameter to the JVM) or decrease the amount of memory your application takes to overcome this. To increase the heap space: java -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M Care should be taken not to make the –Xmx value too large because it can slow down your application. The secret is to make the maximum heap size value the right size. Another not so prevalent cause is the running out of a memory area called the “perm” which sits next to the heap. All the binary code of currently running classes is archived in the “perm” area. The ‘perm’ area is important if your application or any of the third party jar files you use dynamically generate classes. For example: “perm” space is consumed when XSLT templates are dynamically compiled into classes, J2EE application servers, JasperReports, JAXB etc use Java reflection to dynamically generate classes and/or large amount of classes in your application. To increase perm space: java -XX:PermSize=256M -XX:MaxPermSize=256M The fourth and the most common reason is that you may have a memory leak in your application as discussed in Q73 in Java section. [Good read/reference: “Know your worst friend, the Garbage Collector” http://java.sys- con.com/read/84695.htm by Romain Guy] Q. So why does the JVM crash with a core dump or Dr.Watson error? Both the core dump on UNIX operating system and Dr.Watson error on WIN32 systems mean the same thing. The JVM is a process like any other and when a process crashes a core dump is created. A core dump is a memory map of a running process. This can happen due to one of the following reasons: Using JNI (Java Native Interface) code, which has a fatal bug in its native code. Example: using Oracle OCI drivers, which are written partially in native code or JDBC-ODBC bridge drivers, which are written in non Java code. Using 100% pure Java drivers (communicates directly with the database instead of through client software utilizing the JNI) instead of native drivers can solve this problem. We can use Oracle thin driver, which is a 100% pure Java driver. The operating system on which your JVM is running might require a patch or a service pack. The JVM implementation you are using may have a bug in translating system resources like threads, file handles, sockets etc from the platform neutral Java byte code into platform specific operations. If this JVM’s translated native code performs an illegal operation then the operating system will instantly kill the process and mostly will generate a core dump file, which is a hexadecimal file indicating program’s state in memory at the time of error. The core dump files are generated by the operating system in response to certain signals. Operating system signals are responsible for notifying certain events to its threads and processes. The JVM can also intercept certain signals like SIGQUIT which is kill -3 < process id > from the operating system and it responds to this signal by printing out a Java stack trace and then continue to run. The JVM continues to run because the JVM has a special built-in debug routine, which will trap the signal -3. On the other hand signals like SIGSTOP (kill -23 <process id>) and SIGKILL (kill -9 <process id>) will cause the JVM process to stop or die. The following JVM argument will indicate JVM not to pause on SIGQUIT signal from the operating system. java –Xsqnopause
- 84. Java – Personaland Behavioral/Situational 83 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational Q 75: Did you have to use any design patterns in your Java project? DP FAQ A 75: Yes. Refer Q12 [Strategy], Q16 [Iterator], Q24 [Decorator], Q36 [Visitor], Q51 [Singleton], Q52 [Factory], Q58 [Command], Q61 [Composite], and Q63 [MVC-Model View Controller] in Java section and Q11, Q12 in How would you go about… section for a detailed discussion on design patterns with class diagrams and examples. Resource: http://www.patterndepot.com/put/8/JavaPatterns.htm. Why use design patterns, you may ask (Refer Q5 in Enterprise section). Design patterns are worthy of mention in your CV and interviews. Design patterns have a number of advantages: Capture design experience from the past. Promote reuse without having to reinvent the wheel. Define the system structure better. Provide a common design vocabulary. Some advice if you are just starting on your design pattern journey: If you are not familiar with UML, now is the time. UML is commonly used to describe patterns in pattern catalogues, including class diagrams, sequence diagrams etc. (Refer Q106 - Q109 in Enterprise section). When using patterns, it is important to define a naming convention. It will be much easier to manage a project as it grows to identify exactly what role an object plays with the help of a naming convention e.g. AccountFacilityBusinessDelegate, AccountFacilityFactory, AccountFacilityValueObject, AccountDecorator, AccountVisitor, AccountTransferObject (or AccountFacilityVO or AccountTO). Make a list of requirements that you will be addressing and then try to identify relevant patterns that are applicable. You should not just apply a pattern for the sake of learning or applying a pattern because it could become an anti-pattern. IMPORTANT: Technical skills alone are not sufficient for you to perform well in your interviews and progress in your career. Your technical skills must be complemented with business skills (i.e. knowledge/understanding of the business, ability to communicate and interact effectively with the business users/customers, ability to look at things from the user’s perspective as opposed to only technology perspective, ability to persuade/convince business with alternative solutions, which can provide a win/win solution from users’ perspective as well as technology perspective), ability to communicate effectively with your fellow developers, immediate and senior management, ability to work in a team as well as independently, problem solving/analytical skills, organizational skills, ability to cope with difficult situations like stress due to work load, deadlines etc and manage or deal with difficult people, being a good listener with the right attitude (It is sometimes possible to have “I know it all attitude”, when you have strong technical skills. This can adversely affect your ability to be a good listener, ability to look at things in a different perspective, ability to work well in a team and consequently your progression in your career) etc. Some of these aspects are covered below and should be prepared for prior to your job interview(s). Q 76: Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? Why should we hire you and what kind of contributions will you make? FAQ A 76: [Hint:] Pick your recent projects and enthusiastically brief on it. Interviewer will be looking for how passionate you are about your past experience and achievements. Also is imperative that during your briefing, you demonstrate on a high level(without getting too technical) how you applied your skills and knowledge in some of the following key areas: Design concepts and design patterns: How you understood and applied them. Performance and memory issues: How you identified and fixed them. Exception handling and best practices: How you understood and applied them. Multi-threading and concurrent access: How you identified and fixed them.
- 85. 84 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational Some of the questions in this section can help you prepare your answers by relating them to your current or past work experience. For example: Design Concepts: Refer Q7, Q8, Q9, Q10, Q11 etc Design Patterns: Refer Q12, Q16, Q24, Q36, Q51, Q52, Q58, Q61, and Q63 in Java section and Q11, Q12 in “How would you go about…?” section for a more detailed discussion. Performance issues: Refer Q25, Q72 etc Memory issues: Refer Q37, Q38, Q42, Q73, and Q74 Exception Handling: Refer Q39, Q40 etc Multi-threading (Concurrency issues): Refer Q15, Q17, Q21, Q34, Q42 and Q46 etc Demonstrating your knowledge in the above mentioned areas will improve your chances of being successful in your Java/J2EE interviews. 90% of the interview questions are asked based on your own resume. So in my view it is also very beneficial to mention how you demonstrated your knowledge/skills by stepping through a recent project on your resume. The two other areas, which I have not mentioned in this section, which are also very vital, are transactions and security. These two areas will be covered in the next section, which is the Enterprise section (J2EE, JDBC, EJB, JMS, SQL, XML etc). Even if you have not applied these skills knowingly or you have not applied them at all, just demonstrating that you have the knowledge and an appreciation will help you improve your chances in the interviews. Also mention any long hours worked to meet the deadline, working under pressure, fixing important issues like performance issues, running out of memory issues etc. The job seekers should also ask questions to make an impression on the interviewer. Write out specific questions you want to ask and then look for opportunities to ask them during the interview. For example: Do you have any performance or design related issues? Succinctly demonstrate how you would go about solving them or how you solved similar problems in your previous assignments. Do you follow any software development processes like agile methodology, XP, RUP etc? Briefly demonstrate your experience, understanding and/or familiarity with the development methodology of relevance. Do you use any open source frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry etc? Any build tools like Ant, Maven etc, and testing tools like JUnit etc briefly demonstrate your experience, understanding and/or familiarity with the framework(s) of relevance. Many interviewers end with a request to the applicant as to whether they have anything they wish to add. This is an opportunity for you to end on a positive note by making succinct statements about why you are the best person for the job by demonstrating your understanding of the key areas and how you applied them in your previous jobs. Reflect back on your past jobs and pick two to five instances where you used your skills in the key areas very successfully. Q 77: Why are you leaving your current position? FAQ A 77: [Hint] Do not criticize your previous employer or co-workers or sound too opportunistic. It is fine to mention a major problem like a buy out, budget constraints, merger or liquidation. You may also say that your chance to make a contribution is very low due to company wide changes or looking for a more challenging senior or designer role. Q 78: What do you like and/or dislike most about your current and/or last position? FAQ A 78: [Hint] The interviewer is trying to find the compatibility with the open position. So Do not say anything like: You dislike overtime.
- 86. Java – Personaland Behavioral/Situational 85 You dislike management or co-workers etc. It is safe to say: You like challenges. Opportunity to grow into design, architecture, performance tuning etc Opportunity to learn and/or mentor junior developers.. You dislike frustrating situations like identifying a memory leak problem or a complex transactional or a concurrency issue. You want to get on top of it as soon as possible. Q 79: How do you handle pressure? Do you like or dislike these situations? FAQ A 79: [Hint] These questions could mean that the open position is pressure-packed and may be out of control. Know what you are getting into. If you do perform well under stress then give a descriptive example. High achievers tend to perform well in pressure situations. Q 80: What are your strengths and weaknesses? Can you describe a situation where you took initiative? Can you describe a situation where you applied your problem solving skills? FAQ A 80: [Hint] Strengths: Taking initiatives and being pro-active: You can illustrate how you took initiative to fix a transactional issue, a performance problem or a memory leak problem. Design skills: You can illustrate how you designed a particular application using OO concepts. Problem solving skills: Explain how you will break a complex problem into more manageable sub-sections and then apply brain storming and analytical skills to solve the complex problem. Illustrate how you went about identifying a scalability issue or a memory leak problem. Communication skills: Illustrate that you can communicate effectively with all the team members, business analysts, users, testers, stake holders etc. Ability to work in a team environment as well as independently: Illustrate that you are technically sound to work independently as well as have the interpersonal skills to fit into any team environment. Hard working, honest, and conscientious etc are the adjectives to describe you. Weaknesses: Select a trait and come up with a solution to overcome your weakness. Stay away from personal qualities and concentrate more on professional traits for example: I pride myself on being an attention to detail guy but sometimes miss small details. So I am working on applying the 80/20 principle to manage time and details. Spend 80% of my effort and time on 20% of the tasks, which are critical and important to the task at hand. Some times when there is a technical issue or a problem I tend to work continuously until I fix it without having a break. But what I have noticed and am trying to practice is that taking a break away from the problem and thinking outside the square will assist you in identifying the root cause of the problem sooner. Q 81: What are your career goals? Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? FAQ A 81: [Hint] Be realistic. For example Next 2-3 years to become a senior developer or a team lead. Next 3-5 years to become a solution designer or an architect. Situational questions: The open-ended questions like last two questions are asked by interviewers to identify specific characteristics like taking initiative, performance standards, accountability, adaptability, flexibility, sensitivity, communication skills, ability to cope stress etc. These questions are known as behavioral or situational questions. This
- 87. 86 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational behavioral technique is used to evaluate a candidate’s future success from past behaviors. The answers to these questions must describe in detail a particular situation like an event, a project or an experience and how you acted on that situation and what the results were. Prepare your answers prior to the interview using the “Situation Action Result (SAR)” approach and avoid fabricating or memorizing your answers. You should try to relate back to your past experiences at your previous employments, community events, sporting events etc. Sample questions and answers are shown below: Q 82: Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to achieve it? Give me an example of a time you showed initiatiative and took the lead? Tell me about a difficult decision you made in the last year? Give me an example of a time you motivated others? Tell me about a most complex project you were involved in? FAQ A 82: Situation: When you were working for the ZCC Software Technology Corporation, the overnight batch process called the “Data Pacakager” was developed for a large fast food chain which has over 100 stores. This overnight batch process is responsible for performing a very database intensive search and compute changes like cost of ingredients, selling price, new menu item etc made in various retail stores and package those changes into XML files and send those XML data to the respective stores where they get uploaded into their point of sale registers to reflect the changes. This batch process had been used for the past two years, but since then the number of stores had increased and so did the size of the data in the database. The batch process, which used to take 6-8 hours to complete, had increased to 14-16 hours, which obviously started to adversely affect the daily operations of these stores. The management assigned you with the task of improving the performance of the batch process to 5-6 hours (i.e. suppose to be an overnight process). Action: After having analyzed the existing design and code for the “Data Packager”, you had to take the difficult decision to let the management know that this batch process needed to be re-designed and re-written as opposed to modifying the existing code, since it was poorly designed. It is hard to extend, maintain (i.e. making a change in one place can break the code some where else and so on) and had no object reuse through caching (makes too many unnecessary network trips to the database) etc. The management was not too impressed with this approach and concerned about the time required to rewrite this batch process since the management had promised the retail stores to provide a solution within 8-12 weeks. You took the initiative and used your persuasive skills to convince the management that you would be able to provide a re-designed and re-written solution within the 8-12 weeks with the assistance of 2-3 additional developers and two testers. You were entrusted with the task to rewrite the batch process and you set your goal to complete the task in 8 weeks. You decided to build the software iteratively by building individual vertical slices as opposed to the big bang waterfall approach [Refer subsection “Enterprise – Software development process” in Enterprise – Java section]. You redesigned and wrote the code for a typical use case from end to end (i.e. full vertical slice) within 2 weeks and subsequently carried out functional and integration testing to iron out any unforeseen errors or issues. Once the first iteration is stable, you effectively communicated the architecture to the management and to your fellow developers. Motivated and mentored your fellow developers to build the other iterations, based on the first iteration. At the end of iteration, it was tested by the testers, while the developers moved on to the next iteration. Results: After having enthusiastically worked to your plan with hard work, dedication and teamwork, you were able to have the 90% of the functionality completed in 9 weeks and spent the next 3 weeks fixing bugs, tuning performance and coding rest of the functionality. The fully functional data packager was completed in 12 weeks and took only 3-4 hours to package XML data for all the stores. The team was under pressure at times but you made them believe that it is more of a challenge as opposed to think of it as a stressful situation. The newly designed data packager was also easier to maintain and extend. The management was impressed with the outcome and rewarded the team with an outstanding achievement award. The performance of the newly developed data packager was further improved by 20% by tuning the database (i.e. partitioning the tables, indexing etc). Q 83: Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills? Give me an example of a time when you used your fact finding skills to solve a problem? Describe a time when you applied your analytical and/or problem solving skills? FAQ A 83: Situation: When you were working for the Surething insurance corporation pty ltd, you were responsible for the migration of an online insurance application (i.e. external website) to a newer version of application server (i.e. the current version is no longer supported by the vendor). The migration happened smoothly and after a couple of days of going live, you started to experience “OutOfMemoryError”, which forced you to restart the application server every day. This raised a red alert and the immediate and the senior management were very concerned and consequently constantly calling for meetings and updates on the progress of identifying the root cause of this issue. This has created a stressful situation.
- 88. Java – Personaland Behavioral/Situational 87 Action: You were able to have a positive outlook by believing that this is more of a challenge as opposed to think of it as a stressful situation. You needed to be composed to get your analytical and problem solving skills to get to work. You spent some time finding facts relating to “OutOfMemoryError” (Refer Q74 in Java section). You were tempted to increase the heap space as suggested by fellow developers but the profiling and monitoring did not indicate that was the case. The memory usage drastically increased during and after certain user operations like generating PDF reports. The generation of reports used some third party libraries, which dynamically generated classes from your templates. So you decided to increase the area of the memory known as the “perm”, which sits next to the heap. This “perm” space is consumed when the classes are dynamically generated from templates during the report generation. java -XX:PermSize=256M -XX:MaxPermSize=256M Results: After you have increased the “perm” size, the “OutOfMemoryError” has disappeared. You kept monitoring it for a week and everything worked well. The management was impressed with your problem solving, fact finding and analytical skills, which had contributed to the identification of the not so prevalent root cause and the effective communication with the other teams like infrastructure, production support, senior management, etc. The management also identified your ability to cope under stress and offered you a promotion to lead a small team of 4 developers. Q 84: Describe a time when you had to work with others in the organization to accomplish the organizational goals? Describe a situation where others you worked on a project disagreed with your ideas, and what did you do? Describe a situation in which you had to collect information by asking many questions of several people? What has been your experience in giving presentations to small or large groups? How do you show considerations for others? FAQ A 84: Situation: You were working for Wealth guard Pty Ltd financial services organization. You were part of a development team responsible for enhancing an existing online web application, which enables investors and advisors view and manage their financial portfolios. The websites of the financial services organizations are periodically surveyed and rated by an independent organization for their ease of use, navigability, content, search functionality etc. Your organization was ranked 21st among 23 websites reviewed. Your chief information officer was very disappointed with this poor rating and wanted the business analysts, business owners (i.e. within the organization) and the technical staff to improve on the ratings before the next ratings, which would be done in 3 months. Action: The business analysts and the business owners quickly got into work and came up with a requirements list of 35 items in consultation with the external business users such as advisors, investors etc. You were assigned the task of working with the business analysts, business owners (i.e internal), and project managers to provide a technical input in terms of feasibility study, time estimates, impact analysis etc. The business owners had a pre- conceived notion of how they would like things done. You had to analyze the outcome from both the business owners’ perspective and technology perspective. There were times you had to use your persuasive skills to convince the business owners and analysts to take an alternative approach, which would provide a more robust solution. You managed to convince the business owners and analysts by providing visual mock-up screen shots of your proposed solution, presentation skills, ability to communicate without any technical jargons, and listening carefully to business needs and discussing your ideas with your fellow developers (i.e. being a good listener, respecting others’ views and having the right attitude even if you know that you are right). You also strongly believe that good technical skills must be complemented with good interpersonal skills and the right attitude. After 2-3 weeks of constant interaction with the business owners, analysts and fellow developers, you had helped the business users to finalize the list of requirements. You also took the initiative to apply the agile development methodology to improve communication and cooperation between business owners and the developers. Results: You and your fellow developers were not only able to effectively communicate and collaborate with the business users and analysts but also provided progressive feedback to each other due to iterative approach. The team work and hard work had resulted in a much improved and more user friendly website, which consequently improved its ratings from 21st to 13th within 3 months. Refer Enterprise – Personal subsection in Enterprise section for more situational questions and answers. Note: For Q75 – Q84 tailor your answers to the job. Also be prepared for the following questions, which ascertain how you keep your knowledge up to date, what motivates you, your ability to take initiatives, be pro-active, eagerness to work for the company, etc: Q 85: What was the last Java related technical book or article you read? FAQ
- 89. 88 Java – Personal and Behavioral/Situational A 85: Mastering EJB by Ed Roman. EJB design patterns by Floyd Marinescu. Bitter Java by Bruce Tate. Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel. Effective Java by Joshua Bloch. Q. What is your favorite technical book? Effective Java by Joshua Bloch Q 86: Which Java related website(s) or resource(s) do you use to keep your knowledge up to date beyond Google? FAQ A 86: http://www.theserverside.com, http://www.javaworld.com, http://www-136.ibm.com/developerworks/Java, http://www.precisejava.com, http://www.allapplabs.com, http://java.sun.com, http://www.martinfowler.com, http://www.ambysoft.com etc. Q 87: What past accomplishments gave you satisfaction? What makes you want to work hard? FAQ A 87: Material rewards such as salary, perks, benefits etc naturally come into play but focus on your achievements or accomplishments than on rewards. Explain how you took pride in fixing a complex performance issue or a concurrency issue. You could substantiate your answer with a past experience. For example while you were working for Bips telecom, you pro-actively identified a performance issue due to database connection resource leak. You subsequently took the initiative to notify your team leader and volunteered to fix it by adding finally {} blocks to close the resources. [Discussed in the Enterprise Java section] If you are being interviewed for a position, which requires your design skills then you could explain that in your previous job with an insurance company you had to design and develop a sub-system, which gave you complete satisfaction. You were responsible for designing the data model using entity relationship diagrams (E-R diagrams) and the software model using the component diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams etc. [Discussed in the Enterprise Java section] If you are being interviewed for a position where you have to learn new pieces of technology/framework like dependency injection (e.g. Spring framework), component based web development frameworks like Tapestry, JSF etc, object to relational mapping frameworks like hibernate etc then you can explain with examples from your past experience where you were not only motivated to acquire new skills/knowledge but also proved that you are a quick and a pro-active learner. [Discussed in the Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section] If the job you are being interviewed for requires production support from time to time, then you could explain that it gives you satisfaction because you would like to interact with the business users and/or customers to develop your business and communication skills by getting an opportunity to understand a system from the users perspective and also gives you an opportunity to sharpen your technical and problem solving skills. If you are a type of person who enjoys more development work then you can be honest about it and indicate that you would like to have a balance between development work and support work, where you can develop different aspects of your skills/knowledge. You could also reflect an experience from a past job, where each developer was assigned a weekly roster to provide support. You could say that, you generally would like to work hard but would like to work even harder when there are challenges. Q 88: Do you have any role models in software development? A 88: Scott W. Ambler, Martin Fowler, Ed Roman, Floyd Marinescu, Grady Booch etc. Gavin King (Hibernate persistence framework), Rod Johnson (Spring framework), Howard M. Lewis Ship (Tapestry web framework and Hivemind framework), Dennis Sosnoski (JiBX XML binding framework) etc. Q 89: Why do you want to work for us? What motivates you? What demotivates you? What are you looking for in your next job? What is your definition of an ideal job? FAQ (Research the company prior to the interview). Look at their website. Know their product lines and their competitors. Learn about their achievements or strengths.
- 90. Java – Behavingright in an interview 89 Java – Behaving right in an interview Arrive 5-10 minutes before the interview. Never arrive too late or too early. If you are running late due to some unavoidable situation, call ahead and make sure that the interviewers know your situation. Also, be apologetic for arriving late due to unfortunate situation. First impressions are everything: Firm handshake, maintain eye contact, smile, watch your body language, be pleasant, dress neatly and know the names of your interviewers and thank them by their names for the opportunity. Try, not to show that you are nervous. Every body is nervous for interviews but try not to show it. [Hint: Just think that even if you do not get the job, it is a good learning experience and you would do better in your next interview and appreciate yourself for getting this far. You can always learn from your mistakes and do better at your next interview.] It is good to be confident but do not make up your answer or try to bluff. If you put something in your resume then better be prepared to back it up. Be honest to answer technical questions because you are not expected to remember everything (for example, you might know a few design patterns but not all of them etc). If you have not used a design pattern in question, request the interviewer, if you could describe a different design pattern. Also, try to provide brief answers, which means not too long and not too short like yes or no. Give examples of times you performed that particular task. If you would like to expand on your answer, ask the interviewer if you could elaborate or go on. It is okay to verify your answers every now and then but avoid verifying or validating your answers too often because the interviewer might think that you lack self-confidence or you cannot work independently. But if you do not know the answer to a particular question and keen to know the answer, you could politely request for an answer but should not request for answers too often. If you think you could find the answer(s) readily on the internet then try to remember the question and find the answer(s) soon after your interview. You should also ask questions to make an impression on the interviewer. Write out specific questions you want to ask and then look for opportunities to ask them during the interview. Many interviewers end with a request to the applicant as to whether they have anything they wish to add. This is an opportunity for you to end on a positive note by making succinct statements about why you are the best person for the job. Try to be yourself. Have a good sense of humor, a smile and a positive outlook. Be friendly but you should not tell the sagas of your personal life. If you cross your boundaries then the interviewer might feel that your personal life will interfere with your work. Be confident. I have addressed many of the popular technical questions in this book and it should improve your confidence. If you come across a question relating to a new piece of technology you have no experience with like AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) or IoC (Inversion of Control) or a framework like Tapestry, then you can mention that you have a very basic understanding and demonstrate that you are a quick leaner by reflecting back on your past job where you had to quickly learn a new piece of a technology or a framework. Also, you can mention that you keep a good rapport with a network of talented Java/J2EE developers or mentors to discuss any design alternatives or work a rounds to a pressing problem. Unless asked, do not talk about money. Leave this topic until the interviewer brings it up or you can negotiate this with your agent once you have been offered the position. At the interview you should try to sell or promote your technical skills, business skills, ability to adapt to changes, and interpersonal skills. Prior to the interview find out what skills are required by thoroughly reading the job description or talking to your agent for the specific job and be prepared to promote those skills (Some times you would be asked why you are the best person for the job?). You should come across as you are more keen on technical challenges, learning a new piece of technology, improving your business skills etc as opposed to coming across as you are only interested in money. Speak clearly, firmly and with confidence but should not be aggressive and egoistical. You should act interested in the company and the job and make all comments in a positive manner. Should not speak negatively about past colleagues or employers. Should not excuse yourself halfway through the interview, even if you have to use the bathroom. Should not ask for refreshments or coffee but accept it if offered. At the end of the interview, thank the interviewers by their names for their time with a firm handshake, maintain eye contact and ask them about the next steps if not already mentioned to know where you are at the process and show that you are interested.
- 91. 90 Java – Behaving right in an interview In short, arrive on time, be polite, firm hand with a smile and do not act superior, act interested and enthusiastic but not desperate, make eye contact at all times, ask questions but should not over do it by talking too much, it is okay to be nervous but try not to show it and be honest with your answers because you are not expected to know the answers for all the technical questions. Unless asked, do not talk about money and find every opportunity to sell your technical, business and interpersonal skills without over doing it. Finish the interview with a positive note by asking about the next steps if not already mentioned, a firm hand shake with a “thank you for the interviewer’s time” with an eye contact and a smile. General Tip #1: Try to find out the needs of the project in which you will be working and the needs of the people within the project. 80% of the interview questions are based on your own resume. Where possible briefly demonstrate how you applied your skills/knowledge in the key areas [design concepts, transactional issues, performance issues, memory leaks etc], business skills, and interpersonal skills as described in this book. Find the right time to raise questions and answer those questions to show your strength. Be honest to answer technical questions, you are not expected to remember everything (for example you might know a few design patterns but not all of them etc). If you have not used a design pattern in question, request the interviewer, if you could describe a different design pattern. Do not be critical, focus on what you can do. Also try to be humorous to show your smartness. Do not act superior. [Technical skills must be complemented with good interpersonal skills ] General Tip #2: Prepare a skills/knowledge matrix in your Resume. This is very useful for someone who gained wide range of skills/knowledge in a short span by being a pro-active learner (e.g. extra reading, additional projects, outside work development projects etc). For example: Java 1.3 – 5.0 18 months Servlets / JSP 12 months J2EE (EJB, JMS, JNDI etc) 12 months XML, XSD, XSLT etc 6 months Hibernate 6 months OOA & OOD 12 months UML 4 months Design patterns 5 months SQL 12 months General Tip #3: Unless you are applying for a position as a junior or a beginner developer, having your resume start with all the Java training and certifications may lead to a misunderstanding that you are a beginner. Your first page should concentrate on your achievements and skills summary (As in General Tip #2) to show that you are a skilled professional. For example: • Re-designed the data packager application for the XYZ Corporation, to make it more scalable, maintainable and extendable. [Shows that you have design skills] • Identified and fixed memory leak issues for the master lock application and consequently improved performance by 20% and further improved performance by introducing multi-threading and other performance tuning strategies. Identified and fixed some transactional issues for the Endeavor project, which is a web based e-commerce application. [Shows that you are a pro-active developer with good understanding of multi-threading, transactional, performance and memory issues. Also shows that you have worked on transactional and multi-threaded systems and have an eye for identifying potential failures.] • Received an outstanding achievement award for my design and development work using Java/J2EE at the ABC Corporation. Published an article entitled “Java Tips and Tricks”. [Shows that you take pride in your achievements] • Mentored junior developers at JKL Corporation. [Shows that you are an experienced developer who would like to mentor junior developers and you are not only a technology oriented person but also a people oriented person]. Reference your achievements and accomplishments with specific examples and/or relevant paperwork (but avoid overloading the hiring manager with paperwork).
- 92. Java – KeyPoints 91 Java – Key Points Java is an object oriented (OO) language, which has built in support for multi-threading, socket communication, automatic memory management (i.e. garbage collection) and also has better portability than other languages across operating systems. Java class loaders are hierarchical and use a delegation model. The classes loaded by a child class loader have visibility into classes loaded by its parents up the hierarchy but the reverse is not true. Java packages help resolve naming conflicts when different packages have classes with the same names. This also helps you organize files within your project. Java does not support multiple implementation inheritance but supports multiple interface inheritance. Polymorphism, inheritance and encapsulation are the 3 pillar of an object-oriented language. Code reuse can be achieved through either inheritance (“is a” relationship) or object composition (“has a” relationship). Favor object composition over inheritance. When using implementation inheritance, make sure that the subclasses depend only on the behavior of the superclass, not the actual implementation. An abstract base class usually provides an implementation inheritance. Favor interface inheritance to implementation inheritance because it promotes the deign concept of coding to interface and reduces coupling. The interface inheritance can achieve code reuse through object composition. Design by contract specifies the obligations of a calling-method and called-method to each other using pre- conditions, post-conditions and class invariants. When using Java collections API, prefer using ArrayList or HashMap as opposed to Vector or Hashtable to avoid any synchronization overhead. The ArrayList or HashMap can be externally synchronized for concurrent access by multiple threads. Set the initial capacity of a collection appropriately and program in terms of interfaces as opposed to implementations. The equals() - returns the results of running the equals() method of a user supplied class, which compares the attribute values. The equals() method provides “deep comparison” by checking if two objects are logically equal as opposed to the shallow comparison provided by the operator ==. The non-final methods equals(), hashCode(), toString(), clone(), and finalize() are defined in the Object class and are primarily meant for extension. The equals() and hashCode() methods prove to be very important when objects implementing these two methods are added to collections. If a class overrides the equals() method, it must implement the hashCode() method as well. If two objects are equal as per the equals() method, then calling the hashCode() method in each of the two objects must return the same hashCode integer result but the reverse is not true (i.e. If two objects have the same hashCode does not mean that they are equal). If a field is not used in equals()method, then it must not be used in hashCode() method. When providing a user defined key class for storing objects in HashMap, you should override equals(), and hashCode() methods from the Object class. Always override the toString() method, but you should override the clone() method very judiciously. The finalize() method should only be used in rare instances as a safety net or to terminate non-critical native resources. String class is immutable and StringBuffer and StringBuilder classes are mutable. So it is more efficient to use a StringBuffer or a StringBuilder as opposed to a String in a computation intensive situations (i.e. in for, while loops). Serialization is a process of writing an object to a file or a stream. Transient variables cannot be serialized. Java I/O performance can be improved by using buffering, minimizing access to the underlying hard disk and operating systems. Use the NIO package for performance enhancing features like non-blocking I/O operation, buffers to hold data, and memory mapping of files.
- 93. 92 Java – Key Points Each time an object is created in Java it goes into the area of memory known as heap. The primitive variables are allocated in the stack if they are local method variables and in the heap if they are class member variables. Threads share the heap spaces so it is not thread-safe and the threads have their own stack space, which is thread-safe. The garbage collection cannot be forced, but you can nicely ask the garbage collector to collect garbage. There two types of exceptions checked (i.e. compiler checked) and unchecked (Runtime Exceptions). It is not advisable to catch type Exception. A process is an execution of a program (e.g. JVM process) but a thread is a single execution sequence within the process. Threads can be created in Java by either extending the Thread class or implementing the Runnable interface. In Java each object has a lock and a thread can acquire a lock by using the synchronized key word. The synchronization key word can be applied in method level (coarse-grained lock) or block level (fine-grained lock which offers better performance) of code. Threads can communicate with each other using wait(), notify(), and notifyAll() methods. This communication solves the consumer-producer problem. These are non-final methods defined in the Object class. Sockets are communication channels, which facilitate inter-process communication. The J2SE 5.0 release is focused along the key areas of ease of development, scalability, performance, quality, etc. The new features include generics, metadata, autoboxing and auto-unboxing of primitive types, enhanced for loop, enumerated type, static import, C style formatted output with printf(), formatted input with the Scanner class, varargs, etc. Swing uses the MVC paradigm to provide loose coupling and action architecture to implement a shared behavior between two or more user interface components. Complex layouts can be simplified by using nested containers for example having panels within panels and each panel can use its own LayoutManager like FlowLayout, BorderLayout, GridLayout, BoxLayout, CardLayout etc. The containers like panels, dialog boxes, windows etc do not perform the actual laying out of the components. They delegate the layout functionality to layout managers. The layout managers make use of the strategy design pattern, which encapsulates family of algorithms for laying out components in the containers. The AWT containers like panels, dialog boxes, windows etc do not perform the actual laying out of the components. They delegate the layout functionality to layout managers. The layout managers make use of the strategy design pattern, which encapsulates family of algorithms for laying out components in the containers. Swing components should be accessed through an event-dispatching thread. There is a way to access the Swing event-dispatching thread from outside event-handling or drawing code, is using SwingUtilities’ invokeLater() and invokeAndWait() methods. Like event handling code, painting code executes on the event-dispatching thread. So while an event is being handled, no painting will occur and similarly while painting is happening no events will take place. The paint() method should not be explicitly invoked. Only repaint() method can be explicitly invoked (which implicitly calls paintComponent() method) and only paintComponent() method should be overridden if required. Swing uses a delegation event model, in which the objects that receive user events notify the registered listeners of the user activity. In most cases the event receiver is a component. A signed applet can become a trusted applet, which can work outside the sandbox. In Java typically memory leak occurs when an object of longer life cycle has a reference to objects of a short life cycle. You can improve performance in Java by : 1. Pooling your valuable resources like threads, database and socket connections.
- 94. Java – KeyPoints 93 2. Optimizing your I/O operations. 3. Minimizing network overheads, calls to Date, Calendar related classes, use of “casting” or runtime type checking like “instanceof” in frequently executed methods/loops, JNI calls, etc 4. Managing your objects efficiently by caching or recycling them without having to rely on garbage collection. 5. Using a StringBuffer as opposed to String and ArrayList or HashMap as oppose to Vector or Hashtable 6. Applying multi-threading where applicable. 7. Minimizing any potential memory leaks. Finally, very briefly familiarize yourself with some of the key design patterns like: 1. Decorator design pattern: used by Java I/O API. A popular design pattern. 2. Reactor design pattern/Observer design pattern: used by Java NIO API. 3. Visitor design pattern: can be used to avoid instanceof and typecast constructs. 4. Factory method/abstract factory design pattern: popular pattern, which gets frequently asked in interviews. 5. Singleton pattern: popular pattern, which gets frequently asked in interviews. 6. Composite design pattern: used by GUI components and also a popular design pattern 7. MVC design pattern/architecture: used by Swing components and also a popular pattern. 8. Command pattern: used by Swing action architecture and also a popular design pattern. 9. Strategy design pattern: A popular design pattern used by AWT layout managers. Refer Q11 in “How would you go about…” section for a detailed discussion and code samples on GoF (Gang of Four) design patterns. Recommended reading: The famous Gang of Four book: Design Patterns, Eric Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides (Addiso-Wesley Publishing Co., 1995; ISBN: 0201633612). Effective Java Programming Language Guide – by Joshua Bloch Tech Tip #2: Always have the Java API handy and use the standard library to take advantage of the knowledge of the experts who wrote it and the experience of those who have used it and tested it before you. Every developer should be familiar with the following key libraries: java.lang and java.util are used very often and java.math and java.io are used less often. The other libraries can be learned as and when required. If you have a specialized need then first look for a library and if you cannot find one then you can implement your own. E.g. //To copy an array to another array: String[] array1 = {"a", "b", "c"}; String[] array2 = new String[2] ; java.lang.System.arraycopy(array1,0,array2,0,2); //convert an array to a list List list = java.util.Arrays.asList(array2); System.out.println(list);//prints [a, b] //convert the list back to an array String[] array3 = (String[])list.toArray(new String[0]); Tech Tip #3: The data types float and double are primarily designed for engineering and scientific calculations. They are not suited for financial calculations of monetary values. Use BigDecimal instead. For non decimal values you could either use the primitive values such as int, long etc or wrapper classes such as Integer, Long etc. Example If you are using hibernate as your object to relational mapper and would like to map a monetary data field of “amount” with database data type numeric (10,2) then prefer using BigDecimal as your object data type.
- 95. 94 Enterprise Java SECTION TWO Enterprise Java – Interview questions & answers Specification Fundamentals SF K E Design Concepts DC Y Design Patterns DP Concurrency Issues CI A Performance Issues PI R Memory Issues MI E A Exception Handling EH S Transactional Issues TI Security SE Scalability Issues SI Best Practices BP Coding1 CO FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions 1 Unlike other key areas, the CO is not always shown against the question but shown above the actual content of relevance within a question.
- 96. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 95 Enterprise - J2EE Overview Q 01: What is J2EE? What are J2EE components and services? SF FAQ A 01: J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) is an environment for developing and deploying enterprise applications. The J2EE platform consists of J2EE components, services, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and protocols that provide the functionality for developing multi-tiered and distributed Web based applications. J2EE Physical Tiers , Containers, Components , Services & APIs Firewall Firewall DMZ internet Client Web Server Application Server Database Server Client Tier Application Tier (Middle Tier) Data (EIS) Tier (X)HTML, Web J2EE Application Server XML HTTP(S) Server (Browser) Web Container JDBC Tag RDBMS HTML library Applet HTTP(S) Servlets JSP JavaMail CSS RMI/IIOP JavaMail JDBC JNDI JMS JTA JAF Java RMI Application RMI / IIOP Messaging JMS EJB Container Client Application (stand alone Java RMI/IIOP IIOP Corba Server program) Entity Beans Message Driven Beans Session Beans RMI/IIOP JavaMail JNDI JDBC JNDI JMS JTA JAF Directory Service Other Services + APIs provided by server/container: Security (SSL, ACL, JAAS,X.509) transactions, threading, Resource pooling (Eg: Connection pooling) etc ,Fault Tolerance, Load Balancing, clustering Monitoring, Auditing, Logging etc more...............
- 97. 96 Enterprise – J2EE Overview A J2EE component is a self-contained functional software unit that is assembled into a J2EE application with its related classes and files and communicates with other components. The J2EE specification defines the following J2EE components: Component type Components Packaged as Applet applets JAR (Java ARchive) Application client Client side Java codes. JAR (Java ARchive) Web component JSP, Servlet WAR (Web ARchive) Enterprise JavaBeans Session beans, Entity beans, Message driven beans JAR (EJB Archive) Enterprise application WAR, JAR, etc EAR (Enterprise ARchive) Resource adapters Resource adapters RAR (Resource Adapter ARchive) Q. So what is the difference between a component and a service? A component is an application level software unit as shown in the table above. All the J2EE components depend on the container for the system level support like transactions, security, pooling, life cycle management, threading etc. A service is a component that can be used remotely through a remote interface either synchronously or asynchronously (e.g. Web service, messaging system, sockets, RPC etc). A service is a step up from “distributed objects”. A service is a function that has a clearly defined service contract (e.g. interface, XML contract) to their consumers or clients, self contained and does not depend on the context or state of other services. Q. What is a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)? SOA is an evolution of the fundamentals governing a component based development. Component based development provides an opportunity for greater code reuse than what is possible with Object Oriented (OO) development. SOA provides even greater code reuse by utilizing OO development, component based development and also by identifying and organizing right services into a hierarchy of composite services. SOA results in loosely coupled application components, in which code is not necessarily tied to a particular database. SOAs are very popular and there is a huge demand exists for development and implementation of SOAs. Refer Q14 in How would you go about…? section for a more detailed discussion on SOA and Web services. Q. What are Web and EJB containers? Containers (Web & EJB containers) are the interface between a J2EE component and the low level platform specific functionality that supports J2EE components. Before a Web, enterprise bean (EJB), or application client component can be executed, it must be assembled into a J2EE module (jar, war, and/or ear) and deployed into its container. Q. Why do you need a J2EE server? What services does a J2EE server provide? A J2EE server provides system level support services such us security, transaction management, JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface) lookups, remote access etc. J2EE architecture provides configurable and non- configurable services. The configurable service enables the J2EE components within the same J2EE application to behave differently based on where they are deployed. For example the security settings can be different for the same J2EE application in two different production environments. The non-configurable services include enterprise bean (EJB) and servlet life cycle management, resource pooling etc. Server supports various protocols. Protocols are used for access to Internet services. J2EE platform supports HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol), RMI (Remote Method Invocation), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and SSL (Secured Socket Layer) protocol. The J2EE API can be summarized as follows: J2EE technology category API (Application Programming Interface) Component model technology Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages(JSP), Enterprise JavaBeans(EJB). JAXP (Java API for XML Processing), JAXR (Java API for XML Registries), SAAJ (SOAP Web Services technology with attachment API for Java), JAX-RPC (Java API for XML-based RPC), JAX-WS (Java API for XML-based Web Services).
- 98. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 97 JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity), JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface), JMS Other (Java Messaging Service), JCA (J2EE Connector Architecture), JTA (Java Transaction API), JavaMail, JAF (JavaBeans Activation Framework – used by JavaMail), JAAS (Java Authentication and Authorization Service), JMX (Java Management eXtensions). Q 02: Explain the J2EE 3-tier or n-tier architecture? SF DC FAQ A 02: This is a very commonly asked question. Be prepared to draw some diagrams on the board. The J2EE platform is a multi-tiered system. A tier is a logical or functional partitioning of a system. 2 – tier system 3 – tier system 2-Tier (Client/Server) 3-Tier (or n-tier) Client M /C 1 Client M /C 2 Client M/C 1 Client M/C 2 UserInterface UserInterface UserInterface UserInterface /display Logic /display Logic /display logic /display logic Business Business logic logic Database Database logic logic Middle-tier server Business Logic Database Logic Business Logic Database logic Data Data Database Database When the developers are not disciplined, the The advantages of the multi-tier architecture are: display logic, business logic and database logic are muddled up and/or duplicated in a 2- Forced separation of user interface logic and business logic. tier client server system. Business logic sits on small number of centralized machines (may be just one). Easy to maintain, to manage, to scale, loosely coupled etc. Each tier is assigned a unique responsibility in a 3-tier system. Each tier is logically separated and loosely coupled from each other, and may be distributed. Client tier represents Web browser, a Java or other application, Applet, WAP phone etc. The client tier makes requests to the Web server who will be serving the request by either returning static content if it is present in the Web server or forwards the request to either Servlet or JSP in the application server for either static or dynamic content. Presentation tier encapsulates the presentation logic required to serve clients. A Servlet or JSP in the presentation tier intercepts client requests, manages logons, sessions, accesses the business services, and finally constructs a response, which gets delivered to client. Business tier provides the business services. This tier contains the business logic and the business data. All the business logic is centralized into this tier as opposed to 2-tier systems where the business logic is scattered between the front end and the backend. The benefit of having a centralized business tier is that same business logic can support different types of clients like browser, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) client, other stand- alone applications written in Java, C++, C# etc. Integration tier is responsible for communicating with external resources such as databases, legacy systems, ERP systems, messaging systems like MQSeries etc. The components in this tier use JDBC, JMS, J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) and some proprietary middleware to access the resource tier. Resource tier is the external resource such as a database, ERP system, Mainframe system etc responsible for storing the data. This tier is also known as Data Tier or EIS (Enterprise Information System) Tier.
- 99. 98 Enterprise – J2EE Overview J 2 E E T ie rs H ig h L e v e l L o g ic a l o r T ie rs F u n c tio n a l T ie rs C lie n t T ie r C lie n t T ie r A p p le ts , H T M L ,W M L , J a v a S c rip t, C lie n t A p p lic a tio n C lie n ts e tc M id d le T ie r P re s e n ta tio n T ie r H T M L , C S S , G IF F ile s e tc (s ta tic c o n te n t) W e b S e rve r J S P s , S e rv le ts , T a g s e tc (d y n a m ic c o n te n t) ply J2EE patterns ap B u s in e s s T ie r E J B , J a v a C la s s e s , B u s in e s s O b je c ts e tc In te g ra tio n T ie r J M S , J D B C , C o n n e c to rs (J C A ), e tc A p p lic a tio n S e rv e r D a ta T ie r R e s o u rc e T ie r XML D a ta b a s e s , E R P & C R M s y s te m s , L e g a c y RDBMS S y s te m s e tc Note: On a high level J2EE can be construed as a 3-tier system consisting of Client Tier, Middle Tier (or Application Tier) and Data Tier. But logically or functionally J2EE is a multi-tier (or n-tier) platform. The advantages of a 3-tiered or n-tiered application: 3-tier or multi-tier architectures force separation among presentation logic, business logic and database logic. Let us look at some of the key benefits: Manageability: Each tier can be monitored, tuned and upgraded independently and different people can have clearly defined responsibilities. Scalability: More hardware can be added and allows clustering (i.e. horizontal scaling). Maintainability: Changes and upgrades can be performed without affecting other components. Availability: Clustering and load balancing can provide availability. Extensibility: Additional features can be easily added. The following diagram gives you a bigger picture of the logical tiers and the components.
- 100. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 99 Logical/Functional Tiers and J2EE components application client Java Application Server Mail JavaMail Server M Applet Web container EJB container N. Servlet il Legacy 1.request ma (front controller) nd J systems Se C A 2 Browser (web client) BusinessDelegate Interact with legacy 7 systems J Command Data Access D Session 5 Business 8 Database objects 3 3 4 4 5 6 6 Objects 7 B (RDBMS etc) beans Objects (DAOs) C D. Pu C b li a top sh XML 8. ic ms or a g Message A queu to da cce e J Driven Beans ta ss for en M 9. response au ter E. Message JSPs the pri S nt se Oriented ica us Middleware tio er n/a ac (MOM) uth ces or s c iza on Java application tio tro n l Swing/EJB/ etc client B. Listens on a Topic or Queue for J XML messages Z. JNDI lookup for EJB + N communicate via serializable DTO D I Data Transfer Objects (DTO) Integration Tier C++ , Java (transfer information between tiers) clients LDAP A. disparate application clients like C++ client, a legacy system Server etc or a Java client communicates via XML messages CLIENT Resource TIER Presentation Tier Business Tier Tier Note: thin Note: Presentation Tier should Note: Business logic should be in this tier so that it can be clients like only have web flow control, shared across by various clients like web applications, web clients presentation & display logic. If Swing applications, wireless applications, stand alone and thick GUI you have business logic in this Java, C++ applications etc. clients like tier it can be used only by web Swing, Applet, clients like an internet browser Note: Promotes code to interface not implementation. You code to interfaces Stand alone or an applet, but not by other like JDBC, JMS, JCA etc. Even if the implementation changes e.g. you need to Java, C++ clients like a Swing thick client, use a different database driver or use a different message oriented applications Wireless (WAP) application, middleware(MOM), your existing code does not have to change. All you have etc. Thick stand alone Java/C++ to do is change your database driver implementation library classes or the clients will applications etc. So to avoid message oriented middleware implementation library classes. have duplication of business logic, presentation this tier should not have any Note: Represents data. Databases (access using JDBC), XML messages in Topics/ & display business logic. Queues (access using JMS), and legacy systems (access using JCA) etc. logic. Note: Steps 1-9 shows a web browser client that communicates via http protocol using the request/response paradigm. Steps A-D shows asynchronous communication between heterogeneous & homogeneous applications (Java, C++ etc) using XML messages. Step Z shows invocation of a business logic via session beans from a Swing/Java/EJB thick client by looking up the EJB via JNDI and exchange information via serializable Data Transfer Objects (DTO). Step M,N shows that a Java application client or an Applet can interact with a Servlet using the URLConnection (or HttpUrlConnection) classes and exchange information using serializable Data Transfer Objects (DTO). Q 03: Explain MVC architecture relating to J2EE? DC DP FAQ A 03: This is also a very popular interview question. MVC stands for Model-View-Controller architecture. It divides the functionality of displaying and maintaining of the data to minimize the degree of coupling (i.e. promotes loose coupling) between components. It is often used by applications that need the ability to maintain multiple views like HTML, WML, Swing, XML based Web service etc of the same data. Multiple views and controllers can interface with the same model. Even new types of views and controllers can interface with a model without forcing a change in the model design.
- 101. 100 Enterprise – J2EE Overview J2E E M V C (M odel-V iew -C ontroller) M odel (E ntity/Sessio n B ean s (EJB ), P lain Java C lasses ) Encapsulates business logic and application state. y pla st dis ate o ch ta t an Da ge get V iew C ontroller (JSP , JavaB ean s, S w in g, U ser A ction(eg: subm itting a form , clicking a button etc) (Servlet etc) C u sto m T ag s, etc ) controls application behavior R enders the m odel & has M aps user actions to m odel. only display logic. selects view for response. Sends user actions to the View selection ( eg: selecting the next usually one for each controller JSP page to display as a response ) functionality. Allow s controller to select a view . C on tro ller 1. R equ est Servlet 2. in st Browser an 4 .f o rw a tia rd te s V iew M o del 3. rea d/u pda te 6. R espo nse 5 E JB or Plain Java data database JSP class C lient Tier M iddle Tier (A pplication Tier) D ata Tier N ote: Typical M V C architecture is show n above. V ariations are possible (e.g.: M odel 1 vs. M odel 2 M V C) A model represents the core business logic and state. A model commonly maps to data in the database and will also contain core business logic. A view renders the contents of a model. A view accesses the data from the model and adds display logic to present the data. A controller acts as the glue between a model and a view. A controller translates interactions with the view into actions to be performed by the model. User interactions in a Web application appear as GET and POST HTTP requests. The actions performed by a model include activating business processes or changing the state of the model. Based on the user interactions and the outcome of the model actions, the controller responds by selecting an appropriate view. Q 04: How to package a module, which is, shared by both the Web and the EJB modules? SF A 04: Package the modules shared by both Web and EJB modules as dependency jar files. Define the Class-Path: property in the MANIFEST.MF file in the EJB jar and the Web war files to refer to the shared modules. [Refer Q7 in Enterprise section for diagram: J2EE deployment structure]. The MANIFEST.MF files in the EJB jar and Web war modules should look like: Manifest-Version: 1.0 Created-By: Apache Ant 1.5 Class-Path: myAppsUtil.jar
- 102. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 101 Q 05: Why use design patterns in a J2EE application? DP A 05: They have been proven. Patterns reflect the experience and knowledge of developers who have successfully used these patterns in their own work. It lets you leverage the collective experience of the development community. Example Session facade and value object patterns evolved from performance problems experienced due to multiple network calls to the EJB tier from the Web tier. Fast lane reader and Data Access Object patterns exist for improving database access performance. The flyweight pattern improves application performance through object reuse (which minimizes the overhead such as memory allocation, garbage collection etc). They provide common vocabulary. Patterns provide software designers with a common vocabulary. Ideas can be conveyed to developers using this common vocabulary and format. Example Should we use a Data Access Object (DAO)? How about using a Business Delegate? Should we use Value Objects to reduce network overhead? Etc. If you are applying for a senior developer or an architect level role, you should at least know the more common design patterns like: -- Factory - Q52 in Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Singleton - Q51 in Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Proxy - Q52, Q62 in Enterprise Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Command - Q58 in Java section, Q27, Q110, Q116 in Enterprise Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Template method - Q110, Q116 in Enterprise Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Decorator - Q24 in Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Strategy - Q64 in Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Adapter - Q110, Q116 in Enterprise Java section, Q11 in How would you go about… section. -- Façade - Q84 in Enterprise Java section, Q11, Q12, Q15 (i.e. in SOA) in How would you go about… section. -- Business delegate – Q83 in Enterprise Java section. -- MVC - Q63 in Java section, Q3, Q27 in Enterprise Java sections. -- DAO - Q41 in Enterprise Java section. Q 06: What is the difference between a Web server and an application server? SF A 06: Web Server Application Server Supports HTTP protocol. When the Web server receives Exposes business logic and dynamic content to the client an HTTP request, it responds with an HTTP response, through various protocols such as HTTP, TCP/IP, IIOP, JRMP etc. such as sending back an HTML page (static content) or delegates the dynamic response generation to some other program such as CGI scripts or Servlets or JSPs in the application server. Uses various scalability and fault-tolerance techniques. Uses various scalability and fault-tolerance techniques. In addition provides resource pooling, component life cycle management, transaction management, messaging, security etc. Provides services for components like Web container for servlet components and EJB container for EJB components. Q 07: What are ear, war and jar files? What are J2EE Deployment Descriptors? SF FAQ A 07: The ear, war and jar are standard application deployment archive files. Since they are a standard, any application server (at least in theory) will know how to unpack and deploy them. An EAR file is a standard JAR file with an “.ear” extension, named from Enterprise ARchive file. A J2EE application with all of its modules is delivered in EAR file. JAR files can’t have other JAR files. But EAR and WAR (Web ARchive) files can have JAR files. An EAR file contains all the JARs and WARs belonging to an application. JAR files contain the EJB classes and WAR files contain the Web components (JSPs, Servlets and static content like HTML, CSS, GIF etc). The J2EE application client's class files are also stored in a JAR file. EARs, JARs, and WARs all contain one or more XML- based deployment descriptor(s).
- 103. 102 Enterprise – J2EE Overview Deployment Descriptors A deployment descriptor is an XML based text file with an “.xml” extension that describes a component's deployment settings. A J2EE application and each of its modules has its own deployment descriptor. Pay attention to elements marked in bold in the sample deployment descriptor files shown below. J2EE deployment structure (ear, war, jar ) MyApps.ear MANIFEST.MF Manifest-Version: 1.0 Craeted-By: Apache Ant META-INF application.xml deployment descriptor log4j.jar (3rd party jars) class files, properties files,configuration files etc MyAppsCommon.jar , MyAppsUtil.jar class files, properties files,configuration files etc (shared by both EJB and Web modules) MyAppsEJB.jar MANIFEST.MF class-path: log4j.jar MyAppsCommon.jar MyAppsUtil.jar META-INF ejb-jar.xml deployment descriptor ejb classes , non-ejb class etc MyAppsWeb.war JSP, HTML, CSS, GIF (can have public sub-folders) directory (document MANIFEST.MF root) class-path: log4j.jar MyAppsCommon.jar MyAppsUtil.jar META-INF web.xml WEB-INF deployment descriptor private directory lib struts.jar, crimson.jar 3rd party jar files classes class files application.xml: is a standard J2EE deployment descriptor, which includes the following structural information: EJB jar modules, Web war modules, <security-role> etc. Also since EJB jar modules are packaged as jars the same way dependency libraries like log4j.jar, MyAppsUtil.jar etc are packaged. The application.xml descriptor will distinguish between these two types of jar files by explicitly specifying the EJB jar modules. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE application PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD J2EE Application 1.2//EN" "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/application_1_2.dtd"> <application id="Application_ID"> <display-name>MyApps</display-name> <module id="EjbModule_1"> <ejb>MyAppsEJB.jar</ejb> </module> <module id="WebModule_1"> <web> <web-uri>MyAppsWeb.war</web-uri>
- 104. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 103 <context-root>myAppsWeb</context-root> </web> </module> <security-role id="SecurityRole_1"> <description>Management position</description> <role-name>manager</role-name> </security-role> </application> ejb-jar.xml: is a standard deployment descriptor for an EJB module. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE ejb-jar PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1//EN" "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/ejb-jar_1_1.dtd"> <ejb-jar id="ejb-jar_ID"> <display-name>MyAppsEJB</display-name> <enterprise-beans> <session id="ContentService"> <ejb-name>ContentService</ejb-name> <home>ejb.ContentServiceHome</home> <remote>ejb.ContentService</remote> <ejb-class>ejb.ContentServiceBean</ejb-class> <session-type>Stateless</session-type> <transaction-type>Bean</transaction-type> </session> <entity> <ejb-name>Bid</ejb-name> <home>ejb.BidHome</home> <remote>ejb.Bid</remote> <ejb-class>ejb.BidBean</ejb-class> <persistence-type>Container</persistence-type> <prim-key-class>ejb.BidPK</prim-key-class> <reentrant>False</reentrant> <cmp-field><field-name>bid</field-name></cmp-field> <cmp-field><field-name>bidder</field-name></cmp-field> <cmp-field><field-name>bidDate</field-name></cmp-field> <cmp-field><field-name>id</field-name></cmp-field> </entity> </enterprise-beans> <!-- OPTIONAL --> <assembly-descriptor> <!-- OPTIONAL, can be many --> <security-role> <description> Employee is allowed to ... </description> <role-name>employee</role-name> </security-role> <!-- OPTIONAL. Can be many --> <method-permission> <!-- Define role name in "security-role" --> <!-- Must be one or more --> <role-name>employee</role-name> <!-- Must be one or more --> <method> <ejb-name>ContentService</ejb-name> <!-- * = all methods --> <method-name>*</method-name> </method> <method> <ejb-name>Bid</ejb-name> <method-name>findByPrimaryKey</method-name> </method> </method-permission> <!-- OPTIONAL, can be many. How the container is to manage --> <!-- transactions when calling an EJB's business methods -->
- 105. 104 Enterprise – J2EE Overview <container-transaction> <!-- Can specify many methods at once here --> <method> <ejb-name>Bid</ejb-name> <method-name>*</method-name> </method> <!-- NotSupported|Supports|Required|RequiresNew|Mandatory|Never --> <trans-attribute>Required</trans-attribute> </container-transaction> </assembly-descriptor> </ejb-jar> web.xml: is a standard deployment descriptor for a Web module. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.2//EN" "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2_2.dtd"> <web-app> <display-name>myWebApplication</display-name> <context-param> <param-name>GlobalContext.ClassName</param-name> <param-value>web.GlobalContext</param-value> </context-param> <servlet> <servlet-name>MyWebController</servlet-name> <servlet-class>web.MyWebController</servlet-class> <init-param> <param-name>config</param-name> <param-value>/WEB-INF/config/myConfig.xml</param-value> </init-param> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>MyWebController</servlet-name> <url-pattern>/execute/*</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> <error-page> <error-code>400</error-code> <location>/WEB-INF/jsp/errors/myError.jsp</location> </error-page> <taglib> <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld</taglib-uri> <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/lib/taglib/struts/struts-bean.tld</taglib-location> </taglib> <security-constraint> <web-resource-collection> <web-resource-name>Employer</web-resource-name> <description></description> <url-pattern>/execute/employ</url-pattern> <http-method>POST</http-method> <http-method>GET</http-method> <http-method>PUT</http-method> </web-resource-collection> <auth-constraint> <description></description> <role-name>advisor</role-name> </auth-constraint> </security-constraint> <login-config> <auth-method>FORM</auth-method> <realm-name>FBA</realm-name> <form-login-config> <form-login-page>/execute/MyLogon</form-login-page> <form-error-page>/execute/MyError</form-error-page> </form-login-config> </login-config>
- 106. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 105 <security-role> <description>Advisor</description> <role-name>advisor</role-name> </security-role> </web-app> Q 08: Explain J2EE class loaders? SF A 08: J2EE application server sample class loader hierarchy is shown below. (Also refer to Q5 in Java section). As per the diagram the J2EE application specific class loaders are children of the “System –classpath” class loader. When the parent class loader is above the “System –classpath” class loader in the hierarchy as shown in the diagram (i.e. bootstrap class loader or extensions class loader) then child class loaders implicitly have visibility to the classes loaded by its parents. When a parent class loader is below a “System -classpath” class loader in the hierarchy then the child class loaders will only have visibility into the classes loaded by its parents only if they are explicitly specified in a manifest file (MANIFEST.MF) of the child class loader. Example As per the diagram, if the EJB module MyAppsEJB.jar wants to refer to MyAppsCommon.jar and MyAppsUtil.jar we need to add the following entry in the MyAppsEJB.jar’s manifest file MANIFEST.MF. class-path: MyAppsCommon.jar MyAppsUtil.jar J2EE application server sample class loader hierarchy MyApps.ear Bootstrap(JVM) (rt.jar, i18.jar) MyAppsUtil.jar Extensions(JVM) (lib/ext) MyAppsCommon.jar System(JVM) MyAppsEJB.jar (-classpath) MyAppsWeb.war Application class Application class Each EAR gets its own loader (EAR) loader (EAR) instance of class loader EJB class loader EJB class loader All the EJB jars in a ear file share the same EJB class loader. WAR class Each WAR gets its own instance of WAR class WAR class loader class loader. The WEB-INF/lib libraries loader loader are specific to each WAR Note: Application vendor's Server class loader hierarchy might slightly vary . This is because the application (EAR) class loader loads the MyAppsCommon.jar and MyAppsUtil.jar. The EJB class loader loads the MyAppsEJB.jar, which is the child class loader of the application class loader. The WAR class loader loads the MyAppsWeb.war. Every J2EE application or EAR gets its own instance of the application class loader. This class loader is also responsible for loading all the dependency jar files, which are shared by both Web and EJB modules. For example third party libraries like log4j, utility (e.g. MyAppsUtility.jar) and common (e.g. MyAppsCommon.jar) jars etc. Any application specific exception like MyApplicationException thrown by an EJB module should be caught by a Web module. So the exception class MyApplicationException is shared by both Web and EJB modules. The key difference between the EJB and WAR class loader is that all the EJB jars in the application share the same EJB class loader whereas WAR files get their own class loader. This is because the EJBs have inherent relationship between one another (i.e. EJB-EJB communication between EJBs in different applications but hosted on the same JVM) but the Web modules do not. Every WAR file should be able to have its own WEB-INF/lib third
- 107. 106 Enterprise – J2EE Overview party libraries and need to be able to load its own version of converted logon.jsp servlet. So each Web module is isolated in its own class loader. So if two different Web modules want to use two different versions of the same EJB then we need to have two different ear files. As was discussed in the Q5 in Java section the class loaders use a delegation model where the child class loaders delegate the loading up the hierarchy to their parent before trying to load it itself only if the parent can’t load it. But with regards to WAR class loaders, some application servers provide a setting to turn this behavior off (DelegationMode=false). This delegation mode is recommended in the Servlet 2.3 specification. As a general rule classes should not be deployed higher in the hierarchy than they are supposed to exist. This is because if you move one class up the hierarchy then you will have to move other classes up the hierarchy as well. This is because classes loaded by the parent class loader can’t see the classes loaded by its child class loaders (uni-directional bottom-up visibility). Tech Tip #4: Q. What do the terms internationalization(i18n) and localization(l10n) mean, and how are they related? Localization (aka l10n, where 10 is the number of letters between the letter ‘l’ and the letter ‘n’ in the word localization ) refers to the adaptation of an application or a component to meet the language, cultural and other requirements to a specific locale (i.e. a target market). Internationalization (aka i18n, where 18 is the number of letters between the letter ‘i’ and the letter ‘n’ in the word internationalization) refers to the process of designing a software so that it can be localized to various languages and regions cost-effectively and easily without any engineering changes to the software. A useful website on i18n is http://www.i18nfaq.com. Q. What are the characteristics of an internalized program? -- The same executable can run worldwide without having to recompile for other or new languages. -- Text messages and GUI component labels are not hard-coded in the program. Instead they are stored outside the source code in “.properties” files and retrieved dynamically based on the locale. -- Culturally dependent data such as dates and currencies, appear in formats that conform to end user's region and language. (e.g. USA mm/dd/yyyy, AUS dd/mm/yyyy). Q. What are the different types of data that vary with region or language? Messages, dates, currencies, numbers, measurements, phone numbers, postal addresses, tax calculations, graphics, icons, GUI labels, sounds, colors, online help etc. Q. What is a Locale? A Locale has the form of xx_YY (xx – is a two character language code && YY is a two character country code. E.g. en_US (English – United States), en_GB (English - Great Britain), fr_FR (french - France). The java.util.Locale class can be used as follows: Locale locale1 = new Locale(“en”, “US”); Locale locale2 = Locale.US; Locale locale3 = new Locale(“en”); Locale locale4 = new Locale(“en”, “US”, “optional”); // to allow the possibility of more than one // locale per language/country combination. locale2.getDefault().toString(); // en_US locale2.getLanguage(); // “en” locale2.getCountry(); // ”US” Resource bundles can be created using the locale to externalize the locale-specific messages: Message_en_US.properties Greetings = Hello Message_fr_FR.properties Greetings = Bonjour These resource bundles reside in classpath and gets read at runtime based on the locale.
- 108. Enterprise – J2EEOverview 107 Locale currentLoc = new Locale(“fr”, “FR”); ResourceBundle messages = ResourceBundle.getBundle(“Message”, currentLoc); System.out.println(messages.getString(“Greetings”)); //prints Bonjour Note: When paired with a locale, the closest matching file will be selected. If no match is found then the default file will be the Message.properties. In J2EE, locale is stored in HTTP session and resource bundles (stored as *.properties files under WEB- INF/classes directory) are loaded from the web.xml deployment descriptor file. Locale specific messages can be accessed via tags (e.g. Struts, JSTL etc). The java.text package consists of classes and interfaces that are useful for writing internationalized programs. By default they use the default locale, but this can be overridden. E.g. NumbeFormat, DateFormat, DecimalFormat, SimpleDateFormat, MessageFormat, ChoiceFormat, Collator (compare strings according to the customary sorting order for a locale) etc. DateFormat: Date now = new Date(); Locale locale = Locale.US; String s = DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.SHORT, locale).format(now); NumberFormat: NumberFormat usFormat = NumberFormat.getInstance(Locale.US); String s1 = usFormat.format(1785.85); // s1 1,785.85 NumberFormat germanyFormat = NumberFormat.getInstance(Locale.GERMANY); String s2 = germanyFormat.format(1785.85); // s2 1.785,85 To use default locale: NumberFormat.getInstance(); NumberFormat.getPercentInstance(); NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(); To use specific locale: NumberFormat.getInstance(Locale.US); NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(myLocale);
- 109. 108 Enterprise – Servlet Enterprise - Servlet Desktop applications (e.g. Swing) are presentation-centric, which means when you click a menu item you know which window would be displayed and how it would look. Web applications are resource-centric as opposed to being presentation-centric. Web applications should be thought of as follows: A browser should request from a server a resource (not a page) and depending on the availability of that resource and the model state, server would generate different presentation like a regular “read-only” web page or a form with input controls, or a “page-not-found” message for the requested resource. So think in terms of resources, not pages. Servlets and JSPs are server-side presentation-tier components managed by the web container within an application server. Web applications make use of http protocol, which is a stateless request-response based paradigm. Q 09: What is the difference between CGI and Servlet? SF A 09: Traditional CGI Java Servlet (Common Gateway Interface) Traditional CGI creates a heavy weight process to handle each Spawns a lightweight Java thread to handle each http http request. N number of copies of the same traditional CGI request. Single copy of a type of servlet but N number of programs is copied into memory to serve N number of threads (thread sizes can be configured in an application requests. server). Servlets (request/response paradigm ) <?xm l version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <web-app > <servlet> H ttp request <servlet-nam e>CRM Servlet</servlet-nam e> <servlet-class>com .devx.CRM Servlet</servlet-class> </servlet> H ttp response <servlet-m apping> Client <servlet-nam e>CRM Servlet</servlet-nam e> Application Server <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern> on host “localhost” port:8080 </servlet-m apping> </web-app> Client Tier Presentation <?xm l version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> HTM L, CSS, <jboss-web> Tier <context-root>m yW ebCtxt</context-root> JavaScript, im ages, Servlets </jboss-web> etc. W eb Container W eb B rowser-1 request -1 single instance of CRM Servlet handles requests from Deplom ent descriptor client-1 W EB-INF/web.xm l m ultiple browser instances by assigning a thread response - 1 from the thread-pool for each request. Deplom ent descriptor W eb B rowser-2 request - 2 W EB-INF/jbossweb.xm l C RM Servlet client-2 response - 2 RMI/IIOP JavaMail W eb B rowser-3 JDBC request - 3 JNDI JMS JTA client-2 JAF response - 3 internet package com .devx; //im port statem ents public class CR MServlet extends HttpServlet { public void init(ServletC onfig config) throws ServletException { super.init(config); } protected void doPost(H ttpServletR equest req, HttpServletResponse resp) http://m yserver:8080/myWebCtxt/crm.do request throws ServletException, IOException { ServletO utputStream out = resp.getO utputStream(); response out.setContentType(“text/htm l”); <htm l> out.println("<htm l><h1>O utput to Browser</h1>"); <h1>O utput to Browser</h1> out.println("<body>W ritten as htm l from a Servlet<body></htm l>"); <body>W ritten as htm l from a Servlet<body> } </htm l> protected void doGet(H ttpServletR equest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException { doPost(req, resp); } }
- 110. Enterprise – Servlet 109 A Servlet is a Java class that runs within a web container in an application server, servicing multiple client requests concurrently forwarded through the server and the web container. The web browser establishes a socket connection to the host server in the URL , and sends the HTTP request. Servlets can forward requests to other servers and servlets and can also be used to balance load among several servers. Q. Which protocol is used to communicate between a browser and a servlet? A browser and a servlet communicate using the HTTP protocol (a stateless request/response based protocol). Q. What are the two objects a servlet receives when it accepts a call from its client? A “ServletRequest”, which encapsulates client request from the client and the “ServletResponse”, which encapsulates the communication from the servlet back to the client. In addition to both HTTP request and response, HTTP headers are informational additions that convey both essential and non-essential information. For example: HTTP headers are used to convey MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) type of an HTTP request and also to set and retrieve cookies etc. Content-Type: text/html Set-Cookie:AV+USERKEY=AVSe5678f6c1tgfd;expires=Monday, 4-Jul-2006 12:00:00; path=/;domain=.lulu.com; response.setContentType(“text/html”); response.addCookie(myCookie); Q. How would you get the browser to request for an updated page in 10 seconds from the server? response.setHeader(“Refresh”, 10); Refresh does not stipulate continual updates. It just specifies in how many seconds the next update should take place. So, you have to continue to supply “Refresh” in all subsequent responses. The “Refresh” header is very useful because it lets the servlet display a partial list of items or an introductory image to be displayed while the complete results or real page is displayed later (say in 10 seconds). You can also specify another page to be reloaded as follows: respose.setHeader(“Refresh”, “10;URL=http://localhost:8080/myCtxt/crm.do”); The above setting can be directly set in the <HEAD> section of the HTML page as shown below as opposed to setting it in the servlet. This is useful for static HTML pages. <META HTTP-EQUIV=”Refresh” CONTENT=”5; URL=http://localhost:8080/myCtxt/crm.do” /> Q. What can you do in your Servlet/JSP code to tell browser not to cache the pages? Another useful header is the Cache-Control as shown below: response.setHeader(“Cache-Control”,“no-cache”); //document should never be cached. HTTP 1.1 response.setHeader(“Pragma”, “no-cache”); //HTTP 1.0 response.setDateHeader(“Expires”, 0); Q. What is the difference between request parameters and request attributes? Request parameters Request attributes Parameters are form data that are sent in the request Once a servlet gets a request, it can add additional attributes, from the HTML page. These parameters are generally then forward the request off to other servlets or JSPs for form fields in an HTML form like: processing. Servlets and JSPs can communicate with each other by setting and getting attributes. <input type=”text” name=”param1” /> <input type=”text” name=”param2” /> request.setAttribute(“calc-value”, new Float(7.0)); request.getAttribute(“calc-value”); Form data can be attached to the end of the URL as shown below for GET requests http://MyServer:8080/MyServlet? param1=Peter¶m2=Smith or sent to the sever in the request body for POST requests. Sensitive form data should be sent as a POST request. You can get them but cannot set them. You can both set the attribute and get the attribute. You can also get and set the attributes in session and application request.getParameter("param1"); scopes. request.getParameterNames();
- 111. 110 Enterprise – Servlet Q. What are the different scopes or places where a servlet can save data for its processing? Data saved in a request-scope goes out of scope once a response has been sent back to the client (i.e. when the request is completed). //save and get request-scoped value request.setAttribute(“calc-value”, new Float(7.0)); request.getAttribute(“calc-value”); Data saved in a session-scope is available across multiple requests. Data saved in the session is destroyed when the session is destroyed (not when a request completes but spans several requests). //save and get session-scoped value HttpSession session = request.getSession(false); If(session != null) { session.setAttribute(“id”, “DX12345”); value = session.getAttribute(“id”); } Data saved in a ServletContext scope is shared by all servlets and JSPs in the context. The data stored in the servlet context is destroyed when the servlet context is destroyed. //save and get an application-scoped value getServletContext().setAttribute(“application-value”, “shopping-app”); value = getServletContext().getAttribute(“application-value”); Q. Which code line should be set in a response object before using the PrintWriter or the OutputStream? You need to set the content type using the setContentType(…) method. //to return an html response.setContentType(“text/html”); PrintWriter out = response.getWriter(); out.println(“…….”); //to return an image response.setContentType(“image/gif”); How does a Servlet differ from an Applet? Applet Servlet Applets execute on a browser. Servlets execute within a web container in an Application Server. Applets have a graphical user interface. Servlets do not have a graphical user interface. Q 10: HTTP is a stateless protocol, so, how do you maintain state? How do you store user data between requests? SF PI BP FAQ A 10: This is a commonly asked interview question. The “http protocol” is a stateless request/response based protocol. You can retain the state information between different page requests as follows: HTTP Sessions are the recommended approach. A session identifies the requests that originate from the same browser during the period of conversation. All the servlets can share the same session. The JSESSIONID is generated by the server and can be passed to client through cookies, URL re-writing (if cookies are turned off) or built-in SSL mechanism. Care should be taken to minimize size of objects stored in session and objects stored in session should be serializable. In a Java servlet the session can be obtained as follows: CO HttpSession session = request.getSession(true); //returns a current session or a new session //To put/get a value in/from the session Name name = new Name(“Peter”); session.setAttribute(“Firstname”, name); //session.putValue(…) is deprecated as of 2.2 session.getAttribute(“Firstname”);//get a value. session.getValue(…) is deprecated //If a session is no longer required e.g. user has logged out, etc then it can be invalidated. session.invalidate(); //you can also set the session inactivity lease period on a per session basis session.setMaxInactiveInterval(300);//resets inactivity period for this session as 5 minutes
- 112. Enterprise – Servlet 111 Session Management Client Server (Browser) A new session is created on the Server side with JSESSIONID where JSESSIONID Name Value 1. Initial Request[No session] state can be maintained as name/value pair. xsder12345 Firstname Peter 2. JSESSIONID is passed to client with the response through xsder12345 LastName Smith r the ation fo cookies or URL re-writing tate informNID stored s SIO 3. Client uses the JSESSIONID retrieve supplied JSES for subsequent requests Q. Session tracking uses cookies by default. What would you do if the cookies are turned off? If cookies are turned off, you can still enable session tracking using URL rewriting. This involves including the session ID within the link as the name/value pair as shown below. http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do;jsessionid=4FB61319542B5D310B243E4BDD6DC64B Adding session ID to each and every link is cumbersome and hence is simplified by the following methods: response.encodeURL(givenURL) to associate a session ID with a given URL and if you are using redirection then response.encodeRedirectURL(givenURL). //set a value in the session public class CRMServlet extends HttpServlet { protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException { req.getSession().setAttribute("key", "ItemNo-1245"); String url = resp.encodeURL("/myWebCtxt/purchase.do"); PrintWriter pw = resp.getWriter(); pw.println("<html>Sample encoded URL --><a href='" + url + "'>purchase</a></html>"); } } //retrieve the previously set value from the session public class PurchaseServlet extends HttpServlet { protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException { String value = (String)req.getSession().getAttribute("key"); PrintWriter pw = resp.getWriter(); pw.println("<html>Item to purchase is --> " + value +"</html>"); } } When you invoke the method encodeURL(givenURL) with the cookies turned on, then session ID is not appended to the URL. Now turn the cookies off and restart the browser. If you invoke the encodeURL(givenURL) with the cookies turned off, the session ID is automatically added to the URL as follows: http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do;jsessionid=4FB61319542B5D310B243E4BDD6DC64B Q. What is the difference between using getSession(true) and getSession(false) methods? getSession(true): This method will check whether there is already a session exists for the user. If a session exists, it returns that session object. If a session does not already exist then it creates a new session for the user. getSession(false): This method will check whether there is already a session exists for the user. If a session exists, it returns that session object. If a session does not already exist then it returns null.
- 113. 112 Enterprise – Servlet Sessions can be timed out (configured in web.xml) or manually invalidated. Hidden Fields on the pages can maintain state and they are not visible on the browser. The server treats both hidden and non-hidden fields the same way. <INPUT type=”hidden” name=”Firstname” value=”Peter”> <INPUT type=”hidden” name=”Lastname” value=”Smith”> The disadvantage of hidden fields is that they may expose sensitive or private information to others. URL re-writing will append the state information as a query string to the URL. This should not be used to maintain private or sensitive information. Http://MyServer:8080/MyServlet?Firstname=Peter&Lastname=Smith Cookies: A cookie is a piece of text that a Web server can store on a user’s hard disk. Cookies allow a website to store information on a user’s machine and later retrieve it. These pieces of information are stored as name-value pairs. The cookie data moves in the following manner: If you type the URL of a website into your browser, your browser sends the request to the Web server. When the browser does this it looks on your machine for a cookie file that URL has set. If it finds it, your browser will send all of the name-value pairs along with the URL. If it does not find a cookie file, it sends no cookie data. The URL’s Web server receives the cookie data and requests for a page. If name-value pairs are received, the server can use them. If no name-value pairs are received, the server can create a new ID and then sends name-value pairs to your machine in the header for the Web page it sends. Your machine stores the name value pairs on your hard disk. Cookies can be used to determine how many visitors visit your site. It can also determine how many are new versus repeated visitors. The way it does this is by using a database. The first time a visitor arrives; the site creates a new ID in the database and sends the ID as a cookie. The next time the same user comes back, the site can increment a counter associated with that ID in the database and know how many times that visitor returns. The sites can also store user preferences so that site can look different for each visitor. Q. How can you set a cookie and delete a cookie from within a Servlet? //to add a cookie Cookie myCookie = new Cookie(“aName”, “aValue”); response.addCookie(myCookie); //to delete a cookie myCookie.setValue(“aName”, null); myCookie.setMax(0); myCookie.setPath(“/”); response.addCookie(myCookie); Q. Which mechanism to choose? State Description mechanism HttpSession There is no limit on the size of the session data kept. The performance is good. This is the preferred way of maintaining state. If we use the HTTP session with the application server’s persistence mechanism (server converts the session object into BLOB type and stores it in the Database) then the performance will be moderate to poor. Note: When using HttpSession mechanism you need to take care of the following points: Remove session explicitly when you no longer require it. Set the session timeout value. Your application server may serialize session objects after crossing a certain memory limit. This is expensive and affects performance. So decide carefully what you want to store in a session. Hidden fields There is no limit on size of the session data. May expose sensitive or private information to others (So not good for sensitive information). The performance is moderate. URL rewriting There is a limit on the size of the session data.
- 114. Enterprise – Servlet 113 Should not be used for sensitive or private information. The performance is moderate. Cookies There is a limit for cookie size. The browser may turn off cookies. The performance is moderate. The benefit of the cookies is that state information can be stored regardless of which server the client talks to and even if all servers go down. Also, if required, state information can be retained across sessions. Q 11: Explain the life cycle methods of a servlet? SF FAQ A 11: The Web container is responsible for managing the servlet’s life cycle. The Web container creates an instance of the servlet and then the container calls the init() method. At the completion of the init() method the servlet is in ready state to service requests from clients. The container calls the servlet’s service() method for handling each request by spawning a new thread for each request from the Web container’s thread pool [It is also possible to have a single threaded Servlet, refer Q16 in Enterprise section]. Before destroying the instance the container will call the destroy() method. After destroy() the servlet becomes the potential candidate for garbage collection. S e r v le t L ife C y c le in s ta n tia te & c a ll in it() c a lle d o n c e in it() re a d y to s e rv e re q u e s ts th re a d 1 : c lie n t re q u e s t h a n d le m u ltip le th re a d 2 : c lie n t re q u e s t th re a d 3 : c lie n t re q u e s t re q u e s ts a n d s e n d s e rv ic e () re s p o n s e . c a lle d o n c e d e s tro y () Q. What would be an effective use of the Servlet init() method? One effective use of the Servlet init() method is the creation and caching of thread-safe resource acquisition mechanisms such, as JDBC DataSources, EJB Homes, and Web Services SOAP Mapping Registry. Q. How would you call a method in the EJB from a servlet? … MyBeanHome home = null; … public void init (ServletConfig config) throws ServletException { //1. JNDI lookup is hard coded for illustration purpose but should use a declarative //approach involving web.xml file and server specific deployment descriptor files because //if the server location changes, hardcoding may require reasonable amount of changes & //testing. Lookup for JBoss server is shown below: Properties jndiProps = new Properties(); jndiProps.setProperty(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, “org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory”); jndiProps.setProperty(Context.URL_PKG_PREFIXES,”org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces”); jndiProps.setProperty(Context.PROVIDER_URL, “jnp://localhost:1099”); Context ctx = new InitialContext(jndiProps); //2. lookup home(or localHome) interface. Shown for illustration. Should prefer using the //Service Locator pattern. Refer Q87 in Enterprise section. Object ref = ctx.lookup(“ejb/MyBean”); home = (MyBeanHome)PortableRemoteObject.narrow(ref, MyBeanHome.class); }
- 115. 114 Enterprise – Servlet public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)throws ServletException, IOException { … //3. create a remote or a local interface MyBean bean = home.create(); //4. Now you can call business method on remote interface bean.invokeBusinessMethod(…); } Q. Is it possible to share an HttpSession between a Servlet/JSP and EJB? You can pass an HttpSession as a parameter to an EJB method only if all objects in session are serializable. This is because they are “passed-by- value” and if any values in the HttpSession are altered inside the EJB then it won’t be reflected back to the HttpSession in the Servlet. Even though it is possible to pass an HttpSession object, it is a bad practice in terms of design because you are unnecessarily coupling your presentation tier (i.e. Servlet/JSP) object with your business-tier (i.e. EJB) objects. So rather than passing the whole, large HttpSession create a class (i.e. Plain Old Java Object) that acts as a value object (aka Data Transfer Object – refer Q85 in Enterprise section) that holds all the data you need to pass back and forth between your presentation tier and business tier. This approach would also be flexible enough to handle a scenario where your EJBs in the business tier need to support a non-http based client like a stand alone Java application or a WAP client. Q. How does an HTTP Servlet handle client requests? All client requests are handled through the service() method. The service method dispatches the request to an appropriate method like doGet(), doPost() etc to handle that request. Q 12: Explain the directory structure of a Web application? SF SE FAQ A 12: Refer Q7 in Enterprise section for diagram: J2EE deployment structure and explanation in this section where MyAppsWeb.war is depicting the Web application directory structure. The directory structure of a Web application consists of two parts: Directory structure of a web application crm.war (web archive) *.jsp, *.html, *.css, *.gif public (can have sub-folders) directory MANIFEST.MF (document class-path: log4j.jar MyAppsCommon.jar MyAppsUtil.jar root) META-INF web.xml deployment descriptor WEB-INF Jboss-web.xml application server specific deployment descriptor private directory struts.jar, crimson.jar lib 3rd party jar files class files classes e.g. CRMServlet A public resource directory (document root): The document root is where JSP pages, client-side classes and archives, and static Web resources are stored. A private directory called WEB-INF: which contains following files and directories: web.xml: Web application deployment descriptor. application server specific deployment descriptor e.g. jboss-web.xml etc. *.tld: Tag library descriptor files. classes: A directory that contains server side classes like servlets, utility classes, JavaBeans etc. lib: A directory where JAR (archive files of tag libraries, utility libraries used by the server side classes) files are stored.
- 116. Enterprise – Servlet 115 Note: JSP resources usually reside directly or under subdirectories of the document root, which are directly accessible to the user through the URL. If you want to protect your Web resources then hiding the JSP files behind the WEB-INF directory can protect the JSP files from direct access. Refer Q35 in Enterprise section. Q 13: What is the difference between doGet () and doPost () or GET and POST? SF SE FAQ A 13: Prefer using doPost() because it is secured and it can send much more information to the server.. GET or doGet() POST or doPost() The request parameters are transmitted as a query string The request parameters are passed with the body of the appended to the request. All the parameters get appended to request. the URL in the address bar. Allows browser bookmarks but not appropriate for transmitting private or sensitive information. More secured. In HTML you can specify as follows: http://MyServer/MyServlet?name=paul <form name=”SSS” method=”POST” > This is a security risk. In an HTML you can specify as follows: <form name=”SSS” method=”GET” > GET was originally intended for static resource retrieval. POST was intended for form submits where the state of the model and database are expected to change. GET is not appropriate when large amounts of input data are Since it sends information through a socket back to the being transferred. Limited to 1024 characters. server and it won’t show up in the URL address bar, it can send much more information to the server. Unlike doGet(), it is not restricted to sending only textual data. It can also send binary data such as serialized Java objects. Q. If you want a servlet to take the same action for both GET and POST request, what would you do? You should have doGet call doPost, or vice versa. protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException ServletOutputStream out = resp.getOutputStream(); out.setContentType(“text/html”); out.println("<html><h1>Output to Browser</h1>"); out.println("<body>Written as html from a Servlet<body></html>"); } protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException doPost(req, resp); //call doPost() for flow control logic. } Q 14: What are the ServletContext and ServletConfig objects? What are Servlet environment objects? SF A 14: The Servlet Engine uses both interfaces. The servlet engine implements the ServletConfig interface in order to pass configuration details from the deployment descriptor (web.xml) to a servlet via its init() method. public class CRMServlet extends HttpServlet { //initializes the servlet public void init(ServletConfig config)throws ServletException { super.init(config); } … } ServletConfig ServletContext The ServletConfig parameters are for a particular The ServletContext parameters are specified for the entire Web Servlet. The parameters are specified in the web.xml application. The parameters are specified in the web.xml (i.e. (i.e. deployment descriptor). It is created after a servlet deployment descriptor). Servlet context is common to all Servlets. So is instantiated and it is used to pass initialization all Servlets share information through ServletContext. information to the servlet. Example:
- 117. 116 Enterprise – Servlet String strCfgPath = getServletConfig().getInitParameter("config"); String strServletName = getServletConfig().getServletName(); String strClassName = getServletContext().getAttribute("GlobalClassName"); Q. How can you invoke a JSP error page from a controller servlet? The following code demonstrates how an exception from a servlet can be passed to an error JSP page. protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException { try { //doSomething } catch(Exception ex) { req.setAttribute("javax.servlet.ex",ex);//store the exception as a request attribute. ServletConfig sConfig = getServletConfig(); ServletContext sContext = sConfig.getServletContext(); sContext.getRequestDispatcher("/jsp/ErrorPage.jsp").forward(req, resp);// forward the //request with the exception stored as an attribute to the “ErrorPage.jsp”. ex.printStackTrace(); } } Q. What are servlet lifecycle events? Servlet lifecycle events work like the Swing events. Any listener interested in observing the ServletContext lifecycle can implement the ServletContextListener interface and in the ServletContext attribute lifecycle can implement the ServletContextAttributesListener interface. The session listener model is similar to the ServletContext listener model (Refer Servlet spec 2.3 or later). ServletContext’s and Session’s listener objects are notified when servlet contexts and sessions are initialized and destroyed, as well as when attributes are added or removed from a context or session. For example: You can declare a listener in the web.xml deployment descriptor as follows: <listener> <listener-class>com.MyJDBCConnectionManager </listener-class> </listener> You can create the listener class as shown below: public class MyJDBCConnectionManager implements ServletContextListener { public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) { Connection con = // create a connection event.getServletContext().setAttribute("con", con); } public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent e) { Connection con = (Connection) e.getServletContext().getAttribute("con"); try { con.close(); } catch (SQLException ignored) { } // close connection } } The server creates an instance of the listener class to receive events and uses introspection to determine what listener interface (or interfaces) the class implements. Q 15: What is the difference between HttpServlet and GenericServlet? SF A 15: Both these classes are abstract but: GenericServlet HttpServlet A GenericServlet has a service() method to handle The HttpServlet extends GenericServlet and adds support for HTTP requests. protocol based methods like doGet(), doPost(), doHead() etc. All client requests are handled through the service() method. The service method dispatches the request to an appropriate method like doGet(), doPost() etc to handle that request. HttpServlet also has methods like doHead(), doPut(), doOptions(), doDelete(), and doTrace(). Protocol independent. GenericServlet is for servlets Protocol dependent (i.e. HTTP). that might not use HTTP (for example FTP service).
- 118. Enterprise – Servlet 117 Q 16: How do you make a Servlet thread safe? What do you need to be concerned about with storing data in Servlet instance fields? CI PI BP FAQ A 16: As shown in the figure Servlet Life Cycle in Q11 in Enterprise section, a typical (or default) Servlet life cycle creates a single instance of each servlet and creates multiple threads to handle the service() method. The multi- threading aids efficiency but the servlet code must be coded in a thread safe manner. The shared resources (e.g. instance variables, utility or helper objects etc) should be appropriately synchronized or should only use variables in a read-only manner. There are situations where synchronizing will not give you the expected results as shown in the diagram below and to achieve the expected results you should store your values in a user session or store them as a hidden field values. Having large chunks of code in synchronized blocks in your service or doPost() methods can adversely affect performance and makes the code more complex. H o w to m a k e a S e rv le t th re a d -s a fe ? p u b lic c la s s C R M S e rv le t e x te n d s H ttp S e rv le t { use r 1 user 2 user 3 p riv a te s ta tic fin a l in t C O N S T A N T = 5 ; //im m u ta b le , s o th re a d s a fe re q u e s t1 re q u e s t2 re q u e s t3 //m u ta b le in s ta n c e v a ria b le o n th re a d 1 o n th re a d 2 o n th re a d 3 p riv a te in t x = 0 ; // n o t th re a d s a fe p ro te c te d v o id d o P o s t(H ttp S e rv le tR e q u e s t re q , H ttp S e rv le tR e s p o n s e re s p ) Local variable y Local variable y Local variable y th ro w s S e rv le tE x c e p tio n , IO E x c e p tio n { doPost() doPost() doPost() S e rv le tO u tp u tS tre a m o u t = re s p .g e tO u tp u tS tre a m (); // lo c a l v a ria b le y in t y = n e w In te g e r(re q u e s t.g e tP a ra m e te r("s u p p lie d V a lu e ")).in tV a lu e (); s ta c k 1 s ta c k 2 s ta c k 3 in c re m e n tV a lu e (y ); // L in e A o u t.p rin tln ("< h tm l> < h 1 > O u tp u t to B ro w s e r< /h 1 > "); // L in e B Heap o u t.p rin tln ("< b o d y > X = " + g e tX () + "< b o d y > < /h tm l> "); // L in e C } C R M S e rv le t in s ta n c e p riv a te v o id in c re m e n tV a lu e (in t v a lu e ){ p riv a te in t x ; x = x + v a lu e + C O N S T A N T ; CO NSTA N T = 5; } p riv a te v o id g e tX (){ re tu rn x ; } } N o te : A s s h o w n a b o v e , th e m e th o d s d o P o s t(), in c re m e n tV a lu e () a n d g e tX () a re e x e c u te d in th e s ta c k m e m o ry a n d w ill h a v e its o w n c o p y o f lo c a l v a ria b le “y ”. B u t th e m e m b e r v a ria b le “x ” a n d im m u ta b le c o n s ta n t “C O N S T A N T ” a re s to re d in th e h e a p m e m o ry . T h e h e a p m e m o ry is s h a re d b y a ll th e th re a d s a n d h e n c e th e v a ria b le “x ” is n o t th re a d -s a fe a n d v a ria b le “C O N S T A N T ” is th re a d s a fe b e c a u s e it is im m u ta b le (i.e re a d o n ly , c a n n o t b e m o d ifie d ). W h y th e v a ria b le “ x ” is n o t th re a d -s a fe ? S a y th e u s e r-1 s u b m its a re q u e s t w ith a “s u p p lie d V a lu e ” p a ra m e te r 1 a n d e x p e c ts re tu rn e d a v a lu e o f 6 (i.e . x + v a lu e + C O N S A T N T 0 + 1 + 5 ). T h e u s e r-2 s u b m its a re q u e s t w ith a “s u p p lie d V a lu e ” p a ra m e te r 2 a n d e x p e c ts a re tu rn e d v a lu e o f 7 (i.e . 2 + v a lu e + C O N S A T N T 0 + 2 + 5 ). If th re a d -1 fro m u s e r-1 h a s e x e c u te d “L in e A ” w h ic h h a s in c re m e n te d th e v a lu e o f “x ” to 6 a n d m o v e s to “L in e B ”. W h ile c lie n t 1 is in “L in e B ” th e th re a d -2 fro m u s e r-2 is e x e c u tin g th e “L in e A ” w h e re b y m o d ify in g th e v a lu e o f x to 1 3 (i.e . x + v a lu e + C O N S T A N T 6 + 2 + 5 ) . N o w , w h e n th e th re a d -1 fro m u s e r-1 e x e c u te s th e “L in e C ”, it re a d s th e v a lu e o f “x ” in c o rre c tly a s 1 3 (in s te a d o f 6 ) b e c a u s e th e th re a d -2 fro m c lie n t 2 h a s m o d ifie d th e v a lu e . E v e n th e th re a d -2 fro m th e c lie n t 2 re a d s th e in c o rre c t v a lu e o f 1 3 (in s te a d o f 7 ). A ls o th e re a re o th e r p o s s ib ilitie s s u c h a s if th re a d -2 w in s th e ra c e b y e x e c u tin g th e “L in e A ” firs t th e n th e u s e r-2 m a y g e t th e v a lu e o f e ith e r 7 a n d th e u s e r-1 m a y g e t th e v a lu e o f 1 3 . H o w to p re v e n t th is ? In th is s c e n a rio s y n c h ro n iz in g th e m e th o d s w o u ld n o t a ls o h e lp . Y o u n e e d to s to re th e v a lu e “x ” fo r e a c h u s e r s e p a ra te ly . T h e a b o v e th re a d -s a fe ty is s u e c a n b e p re v e n te d b y s to rin g th e v a ria b le “x ” in a s e s s io n o r a s a h id d e n fie ld w h e re e a c h u s e r w ill h a v e h is /h e r o w n c o p y o f th e v a lu e fo r “x ” a s o p p o s e d to s h a rin g th e s a m e v a lu e fro m th e h e a p m e m o ry . If y o u ju s t n e e d a c u m u la tiv e v a lu e fo r e a c h u s e r lik e s a y u s e r-1 g e ts th e v a lu e o f 6 (i.e 0 + 1 + 5 ) a n d th e u s e r-2 g e ts th e v a lu e o f 1 3 (i.e . 6 + 2 + 5 ) o r v ic e -v e rs a i.e u s e r-2 g e ts th e v a lu e o f 7 a n d th e u s e r-1 g e ts th e v a lu e 1 3 , th is c a n b e a c h ie v e d b y s lig h tly m o d ify in g th e p ro g ra m b y re m o v in g g e tX () m e th o d a n d c h a n g in g th e in c re m e n tV a lu e (in t v a lu e ) m e th o d a n d m o d ify in g th e d o P o s t() m e th o s a s s h o w n b e lo w : p ro te c te d v o id d o P o s t(H ttp S e rv le tR e q u e s t re q , H ttp S e rv le tR e s p o n s e re s p ) th ro w s S e rv le tE x c e p tio n , IO E x c e p tio n { … //s k ip p in g lin e s in t y = n e w In te g e r(re q u e s t.g e tP a ra m e te r("s u p p lie d V a lu e ")).in tV a lu e (); in t w = i n c re m e n tV a lu e (y ); // L in e A a c c e s s e d in a th re a d s a fe m a n n e r a n d s to re d in a lo c a l v a ria b le “ w ” . E a c h // u s e r w ill h a v e h is o w n c o p y o f “ w ” o u t.p rin tln ("< h tm l> < h 1 > O u tp u t to B ro w s e r< /h 1 > "); // L in e B o u t.p rin tln ("< b o d y > X = " + w + "< b o d y > < /h tm l> "); // L in e C … //s k ip p in g lin e s } p riv a te s y n c h ro n iz e d in t in c re m e n tV a lu e (in t v a lu e ) { //s in c e s y n c h ro n iz e d , o n ly o n e th re a d c a n a c c e s s a t a tim e x = x + v a lu e + IM M U T A B L E _ C O N S T A N T ; re tu rn x ; }
- 119. 118 Enterprise – Servlet Alternatively it is possible to have a single threaded model of a servlet by implementing the marker or null interface javax.servlet.SingleThreadedModel. The container will use one of the following approaches to ensure thread safety: Instance pooling where container maintains a pool of servlets. Sequential processing where new requests will wait while the current request is being processed. Best practice: It is best practice to use multi-threading and stay away from the single threaded model of the servlet unless otherwise there is a compelling reason for it. Shared resources can be synchronized, used in read- only manner, or shared values can be stored in a session, as hidden fields or in database table. The single threaded model can adversely affect performance and hence has been deprecated in the servlet specification 2.4. As shown in the diagram above, threads share the heap and have their own stack space (i.e. each thread has its own stack). This is how one thread’s invocation of a method (doGet(), doPost()) and its local variables (e.g. int y ) are kept thread safe from other threads. But the heap (e.g. int x ) is not thread-safe and must be synchronized for thread safety or stored in an HTTP session or stored as a hidden field. The variable “CONSTANT” is a read only immutable field since it is marked as final and hence thread-safe. Note: How do you make a Servlet thread safe? is a popular interview question. Q. How do you get your servlet to stop timing out on a really long database query? There are situations despite how much database tuning effort you put into a project, there might be complex queries or a batch process initiated via a Servlet, which might take several minutes to execute. The issue is that if you call a long query from a Servlet or JSP, the browser may time out before the call completes. When this happens, the user will not see the results of their request. There are proprietary solutions to this problem like asynchronous servlets in WebLogic, Async Beans in WebSphere etc but you need a solution that is portable. Let us look at portable solutions to this issue. Solution 1: Client-pull or client-refresh (aka server polling): You can use the <META> tag for polling the server. This tag tells the client it must refresh the page after a number of seconds. <META http-equiv=”Refresh” content=”10; url=”newPage.html” /> Refer Q9 in Enterprise section for question How would you get the browser to request for an updated page in 10 seconds? Once you can have the browser poll your Servlet on a regular basis to re-fetch a page, then your servlet can check for a value of a variable say in a HttpSession to determine if the page returned will have the results expected by the user or resend the <META> tag with a “Please wait …” message and retry fetching the page again later. Solution 2: J2EE Solution: Instead of spawning your own threads within your Servlet, you could use JMS (Java Messaging Service). This involves following steps: 1. You need to have two servlets, a RequestingServlet and a DisplayingServlet. The initial client request is sent to the RequestingServlet. Both the RequestingServlet and DisplayingServlet polled by the browser via <META> tag discussed above or JavaScript. Both these Servlets should send the <META> tag with their responses until final display of the query results. 2. RequestingServlet places the query on the “request” queue using JMS. 3. You need to have a MessageDrivenBean (aka MDB) say QueryProcessorMDB, which dequeues the query from the “request” queue and performs the long-running database operation. On completion of processing long-running database operation, the QueryProcessorMDB returns the query results to the “reply” queue (use javax.jms.QueueSender & javax.jms.ObjectMessage). Note: MDBs are invoked asynchronously on arrival of messages in the queue. 4. DisplayingServlet checks the “reply” queue for the query results using JMS (use javax.jms.QueueReceiver & javax.jms.ObjectMessage) every few seconds via <META> tag described above or a JavaScript. Advantages: Firstly implementing your long-running database operation to be invoked from onMessage() method of your QueryProcessorMDB decouples your application whereby if a database failure occurs, the request query message will be placed back in the “request” queue and retried again later. Secondly MDBs can be clustered (with or without additional JVMs) to listen on the same “request” queue. This means cluster of MDBs will be balancing the load of processing long running database operations. This can improve the throughput due to increased processing power.
- 120. Enterprise – Servlet 119 Q 17: What is pre-initialization of a Servlet? LF A 17: By default the container does not initialize the servlets as soon as it starts up. It initializes a servlet when it receives a request for the first time for that servlet. This is called lazy loading. The servlet deployment descriptor (web.xml) defines the <load-on-startup> element, which can be configured to make the servlet container load and initialize the servlet as soon as it starts up. The process of loading a servlet before any request comes in is called pre-loading or pre-initializing a servlet. We can also specify the order in which the servlets are initialized. <load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup> Q 18: What is a RequestDispatcher? What object do you use to forward a request? LF CO A 18: A Servlet can obtain its RequestDispatcher object from its ServletContext. //…inside the doGet() method ServletContext sc = getServletContext(); RequestDispatcher rd = sc.getRequestDispatcher(“/nextServlet”);//relative path of the resource //forwards the control to another servlet or JSP to generate response. This method allows one //servlet to do preliminary processing of a request and another resource to generate the //response. rd.forward(request,response); // or includes the content of the resource such as Servlet, JSP, HTML, Images etc into the // calling Servlet’s response. rd.include(request, response); What is the difference between the getRequestDispatcher(String path) method of “ServletRequest” interface and ServletContext interface? javax.servlet.ServletRequest javax.servlet.ServletContext getRequestDispatcher(String path) getRequestDispatcher(String path) Accepts path parameter of the servlet or JSP to be Does not accept relative paths and all path must start included or forwarded relative to the request of the with a “/” and are interpreted as relative to current context calling servlet. If the path begins with a “/” then it is root. interpreted as relative to current context root. Q 19: What is the difference between forwarding a request and redirecting a request? LF DC FAQ A 19: Both methods send you to a new resource like Servlet, JSP etc. forward() or include() vs sendRedirect() forward() or include() sendRedirect() Web Container Web Container 1. request CRMServlet 1. request CRMServlet edirect Client 2. Client 2. sendR (Browser) forward/ (Browser) new b rowse include r requ est 3. response CRMResultServlet 3. response CRMResultServlet Note: path supplied to RequestDispatcher will be Note: path supplied to RequestDispatcher will be something like “http://myserver:8080/myContext/ something like “/CRMResultServlet” CRMResultServlet”.
- 121. 120 Enterprise – Servlet redirecting - sendRedirect() Forward Sends a header back to the browser, which contains the name of Forward action takes place within the server without the resource to be redirected to. The browser will make a fresh the knowledge of the browser. Accepts relative path request from this header information. Need to provide absolute to the servlet or context root. URL path. Has an overhead of extra remote trip but has the advantage of No extra network trip. being able to refer to any resource on the same or different domain and also allows book marking of the page. Q 20: What are the considerations for servlet clustering? DC SI A 20: The clustering promotes high availability and scalability. The considerations for servlet clustering are: Objects stored in a session should be serializable to support in-memory replication of sessions. Also consider the overhead of serializing very large objects. Test the performance to make sure it is acceptable. Design for idempotence. Failure of a request or impatient users clicking again can result in duplicate requests being submitted. So the Servlets should be able to tolerate duplicate requests. Avoid using instance and static variables in read and write mode because different instances may exist on different JVMs. Any state should be held in an external resource such as a database. Avoid storing values in a ServletContext. A ServletContext is not serializable and also the different instances may exist in different JVMs. Avoid using java.io.* because the files may not exist on all backend machines. Instead use getResourceAsStream(). Q. How to perform I/O operations in a Servlet/JSP? Problem: Since web applications are deployed as WAR files on the application server’s web container, the full path and relative paths to these files vary for each server. Solution -1: You can configure the file paths in web.xml using <init-param> tags and retrieve file paths in your Servlets/JSPs. But this technique requires changes to the web.xml deployment descriptor file, to point to the correct path. Solution -2: You can overcome these configuration issues by using the features of java.lang.ClassLoader and javax.servlet.ServletContext classes. There are various ways of reading a file using the ServletContext API methods such as getResource(String resource),getResourceAsStream(String resource), getResourcePaths(String path) and getRealPath(String path). The getRealPath(String path) method translates virtual URL into real path refer Q26 in Enterprise section. //Get the file “products.xml” under the WEB-INF folder of your application as inputstream InputStream is = config.getServletContext().getResourceAsStream(“/products.xml”); Alternatively you can use the APIs from ClassLoader as follows. The file “products.xml” should be placed under WEB-INF/classes directory where all web application classes reside. //Get the URL for the file and create a stream explicitly URL url = config.getServletContext().getResource(“/products.xml”); BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(url.openStream)); OR //use the context class loader URL url = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource(“products-out.xml”); BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(url.getFile()); Q. How do you send a file to a browser from your web application? I.e. how do you download a file from your web application? Files can be downloaded from a web application by using the right combination of headers. //set the header to a non-standard value for attachments to be saved by the browser with the //Save-As dialog so that it is unrecognized by the browsers because often browsers try to do //something special when they recognize the content-type. response.setContentType(“application/x-download”); //use Content-Disposition “attachment” to invoke “Save As” dialog and “inline” for displaying //the file content on the browser without invoking the “Save As” dialog. response.setHeader(“Content-disposition”, “attachment;filename=” + fileName);
- 122. Enterprise – Servlet 121 Q. How do you send a file from a browser to your web application? i.e. How do you upload a file to your web application? There are better and more secured ways to upload your files instead of using using web. For example FTP, secure FTP etc. But if you need to do it via your web application then your default encoding and GET methods are not suitable for file upload and a form containing file input fields must specify the encoding type “multipart/form- data” and the POST method in the <form ..> tag as shown below: <form enctype=”multipart/form-data” method=”POST” action=”/MyServlet”> <input type=”file” name=”products” /> <input type=”submit” name=”Upload” value=”upload” /> </form> When the user clicks the “Upload” button, the client browser locates the local file and sends it to the server using HTTP POST. When it reaches your server, your implementing servlet should process the POST data in order to extract the encoded file. Unfortunately, application servers implementing the Servlet and JSP specifications are not required to handle the multipart/form-data encoding. Fortunately there are number of libraries available such as Apache Commons File Upload, which is a small Java package that lets you obtain the content of the uploaded file from the encoded form data. The API of this package is flexible enough to keep small files in memory while large files are stored on disk in a “temp” directory. You can specify a size threshold to determine when to keep in memory and when to write to disk. Q 21: If an object is stored in a session and subsequently you change the state of the object, will this state change replicated to all the other distributed sessions in the cluster? DC SI A 21: No. Session replication is the term that is used when your current service state is being replicated across multiple application instances. Session replication occurs when we replicate the information (i.e. session attributes) that are stored in your HttpSession. The container propagates the changes only when you call the setAttribute(……) method. So mutating the objects in a session and then by-passing the setAttribute(………..) will not replicate the state change. CO Example If you have an ArrayList in the session representing shopping cart objects and if you just call getAttribute(…) to retrieve the ArrayList and then add or change something without calling the setAttribute(…) then the container may not know that you have added or changed something in the ArrayList. So the session will not be replicated. Q 22: What is a filter, and how does it work? LF DP FAQ A 22: A filter dynamically intercepts requests and responses to transform or use the information contained in the requests or responses but typically do not themselves create responses. Filters can also be used to transform the response from the Servlet or JSP before sending it back to client. Filters improve reusability by placing recurring tasks in the filter as a reusable unit. F ilt e r W e b C o n ta in e r S e r v le t , J S P , H T M L F ilte r 3 R esponse R equest F ilte r 2 F ilte r 1 C lie n t A good way to think of Servlet filters is as a chain of steps that a request and response must go through before reaching a Servlet, JSP, or static resource such as an HTML page in a Web application.
- 123. 122 Enterprise – Servlet The filters can be used for caching and compressing content, logging and auditing, image conversions (scaling up or down etc), authenticating incoming requests, XSL transformation of XML content, localization of the request and the response, site hit count etc. The filters are configured through the web.xml file as follows: <web-app> <filter> <filter-name>HitCounterFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>myPkg.HitCounterFilter</filter-class> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>HitCounterFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>/usersection/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping> ... </web-app> The HitCounterFilter will intercept the requests from the URL pattern /usersection followed by any resource name. Design Pattern: Servlet filters use the slightly modified version of the chain of responsibility design pattern. Unlike the classic (only one object in the chain handle the request) chain of responsibility where filters allow multiple objects (filters) in a chain to handle the request. If you want to modify the request or the response in the chain you can use the decorator pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you go about… section). Q 23: Explain declarative security for Web applications? SE A 23: Servlet containers implement declarative security. The administration is done through the deployment descriptor web.xml file. With declarative security the Servlets and JSP pages will be free from any security aware code. You can protect your URLs through web.xml as shown below: web-app> <security-constraint> <web-resource-collection> <web-resource-name>PrivateAndSensitive</web-resource-name> <url-pattern>/private/*</url-pattern> </web-resource-collection> <auth-constraint> <role-name>executive</role-name> <role-name>admin</role-name> </auth-constraint> </security-constraint> <!-- form based authorization --> <login-config> <auth-method>FORM</auth-method> <form-login-config> <form-login-page>/login.jsp</form-login-page> <form-error-page>/error.jsp</form-error-page> </form-login-config> </login-config> </web-app> The user will be prompted for the configured login.jsp when restricted resources are accessed. The container also keeps track of which users have been previously authenticated. Benefits: Very little coding is required and developers can concentrate on the application they are building and system administrators can administer the security settings without or with minimal developer intervention. Let’s look at a sample programmatic security in a Web module like a servlet: CO User user = new User(); Principal principal = request.getUserPrincipal(); if (request.isUserInRole("boss")) user.setRole(user.BOSS_ROLE); Q 24: Explain the Front Controller design pattern or explain J2EE design patterns? DP FAQ A 24: Problem: A J2EE system requires a centralized access point for HTTP request handling to support the integration of system services like security, data validation etc, content retrieval, view management, and dispatching. When the user accesses the view directly without going through a centralized mechanism, two problems may occur:
- 124. Enterprise – Servlet 123 Each view is required to provide its own system services often resulting in duplicate code. View navigation is left to the views. This may result in shared code for view content and view navigation. Distributed control is more difficult to maintain, since changes will often need to be made in numerous places. Solution: Generally you write specific servlets for specific request handling. These servlets are responsible for data validation, error handling, invoking business services and finally forwarding the request to a specific JSP view to display the results to the user. J2EE Front Controller Pattern View dispatches client Client request FrontController ApplicationFlowController delegates Command (eg: Struts Action) invokes <<servlet>> <<JSP>> FrontControllerServlet FrontControllerJSP The Front Controller suggests that we only have one Servlet (instead of having specific Servlet for each specific request) centralizing the handling of all the requests and delegating the functions like validation, invoking business services etc to a command or a helper component. For example Struts framework uses the command design pattern to delegate the business services to an action class. Benefits Avoid duplicating the control logic like security check, flow control etc. Apply the common logic, which is shared by multiple requests in the Front controller. Separate the system processing logic from the view processing logic. Provides a controlled and centralized access point for your system. Q 25: Briefly discuss the following patterns Composite view, View helper, Dispatcher view and Service to worker? Or explain J2EE design patterns? DP FAQ A 25: Composite View: Creates an aggregate view from atomic sub-views. The Composite view entirely focuses on the view. The view is typically a JSP page, which has the HTML, JSP Tags etc. The JSP display pages mostly have a side bar, header, footer and main content area. These are the sub-views of the view. The sub- views can be either static or dynamic. The best practice is to have these sub-views as separate JSP pages and include them in the whole view. This will enable reuse of JSP sub-views and improves maintainability by having to change them at one place only. Composite View BasicView 1 View CompositeView
- 125. 124 Enterprise – Servlet View Helper: When processing logic is embedded inside the controller or view it causes code duplication in all the pages. This causes maintenance problems, as any change to piece of logic has to be done in all the views. In the view helper pattern the view delegates its processing responsibilities to its helper classes. The helper classes JavaBeans: used to compute and store the presentation data and Custom Tags: used for computation of logic and displaying them iteratively complement each other. Benefits Avoids embedding programming logic in the views and facilitates division of labor between Java developers and Web page designers. View Helper Pattern Without View Helpers code for Logic-1 and Logic- With View Helpers like JavaBeans, CustomTags etc code for Logic-1 2 are duplicated within different servlets/JSPs and Logic-2 are not duplicated hence more maintainable and reusable. Servlet 1/JSP 1 Servlet 1/JSP 1 Logic 1 Logic 2 Logic 3 3 Logic Logic 1 JavaBeans (Servlets,JSPs) CustomTags (JSPs only) Logic 3 Servlet 2/JSP 2 Servlet 1/JSP 1 Logic 2 JavaBeans (Servlets,JSPs) Logic 1 Logic 2 CustomTags (JSPs only) Service to Worker and Dispatcher View: These two patterns are a combination of Front Controller and View Helper patterns with a dispatcher component. One of the responsibilities of a Front Controller is choosing a view and dispatching the request to an appropriate view. This behavior can be partitioned into a separate component known as a dispatcher. But these two patterns differ in the way they suggest different division of responsibility among the components. Service to Worker Dispatcher View Combines the front controller (Refer Q24 in Enterprise This pattern is structurally similar to the service to worker section) and dispatcher, with views and view helpers (refer but the emphasis is on a different usage pattern. This Q25 in Enterprise section) to handle client requests and combines the Front controller and the dispatcher with the dynamically prepares the response. view helpers but Controllers delegate the content retrieval to the view Controller does not delegate content retrieval to helpers, which populates the intermediate model view helpers because this activity is deferred to content for the view. view processing. Dispatcher is responsible for the view management Dispatcher is responsible for the view management and view navigation. and view navigation Promotes more up-front work by the front controller Relatively has a lightweight front controller and and dispatcher for the authentication, authorization, dispatcher with minimum functionality and most of the content retrieval, validation, view management and work is done by the view. navigation.
- 126. Enterprise – Servlet 125 Q 26: Explain Servlet URL mapping? SF Q 26: The “URL” denotes a virtual path and “File” denotes a real path of the resource. S ervlet U R L m ap p in g W ith o u t M ap p in g in w eb .xm l URL h ttp ://<h o stn a m e :p o rt> /<w e b a p p na m e > /se rvle t /< p a thn a m e >/< re so u rce n am e > U R L eg http://localhost:8080/m yA pps/ servlet/m yP ath/M yS ervlet F ile S E R V E R _ H O M E W e b A p p sm yA p p sW E B -IN F C la ss e sm yP a th M yS e rvle t S erv e r R o o t D o cu m e nt ro o t W ith M ap p in g in w eb .xm l d ep lo ym en t d escrip to r file W e ca n d e fin e th e se rvle t m ap p in g in th e w e b .x m l d e p lo ym n e t d e scrip to r file a s sh o w n b e lo w : < w e b -a p p > < se rvle t> < se rvle t-n a m e > M y S e rv le t< /se rvle t-na m e > < se rvle t-cla ss> m y P a th .M y S e rv le t< /se rvle t-cla ss> < /se rvlet> < se rvle t-m a pp ing > < servle t-na m e > M y S e rv le t< /se rvle t-n am e > < u rl-p atte rn> m in e /*.d o < /url-p a tte rn> < /se rvlet-m a p p in g > < w e b -a p p > U R L after m ap p in g h ttp ://lo ca lh ost:8 0 8 0 /m yA p ps/m in e /te s t.d o N o te : W h ich m e an s e ve ry re q u est w h ich h as a p a tte rn o f h ttp ://lo ca lh o s t:8 0 80 /m y A p p s/ m in e /*.d o w ill b e h a n dle d b y th e m y P a th .M y S e rv le t cla ss. (* d e n o te s w ild ch a ra cte r fo r a n y a lp h a n u m e ric n a m e ). A lso p o ssib le to m a p M yS ervle t to th e p a tte rn o f /m in e /* , th e * in d ica te s a n y resou rce na m e fo llo w e d b y /m in e . H o w d o w e g et th e w eb ap p n am e "m yA p p s" T h e w e b a p p n a m e is d e fin e d in th e a p p lic a tio n .xm l de p lo ym e n t d e scrip to r file . T h e < co n te xt-ro o t > d en o te s th e w eb a pp n a m e a s sh o w n b e lo w < a p p licatio n > ............ < m od u le id = "W e b M o d u le _ 1 "> <w eb> < w eb -u ri> m yA p p sW eb .w a r< /w e b -uri> < co n text-ro o t> m y A p p s< /co n te xt-ro o t> < /w e b> < /m o d u le > ........ < m o d u le id = "E jb M o d u le _ 1 "> < e jb > m yE JB .ja r< /e jb > < /m o d u le > ..... < /a p p lica tio n > In the Model 2 MVC architecture, servlets process requests and select JSPs (discussed in next section) for views. So servlets act as controllers. Servlets intercept the incoming HTTP requests from the client (browser) and then dispatch the request to the business logic model (e.g. EJB, POJO - Plain Old Java Object, JavaBeans etc). Then select the next JSP view for display and deliver the view as HTML to client as the presentation (response). It is the best practice to use Web tier UI frameworks like Struts, Spring MVC, JavaServer Faces (JSF), Tapestry etc, which uses proven and tested design patterns for medium to large scale applications. Before you learn these frameworks, you should understand the web fundamentals relating to servlets, JSPs, HTTP request/response paradigm, state management, deployment structure, web container/application server services etc.
- 127. 126 Enterprise – JSP Enterprise - JSP Desktop applications (e.g. Swing) are presentation-centric, which means when you click a menu item you know which window would be displayed and how it would look. Web applications are resource-centric as opposed to being presentation-centric. Web applications should be thought of as follows: A browser should request from a server a resource (not a page) and depending on the availability of that resource and the model state, server would generate different presentation like a regular “read-only” web page or a form with input controls, or a “page-not-found” message for the requested resource. So think in terms of resources, not pages. Servlets and JSPs are server-side presentation-tier components managed by the web container within an application server. Web applications make use of http protocol, which is a stateless request-response based paradigm. JSP technology extends the servlet technology, which means anything you can do with a servlet you can do with a JSP as well. Q 27: What’s wrong with Servlets? What is a JSP? What is it used for? What do you know about model 0, model 1 and model 2 patterns? In “model 2” architecture, if you set a request attribute in your JSP, would you be able to access it in your subsequent request within your servlet code? How do you prevent multiple submits due to repeated “refresh button” clicks? What do you understand by the term JSP translation phase or compilation phase? SF FAQ A 27: As shown in Q9 in Enterprise section, writing out.println (…) statements using servlet is cumbersome and hard to maintain, especially if you need to send a long HTML page with little dynamic code content. Worse still, every single change requires recompilation of your servlet. JSP (request/response paradigm) Http request Http response Application Server on host “localhost” port:8080 Client n tio nta se er , Pre Ti TML H etc Client Tier P, JS ages HTML, CSS, Im JavaScript, Images etc Web Container Web Browser-1 single instance of converted servlet from the jsp crm.jsp file you write is request -1 code you wrote handles requests from multiple client-1 browser instances by assigning a thread from translated into a servlet class response - 1 the thread-pool for each request. by the jsp engine. Web Browser-2 request - 2 crm_jsp.class translate crm.jsp client-2 internet response - 2 RMI/IIOP JavaMail JDBC Web Browser-3 JNDI JMS request - 3 JTA JAF client-2 response - 3 http://myserver:8080/myWebCtxt/crm.jsp request <%@page contentType="text/html" %> <!-- simple JSP Page --> <html> <title>Simple JSP Page</title> <!-- simple JSP Page --> <h1>Output to Browser</h1> <html> <body> <title>Simple JSP Page</title> Written as html from a JSP Servlet <h1>Output to Browser</h1> </body> <body> response </html> Written as html from a JSP Servlet </body> Note: The converted servlet crm_jsp.class will contain all the required </html> out.println(...) constructs, so that you do not have to write them.
- 128. Enterprise – JSP 127 Q. Did JSPs make servlets obsolete? No. JSPs did not make Servlets obsolete. Both Servlets and JSPs are complementary technologies. You can look at the JSP technology from an HTML designer’s perspective as an extension to HTML with embedded dynamic content and from a Java developer’s as an extension of the Java Servlet technology. JSP is commonly used as the presentation layer for combining HTML and Java code. While Java Servlet technology is capable of generating HTML with out.println(“<html>….. </html>”) statements, where “out” is a PrintWriter. This process of embedding HTML code with escape characters is cumbersome and hard to maintain. The JSP technology solves this by providing a level of abstraction so that the developer can use custom tags and action elements, which can speed up Web development and are easier to maintain. Q. What is a model 0 pattern (i.e. model-less pattern) and why is it not recommended? What is a model-2 or MVC architecture? Problem: The example shown above is based on a “model 0” (i.e. embedding business logic within JSP) pattern. The model 0 pattern is fine for a very basic JSP page as shown above. But real web applications would have business logic, data access logic etc, which would make the above code hard to read, difficult to maintain, difficult to refactor, and untestable. It is also not recommended to embed business logic and data access logic in a JSP page since it is protocol dependent (i.e. HTTP protocol) and makes it unable to be reused elsewhere like a wireless application using a WAP protocol, a standalone XML based messaging application etc. Solution: You can refactor the processing code containing business logic and data access logic into Java classes, which adhered to certain standards. This approach provides better testability, reuse and reduced the size of the JSP pages. This is known as the “model 1” pattern where JSPs retain the responsibility of a controller, and view renderer with display logic but delegates the business processing to java classes known as Java Beans. The Java Beans are Java classes, which adhere to following items: Implement java.io.Serializable or java.io.Externalizable interface. Provide a no-arguments constructor. Private properties must have corresponding getXXX/setXXX methods. Model-1 pattern internet W Container eb 1. request JSPpage Java Beans e.g. crm with .jsp user 2 e.g. crm.class with 3 control and display 4. response processing logic Database logic The above model provides a great improvement from the model 0 or model-less pattern, but there are still some problems and limitations. Problem: In the model 1 architecture the JSP page is alone responsible for processing the incoming request and replying back to the user. This architecture may be suitable for simple applications, but complex applications will end up with significant amount of Java code embedded within your JSP page, especially when there is significant amount of data processing to be performed. This is a problem not only for java developers due to design ugliness but also a problem for web designers when you have large amount of Java code in your JSP pages. In many cases, the page receiving the request is not the page, which renders the response as an HTML output because decisions need to be made based on the submitted data to determine the most appropriate page to be displayed. This would require your pages to be redirected (i.e. sendRedirect (…)) or forwarded to each other resulting in a messy flow of control and design ugliness for the application. So, why should you use a JSP page as a controller, which is mainly designed to be used as a template? Solution: You can use the Model 2 architecture (MVC – Model, View, Controller architecture), which is a hybrid approach for serving dynamic content, since it combines the use of both Servlets and JSPs. It takes advantage of the predominant strengths of both technologies where a Servlet is the target for submitting a request and performing flow-control tasks and using JSPs to generate the presentation layer. As shown in the diagram below, the servlet acts as the controller and is responsible for request processing and the creation of any beans or
- 129. 128 Enterprise – JSP objects used by the JSP as well as deciding, which JSP page to forward or redirect the request to (i.e. flow control) depending on the data submitted by the user. The JSP page is responsible for retrieving any objects or beans that may have been previously created by the servlet, and as a template for rendering the view as a response to be sent to the user as an HTML. Model-2 pattern (Model, View, Controller architecture) internet Web Container Servlet Java Beans (Controller) (Model) 1. request 2. instantiate 3 e.g. CRMServlet with e.g. crm.class with Database control logic processing logic user 4 5 JSP page (View) 6. response e.g. crm.jsp with display logic Q. If you set a request attribute in your JSP, would you be able to access it in your subsequent request within your servlet code? [This question can be asked to determine if you understand the request/response paradigm] The answer is no because your request goes out of scope, but if you set a request attribute in your servlet then you would be able to access it in your JSP. U n d e rstan d in g th e re q u es t/re sp o n se p a rad ig m H ttp req u es t H ttp res p o n s e A p p lica tio n S e rve r o n h o s t “lo ca lh o s t” p o rt:8 0 80 C lie n t C R M S e rv le t.c la s s P re se n ta tio n C lie n t ... T ie r T ie r pu b lic cla ss C R M S e rvle t exten d s H ttp S ervlet { ... p rote cte d vo id d oP o st(H ttp S e rvle tR e q ue st re q, H ttp S e rvle tR e spo n se resp ) h ttp ://lo c alh o s t:8 0 80 /m y W e b C tx t/c rm .d o 1 . re q u e st thro w s S e rvle tE xcep tion , IO E xcep tion { S tring na m e = "S ervletT ext"; S trin g v a lu e = "req u e s t a ttrib u te se t b y se rvle t"; re q .s e tA ttrib u te (n a m e , v a lu e ); //fo rw a rd the req ue st to JS P re q .g e tR e qu e stD isp atch er("/crm .jsp").forw ard (re q , re sp ); } ... inte rne t } 2. h tm l s e n t fro m J S P to th e b ro w s e r fo rw a rd c rm .js p <!D O C T YP E htm l PU BLIC "-//W 3C //D T D X H T M L 1.0 T ransitional//E N " "http://w w w .w 3.org/T R / < % @ p a ge co n ten tT yp e= "te xt/h tm l" % > xhtm l1/D T D /xhtm l1-transitional.dtd"> < !D O C T Y P E h tm l P U B L IC "-//W 3C //D T D X H T M L 1.0 <!-- sim ple JS P P age --> T ra n sition a l//E N " "http ://w w w .w 3 .org /T R /xh tm l1 /D T D /xhtm l1 -tra n sitio na l.dtd "> < !-- sim ple JS P P a ge --> <htm l> < htm l> < title> S im ple JS P P a ge < /title> <title>S im ple JS P P age</title> < h 1> O utp ut to B row ser< /h 1 > <h1>O utput to B row ser</h1> < b od y> W ritten as h tm l fro m a JS P . A ttrib ute se t by se rvle t: <body> 3. re sp on s e < !-- retrieve attribu te set b y S ervlet--> W ritten as htm l from a JSP . Attribute set by < % = re q u e st.g etA ttrib u te("S e rvle tT e x t") % > servlet: < br/> <!-- retrieve attribute set by Servlet--> req u est attrib ute set by servlet < % -- if y o u s et a re q u e st attrib u te, it g o es o u t o f sc o p e afte r re sp o n s e h as <br/> b e e n s en t an d a n e w re q u e st o b je ct w ill b e cre ate d . --% > </body> < % req u e s t.s e tA ttrib u te ("J S P T ex t", "A ttrib u te s et b y J S P " );% > </htm l> < /b od y> < /h tm l>
- 130. Enterprise – JSP 129 Important: Servlets and JSPs are server side technologies and it is essential to understand the HTTP request/response paradigm. A common misconception is that the Java code embedded in the HTML page is transmitted to the browser with the HTML and executed in the browser. As shown in the diagram above, this is not true. A JSP is a server side component where the page is translated into a Java servlet and executed on the server. The generated servlet (from the JSP) outputs only HTML code to the browser. As shown above in the diagram, if you set a request attribute in your servlet code, it can be retrieved in your JSP code, since it is still in scope. Once the response has been sent back to the user (i.e. the browser) the current request goes out of scope. When the user makes another request, a new request is created and the request attribute set by the JSP code in your previous request is not available to the new request object. If you set a session attribute in your JSP, then it will be available in your subsequent request because it is still in scope. You can access it by calling session.getAttribute(“JSPText”). Q. How to get a pop-up window when clicking on a button? By using Java Script in your HTML code. The following Java Script is executed in the client side within your web browser. <SCRIPT type="text/javascript"> <!-- function displayWarningMessage() { var answer = confirm("This process may take a while, please click 'OK' to continue."); if (!answer){ return false; } else{ return disableSendBtton(); } } // --></SCRIPT> Q. What is client-side vs. server-side validation? client-side validation (client-tier) server-side validation (presentation-tier) Java Script is used for client-side validation. Form data is submitted to the server and validation is Validation takes place in client-side within your carried out in the server. browser. Java Script can be used to submit your form data after successful validation. No extra network trip is required when there are Extra network round trip is required when there are validation errors because form does not have to validation errors because validation errors need to be be submitted. reported back to the client and the form data has to be resubmitted. Q. How do you prevent multiple submits due to repeated “refresh button” clicks? Problem: Very often a user is completely unaware that a browser resends information to the server when a “refresh button” in Microsoft Internet Explorer or a “reload button” in Netscape/Mozilla is clicked. Even if a browser warns user, a user cannot often understand the technical meaning of the warning. This action can cause form data to be resubmitted, possibly with unexpected results such as duplicate/multiple purchases of a same item, attempting to delete the previously deleted item from the database resulting in a SQLException being thrown. Non-idempotent methods are methods that cause the state to change. But some operations like reading a list of products or customer details etc are safe because they do not alter the state of the model and the database. These methods are known as idempotent methods. Solution-1: You can use a Post/Redirect/Get (aka PRG) pattern. This pattern involves the following steps: Step-1: First a user filled form is submitted to the server (i.e. a Servlet) using a “POST” (also a “GET” method). Servlet performs a business operation by updating the state in the database and the business model. Step-2: Servlet replies with redirect response (i.e. sendRedirect() operation as opposed to the forward() operation) for a view page. Step-3: Browser loads a view using a “GET” where no user data is sent. This is usually a separate JSP page, which is safe from “multiple submits”. For e.g. reading data from a database, a confirmation page etc.
- 131. 130 Enterprise – JSP Post/Redirect/Get pattern to prevent multiple submits due to clicking “refresh button” internet Http request Http response Client Application Server on host “localhost” port:8080 P Client re se tier Ti nta er tio n RequestForAPurchaseFormServlet.class Address bar: http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/ requestForAPurchaseForm.do public class RequestForAPurchaseFormServlet extends HttpServlet { 1. request //... A link is clicked using the above URL (GET) to request for a purchase order form. protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws ServletException, IOException { req.getRequestDispatcher("/requestForAPurchaseForm.jsp").forward(req, resp); } Address bar: http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/ } requestForAPurchaseForm.do html sent to browser from JSP requestForAPurchaseForm.jsp 2.forward() <html> <title>Simple JSP Page</title> 3. response <%@page contentType="text/html" %> <h1>Output to Browser</h1> <html> <body> <h1>Output to Browser</h1> <form action="/myWebCtxt/purchase.do" method="POST"> <input type="text" value="" /> <body> <input type="submit" value="submit"/> <form action="/myWebCtxt/purchase.do" method="POST"> </form> <input type="text" value="" /> </body> </html> <input type="submit" value="submit" /> </form> 1. r </body> e </html> Address bar: http://localhost:8080/ (fo ques rm t (P myWebCtxt/display.jsp su OS PurchaseServlet.class bm T) it) Above URL is displayed on the address bar. So public class PurchaseServlet extends HttpServlet { repeated “refresh button” clicks calls the display.jsp page, which is safe to do so since it protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) does not change any state. If you forward to throws ServletException, IOException { display.jsp instead of redirect then URL “http:// localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do” is 2. r //code to update database and model through a business delegate displayed on the address bar and repeated edi // & data acess logic classes. Not safe to be repeated unintentionally. rec “refresh button” clicks can result in duplicate t purchase of the same item. //note that sendRedirect requires an absolute path resp.sendRedirect("http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/display.jsp"); } 3. n ew } html sent to browser from JSP (GE T)re que <!-- simple JSP Page --> st Display.jsp <html> <title>Thanks for your purchase</title> <%@page contentType="text/html" %> <!-- simple JSP Page --> <h1>Thanks for your purchase</h1> <html> <body> </body> 4. response <title>Thanks for your purchase</title> </html> <h1>Thanks for your purchase</h1> <body></body> </html> Note: If you forward the request from the “PurchaseServlet” to the “display.jsp” instead of the redirect as shown in this diagram, then the URL “http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/purchase.do” is displayed on the address bar and repeated “refresh button” clicks can result in duplicate purchase of the same item. Advantages: Separates the view from model updates and URLs can be bookmarked. Disadvantage: Extra network round trip. Solution-2: The solution-1 has to make an extra network round trip. The synchronizer token pattern can be applied in conjunction with request forward (i.e. instead of redirect) to prevent multiple form submits with unexpected side effects without the extra round trip.
- 132. Enterprise – JSP 131 Synchronizer Token Pattern internet Http request Http response Application Server Client on host “localhost” port:8080 Presentation Client Tier Tier HTML, CSS, Servlet, JSP, CSS, JavaScript and Javascript and images images RequestForAPurchaseFormServlet.class 123 Address bar: http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/ Since this request is for a transactional page, which changes the state of your model and the requestForAPurchaseForm.do database, you should generate a use once only token. A link is clicked using the above URL to 1. request Generate a token: 123 (e.g. jsessionid + timestamp is more secured). request for a purchase order form. (GET) Save the token: session.setAttribute(TRANSACTION_TOKEN, “123"); Address bar: http://localhost:8080/ 2. myWebCtxt/requestForAPurchaseForm.do 123 forward requestForAPurchaseForm.jsp <form action="/myWebCtxt/purchase.do" method="POST"> Include the token “123" as a hidden field in the requested form and <input type=”hidden” name=”token” value=”123”> 3. response <input type="text" value="" /> send it to client. <input type="submit" value="submit"/> </form> 123 (gets reset to null or 1. re PurchaseServlet.class increment to 124) Subm quest it the If (tokenExistInRequest && tokenExistInSession && (POS form tokenStoredInRequest == tokenStoredInSession) { //123=123 so ok T) Address bar: http://localhost:8080/ //1. reset the token. (i.e. set it to null or increment it to 124) myWebCtxt/purchase.do // 2. proceed with database & model update // 3. forward user to the “display.jsp” page. <html> } else { <title>Thanks for your purchase</title> // 1. duplicate submit, not okay to proceed. <h1>Thanks for your purchase</h1> // 2. forward user to the “error.jsp” page. <body> </body> } </html> 3. re sp 2. on se forward display.jsp or error.jsp Display or an error page is sent to the user. Important: If the “refresh” button is clicked, then the form is resubmitted(duplicate submit) with the same form data to the “PurchaseServlet”. The “if” condition will be evaluated as false since the token in the request is “123” but the token in the session would be null or 124. So the “else” condition is evaluated and the request is forwarded to the error.jsp page. The URL address will still be “http://localhost:8080/ myWebCtxt/purchase.do” but any number of resubmits will result in “error.jsp” page. If you need to intentionally purchase the same item again, then you need to enter via the right flow of control i.e “http://localhost:8080/myWebCtxt/requestForAPurchaseForm.do” where a new token will be generated and same sequence of processing will occur but this time with a different session token. The basic idea of this pattern is to set a use once only token in a “session”, when a form is requested and the token is stored in the form as a hidden field. When you submit the form the token in the request (i.e. due to hidden field) is compared with the token in the session. If tokens match, then reset the token in the session to null or increment it to a different value and proceed with the model & database update. If you inadvertently resubmit the form by clicking the refresh button, the request processing servlet (i.e. PurchaseServlet) first tests for the presence of a valid token in the request parameter by comparing it with the one stored in the session. Since the token was reset in the first submit, the token in the request (i.e 123) would not match with the token in the session (i.e. null or 124). Since the tokens do not match, an alternate course of action is taken like forwarding to an error.jsp page. Note: Prohibit caching of application pages by inserting the following lines in your pages: <meta HTTP-EQUIV=”pragma” content=”no-cache” /> <meta HTTP-EQUIV=”Expires” content=”-1” />
- 133. 132 Enterprise – JSP Q. What is a Front Controller pattern with command objects uses the command design pattern? The model-2 MVC pattern can be further improved and simplified by using the Front Controller pattern with command objects. In a complex Web site there are many similar input control operations like security, internationalization, controlling and logging user’s progress through the site etc you need to perform while handling a request. If these input control operations are scattered across multiple objects, much of these behaviors can end up duplicated resulting in maintenance issues. The Front Controller pattern uses a single servlet, which acts as initial point of contact for handling all the requests, including invoking services such as security (authentication and authorization), logging, gathering user input data from the request, gathering data required by the view etc by delegating to the helper classes, and managing the choice of an appropriate view with the dispatcher classes. These helper and dispatcher classes are generally instances of a command design pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you about… section) and therefore usually termed as command objects. The Front Controller pattern centralizes services like security, internationalization, auditing, logging etc to improve manageability, and improves reusability by moving common behavior among command objects into the centralized controller or controller managed helper classes. M odel-2 Front C ontroller P attern W eb C o ntain er 1. requ est F ro nt C o n tro ller 2 Java B eans 3 D atabase (M o del) e.g. C rm .class w ith 3 processing logic U ser C o m m and (B ro w ser) O b jects 5 4 JS P pages 6. resp o nse (.jsp) As was discussed briefly in Q24 in Enterprise Section, the Front Controller uses a single servlet to process all requests, which means only one servlet controller will be declared (i.e. servlet declaration and servlet mapping) in the web.xml and hence eliminates the need to have more than one servlet and consequently the need to have to declare more than one servlet in the web.xml deployment descriptor. Without the Front Controller pattern With the Front Controller pattern Without the “Front Controller” pattern, the web.xml <servlet> would have the following set of entries for each <servlet-name>MyControllerServlet</servlet-name> servlet in your application. <servlet-class>com. MyControllerServlet </servlet-class> </servlet> <servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>CRMServlet</servlet-name> <servlet-name> MyControllerServlet </servlet-name> <servlet-class>com.CRMServlet</servlet-class> <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern> </servlet> </servlet-mapping> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>CRMServlet</servlet-name> There will be only one central controller servlet <url-pattern>crm.do</url-pattern> configured in the web.xml file. </servlet-mapping> So, if you say you have 50 servlets in your web application, then you would have the above declarations 50 times in your web.xml file. This would make your web.xml file to be large and hard to maintain. Example of front controller pattern: The popular request based web framework Struts uses the Front Controller pattern, where a centralized single servlet is used for channeling all requests and creating instances of “Action” classes for processing user requests. The Struts “Action” classes are command objects.
- 134. Enterprise – JSP 133 Q. What do you understand by the term JSP translation phase or compilation phase? As shown below in the figure the JSPs have a translation or a compilation process where the JSP engine translates and compiles a JSP file into a JSP Servlet. The translated and compiled JSP Servlet moves to the execution phase (run time) where they can handle requests and send responses. Unless explicitly compiled ahead of time, JSP files are compiled the first time they are accessed. On large production sites, or in situations involving complicated JSP files, compilation may cause unacceptable delays to users first accessing the JSP page. The JSPs can be compiled ahead of time (i.e. precompiled) using application server tools/settings or by writing your own script. J S P m o v in g p arts Ap p lic atio n S erv e r W e b C o n ta in e r HTTP re que st JSP Engine Servlet Engine CLIENT (Browser) S ervlets Web Server JSPs JS P S ervle ts HTTP resp onse static do cs (H T M L,C S S etc ) Q 28: Explain the life cycle methods of a JSP? SF FAQ A 28: Pre-translated: Before the JSP file has been translated and compiled into the Servlet. Translated: The JSP file has been translated and compiled as a Servlet. Initialized: Prior to handling the requests in the service method the container calls the jspInit() to initialize the Servlet. Called only once per Servlet instance. Servicing: Services the client requests. Container calls the _jspService() method for each request. Out of service: The Servlet instance is out of service. The container calls the jspDestroy() method. Q. Can you have your JSP-generated servlet subclass your own servlet instead of the default HttpServlet? Your JSP generated servlet can extend your own servlet with the directive: <%@ page extends=”com.CRMServlet”%> But, you should be very careful when having your JSP pages extend your own servlet class. By doing so you may lose any advanced optimization that may be provided by your JSP engine. If you do have a compelling reason to do so then your own superclass servlet has to fulfill the contract with the JSP engine by: 1. Implementing the HttpJspPage interface for HTTP protocol or JspPage interface. If you do not then you will have to make sure that all your super-class servlet methods are declared as final. 2. Implementing your super-class servlet methods as follows: • The service() method has to invoke the _jspService() method. • The init() method has to invoke the jspInit() method. • The destroy() method has invoke jspDestroy() method. If the above conditions are not met, then a translation error may be thrown by your JSP engine.
- 135. 134 Enterprise – JSP Q 29: What are the main elements of JSP? What are scriptlets? What are expressions? SF A 29: There are two types of data in a JSP page. Static part (i.e. HTML, CSS etc), which gets copied directly to the response by the JSP Engine. Dynamic part, which contains anything that can be translated and compiled by the JSP Engine. There are three types of dynamic elements. (TIP: remember SAD as an abbreviation for Scripting, Action and Directive elements). Scripting Elements: A JSP element that provides embedded Java statements. There are three types of scripting elements. They are Declaration, Expression and Scriplet elements. 1. Declaration Element: is the embedded Java declaration statement, which gets inserted at the Servlet class level. <%! Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance(); %> Important: declaring variables via this element is not thread-safe, because this variable ends up in the generated Servlet as an instance variable, not within the body of the _jspService() method. Ensure their access is either read-only or synchronized. You can make your JSP generated servlets implement the SingleThreadModel with the directive <%@ page isThreadSafe=”false” %> but not recommended as was discussed in Q16 in Enterprise section. Q. Can you declare a method within your JSP page? You can declare methods within your JSP pages as declarations, and your methods can be invoked from within your other methods you declare, expression elements or scriptlets. These declared methods do not have direct access to the JSP implicit objects (Refer Q32 in Enterprise section) like session, request, response etc but you can pass them to your methods you declare as parameters. Example: <%! //JSP method where implicit session object as method argument public String myJspMethod(HttpSession session) { String str = (String)session.getAttribute("someAttrName"); return str.substring(0,3); } %> Note: Declaring methods within a JSP page is a bad practice because it will make your JSP page hard to read, reuse and maintain. Q. If it is not a good practice to implement methods within your JSPs then can a JSP page process HTML form data? Yes. Unlike servlets you do not have to implement HTTP specific methods like doGet(), doPost() etc in your JSPs. In JSPs you can obtain the form data via the “request” implicit object within a scriptlet or expression as follows: <% String firstName = request.getParameter(“param1”); int units = new Integer(request.getParameter(“param2”)).intValue(); %> 2. Expression Element: is the embedded Java expression, which gets evaluated by the service method. <%= new Date() %> 3. Scriptlet Element: are the embedded Java statements, which get executed as part of the service method. <% String username = null; username = request.getParameter("userName"); //”request” is a JSP implicit object %> Important: Not recommended to use Scriptlet elements because they don’t provide reusability and maintainability. Use custom tags like JSTL, JSF tags, etc or beans instead.
- 136. Enterprise – JSP 135 Q. How will you perform a browser redirection from a JSP page? <% response.sendRedirect(“http://www.someAbsoluteAddess.com”); %> or you can alter the location HTTP header attribute as follows: <% response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_MOVED_PERMANENTLY); response.setHeader(“Location”, “/someNewPath/index.html”); %> Q. How do you prevent the HTML output of your JSP page being cached? <% response.setHeader(“Cache-Control”, “no=store”); //HTTP 1.1 response.setDateHeader(“Expires”, 0); %> Action Elements: A JSP element that provides information for execution phase. <jsp:useBean id="object_name" class="class_name"/> <jsp:include page="scripts/login.jsp" /> Q. How would you invoke a Servlet from a JSP? Or invoke a JSP form another JSP? You can invoke a Servlet from a JSP through the jsp:include and jsp:forward action tags. <jsp:include page=”/servlet/MyServlet” flush=”true” /> Refer Q31 in Enterprise section for the difference between static include (using directive element <% @ include %>) and dynamic include (using action element <jsp:include …>). Q. Generally you would be invoking a JSP page from a Servlet. Why would you want to invoke a Servlet from a JSP? JSP technology is intended to simplify the programming of dynamic textual content. If you want to output any binary data (e.g. pdfs, gifs etc) then JSP pages are poor choice for the following reasons and should use Servlets instead: • There are no methods for writing raw bytes in the JspWriter object. • During execution, the JSP engine preserves whitespace. Whitespace is sometimes unwanted (a .gif file, for example), making JSP pages a poor choice for generating binary data. In the following example, the browser receives unnecessary newline characters in the middle or at the end of the binary data depending on the buffering of your output. “out” is a JspWriter implicit object. <% out.getOutputStream().write(...some binary data...) %> <% out.getOutputStream().write(...some more binary data...) %> Q. How do you forward a request to another resource (e.g. another Servlet) from within your JSP? //Without passing any parameters <jsp:forward page=”/anotherPage.jsp” /> Q. How does an include/forward from a JSP differ from forward/include from a servlet? How would you pass parameters between resources? forward / include from a JSP to another forward / include from a Servlet to another JSP or a Servlet Servlet or a JSP Refer Q18 in Enterprise section. <%-- forward with parameters passed --%> <jsp:forward page=”/servlet/crm.do”> Get a ServletContext object and then the RequestDispatcher <jsp:param name=”userName” value=”Peter” /> object. You can append a query string using “?” syntax with </jsp:forward> name=value pairs separated by “&” as shown in bold.
- 137. 136 Enterprise – JSP <%-- include with parameters passed --%> ServletContext sc = this.getServletContext() <jsp:include page=”/servlet/MyServlet” flush=”true” > RequestDispatcher rd = <jsp:param name=”userName” value=”Peter” /> sc.getRequestDispatcher(“/myPage?userName=Smith”); </jsp:include> Invoke the include() or forward() method of the request Alternatively you can send an appropriately scoped dispatcher. (request, session or application) JavaBean or rd.include(request, response); instead of using <jsp:param > you could set attributes via the HTTP request/session objects. or <% request.setAttribute(“userName”, ”Peter”); %> rd.forward(request,response); <% session.setAttribute (“userName”, “Peter”); %> In the target Servlet or JSP, you can use the You can retrieve the data passed as parameters request.getParameter(“userName”) method to retrieve the with <jsp:param …> in a servlet as follows: parameter sent vai appended query string. request.getParameter(“userName”); You can also use the setAttribute() method of the HTTP request object. You can retrieve the data passed as HTTP request /session attribute as follows: request.setAttribute(“userName”, “Peter”); RequestDispatcher rd = request.getAttribute(“userName”); sc.getRequestDispatcher(“/myPage?userName=Smith”); session.getAttribute(“userName”); In the target JSP page you can use: <% request.getAttribute(“userName”); %> It differs from forwarding it from a Servlet in its syntax. Servlets make use of a RequestDispatcher object. Refer Q18 in Enterprise section. Directive Elements: A JSP element that provides global information for the translation phase. There are three types of directive elements. They are page, include and taglib. <%-- page directives examples: --%> <%@ page import=”java.util.Date” %> //to import <%@ page contentType=”text/html” %> //set content type <%-- include directive example: --%> <%@ include file=”myJSP” %> // to include another file <%-- taglib directive example: --%> <%@ taglib uri=”tagliburi” prefix=”myTag”%> Q. How does JSP handle run-time exceptions? You can use the attribute “errorPage” of the “page” directive to have your uncaught RuntimeExceptions automatically forwarded to an error processing page. Example: <%@ page errorPage=”error.jsp” %> Note: You must always use a relative URL as the “errorPage” attribute value. The above code redirects the browser client to the error.jsp page. Within your error.jsp page, you need to indicate that it is an error processing page with the “isErrorPage” attribute of the “page” directive as shown below. “exception” is an implicit object accessible only within error pages (i.e. pages with directive <%@ page isErrorPage=”true” %> <%@ page isErrorPage=”true” %> <body> <%= exception.gerMessage() %> </body> Q. How will you specify a global error page as opposed to using “errorPage” and “isErrorPage” attributes? You could specify your error page in the web.xml deployment descriptor as shown below:
- 138. Enterprise – JSP 137 // by exception type <error-page> <exception-type>java.lang.Throwable</exception-type> <location>/error.jsp</location> </error-page> //or by HTTP error codes <error-page> <error-code>404</error-code> <location>/error404.html</location> </error-page> You could retrieve the java.lang.Throwable object within your error.jsp page as follows: <%= request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.exception") %> Note: You cannot use the “exception” implicit object for the global error pages. This is because of mismatch in the way servlet (uses javax.servlet.error.exception) and JSP (uses javax.servlet.jsp.jspException) let you get the java.lang.Throwable. Q. How can you prevent the automatic creation of a session in a JSP page? Sessions consume resources and if it is not necessary, it should not be created. By default, a JSP page will automatically create a session for the request if one does not exist. You can prevent the creation of useless sessions with the attribute “session” of the page directive. <%@ page session=”false” %> Q 30: What are the different scope values or what are the different scope values for <jsp:usebean> ? SF FAQ A 30: Scope Object Comment Page PageContext Available to the handling JSP page only. Request Request Available to the handling JSP page or Servlet and forwarded JSP page or Servlet. Session Session Available to any JSP Page or Servlet within the same session. Application Application Available to all the JSP pages and Servlets within the same Web Application. Q 31: What are the differences between static and a dynamic include? SF DC FAQ A 31: Static include <%@ include %> Dynamic include <jsp:include …..> During the translation or compilation phase all the The dynamically included JSP is compiled into a separate Servlet. included JSP pages are compiled into a single Servlet. It is a separate resource, which gets to process the request, and the content generated by this resource is included in the JSP response. No run time performance overhead. Has run time performance overhead. Which one to use: Use “static includes” when a JSP page does not change very often. For the pages, which change frequently, use dynamic includes. JVM has a 64kb limit on the size of the method and the entire JSP page is rendered as a single method (i.e. _jspService (..)). If a JSP page is greater than 64kb, this probably indicates poor implementation. When this method reaches its JVM limit of 64kb, the JVM throws an error. This error can be overcome by splitting the JSP files and including them dynamically (i.e. using <jsp:include…….>) because the dynamic includes generate a separate JSP Servlet for each included file. Note: The “dynamic include” (jsp:include) has a flush attribute. This attribute indicates whether the buffer should be flushed before including the new content. In JSP 1.1 you will get an error if you omit this attribute. In JSP 1.2 you can omit this attribute because the flush attribute defaults to false. Q 32: What are implicit objects and list them? SF FAQ A 32: Implicit objects are the objects that are available for the use in JSP documents without being declared first. These objects are parsed by the JSP engine and inserted into the generated Servlet. The implicit objects are: Implicit object Scope comment request Request Refers to the current request from the client. response Page Refers to the current response to the client. pageContext Page Refers to the page’s environment.
- 139. 138 Enterprise – JSP session Session Refers to the user’s session. application Application Same as ServletContext. Refers to the web application’s environment. out Page Refers to the outputstream. config Page same as ServletConfig. Refers to the servlet’s configuration. page Page Refers to the page’s Servlet instance. exception Page exception created on this page. Used for error handling. Only available if it is an errorPage with the following directive: <%@ page isErrorPage="true" %> The “exception” implicit object is not available for global error pages declared through web.xml. You can retrieve the java.lang.Throwable object as follows: <%= request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.exception") %> <% String username = null; username = request.getParameter("userName"); //”request” is an implicit object out.print(username); //”out” is an implicit object %> Note: Care should be taken not to name your objects the same name as the implicit objects. If you have your own object with the same name, then the implicit objects take precedence over your own object. Q. What is JSP EL (Expression Language)? One major component of JSP 2.0 is the new expression language named EL. EL is used extensively in JSTL (Java Standard Tag Library). However EL is a feature of JSP and not of JSTL. The EL is a language for accessing runtime data from various sources. JSP EL variables come from one of 2 ways: 1. Implicit variables as shown below: Implicit variable Description Example param A collection of all Parameter values, request parameters as a <c:if test=”${param.name==’peter’} “ > headers and cookies single string value for Welcome Peter !! for the current request. each parameter. </c:if> paramValues A collection of all request parameters as a string array value for each parameter. header A collection of all request headers as a ${header['User-Agent']} single string value for each header. you must use the array syntax for the header, because the headerValues A collection of all name includes a dash. otherwise it would be interpreted as request headers as a the value of the variable expression “header.User” minus string array value for the value of the variable named “Agent”. each header. cookie A collection of all <c:if test=”${ ! empty cookie.userName}”> request cookies as a Welcome back single <c:out value=”${cookie.userName.value}”> javax.servlet.http.Cookie </c:if> instance value for each cookie. Defined in web.xml initParam A collection of all application init ${initParam.dataSource} parameters as a single string value for each parameter. Access to the JSP pageContext An instance of the PageContext.getRequest () ${pageContext.request} objects that represent javax.servlet.jspPageCo PageContext.getResponse () ${pageContext.response} request, response, ntext class. PageContext.getSession() ${pageContext.session} session, application PageContext.getServletContext() etc. ${pageContext.servletContext} <c:if test=”${pageContext.request.method=’POST’}”> …. </c:if>
- 140. Enterprise – JSP 139 collections containing pageScope A collection of all page all objects in each scope objects. <c:out value=”${requestScope.city}” /> specific scope. You requestScope A collection of all can use these to limit request scope objects. <c:out value=”${sessionScope.city}” /> the search for an sessionScope A collection of all object to just one session scope objects. scope instead of applicationScope A collection of all searching all scopes, application scope which is the default if objects. no scope is specified 2. Find the first of using: pageContext.findAttribute (varname) which is like getting the first of: page.getAttribute(varname); request.getAttribute(varname); session.getAttribute(varname); application.getAttribute(varname); <c:out value=”${city}” /> Q. What is the difference between a JspWriter denoted by the “out” implicit object and the PrintWriter object obtained from response.getWriter() method? JSPs should use the JspWriter denoted by the “out” implicit object for sending output back to the client. A JspWriter is a buffered version of the PrintWriter. Refer JspWriter API for details. JspWriter also differs from a PrintWriter by throwing java.io.IOException, which a PrintWriter does not. The advantage of throwing an exception is that if your HTTP connection is broken for some reason, your JSP won’t sit there trying to send characters to a broken connection. Q 33: Explain hidden and output comments? SF A 33: An output comment is a comment that is sent to the client where it is viewable in the browser’s source. CO <!-- This is a comment which is sent to the client --> A hidden comment documents a JSP page but does not get sent to the client. The JSP engine ignores a hidden comment, and does not process any code within hidden comment tags. <%-- This comment will not be visible to the client --%> Q 34: Is JSP variable declaration thread safe? CI FAQ A 34: No. The declaration of variables in JSP is not thread-safe, because the declared variables end up in the generated Servlet as an instance variable, not within the body of the _jspService() method. The following declaration is not thread safe: because these declarations end up in the generated servlet as instance variables. <%! int a = 5 %> The following declaration is thread safe: because the variables declared inside the scriplets end up in the generated servlet within the body of the _jspService() method as local variables. <% int a = 5 %> Q 35: Explain JSP URL mapping? What is URL hiding or protecting the JSP page? SF SE FAQ A 35: As shown in the figure, the JSP resources usually reside directly or under subdirectories (e.g. myPath) of the document root, which are directly accessible to the user through the URL. If you want to protect your Web resources then hiding the JSP files behind the WEB-INF directory can protect the JSP files, css (cascading style sheets) files, Java Script files, pdf files, image files, html files etc from direct access. The request should be made to a servlet who is responsible for authenticating and authorizing the user before returning the protected JSP page or its resources.
- 141. 140 Enterprise – JSP JSP URL Mapping URL http://<hostname:port>/<webapp name><pathname>/<resourcename> URL eg http://localhost:8080/myApps/myPath/myPage.jsp File SERVER_HOMEWebAppsmyAppsmyPathmyPage.jsp Server Root Document root Unhidden URL Hidden URL myPage.jsp is directly accessible through URL myPage.jsp is hidden or protected. cannot be MyApps directly accessed through URL MyApps myPath myPage.jsp WEB-INF WEB-INF myPath myPage.jsp lib lib classes classes Q 36: What is JSTL? What are custom tags? Explain how to build custom tags? SF FAQ A 36: JSTL stands for Java Standard Tag Library and is nothing more than a set of simple and standard tag libraries that encapsulates the core functionality commonly needed when writing dynamic JSP pages. JSTL was introduced to allow JSP programmers to code with tags rather than embedding Java code as scriptlets. Using scriptlets Using JSTL tags <html> <%@ taglib prefix=”c” <head> uri=”http//java.sun.com/jstl/core”> <title>simple example<title> </head> <html> <body> <head><title>simple example<title></head> <% <body> for(int i=0; i<5; i++) { <c:forEach var=”i” begin=”1” end=”5” step=”1”> %> <c:out value=”${i}”> <br/> <%= i %> <br/> </c:forEach> </body> <% } %> </html> </body> </html> The above JSP code consists entirely of HTML & JSTL tags (in bold). The above JSP code is hard to read and maintain. JSTL consists of 4 tag libraries: Description Tag Prefix Example (recommended) Core Tag Library – looping, c <c:out value=”${hello}” /> condition evaluation, basic input, <c:if test=”${param.name=’Peter’}”> … <c:forEach items=”${addresses}” var=”address”> … output etc. Formatting/Internationalization fmt <fmt:formatNumber value=”${now.time}” /> Tag Library – parse data such as number, date, currency etc XML Tag Library – tags to x <x:forEach select="$doc/books/book" var="n"> access XML elements. <x:out select="$n/title" /> </x:forEach> Database Tag Library – tags to sql <sql:query var=”emps” sql=”SELECT * FROM Employee”>
- 142. Enterprise – JSP 141 access SQL databases and should be used only to create prototype programs. Q. What are JSP custom tags? Custom JSP tag is a tag you define. You define how a tag, its attributes and its body are interpreted, and then group your tags into collections called tag libraries that can be used in any number of JSP files. So basically it is a reusable and extensible JSP only solution. The pre-built tags also can speed up Web development. CO STEP: 1 Construct the Tag handler class that defines the behavior. Tag Evaluation Process start Sample code using only doStartTag() package myTagPkg; Call setXXX() methods on the Tag public class MyTag extends TagSupport { doStartTag() int attr = null; public int setAttr(int attr){this.attr = attr} evaluate body of the Tag public int getAttr(){return attr;} loop public int doStartTag() throws JspException { doAfterBody() ....... return SKIP_BODY; doEndTag() } public void release(){.....} release() } STEP: 2 The Tag library descriptor file (*.tld) maps the XML element names to the tag implementations. The code sample MyTagDesc.tld is shown below: <taglib> <tag> <name>tag1</name> <tagclass>myTagPkg.MyTag</tagclass> <bodycontent>empty</bodycontent> <attribute> <name>attr</name> <required>false</required> <rtexprvalue>false</rtexprvalue> </attribute> </tag> </taglib> STEP: 3 The web.xml deployment descriptor maps the URI to the location of the *.tld (Tag Library Descriptor) file. The code sample web.xml file is shown below: <web-app> <taglib> <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/MyTagURI</taglib-uri> <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tags/MyTagDesc.tld</taglib-location>
- 143. 142 Enterprise – JSP </taglib> </web-app> STEP: 4 The JSP file declares and then uses the tag library as shown below: <%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/MyTagURI" prefix="myTag" %> <myTag:tag1 attr=”abc”></myTag:tag1> or < myTag:tag1 attr=”abc” /> Q 37: What is a TagExtraInfo class? SF A 37: A TagExtraInfo class provides extra information about tag attributes to the JSP container at translation time. Returns information about the scripting variables that the tag makes available to the rest of the JSP page to use. The method used is: VariableInfo[] getVariableInfo(TagData td) Example <html> <myTag:addObjectsToArray name=”myArray” /> <myTag:displayArray name=”myArray” /> </html> Without the use of TagExtraInfo, if you want to manipulate the attribute “myArray” in the above code in a scriptlet, it will not be possible. This is because it does not place the “myArray” object on the page. You can still use pageContext.getAttribute() but that may not be a cleaner approach because it relies on the page designer to correctly cast to object type. The TagExtraInfo can be used to make items stored in the pageContext via setAttribute() method available to the scriptlet as shown below. <html> <myTag:addObjectsToArray name=”myArray” /> <%-- scriptlet code %> <% for(int i=0; i<myArray.length;i++){ html += <LI> + myArray[i] + </LI>; } %> </html> Validates the attributes passed to the Tag at translation time. Example It can validate the array “myArray” to have not more than 100 objects. The method used is: boolean isValid(TagData data) Q 38: What is the difference between custom JSP tags and JavaBeans? SF A 38: In the context of a JSP page, both accomplish similar goals but the differences are: Custom Tags JavaBeans Can manipulate JSP content. Can’t manipulate JSP content. Custom tags can simplify the complex operations much Easier to set up. better than the bean can. But require a bit more work to set up. Used only in JSPs in a relatively self-contained manner. Can be used in both Servlets and JSPs. You can define a bean in one Servlet and use them in another Servlet or a JSP page. JavaBeans declaration and usage example: CO <jsp:useBean id="identifier" class="packageName.className"/> <jsp:setProperty name="identifier" property="classField" value="someValue" /> <jsp:getProperty name="identifier" property="classField" /> <%=identifier.getclassField() %>
- 144. Enterprise – JSP 143 Q 39: Tell me about JSP best practices? BP FAQ A 39: Separate HTML code from the Java code: Combining HTML and Java code in the same source code can make the code less readable. Mixing HTML and scriptlet will make the code extremely difficult to read and maintain. The display or behavior logic can be implemented as a custom tags by the Java developers and Web designers can use these tags as the ordinary XHTML tags. Refer Q36 in Enterprise section. Place data access logic in JavaBeans: The code within the JavaBean is readily accessible to other JSPs and Servlets. Factor shared behavior out of Custom Tags into common JavaBeans classes: The custom tags are not used outside JSPs. To avoid duplication of behavior or business logic, move the logic into JavaBeans and get the custom tags to utilize the beans. Choose the right “include” mechanism: What are the differences between static and a dynamic include? Using includes will improve code reuse and maintenance through modular design. Which one to use? Refer Q31 in Enterprise section. Use style sheets (e.g. css), template mechanism (e.g. struts tiles etc) and appropriate comments (both hidden and output comments). Q. Why use style sheets? The traditional HTML approach was to "hardcode" all of the appearance information about a page. Say you want all your headings in Arial, and you have hard coded that in more than 50 pages? That is a lot of editing, and a lot of re-editing if you decide to modify the headings to courier. With all of that editing there are plenty of possibility for introducing errors. With CSS, you can decide how headings should appear, and enter that information once. Every heading in every page that is linked to this style sheet now has that appearance. Example: h1 { font-family : arial; font-weight : normal; } Use pagination for large resultsets: If you display long lists (i.e. resultsets) in the browser, it is difficult for the user to find what he or she wants and also can prove impractical due to memory limitation, response-time limitation, page design limitation (i.e long scrollable pages are not desirable) etc. Pagination is the most common way to break up large amount of data into manageable chunks. Q. How do you paginate your results? 1. Results can be read at once from the database and cached in middle-tier (e.g. HTTP session or home grown cache) for fast access in subsequent pages. This approach is memory intensive and suitable only for small-to-medium sized recurring queries. 2. Results are fetched from the database on demand as the user pages. This divide and conquer approach is suitable for medium-to-large resultsets where it delivers pages on demand, direct from the database. Limiting the size of the resultsets is SQL specific. For example in MySQL/Oracle you could limit your resultsets as follows: //can be user selected values or constant values String strPageNum = request.getParameter(“pageNum”); int pageNum = 0; if(strPageNum != null){ pageNum = new Integer(strPageNum).intValue(); } int maxRowsPerPage = new Integer(request.getParameter(“rowsPerPage”)).intValue(); //calculate int rowEnd = pageNum * maxRowsPerPage; int rowStart = (rowEnd - maxRowsPerPage) + 1; In MySQL:
- 145. 144 Enterprise – JSP “SELECT * FROM Products p where p.category=’Consumables’ LIMIT ” + rowStart + “,” + rowEnd In Oracle: “SELECT p.*, rownum as rowcount FROM Products p where p.category=’Consumables’ order by p.productNo where rowcount >= “ + rowStart + “ and rowcount < ” + rowEnd ” ; Q 40: How will you avoid scriptlet code in JSP? BP FAQ A 40: Use JavaBeans or custom tags instead. Q. If you have to develop a web site, which has say more than 200 static & dynamic pages, how would you make sure that in future if there is any requirement for a layout change, you have to change the layout in one page not 200 or more pages? You could use the JSP include directives for page reuse but better approach to reduce redundant code is to use frameworks like Tiles for page composition using template mechanism or SiteMesh for page decoration. SiteMesh can be used by any Java Web framework since it is a Servlet filter. SiteMesh uses the decorator design pattern. Q. How do you connect to the database from JSP/Servlet? A. A connection can be established to a database as shown below via scriptlet. It is not the best practice to embed data access logic in your JSP/Servlet and is shown only for illustration purpose and to create a lead up to the next section. The best practice should make use of a separate “Data Access Object (using DAO pattern)” , which gets invoked by JSP, Servlet, plain Java class, EJBs etc. The next section discusses basics and best practices relating to data access. <%@ page language="java" contentTpe="text/html" import="java.sql.*"%> <html> <title>Simple JSP Page</title> <h1>Output to Browser</h1> <body> <% //1. load the driver from specific vendor Class.forName("oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"); //2. open connection to the databse by passing the URL to the database Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:oracle:thin:@hostname:1526:myDB"); //3. create a statement object Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); //4. Create a ResultSet ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM Employees"); //5. you can use the ResultSet Object to read data while(rs.next()){ rs.getString("firstname"); } %> </body> </html> General Tip #4: Every body is nervous for interviews and being a little nervous is natural. But if you are too nervous then you can overcome this by preparing for your interviews and by treating each interview as a free technical/behavioral training course. Have an attitude that even if you are not going to get the job, you are going to learn something good out of it. If you go with this attitude you will put yourself in a win/win situation and you might really get the offer. If you take this attitude you can learn a lot from your interviews. Also never think that you have to answer all the questions correctly. Do not get put off by a tricky or a difficult question. What really earns you a job is the combination of your knowledge + experience + attitude.
- 146. Enterprise – JDBC& JTA 145 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA Q 41: What is JDBC? How do you connect to a database? Have you used a Data Access Object (i.e. DAO) pattern? SF DP BP FAQ A 41: JDBC stands for Java Database Connectivity. It is an API which provides easy connection to a wide range of databases. To connect to a database we need to load the appropriate driver and then request for a connection object. The Class.forName(….) will load the driver and register it with the DriverManager (Refer Q5 in Java section for dynamic class loading). Class.forName(“oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver”); //dynamic class loading String url = jdbc:oracle:thin:@hostname:1526:myDB; Connection myConnection = DriverManager.getConnection(url, “username”, “password”); The DataSource interface provides an alternative to the DriverManager for making a connection. DataSource makes the code more portable than DriverManager because it works with JNDI and it is created, deployed and managed separately from the application that uses it. If the DataSource location changes, then there is no need to change the code but change the configuration properties in the server. This makes your application code easier to maintain. DataSource allows the use of connection pooling and support for distributed transactions. A DataSource is not only a database but also can be a file or a spreadsheet. A DataSource object can be bound to JNDI and an application can retrieve and use it to make a connection to the database. J2EE application servers provide tools to define your DataSource with a JNDI name. When the server starts it loads all the DataSources into the application server’s JNDI service. DataSource configuration properties are shown below: JNDI Name jdbc/myDataSource URL jdbc:oracle:thin:@hostname:1526:myDB UserName, Password Implementation classname oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleConnectionPoolDataSource Classpath ora_jdbc.jar Connection pooling settings like minimum pool size, maximum pool size, connection timeout, statement cache size etc. Once the DataSource has been set up, then you can get the connection object as follows: Context ctx = new InitialContext(); DataSource ds = (DataSource)ctx.lookup("jdbc/myDataSource"); Connection myConnection = ds.getConnection(“username”,”password”); Q. Why should you prefer using DataSource? Best practice: In a basic implementation a Connection obtained from a DataSource and a DriverManager are identical. But the J2EE best practice is to use DataSource because of its portability, better performance due to pooling of valuable resources and the J2EE standard requires that applications use the container’s resource management facilities to obtain connections to resources. Every major web application container provides pooled database connection management as part of its resource management framework. Design Pattern: JDBC architecture decouples an abstraction from its implementation so that the implementation can vary independent of the abstraction. This is an example of the bridge design pattern. The JDBC API provides the abstraction and the JDBC drivers provide the implementation. New drivers can be plugged-in to the JDBC API without changing the client code. Q. Have you used a Data Access Object (DAO) pattern? Why is it a best practice to use a DAO pattern Design Pattern? • A DAO class provides access to a particular data resource in the data tier (e.g. relational database, XML , mainframe etc) without coupling the resource’s API to the business logic in the business tier. For example you may have a EmployeeBO business object class access all of its employees in the database using a DAO interface EmployeeDAO. If your data resource change from a database to a Mainframe system, then reimplementing EmployeeDAO for a different data access mechanism (to use a mainframe Connector) would have little or no impact on any classes like EmployeeBO that uses EmployeeDAO because only the implementation (e.g. EmployeeDAOImpl) would change but the interface remains the same. All the classes that use the DAO should code to interface not implementation. If you happen to use the popular Spring framework, then you can inject your DAO classes into your Business Object classes. Spring framework promotes the design principle of “code to interface not to implementation”.
- 147. 146 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA Data Access Objects (DAO) Application Server J Web container EJB container C Legacy A systems (for dependency injection / Aspect Message Oriented Programming AOP ) Driven Beans J Spring framework D Browser (web B Data Access client) Web Business C internet Objects Application Session Objects (DAOs) Database beans (RDBMS etc) DataSource Hibernate (pools / IBatis etc connections) EJB layer provides Data access logic Business Logic layer clients Integration Tier remote access layer Java Data Transfer Objects (DTO) or Domain Objects (e.g Hibernate ) (transfer information between layers CLIENT Presentation Resource TIER Tier Business Tier Tier Note: Spring framework is optional. If you use it, you could take advantage of its dependency injection (aka IoC) and AOP features. Your DAO classes may use O-R-M frameworks like Hibernate etc and/or JDBC API. Business Objects represent the data client. They are the objects that require access to the datasource to obtain and store data. Data Access Objects abstract the underlying data access implementation for the business objects to enable transparent access to the datasource. The business objects also delegate data load and store operations to the Data Access Objects. A DataSource represents a database such as a relational database, XML repository, flat file, mainframe system etc. Data Transfer Objects or Domain Objects transfer data between client and data access objects. DAO design pattern DAO pattern made more flexible with Abstract factory & Class diagram of DAO pattern relationships factory method design patterns. DAOFactory BusinessObject uses DataAccessObject encapsulates DataSource +getAccountDAO() +getCustomerDAO() +getXmlLoanDAO() creates/uses RdbmsDAOFactory XmlDAOFactory obtains/modifies creates creates creates DataTransferObject / DomainObject AccountsDAOImpl CustomerDAOImpl XmlLoanDAOImpl «interface» «interface» «interface» XmlLoanDAO AccountsDAO CustomerDAO A typical DAO implementation has the following components: • A DAO factory class (e.g. EmployeeDAOFactory) or Spring framework to inject a DAO class. • A DAO interface (e.g. EmployeeDAO )
- 148. Enterprise – JDBC& JTA 147 • A concrete class (e.g. EmployeeDAOImpl ) that implements the DAO interface. Your concrete class will make use of JDBC API or open source framework API like Hibernate, IBatis etc. • Data transfer objects (e.g. EmployeeDTO) transfer data between business objects and data access objects or Domain Objects if you are using any Object-to-Relational Mapping (aka ORM) tools like Hibernate. Q. What are the best practices relating to exception handling to make your DAOs more robust and maintainable? • If you catch an exception in your DAO code, never ignore it or swallow it because ignored exceptions are hard to troubleshoot. DAO class methods should throw checked exceptions only if the caller can reasonably recover from the exception or reasonably handle it (e.g. retry operations in optimistic concurrency control - Refer Q 78 in Enterprise section etc ). If the caller cannot handle the exception in a meaningful way, consider throwing a runtime (i.e. unchecked) exception. For example Hibernate 3 exceptions are all runtime exceptions. • DAO methods should not throw low level JDBC exceptions like java.sql.SQLException. A DAO should encapsulate JDBC rather than expose it to rest of the application. Use chained exceptions to translate low-level exceptions into high-level checked exceptions or runtime exceptions. DAO methods should not throw java.lang.Exception because it is too generic and does not convey any underlying problem. • Log your exceptions, configuration information, query parameters etc. Q 42: What are JDBC Statements? What are different types of statements? How can you create them? SF FAQ A 42: A statement object is responsible for sending the SQL statements to the Database. Statement objects are created from the connection object and then executed. CO Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement(); ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(“SELECT id, name FROM myTable where id =1245”); //to read or stmt.executeUpdate(“INSERT INTO (field1,field2) values (1,3)”);//to insert/update/delete/create The types of statements are: Statement (regular statement as shown above) PreparedStatement (more efficient than statement due to pre-compilation of SQL) CallableStatement (to call stored procedures on the database) To use prepared statement: PreparedStatement prepStmt = myConnection.prepareStatement("SELECT id, name FROM myTable where id = ? "); prepStmt.setInt(1, 1245); Callable statements are used for calling stored procedures. CallableStatement calStmt = myConnection.prepareCall("{call PROC_SHOWMYBOOKS}"); ResultSet rs = cs.executeQuery(); Q 43: What is a Transaction? What does setAutoCommit do? TI PI FAQ A 43: A transaction is a set of operations that should be completed as a unit. If one operation fails then all the other operations fail as well. For example if you transfer funds between two accounts there will be two operations in the set 1. Withdraw money from one account. 2. Deposit money into other account. These two operations should be completed as a single unit. Otherwise your money will get lost if the withdrawal is successful and the deposit fails. There are four characteristics (ACID properties) for a Transaction. Atomicity Consistency Isolation Durability All the individual The design of the Prevents data being corrupted by concurrent Ensures that the database operations should transaction should access by two different sources. It keeps is definitely updated once either complete or fail. update the database transactions isolated or separated from each the Transaction is correctly. other until they are finished. completed.
- 149. 148 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA Transactions maintain data integrity. A transaction has a beginning and an end like everything else in life. The setAutocommit(….), commit() and rollback() are used for marking the transactions (known as transaction demarcation). When a connection is created, it is in auto-commit mode. This means that each individual SQL statement is treated as a transaction and will be automatically committed immediately after it is executed. The way to allow two or more statements to be grouped into a transaction is to disable auto-commit mode: CO try{ Connection myConnection = dataSource.getConnection(); // set autoCommit to false myConnection.setAutoCommit(false); withdrawMoneyFromFirstAccount(.............); //operation 1 depositMoneyIntoSecondAccount(.............); //operation 2 myConnection .commit(); } catch(Exception sqle){ try{ myConnection .rollback(); }catch( Exception e){} } finally{ try{if( conn != null) {conn.close();}} catch( Exception e) {} } The above code ensures that both operation 1 and operation 2 succeed or fail as an atomic unit and consequently leaves the database in a consistent state. Also turning auto-commit off will provide better performance. Q. What is transaction demarcation? What are the different ways of defining transactional boundaries? Data Access Objects (DAO) are transactional objects. Each operation associated with CRUD operations like Create, Update and/or Delete operations should be associated with transactions. Transaction demarcation is the manner in which transaction boundaries are defined. There are two approaches for transaction demarcation. Declarative transaction demarcation Programmatic transaction demarcation The programmer declaratively specifies the transaction The programmer is responsible for coding boundaries using transaction attributes for an EJB via ejb- transaction logic as shown above. The jar.xml deployment descriptor. application controls the transaction via an API like JDBC API, JTA API, Hibernate API etc. Note: Spring framework has support for declarative JDBC transactions are controlled using the transaction demarcation by specifying transaction attributes via java.sql.Connection object. There are two Spring config files. If you choose Spring framework to mark the modes: auto-commit and manual commit. transaction boundaries then you need to turn off transaction Following methods are provided in the JDBC demarcation in your EJB by: API via non-XA java.sql.Connection class for programmatically controlling transactions: <trans-attribute>NotSupported</trans-attribute> public void setAutoCommit(boolean Q. How are these declarative transactions know when to mode); public boolean getAutoCommit(); rollback? public void commit(); public void rollback(); EJBs: When the EJB container manages the transaction, it is automatically rolled back when a System Exception occurs. This is possible because the container can intercept “SystemException”. However when an Application Exception For XA-Connections use the following methods occurs, the container does not intercept it and therefore leaves on javax.transaction.UserTransaction. it to the code to roll back using ctx.setRollbackOnly(). Refer Q76, Q77 in Enterprise section to learn more about EJB public void begin(); exceptions and when an EJB managed transaction is rolled public void commit(); back. public void rollback(); public int getStatus(); public void setRollbackOnly(); Spring Framework: Transaction declaration format is: public void setTransactionTimeOut(int) PROPAGATION_NAME,ISOLATION_NAME,readOnly,timeout_NNN N,+CheckedException1,-CheckedException2
- 150. Enterprise – JDBC& JTA 149 By default transactions are rolled-back on java.lang.RuntimeException. You can control when transactions are committed and rolled back with the “+” or “-“ prefixes in the exception declaration. “+” means commit on exception (You can even force it on RuntimeException) and “-” means rollback on exception. You can specify multiple rules for rollback as “,” separated. For example: Following declaration will rollback transactions on RunTime exceptions and MyCheckedException, which is a checked exception. PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,-MyCheckedException Q. What is a distributed (aka JTA/XA) transaction? How does it differ from a local transaction? There are two types of transactions: • Local transaction: Transaction is within the same database. As we have seen above, with JDBC transaction demarcation, you can combine multiple SQL statements into a single transaction, but the transactional scope is limited to a single database connection. A JDBC transaction cannot span multiple databases. • Distributed Transaction (aka Global Transaction, JTA/XA transaction): The transactions that constitute a distributed transaction might be in the same database, but more typically are in different databases and often in different locations. For example A distributed transaction might consist of money being transferred from an account in one bank to an account in another bank. You would not want either transaction committed without assurance that both will complete successfully. The Java Transaction API (JTA) and its sibling Java Transaction Service (JTS), provide distributed transaction services for the J2EE platform. A distributed transaction (aka JTA/XA transaction) involves a transaction manager and one or more resource managers. A resource manager represents any kind of data store. The transaction manager is responsible for coordinating communication between your application and all the resource managers. A transaction manager decides whether to commit or rollback at the end of the transaction in a distributed system. A resource manager is responsible for controlling of accessing the common resources in the distributed system. Q. What is two-phase commit? A two-phase commit is an approach for committing a distributed transaction in 2 phases. Refer Q73 in Enterprise section for two-phase commit. Q. What do you understand by JTA and JTS? JTA is a high level transaction interface which allows transaction demarcation in a manner that is independent of the transaction manager implementation. JTS specifies the implementation of a Transaction Manager which supports the JTA. The code developed by developers does not call the JTS methods directly, but only invokes the JTA methods. The JTA internally invokes the JTS routines. Q. What is a XA resource? The XA specification defines how an application program uses a transaction manager to coordinate distributed transactions across multiple resource managers. Any resource manager that adheres to XA specification can participate in a transaction coordinated by an XA-compliant transaction manager. JTA transaction demarcation requires a JDBC driver that implements XA interfaces like javax.sql.- XADatasource, javax.sql.XAConnection and javax.sql.XAResource. A driver that implements these interfaces will be able to participate in JTA transactions. You will also require to set up the XADatasource using your application server specific configuration files, but once you get a handle on the DataSource via JNDI lookup, you can get a XA connection via javax.sql.DataSource.getConnection() in a similar manner you get a non-XA connections. XA connections are different from non-XA connections and do not support JDBC’s auto-commit feature. You cannot also use the commit(), rollback() methods on the java.sql.Connection class for the XA connections. A J2EE component can begin a transaction programmatically using javax.transaction.UserTransaction interface or it can also be started declaratively by the EJB container if an EJB bean uses container managed transaction. For explicit (i.e. programmatic) JTA/XA transaction you should use the UserTransaction.begin(), UserTransaction.commit() and UserTransaction.rollback() methods. For example: // programmatic JTA transaction
- 151. 150 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA InitialContext ctx = new InitialContext(); UserTransaction utx = (UserTransaction)ctx.lookup(“java:comp/UserTransaction”); try { //… utx.begin(); //…. DataSource ds = getXADatasource(); Connection con = ds.getConnection(); // get a XAconnection. PreparedStatement pstmt = con.prepareStatement(“UPDATE Employee emp where emp.id =?”); pstmt.setInt(1, 12456); pstmt.executeUpdate(); utx.commit();//transaction manager uses two-phase commit protocol to end transaction } catch(SQLException sqle){ utx.rollback(); throw new RuntimeException(sqle); } // for bean-managed EJB transaction demarcation UserTransaction ut = ejbContext.getUserTransaction(); Q. Why JTA transactions are more powerful than JDBC transactions? JTA transactions are more powerful than JDBC transaction because a JDBC transaction is limited to a single database whereas a JTA transaction can have multiple participants like: • JDBC connections. • JMS queues/topics. • Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs). • Resource adapters that comply with J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) specification. JTA/XA (distributed) transactions Application Server Container J2EE component Resource Resource Manager Transaction Manager Manager Resource Manager JMS Queue/ RDBMS Topic (database) Mainframe System Q. What is J2EE Connector architecture (JCA)? How does it differ from JDBC? JCA is a Java based technology solution for connecting application servers and Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Customer Relationship Management) (CRM) systems etc as part of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). The JCA API is used by J2EE tool developers and system integrators to create resource adapters While JDBC is specifically used to connect J2EE applications to databases, JCA is a more generic architecture for connecting to legacy systems (including databases). Q. How would you send a JMS message to a JMS queue/topic and update a database table within the same transaction?
- 152. Enterprise – JDBC& JTA 151 Using JTA/XA transaction. A J2EE application using EJB containers can send or receive messages from one or more JMS destinations and update data in one or more databases in a single transaction. The J2EE architecture allows updates of data at multiple sites (i.e. more than one application servers) to be performed in a single transaction. JMS messages and database updates in a single JTA/XA transaction Same Application server: A web client invokes a method on EJB-1, which in turn sends a message to JMS Queue-1 and updates data in database-1. After that EJB-1 calls EJB-2, which updates data in database-2. The application server with its EJB container and built-in transaction manager ensures that operations A, B and C are either all committed or rolled back. If operation-B fails to update database-1 due to some error condition then operations A & B are rolled back, which means the JMS message would not be delivered to JMS Queue-1 and database-2 would not be updated. Application Server Web client EJB-1 EJB-2 op era tion-B opera tion-C tio n-A opera JMS message Database-1 Database-2 Queue-1 Multiple Application servers: Both application servers with its EJB containers and built-in transaction manager ensure that opeations A, B and C are either all committed or rolled back. Application Server 1 Application Server 2 Web client EJB-1 EJB-2 op era tion-B opera tion-C tio n-A opera JMS message Database-1 Database-2 Queue-1 Q. What are the considerations for a programmatic transaction control within a Servlet/JSP? Can a transaction span across multiple web requests? Web components like Servlets/JSPs may only start a transaction in its service() method and a transaction started in its service method must be completed before the service() method completes. A transaction cannot span across multiple web requests. Some of the considerations are as follows: • JTA transactions should start and complete within the thread in which service() method is called and any additional threads created in the servlet should not try to start any JTA transaction. • JDBC connection objects should not be stored in static fields or instance fields (for multi-threaded model). JDBC connection objects should be acquired and released within the same invocation of the service() method.
- 153. 152 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA Q. How will you control two concurrent transactions accessing a database? You can use isolation levels. An isolation level defines how concurrent transactions accessing a relational database are isolated from each other for read purpose. Refer Q72 in Enterprise section. These isolation levels can prevent one or more of the phenomena that happen during concurrent transactions: • Dirty reads: A transaction reads uncommitted changes from another transaction. • Nonrepeatable reads: A transaction reads a row in a database table, a second transaction changes the same row and the first transaction re-reads the row and gets a different value. • Phantom reads: A transaction executes a query, returning a set of rows that satisfies a search condition and a second transaction inserts another row and the first re-executes the same query and get an additional record returned. Isolation Level (in ascending order of Dirty read Nonrepeatable read Phantom read data integrity) TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITED Possible Possible Possible TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITED Not possible Possible Possible TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ Not possible Not possible Possible TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE Not possible Not possible Not possible You should use a highest possible isolation level that gives acceptable performance. It is basically a tradeoff between data integrity and performance. For example the isolation level “TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE” attribute guarantees the highest level of data integrity but adversely affects performance because even simple reads must wait in line. Q 44: What is the difference between JDBC-1.0 and JDBC-2.0? What are Scrollable ResultSets, Updateable ResultSets, RowSets, and Batch updates? SF A 44: JDBC2.0 has the following additional features or functionality: JDBC 1.0 JDBC 2.0 With JDBC-1.0 the With JDBC 2.0 ResultSets are updateable and also you can move forward and backward. ResultSet functionality was limited. There was no Example This example creates an updateable and scroll-sensitive ResultSet support for updates of any kind and scrolling through Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement(ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_SENSITIVE, the ResultSets was ResultSet.CONCUR_UPDATEABLE) forward only (no going back) With JDBC-1.0 the With JDBC-2.0 statement objects can be grouped into a batch and executed at once. You call statement objects submits addBatch() multiple times to create your batch and then you call executeBatch() to send the SQL updates to the database statements off to database to be executed as a batch (this minimizes the network overhead). individually within same or separate transactions. Example This is very inefficient when large amounts of Statement stmt = myConnection.createStatement(); data need to be updated. stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (1,”ABC”)”); stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (2,”DEF”)”); stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO myTable1 VALUES (3,”XYZ”)”); … int[] countInserts = stmt.executeBatch(); - The JDBC-2.0 optional package provides a RowSet interface, which extends the ResultSet. One of the implementations of the RowSet is the CachedRowSet, which can be considered as a disconnected ResultSet. Q 45: How to avoid the “running out of cursors” problem? DC PI MI FAQ A 45: A database can run out of cursors if the connection is not closed properly or the DBA has not allocated enough cursors. In a Java code it is essential that we close all the valuable resources in a try{} and finally{} block. The finally{} block is always executed even if there is an exception thrown from the catch {} block. So the resources like connections and statements should be closed in a finally {} block. CO
- 154. Enterprise – JDBC& JTA 153 Try{} Finally {} blocks to close Exceptions Wrong Approach - Right Approach - Connections and statements will not be closed if there public void executeSQL() throws SQLException{ is an exception: try{ Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(........); public void executeSQL() throws SQLException{ ..... Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); .... Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(........); //line 20 where exception is thrown ..... ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * from myTable"); Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); ..... .... } //line 20 where exception is thrown finally{ ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * from myTable"); try { ..... if(rs != null) rs.close(); rs.close(); if(stmt != null) stmt.close(); stmt.close(); if(con != null) con.close(); con.close(); } } catch(Exception e){} } Note: if an exception is thrown at line 20 then the } close() statements are never reached. Note: if an exception is thrown at line 20 then the finally clause is called before the exception is thrown from the method. Q 46: What is the difference between statements and prepared statements? SF PI SE BP FAQ A 46: Prepared statements offer better performance, as they are pre-compiled. Prepared statements reuse the same execution plan for different arguments rather than creating a new execution plan every time. Prepared statements use bind arguments, which are sent to the database engine. This allows mapping different requests with same prepared statement but different arguments to execute the same execution plan. Prepared statements are more secure because they use bind variables, which can prevent SQL injection attack. The most common type of SQL injection attack is SQL manipulation. The attacker attempts to modify the SQL statement by adding elements to the WHERE clause or extending the SQL with the set operators like UNION, INTERSECT etc. Example Let us look at the following SQL: SELECT * FROM users where username=’bob’ AND password=’xyfdsw’; The attacker can manipulate the SQL as follows SELECT * FROM users where username=’bob’ AND password=’xyfdsw’ OR ‘a’ = ‘a’ ; The above “WHERE” clause is always true because of the operator precedence. The PreparedStatement can prevent this by using bind variables: String strSQL = SELECT * FROM users where username=? AND password=?); PreparedStatement pstmt = myConnection.prepareStatement(strSQL); pstmt.setString(1,”bob”); pstmt.setString(2, “xyfdsw”); pstmt.execute(); Q 47: Explain differences among java.util.Date, java.sql.Date, java.sql.Time, and java.sql.Timestamp? SF A 47: As shown below all the sql Date classes extend the util Date class.
- 155. 154 Enterprise – JDBC & JTA Java D ate classes java.util.Date java.sql.Date java.sql.Tim e java.sql.Tim eStam p java.util.Date - class supports both the Date (i.e. year/month/date etc) and the Time (hour, minute, second, and millisecond) components. java.sql.Date - class supports only the Date (i.e. year/month/date etc) component. The hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds of the Time component will be set to zero in the particular time zone with which the instance is associated. java.sql.Time - class supports only Time (i.e. hour, minute, second, and millisecond) component. The date components should be set to the "zero epoch" value of January 1, 1970 and should not be accessed. java.sql.TimeStamp – class supports both Date (i.e. year/month/date etc) and the Time (hour, minute, second, millisecond and nanosecond) components. Note: the subtle difference between java.util.Date and java.sql.Date. The java.sql.Date does not have a time component. If you need both date and time, then should use either java.util.Date or java.sql.TimeStamp. To keep track of time Java counts the number of milliseconds from January 1, 1970 and stores it as a long value in java.util.Date class. The GregorianCalendar class provides us a way to represent an arbitrary date. The GregorianCalendar class also provides methods for manipulating dates (date arithmetic, date comparisons etc). General Tip #5: Software developers should have and demonstrate following qualities to succeed in interviews and after interviews : Q. Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? These interview questions are very common and the interviewer will be mainly looking for following qualities: 1. Passion: How passionate you are about your past experience and how much pride you take in your past achievements. 2. Ability to understand potential failures: How well you understand the key areas like concurrency issues, transactional issues, performance issues etc relating to software development and tend to avoid or know where to look for the root cause and how to go about solving it when an issue arises. 3. Ability to see things at a high level as well as drill down when required: Also is imperative that during your briefing, you demonstrate on a high level (as if you would be explaining it to a business user), how you applied your skills and knowledge. Also be prepared to drill down into detail if asked. 4. Ability to think dynamically to deliver solutions to complex problems and ability to analyze “what if ” scenarios: What if I need to support another type of product in the future, will the current design allow me to extend? What if concurrent users access my object, will it be thread-safe? What if an exception is thrown, will my transaction get rolled back to leave the database in a consistent state? Etc. Q. What was the last Java related technical book or article you read? Which Java related website(s) or resource(s) do you use to keep your knowledge up to date beyond Google? What do you think of some of the emerging technologies/frameworks like AOP, IoC, Spring, Tapestry etc? What recent technology trends are important to enterprise development? Hint: Service Oriented Architecture, component based Web frameworks, IoC, AOP (refer Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section) etc. The interviewer will be looking for your curiosity and eagerness to learn. 5. Curiosity to learn: How eager you are to learn new things and keep up to date with the technology.
- 156. Enterprise – JNDI& LDAP 155 Enterprise – JNDI & LDAP Q 48: What is JNDI? And what are the typical uses within a J2EE application? SF FAQ A 48: JNDI stands for Java Naming and Directory Interface. It provides a generic interface to LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and other directory services like NDS, DNS (Domain Name System) etc. It provides a means for an application to locate components that exist in a name space according to certain attributes. A J2EE application component uses JNDI interfaces to look up and reference system-provided and user-defined objects in a component environment. JNDI is not specific to a particular naming or directory service. It can be used to access many different kinds of systems including file systems. The JNDI API enables applications to look up objects such as DataSources, EJBs, MailSessions, JMS connection factories and destinations (Topics/Queues) by name. The Objects can be loaded into the JNDI tree using a J2EE application server’s administration console. To load an object in a JNDI tree, choose a name under which you want the object to appear in a JNDI tree. J2EE deployment descriptors indicate the placement of J2EE components in a JNDI tree. J N D I T re e In it ia lC o n t e x t O b je c ts a n d /o r S e rv ic e s u b -c o n te x t n a m e d o b je c t /s e r v ic e re fe re n c e n a m e d o b je c t /s e r v ic e re fe re n c e N o t e : J N D I tr e e liv e s in th e s e r v e r a s a c o lle c tio n o f n a m e d o b je c t o r s e r v ic e r e f e r e n c e s . The parameters you have to define for JNDI service are as follows: The name service provider class name (WsnInitialContext for WebSphere application server). Hashtable env = new Hashtable(); env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,"com.ibm.websphere.naming.WsnInitialContextFactory"); The provider URL : The name service hostname. The name service port number. env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, " iiop://localhost:1050"); Context ctx = new InitialContext(env); JNDI is like a file system or a Database. File System JNDI Database File system starts with a JNDI starts with an InitialContext. Database instance mounted drive like c: i.e. new InitialContext(). Uses a subdirectory. Navigate to a sub-context. e.g. Subcontext1 Tablespace C:subdir1 Access a subdirectory Drill down through other sub-contexts. e.g. Table c:subdir1subdir2 subcontext1/subcontext2 Access a file. Access an object or a service. Data
- 157. 156 Enterprise – JNDI & LDAP C:subdir1subdir2myFile new InitialContext().lookup(“objectName”); Example: Example: Example: c:subdir1subdir2myFile iiop://myserver:2578/subcontext1.subcontext2.objectName Select * from demo.myTable Q 49: Explain the difference between the look up of “java:comp/env/ejb/MyBean” and “ejb/MyBean”? SF FAQ A 49: java:comp/env/ejb/MyBean ejb/MyBean This is a logical reference, which will be used in your code. This is a physical reference where an object will be mapped to in a JNDI tree. The logical reference (or alias) java:comp/env/ejb/MyBean is the recommended approach because you cannot guarantee that the physical JNDI location ejb/MyBean you specify in your code will be available. Your code will break if the physical location is changed. The deployer will not be able to modify your code. Logical references solve this problem by binding the logical name to the physical name in the application server. The logical names will be declared in the deployment descriptors (web.xml and/or ejb-jar.xml) as follows and these will be mapped to physical JNDI locations in the application server specific deployment descriptors. To look up a JDBC resource from either Web (web.xml) or EJB (ejb-jar.xml) tier, the deployment descriptor should have the following entry: <resource-ref> <description>The DataSource</description> <res-ref-name>jdbc/MyDataSource</res-ref-name> <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type> This will make full logical path to the bean <res-auth>Container</res-auth> as: </resource-ref> java:comp/env/jdbc/MyDataSource To use it: Context ctx = new InitialContext(); Object ref = ctx.lookup(java:comp/env/jdbc/MyDataSource); To look up EJBs from another EJB or a Web module, the deployment descriptor should have the following entry: <ejb-ref> <description>myBean</description> <ejb-ref-name>ejb/MyBean</ejb-ref-name> <ejb-ref-type>Entity</ejb-ref-type> <ejb-link>Region</ejb-link> This will make full logical path to the bean <home>com.MyBeanHome</home> as: <remote>com.MyBean</remote> java:comp/env/ejb/MyBean </ejb-ref> To use it: Context ctx = new InitialContext(); Object ref = ctx.lookup(java:comp/env/ejb/MyBean); Q 50: What is a JNDI InitialContext? SF FAQ A 50: All naming operations are relative to a context. The InitalContext implements the Context interface and provides an entry point for the resolution of names. Q 51: What is an LDAP server? And what is it used for in an enterprise environment? SF SE A 51: LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. This is an extensible open network protocol standard that provides access to distributed directory services. LDAP is an Internet standard for directory services that run on TCP/IP. Under OpenLDAP and related servers, there are two servers – slapd, the LDAP daemon where the queries are sent to and slurpd, the replication daemon where data from one server is pushed to one or more slave servers. By having multiple servers hosting the same data, you can increase reliability, scalability, and availability. It defines the operations one may perform like search, add, delete, modify, change name It defines how operations and data are conveyed.
- 158. Enterprise – JNDI& LDAP 157 LDAP has the potential to consolidate all the existing application specific information like user, company phone and e-mail lists. This means that the change made on an LDAP server will take effect on every directory service based application that uses this piece of user information. The variety of information about a new user can be added through a single interface which will be made available to Unix account, NT account, e-mail server, Web Server, Job specific news groups etc. When the user leaves his account can be disabled to all the services in a single operation. So LDAP is most useful to provide “white pages” (e.g. names, phone numbers, roles etc) and “yellow pages” (e.g. location of printers, application servers etc) like services. Typically in a J2EE application environment it will be used to authenticate and authorize users. Q. Why use LDAP when you can do the same with relational database (RDBMS)? In general LDAP servers and RDBMS are designed to provide different types of services. LDAP is an open standard access mechanism, so an RDBMS can talk LDAP. However the servers, which are built on LDAP, are optimized for read access so likely to be much faster than RDBMS in providing read access. So in a nutshell, LDAP is more useful when the information is often searched but rarely modified. (Another difference is that RDBMS systems store information in rows of tables whereas LDAP uses object oriented hierarchies of entries.) . Key LDAP Terms: DIT: Directory Information Tree. Hierarchical structure of entries, those make up a directory. DN: Distinguished Name. This uniquely identifies an entry in the directory. A DN is made up of relative DNs of the entry and each of entry’s parent entries up to the root of the tree. DN is read from right to left and commas separate these names. For example ‘cn=Peter Smith, o=ACME, c=AUS’. objectClass: An objectClass is a formal definition of a specific kind of objects that can be stored in the directory. An ObjectClass is a distinct, named set of attributes that represent something concrete such as a user, a computer, or an application. LDAP URL: This is a string that specifies the location of an LDAP resource. An LDAP URL consists of a server host and a port, search scope, baseDN, filter, attributes and extensions. Refer to diagram below: L D A P D ire c to ry s tru c tu re ro o t o b je c tC la s s F a c to ry = c o u n try c=A U S c=U K o b je c tC la s s F a c to ry = o rg a n iz a tio n o=ACM E o = X Y Z R e ta il o = Q u ic k C o rp o b je c tC la s s F a c to ry = u s e r c n = P e te r S m ith m a il= P S m ith @ N A B .c o m phone=88888888 So the complete distinguished name for bottom left entry (i.e. Peter Smith) is cn=Peter Smith, o=ACME, c=AUS. Each entry must have at least one attribute that is used to name the entry. To manage the part of the LDAP directory you should specify the highest level parent’s distinguished names in the server configuration. These distinguished names are called suffixes. The server can access all the objects that are below the specified suffix
- 159. 158 Enterprise – JNDI & LDAP in the hierarchy. For example in the above diagram, to answer queries about ‘Peter Smith’ the server should have the suffix of ‘o=ACME, c=AUS’. So we can look for “Peter Smith” by using the following distinguished name: cn=Peter Smith, o=ACME, c=AUS // where o=ACME, c=AUS is the suffix LDAP schema: defines rules that specify the types of objects that a directory may contain and the required optional attributes that entries of different types should have. Filters: In LDAP the basic way to retrieve data is done with filters. There is a wide variety of operators that can be used as follows: & (and), | (or), ! (not), ~= (approx equal), >= (greater than or equal), <= (less than or equal), * (any) etc. (& (uid=a*) (uid=*l) ) Q. So where does JNDI fit into this LDAP? JNDI provides a standard API for interacting with naming and directory services using a service provider interface (SPI), which is analogous to JDBC driver. To connect to an LDAP server, you must obtain a reference to an object that implements the DirContext. In most applications, this is done by using an InitialDirContext object that takes a Hashtable as an argument: Hashtable env = new Hashtable(); env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, “com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory”); env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, “ldap://localhost:387”); env.put(Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION, “simple”); env.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, “cn=Directory Manager”); env.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, “myPassword”); DirContext ctx = new InitialDirContext(env); General Tip #6: Experience, knowledge and attitude are necessary for your career advancement. Developers with the ability to master more knowledge in a short period of time are better skilled people too. If you solely rely on your work experience to acquire your knowledge, it may take you quite some time. I took the approach of acquiring the knowledge by pro-actively reading (mainly articles and sometimes books), having a technical chat with my senior colleagues or mentors, and networking with the fellow professionals via Java forums and keeping in touch with some skilled and experienced developers I had worked with. Once I have acquired the knowledge then I pro-actively look for an opportunity to put my knowledge to practice to gain experience and acquire skills. This is important because not only the experiences and skills I have gained is going to stay with me for a longer period of time than just having the knowledge alone but also it is going to help me acquire more knowledge quicker. As I repeat this cycle, I enhance my skill to acquire more knowledge in a short period. This strategy helped me to fast track my career progress. You may have a different strategy, but no matter what strategy you have, you have to eventually know and master the core concepts (aka fundamentals) and the key areas.
- 160. Enterprise – RMI 159 Enterprise - RMI Q 52: Explain the RMI architecture? SF FAQ A 52: Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) provides a way for a Java program on one machine to communicate with objects residing in different JVMs (i.e. different processes or address spaces). The important parts of the RMI architecture are the stub class, object serialization and the skeleton class. RMI uses a layered architecture where each of the layers can be enhanced without affecting the other layers. The layers can be summarized as follows: Application Layer: The client and server program Stub & Skeleton Layer: Intercepts method calls made by the client. Redirects these calls to a remote RMI service. Remote Reference Layer: Sets up connections to remote address spaces, manages connections, and understands how to interpret and manage references made from clients to the remote service objects. Transport layer: Based on TCP/IP connections between machines in a network. It provides basic connectivity, as well as some firewall penetration strategies. Design pattern: RMI stub classes provide a reference to a skeleton object located in a different address space on the same or different machine. This is a typical example of a proxy design pattern (i.e. remote proxy), which makes an object executing in another JVM appear like a local object. In JDK 5.0 and later, the RMI facility uses dynamic proxies instead of generated stubs, which makes RMI easier to use. Refer Q11 in “How would you about…” section for a more detailed discussion on proxy design pattern and dynamic proxies. R M I A rc h ite c tu re C lie n t S e rv e r C lie n t P ro c e s s S e rv e r P ro c e s s C lie n t 2 . lo o k u p S tu b R M I R e g is try O b je c ts 3 . R e tu rn S tu b S tu b ( o r J N D I S e rv e r ) 1. Lo ad R e m o te St 4 . M e th o O b je c ts ub S tu b d c a ll o n s re m o te 5. S en s e rv e r O d re s u b je c ts lt s o r E x c e p ti on S k e le to n R e m o te R e fe re n c e M anager RM R e m o te R e fe re n c e IT M anager ra n sp or er tL a L ay ye r s p o rt T ran RMI N o te : S te p s 4 & 5 a re lo g ic a l e xp la n a tio n o n ly . N e ith e r th e S tu b s n o r S k e le to n s u s e s o c k e ts d ire c tly . T h e a c tu a l c a lls a re m a d e th ro u g h th e R e m o te R e fe re n c e M a n a g e r. T h e R e m o te R e fe re n c e M a n a g e r h a n d le s th e a c tu a l d e ta ils o f c o m m u n ic a tin g w ith th e re m o te p ro c e s s . T h is e x tra la y e r m a n a g e s n e tw o rk c o m m u n ic a tio n a n d c o n s e rv e s s c a rc e re s o u rc e s lik e s o c ke ts . E x a m p le P ro g ra m 1 s tu b s tu b P ro g ra m 2 s k e le to n s k e le to n
- 161. 160 Enterprise – RMI RMI runtime steps (as shown in the diagram above) involved are: Step 1: Start RMI registry and then the RMI server. Bind the remote objects to the RMI registry. Step 2: The client process will look up the remote object from the RMI registry. Step 3: The lookup will return the stub to the client process from the server process. Step 4: The client process will invoke method calls on the stub. The stub calls the skeleton on the server process through the RMI reference manager. Step 5: The skeleton will execute the actual method call on the remote object and return the result or an exception to the client process via the RMI reference manager and the stub. Q 53: What is a remote object? Why should we extend UnicastRemoteObject? SF FAQ A 53: A remote object is one whose methods can be invoked from another JVM (i.e. another process). A remote object class must implement the Remote interface. A RMI Server is an application that creates a number of remote objects. An RMI Server is responsible for Creating an instance of the remote object (e.g. CarImpl instance = new CarImpl()). Exporting the remote object. Binding the instance of the remote object to the RMI registry. By exporting a remote object you make it available to accept incoming calls from the client. You can export the remote object by either extending the java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject or if your class is already extending another class then you can use the static method UnicastRemoteObject.exportObject (this); If the UnicastRemoteObject is not extended (i.e. if you use UnicastRemoteObject.exportObject(…) then the implementation class is responsible for the correct implementations of the hashCode(), equals() and toString() methods. A remote object is registered in the RMI registry using: Naming.rebind(String serviceName, Remote remoteObj); Remote Objects java.rmi.Remote Remote interface java.rmi.server.RemoteServer eg: public interface Car extends Remote{} Implementation of Remote interface java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject eg: public class CarImpl extends UnicastRemoteObject implements Car{} Compile Car & CarImpl use rmic to generate stubs & skeletons rmic -d /classes CarImpl gen ted erat instantiated era ed gen stub class skeleton class instantiated instantiated Client Object stub Object skeleton Object remote Object instances instances instances instances
- 162. Enterprise – RMI 161 Q 54: What is the difference between RMI and CORBA? SF A 54: RMI CORBA Java only solution. The interfaces, CORBA was made specifically for interoperability among various implementations and the clients are all written languages. For example the server could be written in C++ and the in Java. business logic can be in Java and the client can be written in COBOL. RMI allows dynamic loading of classes at In a CORBA environment with multi-language support it is not possible to runtime. have dynamic loading. Q 55: What are the services provided by the RMI Object? SF A 55: In addition to its remote object architecture, RMI provides some basic object services, which can be used in a distributed application. These services are Object naming/registry service: RMI servers can provide services to clients by registering one or more remote objects with its local RMI registry. Object activation service: It provides a way for server (i.e. remote) objects to be started on an as-needed basis. Without the remote activation service, a server object has to be registered with the RMI registry service. Distributed garbage collection: It is an automatic process where an object, which has no further remote references, becomes a candidate for garbage collection. Q 56: What are the differences between RMI and a socket? SF A 56: Socket RMI A socket is a transport mechanism. Sockets are like RMI uses sockets. RMI is object oriented. Methods can be applying procedural networking to object oriented invoked on the remote objects running on a separate JVM. environment. Sockets-based network programming can be laborious. RMI provides a convenient abstraction over raw sockets. Can send and receive any valid Java object utilizing underlying object serialization without having to worry about using data streams. Q 57: How will you pass parameters in RMI? SF A 57: Primitive types are passed by value (e.g. int, char, boolean etc). References to remote objects (i.e. objects which implement the Remote interface) are passed as remote references that allow the client process to invoke methods on the remote objects. Non-remote objects are passed by value using object serialization. These objects should allow them to be serialized by implementing the java.io.Serializable interface. Note: The client process initiates the invocation of the remote method by calling the method on the stub. The stub (client side proxy of the remote object) has a reference to the remote object and forwards the call to the skeleton (server side proxy of the remote object) through the reference manager by marshaling the method arguments. During Marshaling each object is checked to determine whether it implements java.rmi.Remote interface. If it does then the remote reference is used as the Marshaled data otherwise the object is serialized into byte streams and sent to the remote process where it is deserialized into a copy of the local object. The skeleton converts this request from the stub into the appropriate method call on the actual remote object by unmarshaling the method arguments into local stubs on the server (if they are remote reference) or into local copy (if they are sent as serialized objects). Q 58: What is HTTP tunneling or how do you make RMI calls across firewalls? SF SE A 58: RMI transport layer generally opens direct sockets to the server. Many Intranets have firewalls that do not allow this. To get through the firewall an RMI call can be embedded within the firewall-trusted HTTP protocol. To get across firewalls, RMI makes use of HTTP tunneling by encapsulating RMI calls within an HTTP POST request.
- 163. 162 Enterprise – RMI HTTP tunnelling Web Server Proxy Server on port 80 forwarded by encapsulated CGI script RMI call HTTP call RMI Server RMI Client Firewall Firewall When a firewall proxy server can forward HTTP requests only to a well-known HTTP port: The firewall proxy server will forward the request to a HTTP server listening on port 80, and a CGI script will be executed to forward the call to the target RMI server port on the same machine. HTTP tunneling Client Servlet Container applets I Web n Firewall servlets Server Servlet JMS client t e r n e Business Service t RMI company EJB network Corba The disadvantages of HTTP tunneling are performance degradation, prevents RMI applications from using call- backs, CGI script will redirect any incoming request to any port, which is a security loophole, RMI calls cannot be multiplexed through a single connection since HTTP tunneling follows a request/response protocol etc. Q 59: Why use RMI when we can achieve the same benefits from EJB? SF A 59: EJBs are distributed components, which use the RMI framework for object distribution. An EJB application server provides more services like transaction management, object pooling, database connection-pooling etc, which RMI does not provide. These extra services that are provided by the EJB server simplify the programming effort at the cost of performance overhead compared to plain RMI. So if performance is important then pure RMI may be a better solution (or under extreme situations Sockets can offer better performance than RMI). Note: The decision to go for RMI or EJB or Sockets should be based on requirements such as maintainability, ease of coding, extensibility, performance, scalability, availability of application servers, business requirements etc. Tech Tip #5: Q. How do you pass a parameter to your JVM? As JVM arguments: $> java MyProgram -DallowCache=true alternatively in your code: System.setProperty(“allowCache”, Boolean.TRUE); // to set the value System.getProperty(“allowCache”); // to get the value
- 164. Enterprise – EJB2.x 163 Enterprise – EJB 2.x There are various persistence mechanisms available like EJB 2.x, Object-to-Relational (O/R) mapping tools like Hibernate, JDBC and EJB 3.0 (new kid on the block) etc. You will have to evaluate the products based on the application you are building because each product has its strengths and weaknesses. You will find yourself trading ease of use for scalability, standards with support for special features like stored procedures, etc. Some factors will be more important to you than for others. There is no one size fits all solution. Let’s compare some of the persistence products: EJB 2.x EJB 3.0 Hibernate JDBC PROS: PROS: PROS: PROS: Security is provided for free A lot less artifacts than EJB Simple to write CRUD You have complete control for accessing the EJB. 2.x. Makes use of annotations (create, retrieve, update, over the persistence or attributes based delete) operations. because this is the building Provides declarative programming. blocks of nearly all other transactions. No container or application persistence technologies in Narrows the gap between EJB server is required and can be Java. EJBs are pooled and 2.x and O/R mapping. plugged into an existing cached. EJB life cycles are container. Can call Stored Procedures. managed by the container. Do support OO concepts like inheritance. Tools are available to simplify Can manipulate relatively Has remote access mapping relational data to large data sets. capabilities and can be objects and quick to develop. clustered for scalability. Cons: Cons: Cons: Cons: Need to understand the Little or no capabilities for You will have to write a lot intricacies like rolling back As of writing, It is still evolving. remote access and of code to perform a little. a transaction, granularity distributability. Easy to make mistakes in etc, infrastructures like properly managing session facades, business Mapping schemas can be connections and can cause delegates, value objects etc tedious and O/R mapping out of cursors issues. and strategies like lazy has its tricks like using lazy loading, dirty marker etc. initialization, eager loading Harder to maintain because etc. What works for one may changes in schemas can EJBs use lots of resources not work for another. cause lot of changes to your and have lots of artifacts. code. Limited clustering Does not support OO capabilities. Records need to be locked concepts like inheritance. manually (e.g. select for Large data sets can still update). cause memory issues. Support for security at a database level only and no support for role based security without any add on APIs like Aspect Oriented Programming etc. As a rule of thumb, suitable As a rule of thumb, suitable for Suitable for records in use Where possible stay away for distributed and clustered distributed and clustered between 100 and 5000. Watch from using JDBC unless you applications, which is heavily applications, which is heavily out for memory issues, when have compelling reason to transaction based. Records transaction based. Records in using large data sets. use it for batch jobs where in use say between 1 and 50. use say between 1 and 100. large amount of data need to be transferred, records in use greater than 5000, required to use Stored Procedures etc. The stateless session beans and message driven beans have wider acceptance in EJB 2.x compared to stateful session beans and entity beans. Refer Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section for Hibernate and EJB 3.0. Q 60: What is the role of EJB 2.x in J2EE? SF A 60: EJB 2.x (Enterprise JavaBeans) is widely adopted server side component architecture for J2EE. EJB is a remote, distributed multi-tier system and supports protocols like JRMP, IIOP, and HTTP etc. It enables rapid development of reusable, versatile, and portable business components (i.e. across middleware), which are transactional and scalable.
- 165. 164 Enterprise – EJB 2.x EJB is a specification for J2EE servers. EJB components contain only business logic and system level programming and services like transactions, security, instance pooling, multi-threading, persistence etc are managed by the EJB Container and hence simplify the programming effort. Message driven EJBs have support for asynchronous communication. Note: Having said that EJB 2.x is a widely adopted server side component, EJB 3.0 is taking ease of development very seriously and has adjusted its model to offer the POJO (Plain Old Java Object) persistence and the new O/R mapping model based on Hibernate. In EJB 3.0, all kinds of enterprise beans are just POJOs. EJB 3.0 extensively uses Java annotations, which replaces excessive XML based configuration files and eliminates the need for the rigid component model used in EJB 1.x, 2.x. Annotations can be used to define the bean’s business interface, O/R mapping information, resource references etc. Refer Q18 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section. So, for future developments look out for EJB 3.0 and/or Hibernate framework. Refer Q14 – Q16 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section for discussion on Hibernate framework. EJB - Big Picture Other J2EE Messaging Java Applet, HTTP Client Systems C++ application Client Java stand-alone application (eg: Browser, Wireless etc) HTTP Web Services (SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, ebXML) Firewall J2EE Server JSP (use JavaBeans) Servlets messaging (use JavaBeans) IIOP RMI/IIOP Business Delegate Servlets (use JavaBeans) (use JavaBeans) System Level Services like EJB Container (Enterprise Java Beans are deployed) Business Logic provided by the developer through EJB transaction, Security etc EJB Session Bean EJB Message Driven Bean EJB Session Bean are provided by the container EJB Entity Bean EJB Session Bean EJB Session Bean SQL SQL (fast Lane Reader) Web Services Connectors (JCA) (SOAP, UDDI, WSDL, ebXML) proprietary protocol Legacy System, Message Oriented Other J2EE ERP System etc Middleware Topic Systems Database Q 61: What is the difference between EJB and JavaBeans? SF FAQ A 61: Both EJBs and JavaBeans have very similar names but this is where the similarities end. JavaBeans Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) The components built based on JavaBeans live in a single The Enterprise JavaBeans are non-visual distributable local JVM (i.e. address space) and can be either visual components, which can live across multiple JVMs (i.e. address (e.g. GUI components like Button, List etc) or non-visual at spaces). runtime. No explicit support exists for services like transactions etc. EJBs can be transactional and the EJB servers provide transactional support. JavaBeans are fine-grained components, which can be EJBs are coarse-grained components that can be deployed as used to assemble coarse-grained components or an is or assembled with other components into larger application. applications. EJBs must be deployed in a container that provides services like instance pooling, multi-threading, security, life-cycle management, transactions etc Must conform to JavaBeans specification. Must conform to EJB specification.
- 166. Enterprise – EJB2.x 165 Q 62: Explain EJB architecture? SF A 62: E J B A r c h ite c tu r e E J B S e rv e r E J B C o n ta in e r (eg Servlet, JSP, Stand alone E n te r p r is e J a v a B e a n s application, Applet etc) s y n c h ro n o u s H o m e /L o c a lH o m e H o m e O b je c t / S e s s io n B e a n s In te r fa c e L o c a l H o m e O b je c t s ta te fu l / s ta te le s s EJB Client E n t it y B e a n s R e m o te /L o c a l E J B O b je c t / CMP/ BMP s y n c h ro n o u s In te r fa c e E J B L o c a lO b je c t D a ta b a s e S e r v e r E n te r p r is e J a v a B e a n s JM S M essage M e s s a g e - D r iv e n P ro d u c e r JM SM essage B eans A s y n c h ro n o u s ( e .g . L is t e n e r In t e r f a c e p u b lis h to a T o p ic o r s e n d to a Q ueue) E n t e r p r is e S e r v ic e s a n d A P I JN D I JM S T r a n s a c tio n s S e c u r ity P e rs is te n c e E J B C o n ta in e r JN D I D e p lo y m e n t d e s c rip to r - B e a n d e fin itio n p p ly - T ra n s a c tio n & a up pt - S e c u rity e tc ok UB rc e s n te ice Lo t S T 4. i e 1. erv 2 .g oke . In v ( ) 8 . b e a n life ly s 3 te H o m e In te r fa c e H o m e O b je c t -c y c le m e c re a () app e jb C re a te th o d s fi n d e ( ) ( )o r e jb F in d () e n t e r p r is e m o v tu b pt & C lie n t re b e a n in s ta n c e e s instance o n th 5. new rce 9 s e n te . in v o k e th o d nte r p r is e s s m tc u s in e 6. i e be e m g e tH e th o d s e a n b e P o w e r( ) li k an 10. b o rs o rs e P ow e g e tH e r () R e m o t e In te r fa c e E J B O B je c t 7 . R e fe r E J B C o n te x t S a m p le C o d e : C o n te x t in itia lC tx = n e w In itia lC o n te x t(); //In itia liz e th e J N D I c o n te x t. i.e . e n try p o in t. C a rH o m e h o m e O b je c t = (C a rH o m e ) in itia lC tx .lo o k u p (e jb /M y E jb ); // S te p s 1 & 2 in th e a b o v e d ia g ra m C a r c a rO b je c t = h o m e O b je c t.c re a te (); // S te p s 3 - 8 c a rO b je c t .g e tH o rs e P o w e r(); // S te p s 9 - 1 0 N o te : A n E J B c lie n t s h o u ld n e v e r a c c e s s a n e n te rp ris e b e a n in s ta n c e d ire c tly . A n y a c c e s s is d o n e th ro u g h th e c o n ta in e r g e n e ra te d c la s s e s , w h ic h in tu rn in v o k e e n te rp ris e b e a n in s ta n c e ’s m e th o d s . T h e c o n ta in e r g e n e ra te d c la s s e s in te rc e p t th e re q u e s t a n d a p p ly s e rv ic e s lik e tra n s a c tio n , s e c u rity e tc p rio r to in v o k in g th e a c tu a l m e th o d o n th e e n te rp ris e b e a n in s ta n c e . EJB Container: EJBs are software components, which run in an environment called an EJB container. An EJB cannot function outside an EJB Container. The EJB container hosts and manages an Enterprise JavaBean in a similar manner that a Web container hosts a servlet or a Web browser hosts a Java Applet. The EJB container manages the following services so that the developer can concentrate on writing the business logic: Transactions (refer Q71 – Q75 in Enterprise section) Persistence EJB instance pooling Security (refer Q81 in Enterprise section) Concurrent access (or multi-threading) Remote access Design pattern: EJBs use the proxy design pattern to make remote invocation (i.e. remote proxy) and to add container managed services like security and transaction demarcation. Refer Q11 in “How would you about…” section for a more detailed discussion on proxy design pattern and dynamic proxies. EJBContext: Every bean obtains an EJBContext object, which is a reference directly to the container. The EJB can request information about its environment like the status of a transaction, a remote reference to itself (an EJB cannot use ‘this’ to reference itself) etc.
- 167. 166 Enterprise – EJB 2.x Deployment Descriptor: The container handles all the above mentioned services declaratively for an EJB based on the XML deployment descriptor (ejb-jar.xml). When an EJB is deployed into a container the deployment descriptor is read to find out how these services are handled. Refer to the J2EE deployment structure diagram in Q6 in Enterprise section. EJB: The EJB architecture defines 3 distinct types of Enterprise JavaBeans. Session beans. Entity beans. Message-driven beans. The session and entity beans are invoked synchronously by the client and message driven beans are invoked asynchronously by a message container such as a Queue or a Topic. Let’s look at some of the EJB container services in a bit more detail: Instance pooling EJB instance pooling Client Application EJB Server home EJB 1. create() 2. stub Home ne wI ns tan ce () bean instance pool 4. return EJB Object reference EJB 3. assign an instance to client Object to EJB Object Note: 1 The client looks up the stub from the jndi and invokes the create() method on the EJBHome object. CarHome homeObject = (CarHome) initialCtx.lookup(ejb/MyEjb); Car carObject = homeObject.create() 2-3 The EJBHome creates an EJBObject by invoking newInstance() and assigns a bean instance from the pool to the EJBObject. Now the assigned bean instance becomes in ready state from the pooled state. 4 Now the EJBObject can service client requests and reference is returned to the client. carObject .getHorsePower(); Finally once the client is finshed with EJBObject reference the bean instance is returned back to the pool to serve other clients The above diagram shows how the EJB instances are pooled and assigned to EJB Object and then returned to the pool. Let’s look at in detail for different types of EJBs. stateless session & entity bean pooling EJB Server Notes: Client stub 1 The diagram on the left shows that since the EJB stateless session beans and entity beans Object A do not maintain any client state the bean instance A was firstly allocated to client stub bean instance pool 1 and later on allocated to client stub 2. So if there are 1000 concurrent clients then 30 EJB C D instances of bean can serve them by taking Client stub 2 Object turns. B This behavior is not possible with regards to stateful session beans which m aintain the client state. So there will be a dedicated EJB Server instance of the bean for each client stub. So Client stub 1 if there are 1000 clients then there will be EJB Object B 1000 instances of beans. So how do we conserve memory. This is done by activation and passivation. Passivation is the process bean instance pool where the bean instance is serialized into a persistent store when not used to conserve EJB C D memory and Activation is the process where Client stub 2 Object the serialized bean instance is de-serialized A back into mem ory to serve client request. This process affects performance.
- 168. Enterprise – EJB2.x 167 From the diagrams it is clear that bean instances can be reused for all the bean types except for the stateful session bean where the client state is maintained. So we need a dedicated stateful session bean for each client. Message Driven Bean (MDB) pooling EJB Server JMS Client 1 m sg X fo r Q MDB-1 bean instance pool 1 EJB for queue Q1 Object A B C JMS Client 2 m sg Z for Q 2 EJB Object B MDB-2 bean instance pool for queue Q2 JMS Client 3 msg y for Q2 EJB C Object A Note: MDBs are like stateless session beans, The instance pools are created for each MDB and within each pool multiple instances are created. In terms of number of instances created in each pool are very similar to stateless session beans or entity beans (i.e. 3 instances of MDB-1 for queue Q1 instance pool can serve 10 JMS clients for queue Q1). Concurrent access The session beans do not support concurrent access. The stateful session beans are exclusively for a client so there is no concurrent access. The stateless session beans do not maintain any state. It does not make any sense to have concurrent access. The entity beans represent data that is in the database table, which is shared between the clients. So to make concurrent access possible the EJB container need to protect the data while allowing many clients simultaneous access. When you try to share distributed objects you may have the following problem: If 2 clients are using the same EJBObject, how do you keep one client from writing over the changes of the other? Say for example Client-1 reads a value x= 5 Client-2 modifies the value to x=7 Now the client-1’s value is invalid. The entity bean addresses this by prohibiting concurrent access to bean instances. Which means several clients can be connected to one EJBObject but only one client can access the EJB instance at a time. Persistence Entity beans basically represent the data in a relational database. An Entity Bean is responsible for keeping its state in sync with the database. Entity beans representing data in the database instance for id = 1001 AccountBean id = 1001 (primary-key) bsb = 1234 account_number = 98765432 Account Table id bsb account_num instance for id = 1002 1001 1234 98765432 AccountBean 1002 1234 12345678 id = 1002 (primary-key) bsb = 1234 database account_number = 12345678
- 169. 168 Enterprise – EJB 2.x Container-managed persistence (CMP) - The container is responsible for saving the bean’s state with the help of object-relational mapping tools. Bean-managed persistence (BMP) – The entity bean is responsible for saving its own state. If entity beans performance is of concern then there are other persistence technologies and frameworks like JDBC, JDO, Hibernate, OJB and Oracle TopLink (commercial product). Q 63: What are the different kinds of enterprise beans? SF FAQ A 63: Session Bean: is a non-persistent object that implements some business logic running on the server. Session beans do not survive system shut down. There are two types of session beans Stateless session beans (i.e. each session bean can be reused by multiple EJB clients). Stateful session beans (i.e. each session bean is associated with one EJB client). Entity Bean: is a persistent object that represents object views of the data, usually a row in a database. They have the primary key as a unique identifier. Multiple EJB clients can share each entity bean. Entity beans can survive system shutdowns. Entity beans can have two types of persistence Container-Managed Persistence (CMP) - The container is responsible for saving the bean’s state. Bean-Managed Persistence (BMP) – The entity bean is responsible for saving its own state. Message-driven Bean: is integrated with the Java Message Service (JMS) to provide the ability to act as a message consumer and perform asynchronous processing between the server and the message producer. Q 64: What is the difference between session and entity beans? SF A 64: Session Beans Entity Beans Use session beans for application logic. Use entity beans to develop persistent object model. Expect little reuse of session beans. Insist on reuse of entity beans. Session beans control the workflow and transactions of a Domain objects with a unique identity (i.e.-primary key) shared group of entity beans. by multiple clients. Life is limited to the life of a particular client. Handle Persist across multiple invocations. Handles database access database access for a particular client. for multiple clients. Do not survive system shut downs or server crashes. Do survive system shut downs or server crashes. Q 65: What is the difference between stateful and stateless session beans? SF FAQ A 65: Stateless Session Beans Stateful Session Bean Do not have an internal state. Can be reused by different Do have an internal state. Reused by the same client. clients. Need not be activated or passivated since the beans are Need to handle activation and passivation to conserve system pooled and reused. memory since one session bean object per client. Q 66: What is the difference between Container Managed Persistence (CMP) and Bean Managed Persistence (BMP) entity beans? SF FAQ A 66: Container Managed Persistence (CMP) Bean Managed Persistence (BMP) The container is responsible for persisting state of the bean. The bean is responsible for persisting its own state. Container needs to generate database (SQL) calls. The bean needs to code its own database (SQL) calls. The bean persistence is independent of its database (e.g. The bean persistence is hard coded and hence may not be DB2, Oracle, Sybase etc). So it is portable from one data portable between different databases (e.g. DB2, Oracle etc). source to another. Q 67: Can an EJB client invoke a method on a bean directly? SF A 67: An EJB client should never access an EJB directly. Any access is done through the container. The container will intercept the client call and apply services like transaction, security etc prior to invoking the actual EJB.
- 170. Enterprise – EJB2.x 169 Q 68: How does an EJB interact with its container and what are the call-back methods in entity beans? SF A 68: EJB interacts with its container through the following mechanisms Call-back Methods: Every EJB implements an interface (extends EnterpriseBean) which defines several methods which alert the bean to various events in its lifecycle. A container is responsible for invoking these methods. These methods notify the bean when it is about to be activated, to be persisted to the database, to end a transaction, to remove the bean from the memory, etc. For example the entity bean has the following call-back methods: public interface javax.ejb.EntityBean { public void setEntityContext(javax.ejb.EntityContext c); public void unsetEntityContext(); public void ejbLoad(); public void ejbStore(); public void ejbActivate(); public void ejbPassivate(); public void ejbRemove(); } EJBContext: provides methods for interacting with the container so that the bean can request information about its environment like the identity of the caller, security, status of a transaction, obtains remote reference to itself etc. e.g. isUserInRole(), getUserPrincipal(), isRollbackOnly(), etc JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface): allows EJB to access resources like JDBC connections, JMS topics and queues, other EJBs etc. Q 69: What is the difference between EJB 1.1 and EJB 2.0? What is the difference between EJB 2.x and EJB 3.0? SF FAQ A 69: EJB 2.0 has the following additional advantages over the EJB 1.1 Local interfaces: These are beans that can be used locally, that means by the same Java Virtual Machine, so they do not required to be wrapped like remote beans, and arguments between those interfaces are passed directly by reference instead of by value. This improves performance. ejbHome methods: Entity beans can declare ejbHomeXXX(…) methods that perform operations related to the EJB component but that are not specific to a bean instance. The ejbHomeXXX(…) method declared in the bean class must have a matching home method XXXX( …) in the home interface. Message Driven Beans (MDB): is a completely new enterprise bean type, which is designed specifically to handle incoming JMS messages. New CMP Model. It is based on a new contract called the abstract persistence schema, which will allow the container to handle the persistence automatically at runtime. EJB Query Language (EJB QL): It is a SQL-based language that will allow the new persistence schema to implement and execute finder methods. EJB QL also used in new query methods ejbSelectXXX(…), which is similar to ejbFindXXXX(…) methods except that it is only for the bean class to use and not exposed to the client (i.e. it is not declared in the home interface) Let’s look at some of the new features on EJB 2.1 Container-managed timer service: The timer service provides coarse-grained, transactional, time-based event notifications to enable enterprise beans to model and manage higher-level business processes. Web Service support: EJB 2.1 adds the ability of stateless session beans to implement a Web Service endpoint via a Web Service endpoint interface. EJB-QL: Enhanced EJB-QL includes support for aggregate functions and ordering of results. Current EJB 2.x model is complex for a variety of reasons: You need to create several component interfaces and implement several unnecessary call-back methods. EJB deployment descriptors are complex and error prone.
- 171. 170 Enterprise – EJB 2.x EJB components are not truly object oriented, as they have restrictions for using inheritance and polymorphism. EJB modules cannot be tested outside an EJB container and debugging an EJB inside a container is very difficult. Note: EJB 3.0 is taking ease of development very seriously and has adjusted its model to offer the POJO (Plain Old Java Object) persistence and the new O/R mapping model based on Hibernate. In EJB 3.0, all kinds of enterprise beans are just POJOs. EJB 3.0 extensively uses Java annotations, which replaces excessive XML based configuration files and eliminate the need for rigid component model used in EJB 1.x, 2.x. Annotations can be used to define the bean’s business interface, O/R mapping information, resource references etc. Refer Q18 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section. Q 70: What are the implicit services provided by an EJB container? SF FAQ A 70: Lifecycle Management: Individual enterprise beans do not need to explicitly manage process allocation, thread management, object activation, or object destruction. The EJB container automatically manages the object lifecycle on behalf of the enterprise bean. State Management: Individual enterprise beans do not need to explicitly save or restore conversational object state between method calls. The EJB container automatically manages object state on behalf of the enterprise bean. Security: Individual enterprise beans do not need to explicitly authenticate users or check authorization levels. The EJB container automatically performs all security checking on behalf of the enterprise bean. Transactions: Individual enterprise beans do not need to explicitly specify transaction demarcation code to participate in distributed transactions. The EJB container can automatically manage the start, enrolment, commitment, and rollback of transactions on behalf of the enterprise bean. Persistence: Individual enterprise beans do not need to explicitly retrieve or store persistent object data from a database. The EJB container can automatically manage persistent data on behalf of the enterprise bean. Q 71: What are transactional attributes? SF TI FAQ A 71: EJB transactions are a set of mechanisms and concepts, which insures the integrity and consistency of the database when multiple clients try to read/update the database simultaneously. Transaction attributes are defined at different levels like EJB class, a method within a class or segment of a code within a method. The attributes specified for a particular method take precedence over the attributes specified for a particular EJB class. Transaction attributes are specified declaratively through EJB deployment descriptors. Unless there is any compelling reason, the declarative approach is recommended over programmatic approach where all the transactions are handled programmatically. With the declarative approach, the EJB container will handle the transactions. Transaction Description Attributes Required Methods executed within a transaction. If client provides a transaction, it is used. If not, a new transaction is generated. Commit at end of method that started the transaction. Which means a method that has Required attribute set, but was called when the transaction has already started will not commit at the method completion. Well suited for EJB session beans. Mandatory Client of this EJB must create a transaction in which this method operates, otherwise an error will be reported. Well-suited for entity beans. RequiresNew Methods executed within a transaction. If client provides a transaction, it is suspended. If not a new transaction is generated, regardless. Commit at end of method. Supports Transactions are optional. NotSupported Transactions are not supported. If provided, ignored. Never Code in the EJB is responsible for explicit transaction control. Q 72: What are isolation levels? SF TI PI FAQ A 72: Isolation levels provide a degree of control of the effects one transaction can have on another concurrent transaction. Since concurrent effects are determined by the precise ways in which, a particular relational database
- 172. Enterprise – EJB2.x 171 handles locks and its drivers may handle these locks differently. The semantics of isolation mechanisms based on these are not well defined. Nevertheless, certain defined or approximate properties can be specified as follows: Isolation level Description TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE Strongest level of isolation. Places a range lock on the data set, preventing other users from updating or inserting rows into the data set until the transaction is complete. Can produce deadlocks. TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ Locks are placed on all data that is used in a query, preventing other users from updating the data, but new phantom records can be inserted into the data set by another user and are included in later reads in the current transaction. TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED Can't read uncommitted data by another transaction. Shared locks are held while the data is being read to avoid dirty reads, but the data can be changed before the end of the transaction resulting in non-repeatable reads and phantom records. TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED Can read uncommitted data (dirty read) by another transaction, and non- repeatable reads and phantom records are possible. Least restrictive of all isolation levels. No shared locks are issued and no exclusive locks are honored. Isolation levels are not part of the EJB specification. They can only be set on the resource manager either explicitly on the Connection (for bean managed persistence) or via the application server specific configuration. The EJB specification indicates that isolation level is part of the Resource Manager. As the transaction isolation level increases, likely performance degradation follows, as additional locks are required to protect data integrity. If the underlying data does not require such a high degree of integrity, the isolation level can be lowered to improve performance. Q 73: What is a distributed transaction? What is a 2-phase commit? SF TI FAQ A 73: A Transaction (Refer Q43 in Enterprise section) is a series of actions performed as a single unit of work in which either all of the actions performed as a logical unit of work in which, either all of the actions are performed or none of the actions. A transaction is often described by ACID properties (Atomic, Consistent, Isolated and Durable). A distributed transaction is an ACID transaction between two or more independent transactional resources like two separate databases. For the transaction to commit successfully, all of the individual resources must commit successfully. If any of them are unsuccessful, the transaction must rollback in all of the resources. A 2-phase commit is an approach for committing a distributed transaction in 2 phases. Phase 1 is prepare: Each of the resources votes on whether it’s ready to commit – usually by going ahead and persisting the new data but not yet deleting the old data. Phase 2 is committing: If all the resources are ready, they all commit – after which old data is deleted and transaction can no longer roll back. 2-phase commit ensures that a distributed transaction can always be committed or always rolled back if one of the databases crashes. The XA specification defines how an application program uses a transaction manager to coordinate distributed transactions across multiple resource managers. Any resource manager that adheres to XA specification can participate in a transaction coordinated by an XA- compliant transaction manager. Q 74: What is dooming a transaction? TI A 74: A transaction can be doomed by the following method call CO ejbContext.setRollbackOnly(); The above call will force transaction to rollback. The doomed transactions decrease scalability and if a transaction is doomed why perform compute intensive operations? So you can detect a doomed transaction as shown below: CO public void doComputeIntensiveOperation() throws Exception { if ( ejbContext.getRollbackOnly() ) { return; // transaction is doomed so return (why unnecessarily perform compute intensive // operation) } else { performComplexOperation(); } }
- 173. 172 Enterprise – EJB 2.x Q 75: How to design transactional conversations with session beans? SF TI A 75: A stateful session bean is a resource which has an in memory state which can be rolled back in case of any failure. It can participate in transactions by implementing SessionSynchronization. CO SessionSynchronization public class MyBean implements SessionBean, SessionSynchronization{ public interface javax.ejb.SessionSynchronization { public int oldVal ; public int val ; public void afterBegin(); public void beforeCompletion(); public void ejbCreate(int val) throws CreateException { public void afterCompletion(boolean b); } this.val=val; this.oldVal=val; } public void afterBegin() { this.oldVal = this.val ;} public void beforeCompletion(){}; public void afterCompletion(boolean b) { if (b == false) this.val = this.oldVal ; } ....................................... } The uses of SessionSynchronization are: Enables the bean to act as a transactional resource and undo state changes on failure. Enables you to cache database data to improve performance. Q 76: Explain exception handling in EJB? SF EH CO FAQ A 76: Java has two types of exceptions: Checked exception: derived from java.lang.Exception but not java.lang.RuntimeException. Unchecked exception: derived from java.lang.RuntimeException thrown by JVM. System vs Application Exception public void depositAmount() throws InsufficientFundException { if(this.amount <= 0) { throw new InsufficientFundException ("Balance is <= 0"); } try { Application Exception depositAmount(); } catch (SQLException e) { throw new EJBException(e); } catch (Exception e) { throw new EJBException(e); } System Exception } EJB has two types of exceptions: System Exception: is an unchecked exception derived from java.lang.RuntimeException. An EJBException is an unchecked exception, which is derived from java.lang.RuntimeException. Application Exception: is specific to an application and thrown because of violation of business rules (e.g. InsufficierntFundException etc). An Application Exception is a checked exception that is either defined by the bean developer and does not extend java.rmi.RemoteException, or is predefined in the javax.ejb package (i.e. CreateException, RemoveException, ObjectNotFoundException etc). A System Exception is thrown by the system and is not recoverable. For example EJB container losing connection to the database server, failed remote method objects call etc. Because the System Exceptions are unpredictable, the EJB container is the only one responsible for trapping the System Exceptions. The container
- 174. Enterprise – EJB2.x 173 automatically wraps any RuntimeException in RemoteException, which subsequently gets thrown to the caller (i.e. client). In addition to intercepting System Exception the container may log the errors. An Application Exception is specific to an application and is thrown because of violation of business rules. The client should be able to determine how to handle an Application Exception. If the account balance is zero then an Application Exception like InsufficientFundException can be thrown. If an Application Exception should be treated as a System Exception then it needs to be wrapped in an EJBException, which extends java.lang. RuntimeException so that it can be managed properly (e.g. rolling back transactions) and propagated to the client. Q 77: How do you rollback a container managed transaction in EJB? SF TI EH FAQ A 77: The way the exceptions are handled affects the way the transactions are managed. CO Rolling back Container Managed Transactions public void depositAmount() throws InsufficientFundExceptiion { try { depositAmount(); Application Exception is thrown so }catch (InsufficientFundException e) ctx.setRollbackOnly(); the transaction should be rolled back throw new InsufficientFundExceptiion(e.getMessage()); in the code ctx.setRollbackOnly(). } catch (SQLException e) { throw new EJBException(e); EJBException is a System } catch (Exception e) { Exception so the container will throw new EJBException(e); automatically roll back the } transaction. } When the container manages the transaction, it is automatically rolled back when a System Exception occurs. This is possible because the container can intercept System Exception. However when an Application Exception occurs, the container does not intercept it and therefore leaves it to the code to roll back using ctx.setRollbackOnly(). Be aware that handling exceptions in EJB is different from handling exceptions in Java. The Exception handling best practice tips are: If you cannot recover from System Exception let the container handle it. If a business rule is violated then throw an application exception. If you want to rollback a transaction on an application exception then catch the application exception and throw an EJBException or use ctx.setRollbackOnly(); Q 78: What is the difference between optimistic and pessimistic concurrency control? TI CI A 78: Pessimistic Concurrency Optimistic Concurrency A pessimistic design assumes conflicts will occur in the An optimistic approach assumes conflicts won’t occur, and deal with database tables and avoids them through exclusive them when they do occur. locks etc. EJB (also non-EJB) locks the source data until it EJB (also non-EJB) implements a strategy to detect whether a completes its transaction. change has occurred. Locks are placed on the database only for a small portion of the time. Provides reliable access to data. Suitable for short transactions. Suitable for long transactions. Suitable for systems where concurrent access is Suitable for systems requiring frequent concurrent accesses. rare. The pessimistic locking imposes high locking The optimistic locking is used in the context of cursors. The overheads on the server and lower concurrency. optimistic locking works as follows: No locks are acquired as rows are read. No locks are acquired while values in the current row are changed. When changes are saved, a copy of the row in the database is read in the locked mode. If the data was changed after it was read into the cursor, an error
- 175. 174 Enterprise – EJB 2.x is raised so that the transaction can be rolled back and retried. Note: The testing for changes can be done by comparing the values, timestamp or version numbers. Q 79: How can we determine if the data is stale (for example when using optimistic locking)? TI A 79: We can use the following strategy to determine if the data is stale: Adding version numbers 1. Add a version number (Integer) to the underlying table. 2. Carry the version number along with any data read into memory (through value object, entity bean etc). 3. Before performing any update compare the current version number with the database version number. 4. If the version numbers are equal update the data and increment the version number. 5. If the value object or entity bean is carrying an older version number, reject the update and throw an exception. Note: You can also do the version number check as part of the update by including the version column in the where clause of the update without doing a prior select. Adding a timestamp to the underlying database table. Comparing the data values. These techniques are also quite useful when implementing data caching to improve performance. Data caches should regularly keep track of stale data to refresh the cache. These strategies are valid whether you use EJB or other persistence mechanisms like JDBC, Hibernate etc. Q 80: What are not allowed within the EJB container? SF A 80: In order to develop reliable and portable EJB components, the following restrictions apply to EJB code implementation: Avoid using static non-final fields. Declaring all static fields in EJB component as final is recommended. This enables the EJB container to distribute instances across multiple JVMs. Avoid starting a new thread (conflicts with EJB container) or using thread synchronization (allow the EJB container to distribute instances across multiple JVMs). Avoid using AWT or Swing functionality. EJBs are server side business components. Avoid using file access or java.io operations. EJB business components are meant to use resource managers such as JDBC to store and retrieve application data. But deployment descriptors can be used to store <env- entry>. Avoid accepting or listening to socket connections. EJB components are not meant to provide network socket functionality. However the specification lets EJB components act as socket clients or RMI clients. Avoid using the reflection API. This restriction enforces Java security. Can’t use custom class loaders. Q 81: Discuss EJB container security? SF SE A 81: EJB components operate inside a container environment and rely heavily on the container to provide security. The four key services required for the security are: Identification: In Java security APIs this identifier is known as a principal. Authentication: To prove the identity one must present the credentials in the form of password, swipe card, digital certificate, finger prints etc. Authorization (Access Control): Every secure system should limit access to particular users. The common way to enforce access control is by maintaining security roles and privileges.
- 176. Enterprise – EJB2.x 175 Data Confidentiality: This is maintained by encryption of some sort. It is no good to protect your data by authentication if someone can read the password. The EJB specification concerns itself exclusively with authorization (access control). An application using EJB can specify in an abstract (declarative) and portable way that is allowed to access business methods. The EJB container handles the following actions: Find out the Identity of the caller of a business method. Check the EJB deployment descriptor to see if the identity is a member of a security role that has been granted the right to call this business method. Throw java.rmi.RemoteException if the access is illegal. Make the identity and the security role information available for a fine grained programmatic security check. public void closeAccount() { if (ejbContext.getCallerPrincipal().getName().equals(“SMITH”)) { //… } if (!ejbContext.isCallerInRole(CORPORATE_ACCOUNT_MANAGER)) { throw new SecurityException(“Not authorized to close this account”); } } Optionally log any illegal access. There are two types of information the EJB developer has to provide through the deployment descriptor. Security roles Method permissions Example: <security-role> <description> Allowed to open and close accounts </description> <role-name>account_manager</role-name> </security-role> <security-role> <description> Allowed to read only </description> <role-name>teller</role-name> </security-role> There is a many-to-many relationship between the security roles and the method permissions. <method-permission> <role-name>teller</role-name> <method> <ejb-name>AccountProcessor</ejb-name> <method-name>findByPrimaryKey</method-name> </method> </method-permission> Just as we must declare the resources accessed in our code for other EJBs that we reference in our code we should also declare the security role we access programmatically to have a fine grained control as shown below. <security-role-ref> <description> Allowed to open and close accounts </description> <role-name>account_manager</role-name> <role-link>executive</role-link> </security-role-ref>
- 177. 176 Enterprise – EJB 2.x There is also many-to-many relationship between the EJB specific security roles that are in the deployment descriptor and the application based target security system like LDAP etc. For example there might be more than one group users and individual users that need to be mapped to a particular EJB security role ‘account_manager’. Q 82: What are EJB best practices? BP FAQ A 82: Use local interfaces that are available in EJB2.0 if you deploy both the EJB client and the EJB in the same server. Use vendor specific pass-by-reference implementation to make EJB1.1 remote EJBs operate as local. [Extreme care should be taken not to affect the functionality by switching the application, which was written and tested in pass-by-reference mode to pass-by-value without analyzing the implications and re-testing the functionality. Wrap entity beans with session beans to reduce network calls (refer Q84 in Enterprise section) and promote declarative transactions. Where possible use local entity beans and session beans can be either local or remote. Apply the appropriate EJB design patterns as described in Q83 – Q87 in Enterprise section. Cache ejbHome references to avoid JNDI look-up overhead using service locator pattern. Handle exceptions appropriately (refer Q76, Q77 in Enterprise section). Avoid transaction overhead for non-transactional methods of session beans by declaring transactional attribute as “Supports”. Choose plain Java object over EJB if you do not want services like RMI/IIOP, transactions, security, persistence, thread safety etc. There are alternative frameworks such as Hibernate, Spring etc. Choose Servlet’s HttpSession object rather than stateful session bean to maintain client state if you do not require component architecture of a stateful bean. Apply Lazy loading and Dirty marker strategies as described in Q88 in Enterprise section. Session Bean Session Bean (stateful) Entity Bean (stateless) Tune the pool size to Tune the pool size to avoid Tune the pool size to avoid overhead of creation and avoid overhead of overhead of creation and destruction. creation and destruction. destruction. Use setEntityContext(..) method to cache any bean Use setSessionContext(..) Set proper time out to avoid specific resources and unsetEntityContext() method to or ejbCreate(..) method to resource congestion. release acquired resources. cache any bean specific resources. Remove it explicitly from Use lazy-loading to avoid any unnecessary loading of client using remove() dependent data. Use dirty marker to avoid unchanged Release any acquired method. data update. resources like Database connection etc in Use ‘transient’ variable Commit the data after a transaction completes to reduce ejbRemove() method where possible to avoid any database calls in between. serialization overhead. Where possible perform bulk updates, use CMP rather than BMP, Use direct JDBC (Fast-lane-reader) instead of entity beans, use of read-only entity beans etc. Q 83: What is a business delegate? Why should you use a business delegate? DP PI FAQ A 83: Questions Q83 – Q88 are very popular EJB questions. Problem: When presentation tier components interact directly with the business services components like EJB, the presentation components are vulnerable to changes in the implementation of business services components. Solution: Use a Business Delegate to reduce the coupling between the presentation tier components and the business services tier components. Business Delegate hides the underlying implementation details of the business service, such as look-up and access details of the EJB architecture. Business delegate is responsible for: Invoking session beans in Session Facade.
- 178. Enterprise – EJB2.x 177 Acting as a service locator and cache home stubs to improve performance. Handling exceptions from the server side. (Unchecked exceptions get wrapped into the remote exception, checked exceptions can be thrown as an application exception or wrapped in the remote exception. unchecked exceptions do not have to be caught but can be caught and should not be used in the method signature.) Re-trying services for the client (For example when using optimistic locking business delegate will retry the method call when there is a concurrent access.). Business Delegate Client 1.uses BusinessDelegate 4.uses BusinessServiceEJB 2.uses EJBLookupService 3. lookup/create Q 84: What is a session façade? DP PI FAQ A 84: Problem: Too many method invocations between the client and the server will lead to network overhead, tight coupling due to dependencies between the client and the server, misuse of server business methods due to fine grained access etc. Solution: Use a session bean as a façade to encapsulate the complexities between the client and the server interactions. The Session Facade manages the business objects, and provides a uniform coarse-grained service access layer to clients. Session Facade Without Session Facade With Session Facade Entitity Bean 1 Entitity Bean 1 ll 1 ca ll 1 al te ca Session Bean loc remo Servlet Servlet (Stateless) remote call 2 Entitity Bean 2 remote call 1 local call 2 Entitity Bean 2 (client) (client) Session network network rem Facade loc al c ote all ca 3 ll 3 Entitity Bean 3 Entitity Bean 3 Session façade is responsible for Improving performance by minimizing fine-grained method calls over the network. Improving manageability by reducing coupling, exposing uniform interface and exposing fewer methods to clients. Managing transaction and security in a centralized manner. Q 85: What is a value object pattern? DP PI FAQ A 85: Problem: When a client makes a remote call to the server, there will be a process of network call and serialization of data involved for the remote invocation. If you make fine grained calls there will be performance degradation.
- 179. 178 Enterprise – EJB 2.x Solution: Avoid fine-grained method calls by creating a value object, which will help the client, make a coarse- grained call. Value Object pattern Without Value Object With Value Object Session Bean S Session e Person Bean () getPersonInfo() tName r Value Servlet getFirs getSurname() v Object (client) getG l en get der() me () Age e rna () tSu e() t ge am rstN ( tFi () ge () er ge d c tA en ge etG l g i Without value object 4 remote calls are e made to get all the relevant info n With value object 1 remote call and 4 local t calls are made to get all the relevant info. ) Q 86: What is a fast-lane reader? DP PI FAQ A 86: Problem: Using Entity beans to represent persistent, read only tabular data incurs performance cost at no benefit (especially when large amount of data to be read). Solution: Access the persistent data directly from the database using the DAO (Data Access Object) pattern instead of using Entity beans. The Fast lane readers commonly use JDBC, Connectors etc to access the read-only data from the data source. The main benefit of this pattern is the faster data retrieval. Fast Lane Reader J2EE Server EJB Container Web Container e Entity Bean normal lan Session Bean ne al la Servlet norm (client) Fast ne Lane t La Read er Data Access Object Fas DataSource JDBC Use Fast Lane Reader for read only access and the normal lane for read/write access to the DataSource. Q 87: What is a Service Locator? DP PI FAQ A 87: Problem: J2EE makes use of the JNDI interface to access different resources like JDBC, JMS, EJB etc. The client looks up for these resources through the JNDI look-up. The JNDI look-up is expensive because the client needs to get a network connection to the server first. So this look-up process is expensive and redundant. Solution: To avoid this expensive and redundant process, service objects can be cached when a client performs the JNDI look-up for the first time and reuse that service object from the cache for the subsequent look-ups. The service locator pattern implements this technique. Refer to diagram below:
- 180. Enterprise – EJB2.x 179 Service Locator Without Service Locator With Service Locator Servlet Servlet (client -1) (client -1) loo look ku up p Service Locator lookup first time only lookup Servlet lookup Servlet (client - 2) (client - 2) up kup JNDI ok JNDI loo lo Servlet Servlet (client - 3) (client - 3) With service locator look up first time from Without service locator look up every time the JNDI and second time onwards lookup from the JNDI from the cache in the service locator. Q 88: Explain lazy loading and dirty marker strategies? DP PI A 88: Lazy Loading: Lazy loading means not creating an object until the first time it is accessed. This technique is useful when you have large hierarchies of objects. You can lazy load some of the dependent objects. You only create the dependent (subordinate) objects only when you need them. if ( this.data == null) { //lazy load data } For a CMP bean the default scenario is set to no lazy loading and the finder method will execute a single SQL select statement against the database. So, for example, with the findAllCustomers() method will retrieve all customer objects with all the CMP fields in each customer object. If you turn on lazy loading then only the primary keys of the objects within the finder are returned. Only when you access the object, the container uploads the actual object based on the primary key. You may want to turn on the lazy loading feature if the number of objects that you are retrieving is so large that loading them all into local cache would adversely affect the performance. (Note: The implementation of lazy loading strategy may vary from container vendor to vendor). Dirty Marker (Store optimization): This strategy allows us to persist only the entity beans that have been modified. The dependent objects need not be persisted if they have not been modified. This is achieved by using a dirty flag to mark an object whose contents have been modified. The container will check every dependent object and will persist only those objects that are dirty. Once it is persisted its dirty flag will be cleared. (Note: The implementation of dirty marker strategy may vary from container vendor to vendor). Note: If your job requires a very good understanding of EJB 2.x then following books are recommended: Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans – by Ed Roman EJB Design Patterns – by Floyd Marinescu
- 181. 180 Enterprise – JMS Enterprise - JMS Q 89: What is Message Oriented Middleware (MOM)? What is JMS? SF A 89: Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) is generally defined as a software infrastructure that asynchronously communicates with other disparate systems (e.g. Mainframe system, C++ System, etc) through the production and consumption of messages. A message may be a request, a report, or an event sent from one part of an enterprise application to another. Q. Why use a messaging system as opposed to using Data Transfer Objects (aka DTOs, Value Objects) ? • Firstly, messaging enables loosely coupled distributed communication. A component sends a message to a destination, and the recipient can retrieve the message from the destination. However, the sender and the receiver do not have to be available at the same time in order to communicate and also they are not aware of each other. In fact, the sender does not need to know anything about the receiver; nor does the receiver need to know anything about the sender. The sender and the receiver need to know only what message format and what destination to use. In this respect, messaging differs from tightly coupled technologies, such as Remote Method Invocation (RMI), which requires an application to know a remote application's methods. • Secondly, messaging can communicate with disparate systems (e.g. Mainframe, C++ etc) via XML etc. Q. How MOM is different from RPC? Remote Procedure Call (e.g. RMI) MOM Remote Procedure Call (RPC) technologies like RMI With the use of Message Oriented Middleware (MOM), problems attempt to mimic the behavior of system that runs in with the availability of subsystems are less of an issue. A one process. When a remote procedure is invoked the fundamental concept of MOM is that communications between caller is blocked until the procedure completes and components is intended to be asynchronous in nature. Code that is returns control to the caller. This is a synchronous written to connect the pieces together assumes that there is a one- model where process is performed sequentially way message that requires no immediate response. In other words, ensuring that tasks are completed in a predefined there is no blocking. Once a message is sent the sender can move order. The synchronized nature of RPC tightly couples on to other tasks; it doesn't have to wait for a response. This is the the client (the software making the call) to the server major difference between RPC and asynchronous messaging and is (the software servicing the call). The client can not critical to understanding the advantages offered by MOM systems. proceed (its blocked) until the server responds. The tightly coupled nature of RPC creates highly In an asynchronous messaging system each subsystem (Customer, interdependent systems where a failure on one system Account etc) is decoupled from the other systems. They has an immediate impact on other systems. communicate through the messaging server, so that a failure in one does not impact the operation of the others. Client is blocked while it is being processed. Asynchronous messages also allows for parallel processing i.e. client can continue processing while the previous request is being satisfied. Q. Why use JMS? FAQ Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) systems like MQSeries, SonicMQ, etc are proprietary systems. Java Message Service (JMS) is a Java API that allows applications to create, send, receive, and read messages in a standard way. Designed by Sun and several partner companies, the JMS API defines a common set of interfaces and associated semantics that allow programs written in the Java programming language to communicate with other messaging implementations (e.g. SonicMQ, TIBCO etc). The JMS API minimizes the set of concepts a programmer must learn to use messaging products but provides enough features to support sophisticated messaging applications. It also strives to maximize the portability of JMS applications across JMS providers. Many companies have spent decades developing their legacy systems. So, XML can be used in a non-proprietary way to move data from legacy systems to distributed systems like J2EE over the wire using MOM (i.e. Implementation) and JMS (i.e. Interface). Q. What are the components of the JMS architecture? • Message producers: A component that is responsible for creating a message. E.g. QueueSender, and TopicPublisher. An application can have several message producers. Each producer might be responsible for creating different types of messages and sending them to different destinations (i.e. Topic or Queue). A message producer will send messages to a destination regardless of whether or not a consumer is there to consume it.
- 182. Enterprise – JMS 181 Java Messaging using JMS & MOM (high level diagram) 4. Application 1 MDB listens on (i.e. subscribes to) Out-Topic and receives the out.xml published by Application 2 Application 1 Application 2 similar setup as 3. publish the text message “out.xml” Message Application 2, but as a response to “input.xml” Destination Out-Topic not shown for EJB container to the destination “Out-Topic” brevity. Message Message out.xml Oriented Middleware Business Message J Message l out.xml (MOM e.g t.xm Objects Producer uses M Consumer inpu S MQSeries, Message Message SonicMQ Message Driven Beans etc) loo Consumer kup Message Driven Beans Message 2. Application 2 MDB listens on (i.e subscribes to) destination Message input.xml “In-Topic” and consumes the text message “input.xml” produced Destination and published by Application 1. In-Topic Administered objects EJB layer provides Data access logic Business Logic layer Integration Tier remote access layer Data Transfer Objects (DTO) or Domain Objects (e.g Hibernate ) Message (transfer information between layers Producer Resource Business Tier Tier Message input.xml 1. Application 1 publishes the “input.xml” text message using JMS to the destination “In-Topic” Note: Application 1 and Application 2 are loosely coupled (which means when Application 1 publishes the text message the Application 2 can be inactive and will pickup the message from the destination when it becomes active) and communicates asynchronously via Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) like MQSeries, SonicMQ etc using Java Messaging Service (i.e JMS) API and Message Driven Beans (i.e. MDBs - are asynchronous). A MDB cannot be called directly and only interface to it is by sending a JMS message to the destination like “In-Topic” of which the MDB is listening. • Message consumers: A component which resides on the receiving end of a messaging application. Its responsibility is to listen for messages on a destination (i.e. Topic or Queue). E.g. QueueReceiver, TopicSubscriber, MessageDrivenBean (MDB). A MDB is simply a JMS message consumer. A client cannot access a MDB directly as you would do with Session or Entity beans. You can only interface with a MDB by sending a JMS message to a destination (i.e. Topic or Queue) on which the MDB is listening. • Message destinations: A component which a client uses to specify the target of messages it sends/receives. E.g. Topic (publish/Subscribe domain) and Queue (Point-to-Point domain). Message destinations typically live on a MOM, which is remote to the clients. Message destinations are administered objects that need to be configured. • JMS messages: A message is a component that contains the information (aka payload) that must be communicated to another application or component. E.g. TextMessage (e.g. XML message), ObjectMessage (e.g. serialized object) etc. • JMS Administered objects: JMS administered objects are objects containing configuration information that are set up during application deployment or configuration and later used by JMS clients. They make it practical to administer the JMS API in the enterprise. These administered objects are initialized when the application server starts. When a producer or a consumer needs to get a connection to receive or send a JMS message, then you need to locate the configured administered objects QueueConnectionFactory or TopicConnectionFactory. Message destinations are administered objects that need to be configured as well. These administered objects hide provider-specific details from JMS clients. • JNDI naming service: For a producer and consumer to be able to use the administered objects to send and receive messages, they must know how to locate things such as the destination and connection factories.
- 183. 182 Enterprise – JMS Example: To publish a message to a topic: (Note: exception handling etc are omitted for brevity) String factoryJndiName = "WSMQTopicConnectionFactory"; String destinationJndiName = "wsmq/topic/ProductManagerTopic"; //JNDI lookup of administered ConnectionFactory object Context iniCtx = new InitialContext(); TopicConnectionFactory topicCF = (TopicConnectionFactory) iniCtx.lookup(factoryJndiName); //JNDI lookup of administered destination (i.e. Topic) Topic topicDestination = (Topic) iniCtx.lookup(destinationJndiName); //get a connection from the TopicConnectionFactory TopicConnection publishConnection = topicCF.createTopicConnection(); //get a session from the connection. Session should be accessed by only one thread. TopicSession publishSession = publishConnection.createTopicSession(false,TopicSession.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); //create a publisher from the session TopicPublisher publisher = publishSession.createPublisher(topicDestination); //create a JMS message to send TextMessage message = publishSession.createTextMessage(); message.setText("JMS test message"); //send the message publisher.publish(message, DeliveryMode.NON_PERSISTENT, 4, 0); To consume a message, a MDB listening on a Topic executes the onMessage(…) method asynchronously on consumption of the message. A MDB needs to be configured via its J2EE specific deployment descriptor ejb- jar.xml and server specific deployment descriptor like jboss.xml. public void onMessage(Message message) { String text = null; if (message instanceof TextMessage) { text = ((TextMessage)message).getText(); } log.info(text); } You could also use the following code to consume messages: String factoryJndiName = "WSMQTopicConnectionFactory"; String destinationJndiName = "wsmq/topic/ProductManagerTopic"; //JNDI lookup of administered ConnectionFactory object Context iniCtx = new InitialContext(); TopicConnectionFactory topicCF = (TopicConnectionFactory) iniCtx.lookup(factoryJndiName); //JNDI lookup of administered destination (i.e. Topic) Topic topicDestination = (Topic) iniCtx.lookup(destinationJndiName); //get a connection from the TopicConnectionFactory TopicConnection subscribeConnection = topicCF.createTopicConnection(); //get a session from the connection TopicSession subscribeSession = subscribeConnection.createTopicSession(false,TopicSession.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); //create a subscriber from the session TopicSubscriber subscriber = subscribeSession.createsubscriber(topicDestination); //look for messages every 1 second while (true) { Message response = subscriber.receive(); if (response != null && response instanceof TextMessage) { System.out.println (((TextMessage) response).getText()); }
- 184. Enterprise – JMS 183 Thread.sleep(1000); } Q. Are messaging applications slow? While there is some overhead in all messaging systems, but this does not mean that the applications that are using messaging are necessarily slow. Messaging systems can achieve a throughput of 70-100 messages per second depending on the installation, messaging modes (synchronous versus asynchronous, persistent versus non-persistent), and acknowledgement options such as auto mode, duplicates okay mode, and client mode etc. The asynchronous mode can significantly boost performance by multi-tasking. For example: In an Internet based shopping cart application, while a customer is adding items to his/her shopping cart, your application can trigger an inventory checking component, and a customer data retrieval component to execute concurrently. Performance tuning comes at a cost of reliability and flexibility. Some tips on performance: • Choose proper acknowledgement mode - AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE or DUPS_OK_ACKNOWLEDGE give better performance than CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE. • Choose non-durable (i.e. non-persistent) messages where appropriate. • Process messages concurrently by using the server session pool. Each session in the pool can execute separate message concurrently. The JMS specification states that multi-threading a session, producer, or message method can results in non-deterministic behavior. So if your application has limited number of threads then try increasing the number of sessions. Open a connection only when required to and close it immediately after you have finished with it. • Transactional messages are accumulated at MOM server until the transaction is committed or rolled back. This imposes significant overhead on JMS server. So divide transactional messages and non-transactional messages separately. • Carefully set some of the configuration settings on message destinations, producer/consumer etc. This is usually a trade-off between performance and reliability. So increasing “Redelivery delay”, reducing “Destination size” and “Maximum number of messages” can improve performance. The parameters “TimeToLive” and “DeliveryMode” are important from the performance and reliability perspective. Also for example: receive(); blocks the call until it receives the next message. receive(long timeout); blocks till a timeout occurs. receiveNoWait(); never blocks. • Choose the message type carefully and compress large messages (e.g. larger than 1 MB) in a JMS application in order to reduce the amount of time required to transfer messages across the network and memory used by the JMS server at the expense of an increase in CPU usage (i.e. to compress and uncompress) of the client. Less size gives a better performance. A ByteMessage takes less memory than a TextMessage. ObjectMessage carries a serialized Java object and hence network overhead can be reduced by marking the variables that need not be sent across the network as transient. • Favor using JMS message header fields (e.g. JMSCorrelationID, JMSMessageID, JMSReplyTo, JMSPriority, JMSTimestamp, JMSType etc) and/or the message body (carries main information i.e. payload as XML, Object, Stream etc) as opposed to using user-defined message properties which incur an extra cost in serialization, and are more expensive to access than standard JMS message header fields. For example: message.setStringProperty(“AccountType”, “Credit” );//user-defined message property Also, avoid storing large amount of data in user-defined properties or the JMS header fields because only message bodies can be compressed or paged out (i.e. freeing up virtual memory by writing it out to disk when paging is supported and enabled). • Using a selector is expensive and it is important to consider when you are deciding where in the message to store application data that is accessed via JMS selectors. By default, a message consumer will process every message that is sent to its destination. You can modify this behavior to allow message consumers to process only the message they are interested in using message selection and filtering. There two steps involved in setting up a message filter: • Initialize message header fields and/or user-defined message properties. • Message consumers specify a query string to select certain messages based on the message header fields and user defined message properties. A message selector cannot reference the message body.
- 185. 184 Enterprise – JMS String selector = “salary > 30000 and age < 30”; subscribeSession.createSubscriber(responseTopic,selector, false ); Q. Are messaging applications reliable? What is a durable message delivery? FAQ This is basically a trade- off between performance and reliability. If reliability is more important then the: Acknowledgement mode should be set to AUTO where once-and-only once delivery is guaranteed. Message delivery mode should be set to durable (aka persistent) where the MOM writes the messages to a secure storage like a database or a file system to insure that the message is not lost in transit due to a system failure. Durable (aka Persistent) vs Non-durable(aka Non-persistent) messages Non-durable (aka Non-persistent) Durable (aka Persistent) Message Message Producer Producer 2. acknowledge 3. acknowledge message message 1. Send message message 1. Send Message Message 2. persist Oriented Oriented message Persistent Middleware (MOM) Middleware (MOM) storage 6. remove (MQSeries, SonicMQ etc) (MQSeries, SonicMQ etc) Database/File message System 4. Acknowledge 5. Acknowledge message 3. receive message message 4. receive message Message Message Consumer Consumer Q.What are some of the key message characteristics defined in a message header? Characteristic Explanation JMSCorrelationID Used in request/response situations where a JMS client can use the JMSCorrelationID header to associate one message with another. For example: a client request can be matched with a response from a server based on the JMSCorrelationID. JMSMessageID Uniquely identifies a message in the MOM environment. JMSDeliveryMode This header field contains the delivery modes: PERSISTENT or NON_PERSISTENT. JMSExpiration This contains the time-to-live value for a message. If it is set to zero, then a message will never expire. JMSPriority Sets the message priority but the actual meaning of prioritization is MOM vendor dependent. Q. What are the different body types (aka payload types) supported for messages? All JMS messages are read-only once posted to a queue or a topic. Text message: body consists of java.lang.String (e.g. XML). Map message: body consists of key-value pairs. Stream message: body consists of streams of Java primitive values, which are accessed sequentially. Object message: body consists of a Serializable Java object. Byte message: body consists of arbitrary stream of bytes.
- 186. Enterprise – JMS 185 What is a message broker? A message broker acts as a server in a MOM. A message broker performs the following operations on a message it receives: Processes message header information. Performs security checks and encryption/decryption of a received message. Handles errors and exceptions. Routes message header and the payload (aka message body). Invokes a method with the payload contained in the incoming message (e.g. calling onMessage(..) method on a Message Driven Bean (MDB)). Transforms the message to some other format. For example XML payload can be converted to other formats like HTML etc with XSLT. Q 90: What type of messaging is provided by JMS? SF FAQ A 90: Point-to-Point: provides a traditional queue based mechanism where the client application sends a message through a queue to typically one receiving client that receives messages sequentially. A JMS message queue is an administered object that represents the message destination for the sender and the message source for the receiver. A Point-to-Point application has the following characteristics: • A Point-to-Point producer is a sender (i.e. QueueSender). • A Point-to-Point consumer is a receiver (i.e. QueueReceiver). • A Point-to-Point destination is a queue (i.e. Queue). • A message can only be consumed by one receiver. Example: A call center application may use a queue based Point-to-Point domain to process all the calls where all the phone calls do not go to all the operators, but only one. Point-to-Point (Queue) vs Publish/Subscribe (Topic) Point-to-Point using queue Publish/Subscribe using topic Message Producer Message Producer Sender Publisher message message MOM MOM Topic Queue message message message message Message Message Message Message Message Message Consumer Consumer Consumer Consumer Consumer Consumer Receiver-2 Receiver-3 Subscriber-1 Subscriber-2 Subscriber-3 Receiver-1 There are 3 receivers but the message Unlike Point-to-Point there are 3 can be consumed by only one receiver subscribers and all 3 consume the (e.g. Receiver-1) same message...
- 187. 186 Enterprise – JMS Publish/Subscribe: is a one-to-many publishing model where client applications publish messages to topics, which are in turn subscribed by other interested clients. All subscribed clients will receive each message. A Publish/Subscribe application has the following characteristics: • A Publish/Subscribe producer is a publisher (i.e. TopicPublisher). • A Publish/Subscribe consumer is a subscriber (i.e. TopicSubscriber). • A Publish/Subscribe destination is a topic (i.e. Topic). • A message can be consumed by multiple subscribers. If a message publisher is also a subscriber, then a publisher can receive its own message sent to the destination. This behavior is only applicable to publish/subscribe model. This behavior can be controlled by setting the “noLocal” attribute to true when creating the publisher or the subscriber. Example: A bulletin board application may use a topic based publish/subscribe model where everyone who is interested in particular news becomes a subscriber and when a message is published, it is sent to all its subscribers. Q. How do you determine whether it would be better to use a Topic or Queue? You must choose to use a Topic if one of the following conditions applies: • Same message must be replicated to multiple consumers (With Queue a message can only be consumed by one receiver). • A message should be dropped if there are no active consumers that would select it. • There are many subscribers each with a unique selector. Q 91: Discuss some of the design decisions you need to make regarding your message delivery? SF DC FAQ A 91: During your design phase, you should carefully consider various options or modes like message acknowledgement modes, transaction modes and delivery modes. For example: for a simple approach you would not be using transactions and instead you would be using acknowledgement modes. If you need reliability then the delivery mode should be set to persistent. This can adversely affect performance but reliability is increased. If your message needs to be consumed only once then you need to use a queue (Refer Q90 in Enterprise section). Design Explanation decision Message Acknowledgement mode and transaction modes are used to determine if a message will be lost or re- acknowledge delivered on failure during message processing by the target application. Acknowledgement modes are ment options set when creating a JMS session. or modes. InitialContext ic = new InitialContext(…); QueueConnectionFactory qcf = (QueueConnectionFactory)ic.lookup(“AccountConnectionFactory”); QueueConnection qc = qcf.createQueueConnection(); QueueSession session = qc.createQueueSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); In the above code sample, the transaction mode is set to false and acknowledgement mode is set to auto mode. Let us look at acknowledgement modes: AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE: The messages sent or received from the session are automatically acknowledged. This mode also guarantees once only delivery. If a failure occurs while executing onMessage() method of the destination MDB, then the message is re-delivered. A message is automatically acknowledged when it successfully returns from the onMessage(…) method. DUPS_OK_ACKNOWLEDGE: This is just like AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE mode, but under rare circumstances like during failure recovery messages might be delivered more than once. If a failure occurs then the message is re-delivered. This mode has fewer overheads than AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE mode. CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE: The messages sent or received from sessions are not automatically acknowledged. The destination application must acknowledge the message receipt. This mode gives an application full control over message acknowledgement at the cost of increased complexity. This can be acknowledged by invoking the acknowledge() method on javax.jms.Message class.
- 188. Enterprise – JMS 187 Transactional Transactional behavior is controlled at the session level. When a session is transacted, the message behavior oriented middleware (MOM) stages the message until the client either commits or rolls back the transaction. The completion of a session’s current transaction automatically begins a new transaction. The use of transactions in messaging affects both the producers and consumers of the messages as shown below: Messaging - Transactional behavior 1. send 1. commit 3. commit Message MOM Message Producer (aka Broker) 4. roll back 2. roll back Consumer 4. resend 3. dispose of 2. dispose of the message the message Producers [As per the above diagram]: 1’s Commit: The MOM send the group of messages that have been staged. 2’s Rollback: The MOM disposes of the group of messages that have been staged. Consumers [As per the above diagram] : 3’s Commit: The MOM disposes of the group of messages that have been staged. 4’s Rollback: The MOM resends the group of messages that have been staged. Transaction In JMS, a transaction organizes a message or a group of messages into an atomic processing unit. So, if a modes message delivery is failed, then the failed message may be re-delivered. Calling the commit() method commits all the messages the session receives and calling the rollback method rejects all the messages. InitialContext ic = new InitialContext(…); QueueConnectionFactory qcf = (QueueConnectionFactory)ic.lookup(“AccountConnectionFactory”); QueueConnection qc = qcf.createQueueConnection(); QueueSession session = qc.createQueueSession(true, -1); In the above code sample, the transaction mode is set to true and acknowledgement mode is set to -1, which means acknowledgement mode has no use in this mode. Let us look at transaction modes: Message Driven Bean (MDB) with container managed transaction demarcation: A MDB participates in a container transaction by specifying the transaction attributes in its deployment descriptor. A transaction automatically starts when the JMS provider removes the message from the destination and delivers it to the MDB’s onMessage(…) method. Transaction is committed on successful completion of the onMessage() method. A MDB can notify the container that a transaction should be rolled back by setting the MessageDrivenContext to setRollBackOnly(). When a transaction is rolled back, the message is re- delivered. public void onMessage(Message aMessage) { … if(someCondtionIsTrue) { mdbContext.setRollbackOnly(); } else{ //everything is good. Transaction will be committed automatically on //completion of onMessage(..) method. } } Message Driven Bean (MDB) with bean managed transaction demarcation: If a MDB chooses not to participate in a container managed transaction then the MDB programmer has to design and code programmatic transactions. This is achieved by creating a UserTransaction object from the MDB’s MessageDrivenContext as shown below and then invoking the commit() and rollback() methods on this UserTransaction object. public void onMessage(Message aMessage) { UserTransaction uT = mdbContext.getUserTransaction();
- 189. 188 Enterprise – JMS uT.begin(); …. if(someCondtionIsTrue) { uT.rollback(); } else{ uT.commit(); } } Transacted session: An application completely controls the message delivery by either committing or rolling back the session. An application indicates successful message processing by invoking Session class’s commit() method. Also it can reject a message by invoking Session class’s rollback() method. This committing or rollback is applicable to all the messages received by the session. public void process(Message aMessage, QueueSession qs) { …. if(someCondtionIsTrue) { qs.rollback(); } else{ qs.commit(); } … } What happens to rolled-back messages? Rolled back messages are re-delivered based on the re-delivery count parameter set on the JMS provider. The re-delivery count parameter is very important because some messages can never be successful and this can eventually crash the system. When a message reaches its re-delivery count, the JMS provider can either log the message or forward the message to an error destination. Usually it is not advisable to retry delivering the message soon after it has been rolled-back because the target application might still not be ready. So we can specify a time to re-deliver parameter to delay the re-delivery process by certain amount of time. This time delay allows the JMS provider and the target application to recover to a stable operational condition. Care should be taken not to make use of a single transaction when using the JMS request/response paradigm where a JMS message is sent, followed by the synchronous receipt of a reply to that message. This is because a JMS message is not delivered to its destination until the transaction commits, and the receipt of the reply will never take place within the same transaction. Note: when you perform a JNDI lookup for administered objects like connection factories, topics and/or queues, you should use the logical reference java:comp/env/jms as the environment subcontext. It is also vital to release the JMS resources like connection factories, sessions, queues, topics etc when they are no longer required in a try{} and finally{} block. Message Q. What happens, when the messages are with the JMS provider (i.e. MOM) and a catastrophic delivery failure occurs prior to delivering the messages to the destination application? options The messages will be lost if they are non-durable. The message’s state whether they are lost or not does not depend on acknowledgement modes or transaction modes discussed above. It depends on the delivery mode, which defines whether the message can be durable (aka persistent) or non-durable (aka non-persistent). If you choose the durable delivery mode then the message is stored into a database or a file system by the JMS server before delivering it to the consumer. Durable messages have an adverse effect on performance, but ensure that message delivery is guaranteed. Durability can only be established for the publish/subscribe model. Q. What are the values need to be set to register subscription and establish durability? • SubscriptionID: Subscribers should be registered with a unique ID that is retained by the JMS server. • ClientID: is a unique id by which the JMS server knows how to deliver durable messages to the registered subscribers when they become available. subscribeConnection.setClientID("id-123"); subscribeConnection.start(); subscribeSession = subscribeConnection.createTopicSession(false, TopicSession.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); subscriber = subscribeSession.createDurableSubscriber(resDestination, "subscription-id-123");
- 190. Enterprise – JMS 189 Q 92: How does XML over HTTP compare with XML using JMS? Why use XML with JMS? SF SE A 92: XML itself does not specify a communications infrastructure. If you do not need reliable and scalable messaging then use XML over HTTP. This approach is sufficient for rudimentary applications but does not scale for distributed applications across multiple systems. XML over HTTP XML over JMS Simple to implement, widely compatible and has less This is an easy to implement, reliable, scalable and robust performance overhead but HTTP does not provide solution. The main disadvantage of this approach is that the reliability in terms of guaranteed delivery because there is JMS providers (i.e. Message Oriented Middleware) use a no message persistence, no inherent reporting facility for proprietary protocol between producer and consumer. So to failed message delivery and no guaranteed once only communicate, you and your partners need to have the same delivery. The application programmer must build these MOM software (E.g. MQSeries). JMS allows you to toss one services into the application logic to provide reliability & MOM software and plug-in another but you cannot mix persistence, which is not an easy task. providers without having to buy or build some sort of bridge. Q. Why use XML with JMS? • Organizations can leverage years or even decades of investment in Business-to-Business (B2B) Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) by using JMS with XML. XML is an open standard and it represents the data in a non-proprietary way. • Sending XML messages as text reduces coupling even more compared to sending serializable objects. XML also solves the data representation differences with XML based technologies such as XSLT . For example, the way “Enterprise X” defines a purchase order will be different from the way “Enterprise Y” defines it. So the representation of XML message by “Enterprise X” can be transformed into the format understood by “Enterprise Y” using XSLT (see next section). • Both enterprises may be using different applications to run their business. For example Enterprise “X” may be using Java/J2EE, while “Enterprise Y” may be using SAP. XML can solve the data formatting problems since it is an open standard with a self describing data format, which allows the design of business specific markup languages and standards like FIXML (Financial Information eXchange Markup Language), FpML (Financial products Markup Language – derivative products), WML (Wireles Markup Language – for wireless devices ), SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) etc. The structure of an XML document is similar to that of business objects with various attributes. This allows for the natural conversion of application-specific objects to XML documents and vice versa. Q. What are the security related issues you need to consider? • Authentication: Only valid applications and users are allowed to send and receive messages. • Data integrity: Data should not be tampered with while in transit. • Encryption: sensitive data should be encrypted while in transit to maintain confidentiality and privacy. XML digital signature technology can be used to provide authentication, data integrity (tamper proofing) and non- repudiation. Unlike SSL, XML encryption can be used to encrypt and decrypt a section of a data. For example encrypt only the credit card information in a purchase order XML document. You also need to consider sending messages across each organization’s corporate firewall. Not every organization will open a port in the firewall other than the well-known port 80 for HTTP traffic. The solution is to make use of HTTP tunneling, which involves sending the data as HTTP traffic through well-known port number 80 for HTTP and then, once inside the firewall, convert this data into messages. For example JProxy is a J2EE based HTTP tunnel with SSL and JAAS with support for EJB, RMI, JNDI, JMS and CORBA.
- 191. 190 Enterprise – XML Enterprise - XML Q. What is XML? XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. XML is a grammatical system for constructing custom markup languages for describing business data, mathematical data, chemical data etc. XML loosely couples disparate applications or systems utilizing JMS, Web services etc. XML uses the same building blocks that HTML does: elements, attributes and values. Q. Why is XML important? • Scalable: Since XML is not in a binary format you can create and edit files with anything and it’s also easy to debug. XML can be used to efficiently store small amounts of data like configuration files (web.xml, application.xml, struts- config.xml etc) to large company wide data with the help of XML stored in the database. • Fast Access: XML documents benefit from their hierarchical structure. Hierarchical structures are generally faster to access because you can drill down to the section you are interested in. • Easy to identify and use: XML not only displays the data but also tells you what kind of data you have. The mark up tags identifies and groups the information so that different information can be identified by different application. • Stylability: XML is style-free and whenever different styles of output are required the same XML can be used with different style-sheets (XSL) to produce output in XHTML, PDF, TEXT, another XML format etc. • Linkability, in-line usability, universally accepted standard with free/inexpensive tools etc Q. When would you not use an XML? XML is verbose and it can be 4-6 times larger in size compared to a csv or a tab delimited file. If your network lacked bandwidth and/or your content is too large and network throughput is vital to the application then you may consider using a csv or tab delimited format instead of an XML. Q 93: What is the difference between a SAX parser and a DOM parser? SF PI MI FAQ A 93: SAX parser DOM parser A SAX (Simple API for XML) parser does not create any A DOM (Document Object Model) parser creates a tree internal structure. Instead, it takes the occurrences of structure in memory from an input document and then components of an input document as events (i.e., event waits for requests from client. driven), and tells the client what it reads as it reads through the input document. A SAX parser serves the client application always only with A DOM parser always serves the client application with the pieces of the document at any given time. entire document no matter how much is actually needed by the client. A SAX parser, however, is much more space efficient in A DOM parser is rich in functionality. It creates a DOM tree case of a big input document (because it creates no internal in memory and allows you to access any part of the structure). What's more, it runs faster and is easier to learn document repeatedly and allows you to modify the DOM than DOM parser because its API is really simple. But from tree. But it is space inefficient when the document is huge, the functionality point of view, it provides a fewer functions, and it takes a little bit longer to learn how to work with it. which means that the users themselves have to take care of more, such as creating their own data structures. Use SAX parser when Use DOM when Input document is too big for available memory. Your application has to access various parts of the document and using your own structure is just as When only a part of the document is to be read and we complicated as the DOM tree. create the data structures of our own. Your application has to change the tree very frequently If you use SAX, you are using much less memory and and data has to be stored for a significant amount of performing much less dynamic memory allocation. time.
- 192. Enterprise – XML 191 SAX Parser example: Xerces, Crimson etc DOM Parser example: XercesDOM, SunDOM, OracleDOM etc. Use JAXP (Java API for XML Parsing) which enables applications to parse and transform XML documents Use JAXP (Java API for XML Parsing) which enables independent of the particular XML parser. Code can be applications to parse and transform XML documents developed with one SAX parser in mind and later on can be independent of the particular XML parser. Code can be changed to another SAX parser without changing the developed with one DOM parser in mind and later on can be application code. changed to another DOM parser without changing the application code. Q 94: Which is better to store data as elements or as attributes? DC A 94: A question arising in the mind of XML/DTD designers is whether to model and encode certain information using an element, or alternatively, using an attribute. The answer to the above question is not clear-cut. But the general guideline is: Using an element: <book><title>Lord of the Rings</title>...</book>: If you consider the information in question to be part of the essential material that is being expressed or communicated in the XML, put it in an element Using an attribute: <book title=" Lord of the Rings "/>: If you consider the information to be peripheral or incidental to the main communication, or purely intended to help applications process the main communication, use attributes. The principle is data goes in elements and metadata goes in attributes. Elements are also useful when they contain special characters like “<”, “>”, etc which are harder to use in attributes. The most important reason to use element is its extensibility. It is far easier to create child elements to reflect complex content than to break an attribute into pieces. You can use attributes along with elements to refine your understanding of that element with extra information. Attributes are less verbose but using attributes instead of child elements with the view of optimizing document size is a short term strategy, which can have long term consequences. Q 95: What is XPATH? What is XSLT/XSL/XSL-FO/XSD/DTD etc? What is JAXB? What is JAXP? SF FAQ A 95: What Explanation Example is XML XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language Sample.xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <note> <to>Peter</to> <from>Paul</from> <title>Invite</title> <content language=”English”>Not Much</content> < content language=”Spanish”>No Mucho</content > </note> DTD DTD stands for Document Type Definition. XML provides Sample.dtd an application independent way of sharing data. With a DTD, independent groups of people can agree to use a <!ELEMENT note (to, from, title, content)> common DTD for interchanging data. Your application can <!ELEMENT to (#PCDATA)> use a standard DTD to verify that data that you receive <!ELEMENT from (#PCDATA)> from the outside world is valid. You can also use a DTD to <!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)> verify your own data. So the DTD is the building blocks or <!ELEMENT content (#PCDATA)> schema definition of the XML document. <!ATTLIST content language CDATA #Required> XSD XSD stands for Xml Schema Definition, which is a Sample.xsd successor of DTD. So XSD is a building block of an XML document. <?xml version="1.0"?> <xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" If you have DTD then why use XSD you may ask? targetNamespace="http://www.w3schools.com" xmlns="http://www.w3schools.com" XSD is more powerful and extensible than DTD. XSD has: elementFormDefault="qualified"> • Support for simple and complex data types. <xs:element name="note"> • Uses XML syntax. So XSD are extensible just like <xs:complexType>
- 193. 192 Enterprise – XML XML because they are written in XML. <xs:sequence> • Better data communication with the help of data <xs:element name="to" type="xs:string"/> types. For example a date like 03-04-2005 will be <xs:element name="from" type="xs:string"/> rd interpreted in some countries as 3 of April 2005 and <xs:element name="title" type="xs:string"/> th in some other countries as 04 March 2005. <xs:element name="content" type="xs:string"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:attribute name="language" type=”xs:string” use=”Required” /> </xs:element> </xs:schema> XSL XSL stands for eXtensible Stylesheet Language. The XSL To convert the Sample.xml file to a XHTML file let us apply the consists of 3 parts: following Sample.xsl through XALAN parser. • XSLT: Language for transforming XML documents Sample.xsl from one to another. <?xml version="1.0"?> • XPath: Language for defining the parts of an XML <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsl"> document. <xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:apply-templates select="note " /> • XSL-FO: Language for formatting XML documents. </xsl:template> For example to convert an XML document to a PDF document etc. <xsl:template match="note"> <html> XSL can be thought of as a set of languages that can : <head> <title><xsl:value-of • Define parts of an XML. select="content/@language"> • Transform an XML document to XHTML (eXtensible </title> Hyper Text Markup Language) document. </head> • Convert an XML document to a PDF document. </html> • Filter and sort XML data. </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> You get the following output XHTML file: XSLT processor example: Xalan (from Apache). Sample.xhtml <html> PDF Processor example: FOP (Formatting Objects <head> Processor from Apache) <title>English</title> </head> </html> Now to convert the Sample.xml into a PDF file apply the following FO (Formatting Objects) file Through the FOP processor. Sample.fo <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"> <fo:layout-master-set> <fo:simple-page-master master-name="A4"> </fo:simple-page-master> </fo:layout-master-set> <fo:page-sequence master-reference="A4"> <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body"> <fo:block> <xsl:value-of select="content[@language='English']"> </fo:block> </fo:flow> </fo:page-sequence> </fo:root> which gives a basic Sample.pdf which has the following line Not Much XPath Xml Path Language, a language for addressing parts of an As per Sample.xsl
- 194. Enterprise – XML 193 XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer. We can write both the patterns (context-free) and <xsl:template match=”content[@language=’English’]”> expressions using the XPATH Syntax. XPATH is also used ……… in XQuery. <td><xsl:value-of select=”content/@language” /></td> JAXP Stands for Java API for XML Processing. This provides a DOM example using JAXP: common interface for creating and using SAX, DOM, and XSLT APIs in Java regardless of which vendor’s DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = implementation is actually being used (just like the JDBC, DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); JNDI interfaces). JAXP has the following packages: DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder(); Document doc = db.parse(new File("xml/Test.xml")); JAXP NodeList nl = doc.getElementsByTagName("to"); Node n = nl.item(0); SAXParser implements System.out.println(n.getFirstChild().getNodeValue()); Factory Content Handler SAX example using JAXP: SAXExample SAXReader Error Handler SAXParserFactory spf = SAXParser DTD SAXParserFactory.newInstance(); Handler SAXParser sp = spf.newSAXParser(); XML SAXExample se = new SAXExample(); Entity Sample. sp.parse(new File("xml/Sample.xml"),se); Resolver xml where SAXExample.Java code snippet public class SAXExample extends DefaultHandler { DocumentBuilder Factory public void startElement( Document String uri, (DOM) String localName, XML Document String qName, Sample. Builder note Attributes attr) xml throws SAXException { to from System.out.println("--->" + qName); } ... Transformer } Factory The DefaultHandler implements ContentHandler, DTDHandler, EntityResolver, ErrorHandler Source Result sample. Transformer sample. XSLT example using JAXP: xml xhtml StreamSource xml = Transformation new StreamSource(new File("/xml/Sample.xml")); instructions StreamSource xsl = new StreamSource( sample.xsl new File("xml/Sample.xsl")); StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("xml/Sample.xhtml")); TransformerFactory tf = • javax.xml.parsers common interface for different TransformerFactory.newInstance(); vendors of SAX, DOM parsers). Transformer t = tf.newTransformer(xsl); • org.xml.sax Defines basic SAX API. t.transform(xml, result); • org.w3c.dom Defines Document Object Model and its componenets. This gives you Sample.xhtml • javax.xml.transform Defines the XSLT API which allows you to transform XML into other forms like <html> PDF, XHTML etc. <head> <title>English</title> Required JAR files are jaxp.jar, dom.jar, xalan.jar, </head> xercesImpl.jar. </html> JAXB Stands for Java API for XML Binding. This standard Let’s look at some code: defines a mechanism for writing out Java objects as XML (Marshaling) and for creating Java objects from XML For binding: structures (unMarshaling). (You compile a class description to create the Java classes, and use those xjc.sh –p com.binding sample.xsd –d work classes in your application.)
- 195. 194 Enterprise – XML -p identifies the package for the generated Java files (i.e. *.Java) JAXB -d option identifies the target. XML UnMarshaling the XML document: schema Sample.xsd JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance( “com.binding”); Unmarshaller um = jc.createUnmarshaller(); compiler binding Object o = um.unMarshall( xjc new File(“/xml/”)); Note n = (Note) n; System.out.println(n.getFrom().getContent().get(0)); System.out.println(n.getTo().getContent().get(0)); Now to modify the in memory object content: Java files (*.java interfaces & n. getFrom().getContent().set(0, “newValue”); implementations) Marshaling the change back to different XML file: Marshaller m = jc.createMarshaller(); javac FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream( new File(“/xml/SampleNew.xml”)); Java class files m.marshall(n, fos); *.class e us Application Java content XML unmarshall Objects Sample. JAXB note xml API marshall to from Refer Q14 in How would you go about section for XML based standards/protocols like SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI relating to Web services, which enable interoperability between disparate systems (e.g. Between .Net and J2EE etc). These standards provide a common and interoperable approach for defining (i.e. WSDL), publishing (i.e. UDDI) and using (i.e. SOAP) Web services. The J2EE 1.4 platform provides comprehensive support for Web services through the JAX-RPC (Java API for XML based RPC (Remote Procedure Call)) and JAXR (Java API for XML Registries). Q. What is version information in XML? A. Version information in an XML is a processing instruction. <?xml version=”1.0” ?> Tags that begin with <? and end with ?> are called processing instructions. The processing instructions can also be used to call a style sheet for an XML as shown below: <?xml-stylesheet type=”text/css” href=”MyStyle.css” ?> Q. What is a CDATA section in an XML? A. If you want to write about elements and attributes in your XML document then you will have to prevent your parser from interpreting them and just display them as a regular text. To do this, you must enclose such information in a CDATA section. <![CDATA[ <customername id=”123” > John </customername> ]]>
- 196. Enterprise – XML 195 Q. How will you embed an XML content within an XML document? A. By using a CDATA section. <message> <from>LoansSystem</from> <to>DocumentSystem</to> <body> <![CDATA[ <application> <number>456</number> <name>Peter</name> <detail>blah blah</detail> </application> ]]> </body> </message> Q. How do you write comments in an XML document? A. <!-- This is an XML comment --> Q. How do you write an attribute value with single quotes? How do you write an element value of “> 500.00”? A. You need to use an internal entity reference like < for <, > for >, & for &, " for “, ' for ‘. <customer name=”"Mr. Smith"” /> <cost> > 500.00</cost> Q. What is a well-formed XML document? A. A well formed document adheres to the following rules for writing an XML. • A root element is required. A root element is an element, which completely contains all the other elements. • Closing tags are required. <cust>abc</cust> or <cust/> • Elements must be properly nested. • XML is case sensitive. <CUSTOMER> and <Customer> elements are considered completely separate. • An attribute’s value must always be enclosed in either single or double quotes. • Entity references must be declared in a DTD before being used except for the 5 built-in (<, > etc) discussed in the previous question. Q. What is a valid XML document? A. For an XML document to be valid, it must conform to the rules of the corresponding DTD (Document Type Definition – internal or external) or XSD (XML Schema Definition). Q. How will you write an empty element? A. <name age=”25”></name> or <name age=”25” /> Q. What is a namespace in an XML document? A. Namespaces are used in XML documents to distinguish one similarly titled element from another. A namespace must have an absolutely unique and permanent name. In an XML, name space names are in the form of a URL. A default namespace for an element and all its children can be declared as follows: <accounts xmlns=”http://www.bank1.com/ns/account”> … </accounts> Individual elements can be labeled as follows: <accounts xmlns=”http://www.bank1.com/ns/account” xmlns:bank2=”http://www.bank2.com/ns/account”> <name>FlexiDirect</name> <!-- uses the default name space --> <bank2:name>Loan</bank2:name> <!-- > … </accounts>
- 197. 196 Enterprise – XML Q. Why use an XML document as opposed to other types of documents like a text file etc? A. • It is a universally accepted standard. • Free and easy to use tools are available. Also can be stored in a database. • Fast access due to its hierarchical structure. • Easy to identify and use due to its markup tags. Q. What is your favorite XML framework or a tool? A. My favorite XML framework is JiBX, which unmarshals an XML document to graph of Java objects and marshals a graph of Java objects back to an XML document. It is simple to use, very flexible and fast. It can be used with existing Java classes. Q. Explain where your project needed XML documents? A. It is hard to find a project, which does not use XML documents. • XML is used to communicate with disparate systems via messaging or Web Services. • XML based protocols and standards like SOAP, ebXML, WSDL etc are used in Web Services. • XML based deployment descriptors like web.xml, ejb-jar.xml, etc are used to configure the J2EE containers. • XML based configuration files are used by open-source frameworks like Hibernate, Spring, Struts, and Tapestry etc.
- 198. Enterprise – SQL,Database, and O/R mapping 197 Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping Q 96: Explain inner and outer joins? SF FAQ A 96: Joins allow database users to combine data from one table with data from one or more other tables (or views, or synonyms). Tables are joined two at a time making a new table containing all possible combinations of rows from the original two tables. Lets take an example (syntax vary among RDBMS): Joins and Set operations in Relational Databases Inner join Left outer join Right outer join Full outer join Employees table Id Firstname Surname State 1001 John Darcy NSW 1002 Peter Smith NSW 1003 Paul Gregor NSW 1004 Sam Darcy VIC Executives table Id Firstname Surname State 1001 John Darcy NSW 1002 Peter Smith NSW 1005 John Gregor WA Inner joins: Chooses the join criteria using any column names that happen to match between the two tables. The example below displays only the employees who are executives as well. SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp, executives exec WHERE emp.id = exec.id; The output is: Firstname Surname John Darcy Peter Smith Left Outer joins: A problem with the inner join is that only rows that match between tables are returned. The example below will show all the employees and fill the null data for the executives. SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp left join executives exec ON emp.id = exec.id; On oracle SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp, executives exec WHERE emp.id = exec.id(+); The output is: Firstname Surname John Darcy Peter Smith Paul Sam
- 199. 198 Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping Right Outer join: A problem with the inner join is that only rows that match between tables are returned. The example below will show all the executives and fill the null data for the employees. SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp right join executives exec ON emp.id = exec.id; On oracle SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp, executives exec WHERE emp.id(+) = exec.id; The output is: Firstname Surname John Darcy Peter Smith Gregor Full outer join: To cause SQL to create both sides of the join SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp full join executives exec ON emp.id = exec.id; On oracle SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp, executives exec WHERE emp.id = exec.id (+) UNION SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp, executives exec WHERE emp.id(+) = exec.id Note: Oracle9i introduced the ANSI compliant join syntax. This new join syntax uses the new keywords inner join, left outer join, right outer join, and full outer join, instead of the (+) operator. The output is: Firstname Surname John Darcy Paul Peter Smith Sam Gregor Self join: A self-join is a join of a table to itself. If you want to find out all the employees who live in the same city as employees whose first name starts with “Peter”, then one way is to use a sub-query as shown below: SELECT emp.firstname, emp.surname FROM employees emp WHERE city IN (SELECT city FROM employees where firstname like ‘Peter’) The sub-queries can degrade performance. So alternatively we can use a self-join to achieve the same results. On oracle SELECT emp.firstname, emp.surname FROM employees emp, employees emp2 WHERE emp.city = emp2.city AND emp2.firstname LIKE 'Peter' The output is: Firstname Surname John Darcy Peter Smith Paul Gregor Q 97: Explain a sub-query? How does a sub-query impact on performance? SF PI FAQ A 97: It is possible to embed a SQL statement within another. When this is done on the WHERE or the HAVING statements, we have a subquery construct. What is subquery useful for? It is used to join tables and there are cases where the only way to correlate two tables is through a subquery. SELECT emp.firstname, emp.surname FROM employees emp WHERE
- 200. Enterprise – SQL,Database, and O/R mapping 199 emp.id NOT IN (SELECT id FROM executives); There are performance problems with sub-queries, which may return NULL values. The above sub-query can be re-written as shown below by invoking a correlated sub-query: SELECT emp.firstname, emp.surname FROM employees emp WHERE emp.id NOT EXISTS (SELECT id FROM executives); The above query can be re-written as an outer join for a faster performance as shown below: SELECT emp.firstname, exec.surname FROM employees emp left join executives exec on emp.id = exec.id AND exec.id IS NULL; The above execution plan will be faster by eliminating the sub-query. Q 98: What is normalization? When to denormalize? DC PI FAQ A 98: Normalization is a design technique that is widely used as a guide in designing relational databases. Normalization is essentially a two step process that puts data into tabular form by removing repeating groups and then removes duplicated data from the relational tables (Additional reading recommended). Redundant data wastes disk space and creates maintenance problems. If data that exists in more than one place must be changed, the data must be changed in exactly the same way in all locations which is time consuming and prone to errors. A change to a customer address is much easier to do if that data is stored only in the Customers table and nowhere else in the database. Inconsistent dependency is a database design that makes certain assumptions about the location of data. For example, while it is intuitive for a user to look in the Customers table for the address of a particular customer, it may not make sense to look there for the salary of the employee who calls on that customer. The employee's salary is related to, or dependent on, the employee and thus should be moved to the Employees table. Inconsistent dependencies can make data difficult to access because the path to find the data may not be logical, or may be missing or broken. First Normal Form Second Normal Form Third Normal Form A database is said to be in First A database is in Second Normal Form A database is in Third Normal Form when Normal Form when all entities when it is in First Normal Form plus it is in Second Normal Form and each have a unique identifier or key, every non-primary key column in the column that isn't part of the primary key and when every column in every table must depend on the entire primary doesn't depend on another column that table contains only a single value key, not just part of it, assuming that the isn't part of the primary key. and doesn't contain a repeating primary key is made up of composite group or composite field. columns. When to denormalize? Normalize for accuracy and denormalize for performance. Typically, transactional databases are highly normalized. This means that redundant data is eliminated and replaced with keys in a one-to-many relationship. Data that is highly normalized is constrained by the primary key/foreign key relationship, and thus has a high degree of data integrity. Denormalized data, on the other hand, creates redundancies; this means that it's possible for denormalized data to lose track of some of the relationships between atomic data items. However, since all the data for a query is (usually) stored in a single row in the table, it is much faster to retrieve. Q 99: How do you implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables? SF A 99: One-to-One relationship can be implemented as a single table and rarely as two tables with primary and foreign key relationships. One-to-Many relationships are implemented by splitting the data into two tables with primary key and foreign key relationships. Many-to-Many relationships are implemented using join table with the keys from both the tables forming the composite primary key of the junction table. Q 100: How can you performance tune your database? PI FAQ
- 201. 200 Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping A 100: Denormalize your tables where appropriate. Proper use of index columns: An index based on numeric fields is more efficient than an index based on character columns. Reduce the number of columns that make up a composite key. Proper partitioning of tablespaces and create a special tablespace for special data types like CLOB, BLOB etc. Data access performance can be tuned by using stored procedures to crunch data in the database server to reduce the network overhead and also caching data within your application to reduce the number of accesses. Q 101: How will you map objects to a relational database? How will you map class inheritance to relational data model? DC FAQ A 101: Due to impedance mismatch between object and relational technology you need to understand the process of mapping classes (objects) and their relationships to tables and relationships between them in a database. Classes represent both behavior and data whereas relational database tables just implement data. Database schemas have keys (primary keys to uniquely identify rows and foreign keys to maintain relationships between rows) whereas object schema does not have keys and instead use references to implement relationships to other objects. Let us look at some basic points on mapping: Object to Relational (O/R) mapping of class inheritance structure Map class hierarchy to a single database table Employee Employee -EmployeeId (PK) -EmployeeId (PK) -EmployeeType -IsPermanent -Name -IsContractor -Salary Refactored -IsSubContractor -Rate -Name Class diagram -Period -Salary -Rate -Period Employee Address Employee Map each class to its own table *1 -name -streetname -address -EmployeeId (PK) -Name +getName() Permanent Contractor Permanent Contractor -salary -rate -EmployeeId (PK) -EmployeeId (PK) +getSalary() +getRate() -Salary -Contract SubContractor SubContractor -period +calculateTotal() -EmployeeId (PK) -Period Map each concrete class to its own table Permanent Contractor -EmployeeId (PK) -EmployeeId (PK) -Name -Name -Salary -Contract SubContractor -EmployeeId (PK) -Name -Period Classes map to tables in a way but not always directly. An attribute of a class can be mapped to zero or more columns in a database. Not all attributes are persistent. Some attributes of an object are objects itself. For example an Employee object has an Address object as an attribute. This is basically an association relationship between two objects (i.e. Employee and
- 202. Enterprise – SQL,Database, and O/R mapping 201 Address). This is a recursive relationship where at some point the attribute will be mapped to zero or more columns. In this example attributes of the Address class will be mapped zero or more columns. In its simple form an attribute maps to a single column whereas each has same type (i.e. attribute is a string and column is a char, or both are dates etc). When you implement mapping with different types (attribute is a currency and column is a float) then you will need to be able to convert them back and forth. Q. How do you map inheritance class structure to relational data model? Relational databases do not support inheritance. Class inheritance can be mapped to relational tables as follows: Map class hierarchy to single database table (aka union mapping): The whole class hierarchy can be stored in a single table by adding an additional column named “EmployeeType”. The column “EmployeeType” will hold the values “Permanent”, “Contract” and “SubContract”. New employee types can be added as required. Although this approach is straightforward it tends to break when you have combinations like an employee is of type both “Contractor” and “SubContractor”. So when you have combinations, you can use refactored table by replacing type code column “EmployeeType” with boolean values such as isPermanent, isContractor and isSubContractor. Map each class to its own table (aka vertical mapping): You create one table per class (even those that are abstract). The data for a permanent employee is stored in two tables (Employee and Permanent), therefore to retrieve this data you need to join these two tables. To support additional employee type say a Contractor, add a new table. Map each concrete class to its own table (aka horizontal mapping): You create one table per concrete class. There are tables corresponding to each class like Permanent, Contractor and SubContractor. So join is not required. To support additional employee type, add a new table. So which approach to use? No approach is ideal for all situations. Each approach has its own pros & cons. Map class hierarchy to single database table: Advantages are: no table joins are necessary to query objects in the same hierarchy and adding a new class to the hierarchy has very little overhead. Disadvantages are: Database constraints have to be relaxed to accommodate all attributes in the class hierarchy and also it is not easy to identify from the table schema which attributes belong to which class. Map each class to its own table: Advantages are: Table schemas are separated cleanly and database constraints can be applied. Disadvantages are: Suffers from performance problems. If you need to query all employees then all 4 tables (i.e. Employee, Permanent, Contractor & SubContractor) need to be queried. Map each concrete class to its own table: Advantage is: simplest approach. Disadvantage is: duplicated base class columns in each subclass table making adding an attribute to the baseclass more difficult. Finally, No approach is ideal for all situations. The most efficient way is to “map class hierarchy to single database table” (i.e. union mapping). For dealing with complex legacy data “use map each class to its own table” (i.e. vertical mapping) which gives you more flexibility but this flexibility comes at a price of performance. The simplest way to map is to use “map each concrete class to its own table” (i.e. horizontal mapping) but this simplicity comes at a price of creating a very unnatural object model. Note: Another option for mapping inheritance into relational database is to take a generic meta-data driven approach. This approach supports all forms of mapping. In this approach, value of a single attribute will be stored as a row in a table called “Value”. So, to store 5 attributes you need 5 rows in “Value” table. You will have a table called “Class” where class names are stored, a table called “Inheritance” where subclass and superclass information is stored, a table called “Attributes” where class attributes are stored and an “AttributeType” lookup table. Q 102: What is a view? Why will you use a view? What is an aggregate function? Etc. SF PI FAQ A 102: Question Explanation What is view? Why use a view? View is a precompiled SQL query, which is used to select data from one or more tables. A view is like a table but it doesn’t physically take any space (i.e. not materialized). Views are used for Providing inherent security by exposing only the data that is needed to be shown to the end user. Enabling re-use of SQL statements. Allows changes to the underlying tables to be hidden from clients, aiding
- 203. 202 Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping maintenance of the database schema (i.e. encapsulation). Views with multiple joins and filters can dramatically degrade performance because views contain no data and any retrieval needs to be processed. The solution for this is to use materialized views or create de-normalized tables to store data. This technique is quite handy in overnight batch processes where a large chunk of data needs to be processed. Normalized data can be read and inserted into some temporary de- normalized table and processed with efficiency. What is a database trigger? A trigger is a fragment of code that you tell to run before or after a table is modified. There are typically three triggering EVENTS that cause trigger to 'fire': • INSERT event (as a new record is being inserted into the database). • UPDATE event (as a record is being changed). • DELETE event (as a record is being deleted). Triggers can restrict access to specific data, perform logging, or audit access to data. Q. How can you keep track of all your database changes? If you want to keep track of all changes to a particular record, such as who modified the record, what kind of modification took place, and when the record modification occurred then you can use triggers because you can capture every action that occurred on a particular table. For example, an INSERT trigger would fire when a particular database table has a record inserted. Q. How will you communicate between two applications sharing the same database to update one of the applications’ object cache? As shown in the diagram below, 1. when application 1 updates/inserts a product in the “product” table, 2. a trigger is fired to modify the status of the “product_polling” table to “pending” from “complete” for updates and creates a new record with a pending status for inserts. 3. Application 2 polls the “product_polling” table say every 5 minutes. If the status=”pending” then application 2 reads the updated data from the product table and refreshes the cache. If the status is “complete” then the application 2 retries after 5 minutes. T w o a p p lic atio n s s h a rin g th e s a m e d ata b as e - m a kin g u s e o f trig g e rs to n o tify c h a n g e p ro d u ct tab le A p p lic a tio n 1 1 . u p d at id p ro d u c tn o c a te g o ry nam e e /in se rt p ro d u ct 123 3 45 4 5 6 e le ctric a l ca b le 124 2 34 2 1 3 p lu m b in g p ip e A p p lic a tio n 2 / e rt in s s o n ta t u in g re s t s d 3. p r fi d s e p e n o ge p ro d u c t c a c h e m i n ll s p o r ig t e a n e t e t o .t a u te lli n g 2 d p l D atab ase s. I _ ta up com cache c a ch e re fr f s t a t u b le e m e sh s= p v e ry fr o cac e 5 P ro d u c t_p o llin g ta b le cache c a ch e h e . n d in g ta b le n a m e s ta tu s la s tm o d ifie d p ro d u c t p en d in g 25 June 2006 Explain aggregate SQL functions? SQL provides aggregate functions to assist with the summarization of large volumes of data. We’ll look at functions that allow us to add and average data, count records meeting specific criteria and find the largest and smallest values in a table. ORDERID FIRSTNAME SURNAME QTY UNITPRICE 1001 John Darcy 25 10.5 1002 Peter Smith 25 10.5 1003 Sam Gregory 25 10.5 SELECT SUM(QTY) AS Total FROM Orders; The output is: Total = 75 SELECT AVG(UnitPrice * QTY) As AveragePrice FROM Orders;
- 204. Enterprise – SQL,Database, and O/R mapping 203 The output is: AveragePrice = 262.50 If we inserted another row to the above table: ORDERID FIRSTNAME SURNAME QTY UNITPRICE 1004 John Darcy 20 10.50 SELECT FIRSTNAME,SUM(QTY) FROM orders GROUP BY FIRSTNAME HAVING SUM(QTY)>25; The output is: John 45 Explain INSERT, UPDATE, and INSERT statements can be carried out several ways: DELETE statements? INSERT INTO ORDERS values (1004, 'John', 'Darcy', 20, 10.50); The above statement is fine but the one below is recommended since it is less ambiguous and less prone to errors. INSERT INTO ORDERS (orderid, firstname, surname, qty, unitprice) values (1005, 'John', 'Darcy', 20, 10.50); We can also use INSERT with the SELECT statements as shown below INSERT into NEW_ORDERS (orderid, firstname, surname, qty, unitprice) SELECT orderid, firstname, surname, qty, unitprice FROM orders WHERE orderid = 1004; UPDATE statement allows you to update a single or multiple statements. UPDATE ORDERS set firstname='Peter', surname='Piper' WHERE orderid=1004; Also can have more complex updates like UPDATE supplier SET supplier_name = ( SELECT customer.name FROM customers WHERE customers.customer_id = supplier.supplier_id) WHERE EXISTS (SELECT customer.name FROM customers WHERE customers.customer_id = supplier.supplier_id); DELETE statements allow you to remove records from the database. DELETE FROM ORDERS WHERE orderid=1004; We can clear the entire table using TRUNCATE TABLE employees; When running UPDATE/DELETE care should be taken to include WHERE clause otherwise you can inadvertently modify or delete records which you do not intend to UPDATE/DELETE. How can you compare a part of You can use wild card characters like: the name rather than the entire name? • * ( % in oracle) Match any number of characters. • ? ( _ in oracle) Match a single character. To find all the employees who has “au”: SELECT * FROM employees emp WHERE emp.firstname LIKE ‘%au%’; How do you get distinct entries The SELECT statement in conjunction with DISTINCT lets you select a set of distinct from a table? values from a table in a database. SELECT DISTINCT empname FROM emptable
- 205. 204 Enterprise – SQL, Database, and O/R mapping How can you find the total number Use the COUNT key word: of records in a table? SELECT COUNT(*) FROM emp WHERE age>25 What's the difference between a Both primary key and unique key enforce uniqueness of the column on which they are primary key and a unique key? defined. But by default primary key creates a clustered index on the column, whereas unique creates a non-clustered index by default. Another major difference is that, primary key doesn't allow NULLs, but unique key allows one NULL only. Q. What is the best practice relating to primary key generation? • A best practice in database design is to use an internally generated primary key. The database management system can normally generate a unique identifier that has no meaning outside of the database system. For example “Sequences” in Oracle, “Identity” columns in Sybase etc. • It is bad practice to use timestamps as a primary key or using it as part of your composite primary key because you can get a primary key collision when two concurrent users access the table within milliseconds. • For better performance minimize use of composite keys or use fewer columns in your composite keys. • Where possible avoid using columns with business meaning as your primary key. For example Avoid using taxfilenumber, zipcode etc as your primary key because more than one town may have the same zipcode, taxfilenumber is private and should be encrypted and stored, some people may not have a taxfile number, you may want to reuse the same taxfilenumber after an individual’s death, an individual may have more than one taxfilenumber etc. Remember to choose carefully, as it is difficult to change the primary key in a production table. Q. What is the best practice to generate more portable primary keys? The approach of using database specific unique id generator like a sequence in ORACLE, identity in Sybase etc is not portable because it is database dependent. You can use an “ID table” strategy to make your unique id generation more portable. This strategy uses a separate ID table to generate unique numbers for all your tables in the database. For example, ID table may look like: ID table name value minValue maxValue AddressID 245 0 -1 AccountID 123 0 -1 maxValue of -1 means no max limit. You could write a EJB stateless session bean, which returns a unique id for the “name” passed in as an argument. You could use an entity bean or a stored proc to access the ID table. The ID table should be adequately isolated to prevent any dirty reads and non-repeatable reads occurring due to concurrent access to the ID table. What are constraints? Explain Constraints enable the RDBMS enforce the integrity of the database automatically, different types of constraints. without needing you to create triggers, rule or defaults. Types of constraints: NOT NULL, CHECK, UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY Q. What are the best practices relating to constraints? • Always define referential constraints to improve referential integrity of your data. For example A “BankDetail” table can have BSB number and accountnumber as part of unique key constraint (to prevent duplicate account details), while having a generated unique identifier as the primary key. • Perform all your referential integrity checks and data validations using constraints (foreign key and constraints) instead of triggers, as constraints are faster. Limit the use of triggers only for auditing, custom tasks and validations that can not be performed using constraints. Constraints save you time as well, as you don't have to write code for these validations, allowing the RDBMS to do all the work for you. What is an index? What are the The books you read have indexes, which help you to go to a specific key word faster. types of indexes? How many The database indexes are similar.
- 206. Enterprise – SQL,Database, and O/R mapping 205 clustered indexes can be created on a table? What are the Indexes are of two types. Clustered indexes and non-clustered indexes. When you advantages and disadvantages of create a clustered index on a table, all the rows in the table are stored in the order of the creating separate index on each clustered index key. So, there can be only one clustered index per table. Non-clustered column of a table? indexes have their own storage separate from the table data storage. The row located could be the RowID or the clustered index key, depending up on the absence or presence of clustered index on the table. If you create an index on each column of a table, it improves the query (i.e. SELECT) performance, as the query optimizer can choose from all the existing indexes to come up with an efficient execution plan. At the same time, data modification operations (such as INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE) will become slow, as every time data changes in the table, all the indexes need to be updated. Another disadvantage is that, indexes need disk space, the more indexes you have, more disk space is used. Technical Tip #6 Q. How would you build a regex (regular expression) to filter out email addresses? The reason for asking this question, is that even if you cannot answer it straight away (because regular expressions actually form a miniature language in their own right), if you know what regular expressions are, know where to and when to use them and comfortable with it then you can write any pattern with a help of a reference guide, examples (http://www.regexlib.com) and the Java regex API. You can think of regular expressions as a kind of SQL query for free flowing text. [Hint] String emailRegex = “(w+)@(w+.)(w+)(.w+)*”; The above pattern will satisfy: peter@company.com , peter@company.net.au , peter@company.inet.net.au w a word character, . any character, + occurring 1 or more times, * occurring 0 or more times, ? occurring 0 or 1 time, . use to escape special meaning of . (which is any character), to escape in Java because has a special meaning in Java. Important: ?, *, + are not wild characters. They denote occurrence of a pattern (o or 1 time etc) and also denote quantifiers like greedy (X? search greedily for 0 or 1 occurrence), reluctant (X?? search reluctantly for 0 or 1 occurrence) and possessive (X?+ search possessively for 0 or 1 occurrence). If you say that they are wild characters then you have not used regex before. In Java platform (J2SE 1.4 onwards) a package called java.util.regex enable you to use regular expressions. E.g. public static void main(String[] args) { Pattern p = Pattern.compile("j",Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE); // look for letter ‘j’ Matcher m = p.matcher("java Q&A, java/j2EE Q&A, j2EE Q&A "); boolean result = m.find(); StringBuffer out = new StringBuffer(); while(result) { m.appendReplacement(out,"J"); // replace with uppercase letter “J” result = m.find(); } m.appendTail(out); System.out.println(out.toString()); p = Pattern.compile(","); // pattern to split on comma delimited String[] outArray = p.split(out); // Split based on the pattern for (int i = 0; i < outArray.length; i++) { System.out.println(i+1 + " - " + outArray[i].trim()); } } Output is: Java Q&A, Java/J2EE Q&A, J2EE Q&A 1 - Java Q&A 2 - Java/J2EE Q&A 3 - J2EE Q&A [Java Q&A, Java/J2EE Q&A, J2EE Q&A ]
- 207. 206 Enterprise – RUP & UML Enterprise - RUP & UML Q 103: What is RUP? SD A 103: Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a general framework that can be used to describe a development process. The software development cycle has got 4 phases in the following order Inception, Elaboration, Construction, and Transition. R atio n al U n ified P ro ces s P H AS E S Inception elaboration construction transition B usiness M odelling Disciplines (vertical axis) R equirem ents A nalysis & D esign Im plem entation T est D eploym ent C onfig & C hange m gm t P roject m gm t Inception # 1 E lab #1 E lab #2 C on C on C on T ransition #1 #1 #2 #3 E nvironm ent IT E R AT IO N S P H AS E S / ITE R ATIO N S (H orizo ntal axis) The core of the phases is state-based, and the state is determined by what fundamental questions you are trying to answer: Inception - do you and the customer have a shared understanding of the system? Elaboration - do you have baseline architecture to be able to build the system? Construction - are you developing a product? Transition - are you trying to get the customer to take ownership of the system? RUP is based on a few important philosophies and principles: A software project team should plan ahead. It should know where it is going. It should capture project knowledge in a storable and extensible form. The best practices of RUP involve the following major 5 properties: Best practice property Description Use case driven Interaction between the users and the system. Architecture centric Based on architecture with clear relationships between architectural components. Iterative The problem and the solution are divided into more manageable smaller pieces, where each iteration will be addressing one of those pieces. Incremental Each iteration builds incrementally on the foundation built in the previous iteration. Controlled Control with respect to process means you always know what to do next; control with respect to management means that all deliverables, artifacts, and code are under configuration management. Q 104: Explain the 4 phases of RUP? SD A 104:
- 208. Enterprise – RUP& UML 207 RUP Phases Construction INCEPTION ELABORATION TRANSITION Iter 1 Iter 2 Iter 3 Iter 4 Iter 5 Iter 6 Inception: During the inception phase, you work out the business case for the project. You also will be making a rough cost estimate and return on investment. You should also outline the scope and size of the project. The fundamental question you ask at the end of this phase: do you and the customer have a shared understanding of the system? Elaboration: At this stage you have the go ahead of the project however only have vague requirements. So at this stage you need to get a better understanding of the problem. Some of the steps involved are: What is it you are actually going to build? How are you going to build it? What technology are you going to use? Analyzing and dealing with requirement risks, technological risks, skill risks, political risks etc. Develop a domain model, use case model and a design model. The UML techniques can be used for the model diagrams (e.g. class diagrams, sequence diagrams etc). An important result of the elaboration phase is that you have a baseline architecture. This architecture consists of: A list of use cases depicting the requirements. The domain model, which captures your understanding of the domain with the help of UML class diagrams. Selection of key implementation technology and how they fit together. For example: Java/J2EE with JSP, Struts, EJB, XML, etc. The fundamental question you ask at the end of this phase: do you have a baseline architecture to be able to build the system? Construction: In this phase you will be building the system in a series of iterations. Each iteration is a mini project. You will be performing analysis, design, unit testing, coding, system testing, and integration testing for the use cases assigned to each iteration. The iterations within the construction phase are incremental and iterative. Each iteration builds on the use cases developed in the previous iterations. The each iteration will involve code rewrite, refactoring, use of design patterns etc. The basic documentation required during the construction phase is: A class diagram and a sequence diagram. Some text to pull the diagrams together. If a class has complex life cycle behavior then a state diagram is required. If a class has a complex computation then an activity diagram is required. The fundamental question you ask at the end of this phase: do you have a developed product? Transition: During this phase you will be delivering the finished code regularly. During this phase there is no coding to add functionality unless it is small and essential. There will be bug fixes, code optimization etc during this phase. An example of a transition phase is that the time between the beta release and the final release of a product. The fundamental question you ask at the end of this phase: are you trying to get the customer to take ownership of the developed product or system?
- 209. 208 Enterprise – RUP & UML Q 105: What are the characteristics of RUP? Where can you use RUP? SD A 105: 1. RUP is based on a few important philosophies and principles like planning ahead, knowing where the process is heading and capturing the project in storable and extensible manner. 2. It is largely based on OO analysis and design, and use case driven. 3. Iterative and incremental development as opposed to waterfall approach, which hides problems. 4. Architecture centric approach. RUP is more suited for larger teams of 50-100 people. RUP can also be used as an agile (i.e. lightweight) process for smaller teams of 20-30 people, or as a heavy weight process for larger teams of 50-100 people. Extreme Programming (XP) can be considered as a subset of RUP. At the time of writing, the agile (i.e lightweight) software development process is gaining popularity and momentum across organizations. Several methodologies fit under this agile development methodology banner. All these methodologies share many characteristics like iterative and incremental development, test driven development, stand up meetings to improve communication, automatic testing, build and continuous integration of code etc. Refer Q136 in Enterprise Java section. Q 106: Why is UML important? SD DC A 106: The more complicated the underlying system, the more critical the communication among everyone involved in developing and deploying the software. UML is a software blueprint language for analysts, designers and developers. UML provides a common vocabulary for the business analysts, architects, developers etc. UML is applicable to the Object Oriented problem solving. UML begins with a model; A model is an abstraction of the underlying problem. The domain is the actual world from which the problem comes. The model consists of objects. The objects interact with each other by sending and receiving messages. The objects are characterized by attributes and operations (behaviors). The values of an object’s attributes determine its state. The classes are the blueprints (or like templates) for objects. A class wraps attributes and methods into a single distinct entity. The objects are the instances of classes. Q 107: What are the different types of UML diagrams? SD DC FAQ A 107: Use case diagrams: Depicts the typical interaction between external users (i.e. actors) and the system. The emphasis is on what a system does rather than how it does it. A use case is a summary of scenarios for a single task or goal. An actor is responsible for initiating a task. The connection between actor and use case is a communication association. U s e c a s e d ia g r a m a s s o c ia tio n * * < < in c lu d e > > E n r o ll in U n iv e r s i R e g is tr a r E n r o ll in s e m in a r ty a s s o c ia tio n < < e x te n d > > S tu d e n t p e r fo r m s e c u r ity in h e r ita n c e E n r o ll fa m ily check m e m b e rs in h e r ita n c e N o te : a s s o c ia tio n < < e x t e n d > > r e la t i o n s h i p i s c o n d i t i o n a l . Y o u d o n o t k n o w if o r w h e n e x t e n d i n g u s e c a s e w il l b e in v o k e d . < < i n c l u d e > > r e la t i o n s h i p i s s i m i la r t o a p r o c e d u r e c a l l. In te r n a tio n a l S tu d e n t In h e r it a n c e : e x te n d s th e b e h a v io r o f th e p a r e n t u s e c a s e o r a c to r.
- 210. Enterprise – RUP& UML 209 Capturing use cases is one of the primary tasks of the elaboration phase of RUP. In its simplest usage, you capture a use case by talking to your users and discussing the various things they might want to do with the system. When to use ‘use case’ diagrams? Determining user requirements. New use cases often generate new requirements. Communicating with clients. The simplicity of the diagram makes use case diagrams a good way for designers and developers to communicate with clients. Generating test cases. Each scenario for the use case may suggest a suite of test cases. Class diagrams: Class diagram technique is vital within Object Oriented methods. Class diagrams describe the types of objects in the system and the various static relationships among them. Class diagrams also show the attributes and the methods. Class diagrams have the following possible relationships: Association: A relationship between instances of 2 classes. Aggregation: An association in which one class belongs to a collection (does not always have to be a collection. You can also have cardinality of “1”). This is a part of a whole relationship where the part can exist without the whole. For example: A line item is whole and the products are the parts. If a line item is deleted then the products need not be deleted. Composition: An association in which one class belongs to a collection (does not always have to be a collection. You can also have cardinality of “1”). This is a part of a whole relationship where the part cannot exist without the whole. If the whole is deleted then the parts are deleted. For example: An Order is a whole and the line items are the parts. If an order is deleted then all the line items should be deleted as well (i.e. cascade deletes). Generalization: An inheritance link indicating that one class is a superclass of the other. The Generalization expresses the “is a” relationship whereas the association, aggregation and composition express the “has a” relationship. Realization: Implementation of an interface. Dependency: A dependency is a weak relationship where one class requires another class. The dependency expresses the “uses” relationship. For example: A domain model class uses a utility class like Formatter etc. Class Diagram association composition dependency Customer Order OrderDetail -order : Order -lineItems : List -LineId 1 * 1 1..* -product : Product +operation1() -comments generalization «utility» 1 Formatter aggregation StandardOrder CustomOrder * -specialDetails «interface» +formatDecimal() Product ServiceIF +formatCurrency() -productCode -productDesc realization -unitPrice When to use class diagrams? Class diagrams are the backbone of Object Oriented methods. So they are used frequently.
- 211. 210 Enterprise – RUP & UML Class diagrams can have a conceptual perspective and an implementation perspective. During the analysis draw the conceptual model and during implementation draw the implementation model. Package diagrams: To simplify complex class diagrams you can group classes into packages. Package Diagram Accounting Ordering dependency dependency Custom er When to use package diagrams? Package diagrams are vital for large projects. Object diagrams: Object diagrams show instances instead of classes. They are useful for explaining some complicated objects in detail about their recursive relationships etc. Object Diagram Object Diagram Class Diagram physicsMaths : Department object name Class name 1 improve clarity physics : Department math : Department Department 0..* pureMath : Department appliedMath : Department Recursive class diagram difficult to fully understand Shows the details of the recursive object relationship When to use object diagrams? Object diagrams are a vital for large projects. They are useful for explaining structural relationships in detail for complex objects. Sequence diagrams: Sequence diagrams are interaction diagrams which detail what messages are sent and when. The sequence diagrams are organized according to time. The time progresses as you move from top to bottom of the diagram. The objects involved in the diagram are shown from left to right according to when they take part.
- 212. Enterprise – RUP& UML 211 Sequence Diagram anEntry : OrderEntry client anOrder : Order check if sufficient details makeAnOrder() makeAnOrder() are available for each lineItem iteration [for each ...]() hasSufficientDetails() confirm : Confirmation printConfirmation() Note: Each vertical dotted line is a life line. Each arrow is a message. The rectangular boxes on the life line are called the activation bar which represents the duration of execution of message. Collaboration diagrams: Collaboration diagrams are also interaction diagrams. Collaboration diagrams convey the same message as the sequence diagrams. But the collaboration diagrams focus on the object roles instead of the times at which the messages are sent. The collaboration diagrams use the decimal sequence numbers as shown in the diagram below to make it clear which operation is calling which other operation, although it can be harder to see the overall sequence. The top- level message is numbered 1. The messages at the same level have the same decimal prefix but different suffixes of 1, 2 etc according to when they occur. Collaboration Diagram client object 1.1 : makeAnOrder() message sequence number 1.1.1: makeAnOrder() 1.1.1.2 : hasSufficientDetails() * anOrder : Order anEntry : OrderEntry confirm: Confirmation 1 self-link 1.1.1.1: for each (iteration) When to use interaction diagrams? When you want to look at behavior of several objects within a single use case. If you want to look at a single object across multiple use cases then use statechart diagram as described below. State chart diagrams: Objects have behavior and state. The state of an object depends on its current activity or condition. This diagram shows the possible states of the object and the transitions that cause a change in its state.
- 213. 212 Enterprise – RUP & UML S ta te c h a r t D ia g r a m / g e t a n ite m / a ll ite m s a v a ila b le C h e c k in g s ta te D is p a tc h in g s ta te / s o m e ite m s n o t in s to c k / d e liv e r / ite m s re c e iv e d w a itin g s ta te D e liv e re d s ta te When to use statechart diagram? Statechart diagrams are good at describing the behavior of an object across several use cases. But they are not good at describing the interaction or collaboration between many objects. Use interaction and/or activity diagrams in conjunction with a statechart diagram. Use it only for classes that have complex state changes and behavior. For example: the User Interface (UI) control objects, Objects shared by multi-threaded programs etc. Activity diagram: This is really a fancy flow chart. The activity diagram and statechart diagrams are related in a sense that statechart diagram focuses on object undergoing a transition process and an activity diagram focuses on the flow of activities involved in a single transition process. Activity Diagram O rder placem ent departm ent dispatch departm ent swim lane start check next item get first item activity join / A ll item s in stock dispatch all item s / som e item s not in stock W ait for item s to arrive in stock place an order with the supplier receive the order and enter into stock
- 214. Enterprise – RUP& UML 213 In domain modeling it is imperative that the diagram conveys which object (or class) is responsible for each activity. Activity diagrams can be divided into object swimlanes that determine which object is responsible for which activity. The swimlanes are quite useful because they combine the activity diagram’s depiction of logic with the interaction diagram’s depiction of responsibility. A single transition comes out of each activity, connecting to the next activity. A transition may join or fork. When to use activity diagrams? The activity and statechart diagrams are generally useful to express complex operations. The great strength of activity diagrams is that they support and encourage parallel behavior. The activity and statechart diagrams are beneficial for workflow modeling with multi-threaded programming. Component and Deployment diagrams: A component is a code module. Component diagrams are physical diagrams analogous to a class diagram. The deployment diagrams show the physical configuration of software and hardware components. The physical hardware is made up of nodes. Each component belongs to a node. Component and Deployment Diagram Ratailer J2EE Server Wholesaler J2EE application server Order Component Dispatch Component Order Component OrderIF DispathIF OrderIF Q 108: What is the difference between aggregation and composition? SD DC FAQ A 108: Aggregation Composition Aggregation: An association in which one class Composition: An association in which one class belongs to belongs to another class or a collection. This is a part another class or a collection. This is a part of a whole relationship of a whole relationship where the part can exist where the part cannot exist without the whole. If the whole is without the whole. For example: A line item is whole deleted then the parts are deleted. For example: An Order is a and the products are the parts. If a line item is deleted whole and the line items are the parts. If an order is deleted then all then the products need not be deleted. (no cascade the line items should be deleted as well (i.e. cascade deletes in delete in database terms) database terms). Aggregations are not allowed to be circular. In a garbage-collected language like Java, The whole has the responsibility of preventing the garbage collector to prematurely collect the part by holding reference to it. Q 109: What is the difference between a collaboration diagram and a sequence diagram? SD DC A 109: You can automatically generate one from the other. Sequence Diagram Collaboration Diagram The emphasis is on the sequence. The emphasis is on the object roles Reference: The above section on RUP & UML is based on the book UML Distilled by Martin Fowler and Kendall Scott. If you would like to have a good understanding of UML & RUP, then this book is recommended.
- 215. 214 Enterprise – Struts Enterprise - Struts Struts is a Web-based user interface framework, which has been around for a few years. It is a matured and proven framework, which has been used in many J2EE projects. While Struts has been demonstrating its popularity, there are emerging component based frameworks like JavaServer Faces (JSF) and Tapestry gaining lots of momentum and popularity. Like Struts, JSF and Tapestry provide Web application life cycle management through a controller servlet, and like Swing, JSF and Tapestry provide a rich component model complete with event handling (via listeners) and component rendering. So JSF and Tapestry can be considered as a combination of Struts frame work and Java Swing user interface framework. Refer Q19 – Q20 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section for JSF. Q 110: Give an overview of Struts? What is an ActionServlet? What is an Action class? What is an ActionForm? What is a Struts Validator Framework? SF DP FAQ A 110: Struts is a framework with set of cooperating classes, servlets and JSP tags that make up a reusable MVC 2 design. STRUTS Overview Front Controller 2. D is (Servlet) patc h e st Action qu re (calls business logic) TP s truts - HT config.xm l 1. 4. Foprward 3. Instantiate/ Set Clie nt (BROWSER) 6. HT TP re sp on se Vie w 5. get through Tag M ode l (JSP) (Formbeans) Client (Browser): A request from the client browser creates an HTTP request. The Web container will respond to the request with an HTTP response, which gets displayed on the browser. Controller (ActionServlet class and RequestProcessor class): The controller receives the request from the browser, and makes the decision where to send the request based on the struts-config.xml. Design pattern: Struts controller uses the command design pattern by calling the Action classes based on the configuration file struts-config.xml and the RequestProcessor class’s process() method uses template method design pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you go about … section) by calling a sequence of methods like: • processPath(request, response) read the request URI to determine path element. • processMapping(request,response) use the path information to get the action mapping • processRoles(request,respose,mapping) Struts Web application security which provides an authorization scheme. By default calls request.isUserInRole(). For example allow “/addCustomer” action if the role is executive. <action path=”/addCustomer” roles=”executive”> • processValidate(request,response,form,mapping) calls the validate() method of the ActionForm. • processActionCreate(request,response,mapping) gets the name of the action class from the “type” attribute of the <action> element.
- 216. Enterprise – Struts 215 • processActionPerform(req,res,action,form,mapping) This method calls the execute method of the Action class which is where business logic is written. ActionServlet class is the controller part of the MVC implementation and is the core of the framework. It processes user requests, determines what the user is trying to achieve according to the request, pulls data from the model (if necessary) to be given to the appropriate view, and selects the proper view to respond to the user. As discussed above ActionServlet class delegates the grunt of the work to the RequestProcessor and Action classes. Workflow Logic (Action class): The Servlet dispatches the request to Action classes, which act as a thin wrapper to the business logic (the actual business logic is carried out by either EJB session beans and/or plain Java classes). The action class helps control the workflow of the application. (Note: The Action class should only control the workflow and not the business logic of the application). The Action class uses the Adapter design pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you go about … section). The Action class is a wrapper around the business logic. The purpose of the Action class is to translate the HttpServletRequest to the business logic. To use the Action class, subclass and overwrite the execute() method. The actual business logic should be in a separate package or EJB to allow reuse of business logic in a protocol independent manner (i.e. the business logic should be used not only by HTTP clients but also by WAP clients, EJB clients, Applet clients etc). ActionForm class: Java representation of HTTP input data. They can carry data over from one request to another, but actually represent the data submitted with the request. The ActionForm class maintains the state for the Web application. ActionForm is an abstract class, which is subclassed for every input form model. The struts-config.xml file controls, which HTML form request maps to which ActionForm. View (JSP): The view is a JSP file. There is no business or flow logic and no state information. The JSP should just have tags to represent the data on the browser. The ExceptionHandler can be defined to execute when the Action class’s execute() method throws an Exception. For example <global-exceptions> <exception key="my.key" type="java.io.IOException" handler="my.ExceptionHandler"/> </global-exceptions> When an IOException is thrown then it will be handled by the execute() method of the my.ExceptionHandler class. The struts-config.xml configuration information is translated into ActionMapping, which are put into the ActionMappings collection. Further reading is recommended for a more detailed understanding. Q. What is Struts Validator Framework? A. Form data can be validated on the client side as well as on the server side using the Validator Framework, which was developed as a third-party add on to Struts. This framework generates the java script and it can be used to validate the form data on the client browser. Server side validation of your form can be carried out by subclassing your form class with DynaValidatorForm class. The Validator Framework uses 2 xml configuration files validator-rules.xml (defines reusable standard validation routines, which are usable in validator.xml) and validator.xml (defines validation applicable to a form bean). Q. How will you display failed validation errors on JSP page? A. Use the <html:/errors> tag. Q. How will you turn on the client side validation based on validation.xml file? A. Use the <html:javascript /> tag. Q 111: What is a synchronizer token pattern in Struts or how will you protect your Web against multiple submissions? DC DP A 111: Web designers often face the situation where a form submission must be protected against duplicate or multiple submissions, which breaks the normal control flow sequence. This situation typically occurs when the user clicks on submit button more than once before the response is sent back or client access a page by returning to the previously book marked page or client resubmits the page by clicking the back button/refresh button .
- 217. 216 Enterprise – Struts The simplest solution that some sites use is that displaying a warning message “Wait for a response after submitting and do not submit twice. In the client only strategy, a flag is set on the first submission and from then onwards the submit button is disabled based on this flag. Useful in some situations but this strategy is coupled to the browser type and version. For a server-based solution the J2EE pattern synchronizer token pattern can be applied. The basic idea is to: 1. Set a token in a session variable on the server side before sending the transactional page back to the client. 2. The token is set on the page as a hidden field. On submission of the page first check for the presence of a valid token by comparing the request parameter in the hidden field to the token stored in the session. If the token is valid continue processing otherwise take other alternative action. After testing the token must be reset to null. Refer Q 27 in Enterprise - JSP section under “Synchronizer token pattern”. The synchronizer token pattern is implemented in Struts using the following methods: ActionServlet.saveToken(HttpRequest) and ActionServlet.isTokenValid(HttpRequest) etc Q 112: How do you upload a file in Struts? SF A 112: In JSP page set the code as shown below: CO <html:form action="upload.do" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="fileForm" type="FileForm" scope="session"> Please select the file that you would like to upload: <html:file property="file" /> <html:submit /> </html:form> In the FormBean set the code as shown below: public class FileForm extends ActionForm { private FormFile file; public void setFile(FormFile file){ this.file = file; } public FormFile getFile(){ return file; } } Q 113: Are Struts action classes thread-safe? SF CI FAQ A 113: No. Struts action classes are not thread-safe. Struts action classes are cached and reused for performance optimization at the cost of having to implement the action classes in a thread-safe manner. Q 114: How do you implement internationalization in Struts? SF A 114: Internationalization is built into Struts framework. In the JSP page set the code as shown below: CO <%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld" prefix="bean" %> <%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld" prefix="html" %> <%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld" prefix="logic" %> <html:html locale="true"> <head> <title>i18n</title> </head>
- 218. Enterprise – Struts 217 <body> <h2><bean:message key="page.title"/></h2> </body> </html:html> Now we need to create an application resource file named ApplicationResource.properties. page.title=Thank you for visiting! Now in Italian, create an application resource file named ApplicationResource_it.properties. page.title=Grazie per la vostra visita! Finally, add reference to the appropriate resource file in the struts-config.xml. Q 115: What is an action mapping in Struts? How will you extend Struts? SF A 115: An action mapping is a configuration file (struts-config.xml) entry that, in general, associates an action name with an action. An action mapping can contain a reference to a form bean that the action can use, and can additionally define a list of local forwards that is visible only to this action. Q. How will you extend Struts? Struts is not only a powerful framework but also very extensible. You can extend Struts in one or more of the following ways: Plug-In: Define your own Plug-In class if you want to execute some init() and destroy() methods during the application startup and shutdown respectively. Some services like loading configuration files, initializing applications like logging, auditing, etc can be carried out in the init() method. RequestProcessor: You can create your own RequestProcessor by extending the Struts RequestProcessor. For example you can override the processRoles(req, res, mapping) in your extended class if you want to query the LDAP server for the security authorization etc. ActionServlet: You can extend the ActionServlet class if you want to execute your business logic at the application startup or shutdown or during individual request processing. You should take this approach only when the above mentioned approaches are not feasible. Q 116: What design patterns are used in Struts? DP FAQ A 116: Struts is based on model 2 MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture. Struts controller uses the command design pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you go about section) and the action classes use the adapter design pattern. The process() method of the RequestProcessor uses the template method design pattern (Refer Q11 in How would you go about section). Struts also implement the following J2EE design patterns Service to Worker (Refer Q25 in Enterprise section). Dispatcher View (Refer Q25 in Enterprise section). Composite View (Struts Tiles) (Refer Q25 in Enterprise section) Front Controller (Refer Q24 in Enterprise section). View Helper (Refer Q25 in Enterprise section). Synchronizer Token (Refer Q111 in Enterprise section).
- 219. 218 Enterprise – Web and Application servers Enterprise - Web and Application servers Q 117: What application servers, Web servers, LDAP servers, and Database servers have you used? A 117: Web Servers Apache, Microsoft IIS, Netscape, Domino etc Application Servers IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, Apache Tomcat, Borland Enterprise Server, Fujitsu Interstage, JBoss, ATG Dynamo etc Portal servers Websphere Portal Server, JBoss Portal Server, etc LDAP Servers IPlanet’s directory server, SiemensDirX etc Database Servers IBM DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, Informix Q 118: What is the difference between a Web server and an application server? SF FAQ A 118: In general, an application server prepares data for a Web server -- for example, gathering data from databases, applying relevant business rules, processing security checks, and/or storing the state of a user’s session. The term application server may be misleading since the functionality isn’t limited to applications. Its role is more as retriever and manager of data and processes used by anything running on a Web server. In the coming age of Web services, application servers will probably have an even more important role in managing service oriented components. One of the reasons for using an application server is to improve performance by off-loading tasks from a Web server. When heavy traffic has more users, more transactions, more data, and more security checks then more likely a Web server becomes a bottleneck. Web Server Application Server Supports HTTP protocol. When a Web server receives an Exposes business logic and dynamic content to a client HTTP request, it responds with an HTTP response, such through various protocols such as HTTP, TCP/IP, IIOP, JRMP as sending back an HTML page (static content) or etc. delegates the dynamic response generation to some other program such as CGI scripts or Servlets or JSPs in an application server. Uses various scalability and fault-tolerance techniques. Uses various scalability and fault-tolerance techniques. In addition provides resource pooling, component life cycle management, transaction management, messaging, security etc. Q 119: What is a virtual host? SF A 119: The term virtual host refers to the practice of maintaining more than one server on one machine. They are differentiated by their host names. You can have name based virtual hosts and IP address based virtual hosts. For example A name-based "virtual host" has a unique domain name, but the same IP address. For example, www.company1.com and www.company2.com can have the same IP address 192.168.0.10 and share the same Web server. We can configure the Web server as follows: NameVirtualHost 192.168.0.10 <VirtualHost 192.168.0.10> ServerName www.company1.com DocumentRoot /web/company1 </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost 192.168.0.10> ServerName www.company2.com DocumentRoot /web/company2 </VirtualHost>
- 220. Enterprise – Weband Application servers 219 In this scenario, both www.company1.com and www.company2.com are registered with the standard domain name service (DNS) registry as having the IP address 192.168.0.10. A user types in the URL http://www.company1.com/hello.jsp in their browser. The user's computer resolves the name www.company1.com to the IP address 192.168.0.10. The Web server on the machine that has the IP address 192.168.0.10, so it receives the request. The Web server determines which virtual host to use by matching the request URL It gets from an HTTP header submitted by the browser with the “ServerName” parameter in the configuration file shown above. Name-based virtual hosting is usually easier, since you have to only configure your DNS server to map each hostname to a single IP address and then configure the Web server to recognize the different hostnames as discussed in the previous paragraph. Name-based virtual hosting also eases the demand for scarce IP addresses limited by physical network connections [but modern operation systems support use of virtual interfaces, which are also known as IP aliases]. Therefore you should use name-based virtual hosting unless there is a specific reason to choose IP-based virtual hosting. Some reasons why you might consider using IP- based virtual hosting: Name-based virtual hosting cannot be used with SSL based secure servers because of the nature of the SSL protocol. Some operating systems and network equipment implement bandwidth management techniques that cannot differentiate between hosts unless they are on separate IP addresses. IP based virtual hosts are useful, when you want to manage more than one site (like live, demo, staging etc) on the same server where hosts inherit the characteristics defined by your main host. But when using SSL for example, a unique IP address is necessary. For example in development environment when using the test client and the server on the same machine we can define the host file as shown below: UNIX user: /etc/hosts Windows user: C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32DRIVERSETCHOSTS 127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 www.company1.com 127.0.0.1 www.company2.com [Reference: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/vhosts/] Q 120: What is application server clustering? SI A 120: An application server cluster consists of a number of application servers loosely coupled on a network. The server cluster or server group is generally distributed over a number of machines or nodes. The important point to note is that the cluster appears as a single server to its clients. The goals of application server clustering are: Scalability: should be able to add new servers on the existing node or add new additional nodes to enable the server to handle increasing loads without performance degradation, and in a manner transparent to the end users. Load balancing: Each server in the cluster should process a fair share of client load, in proportion to its processing power, to avoid overloading of some and under utilization of other server resources. Load distribution should remain balanced even as load changes with time. High availability: Clients should be able to access the server at almost all times. Server usage should be transparent to hardware and software failures. If a server or node fails, its workload should be moved over to other servers, automatically as fast as possible and the application should continue to run uninterrupted. This method provides a fair degree of application system fault-tolerance. After failure, the entire load should be redistributed equally among working servers of the system. [Good read: Uncover the hood of J2EE clustering by Wang Yu on http://www.theserverside.com ] Q 121: Explain Java Management Extensions (JMX)? SF A 121: JMX framework can improve the manageability of your application by
- 221. 220 Enterprise – Web and Application servers Monitoring your application for performance problems, critical events, error condition statistics, etc. For example you can be notified if there is a sudden increase in traffic or sudden drop in performance of your website. Making your application more controllable and configurable at runtime by directly exposing application API and parameters. For example you could switch your database connection to an alternate server. You can also change the level of debugging and logging within the application without stopping the server. You could write a poller, which polls your database at a regular interval as a JMX sevice, so that you can alter the polling interval, stop and start the poller through your server console without having to stop the server. By interfacing JMX to your hardware, database server and application server, health checks can be performed of your infrastructure. Q 122: Explain some of the portability issues between different application servers? SI A 122: Transaction isolation levels, lazy loading and dirty marker strategies for EJB, class loading visibility etc. If your job specification requires a basic understanding of Portals, Portlets etc or keen to learn the basics then read the following questions and answers. Q. What is a portal? A portal is a Web site or service that offers broad range of resources and services like e-mail, forums, search engines, on-line shopping, news, weather information, stock quotes, etc. Portal is a term generally synonymous with the terms gateway or grand entrance into the Internet for many users. E.g. www.yahoo.com, www.aol.com, www.msn.com etc. A Web portal software allows aggregation of several back-end systems, processes, sites etc brought together through a single portal page. Portals also provide additional services such as single sign-on security, customization (i.e. personalization) etc. Q. What are the logical components to consider when building a portal to the Java Portlet specification (JSR 168)? Logical components of a Portal Decorations & Portal controls page Portlet Note: The distinction between Portlets: are like Servlets but a single window : the portal server and the portlet generates only a fragment of the container is a logical one. These html markup a user sees from his/her minimized browser. Portlets are not allowed to Title state, may be one physical component. generate HTML tags such as <body>, maximized <title>, <head>, <iframe>, <frame>, state etc. <base> News (container invokes lifecycle methods & portlets return generated fragment of markup) (portal server aggregates portal < NewsPortlet content> WeatherPortlet markups for display) Portal Server Portal container Stock Quote StockQuotePortlet <StockQuotePortlet content> Weather < WeatherPortlet content> NewsPortlet Portlet fragment Portal server: is an application, which aggregates portlet applications together in a presentable format to the user. In addition to being a presentation layer, it allows users to customize their views including what portlet applications to show, colors, images etc. Also provides additional services like single sign-on security etc.
- 222. Enterprise – Weband Application servers 221 Portlet Container: Provides a run-time environment to portlets, much in the same way a servlet container provides the environment for servlets. The portlet container manages portlets by invoking their lifecycle methods (init(..), processAction(..), render(..), destroy() etc ). The container forwards requests to an appropriate portlet. When a portlet generates a response, the container sends it to the portal server to be rendered to the user. Portlet: provides content to its calling portal container for the purpose of being displayed on a portal page. Portlets are like servlets but portlets do not generate complete HTML documents. They only generate fragments that are included on the final portal page. Portlet applications are essentially extended Web applications (i.e. a layer on top of servlets). Portlets also share the application context with servlets and JSPs and can even include the output of another servlet or JSP as part of their content. User’s actions are received within a portlet in the form of both action (to respond to user’s interactions like search etc) and render methods (to paint the output of the portlet). Note: Under the covers the GUI windows News, Stock Quote and Weather shown in the diagram are different applications, developed independently of each other and deployed as individual .war in the portal server. Q. How do portlets differ from servlets? The Portlet API is capable of using the existing application server infrastructure. You can call an EJB from your portlet, or you can start and participate in a global transaction controlled by your application server. In other words, portlets are Web components like servlets and can do pretty much every thing that a servlet can do except for a few important differences: • Portlets do not generate complete HTML documents. Portlets only generate fragments of HTML that are to be included as part of the final portal page. Portlets are not allowed to generate HTML tags like <title>, <head>, <body>, <frame>, <iframe>, <base>, etc. The portal server decides where these tags should go and provides additional <table>, <tr> and <td> tags for each portlet. Portlets can access either servlets or independent JSPs by directly including their output within a portlet’s rendered output, but only without these offending HTML tags. • Portlets are not directly tied to a URL and they use methods such as createActionURL( ..) or createRenderURL( ..) to construct a URL that allows a user to fire actions to render currently executing portlet. You cannot send somebody URL of a portlet but you can send him/her the URL of the portal page containing a portlet. • A Portlet can exist multiple times on the same page and the user is given the ability to control what portlets are displayed on his/her page (i.e. known as personalization). Also the user can minimize or maximize each portlet window. Q. What are portlet window states and portlet modes? Window states: To offer the user the ability to customize portlets, there are special window states like normal, minimized and maximized. A window state determines how much content should appear in a portlet. Normal will display the portlet’s data in the amount of space defined by the portal application, maximized will display only that portlet in the whole window, and minimized may display only one or two lines of text. Portal modes: determine what actions should be performed on a portlet. There are three standard modes like View, Edit and Help. Optional modes are possible. The GenericPortlet class defines three empty methods doEdit(..), doView(..) and doHelp(..). Your subclasses can implement any of these methods. Furthermore, the portlet can use these states and modes to determine what content it needs to show the user at any given point. Q. How do portlets provide customization in addition to window states and portlet modes? To provide customization portlets support preferences, which are name/value pairs that can be assigned an initial value and later tailored to other values based on user preference. Preferences are initially defined within the portlet’s deployment descriptor file portlet.xml and accessed through the PortletPreferences object, which provides methods to retrieve, change or store preferences. Preferences can also be read-only and also can be verified with validators. Q. How would you achieve design flexibility in a portal to cater for different look and feel? normal Website designers know the type and amount of the initial content but portal designers have to design the portal to be flexible enough to meet diverse clients’ and users’ needs. Design flexibility can be achieved by using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to avoid hard coding colors and images into the portal so that customers can easily customize (i.e. modify) the look of their portal.
- 223. 222 Enterprise – Best practices and performance considerations Enterprise - Best practices and performance considerations Q 123: Give some tips on J2EE application server performance tuning? PI FAQ A 123: Set the Web container threads, which will be used to process incoming HTTP requests. The minimum size should be tuned to handle the average load of the container and maximum should be tuned to handle the peak load. The maximum size should be less than or equal to the number of threads in your Web server. Application servers maintain a pool of JDBC resources so that a new connection does not need to be created for each transaction. Application servers can also cache your prepared statements to improve performance. So you can tune the minimum and maximum size of these pools. Tune your initial heap size for the JVM so that the garbage collector runs at a suitable interval so that it does not cause any unnecessary overhead. Adjust the value as required to improve performance. Set the session manager settings appropriately based on following guidelines: Set the appropriate value for in memory session count. Reduce the session size. Don’t enable session persistence unless required by your application. Invalidate your sessions when you are finished with them by setting appropriate session timeout. Calls to EJB from a separate JVM are handled by ORB (Object Request Broker). ORB uses a pool of threads to handle these requests. The thread pool size should be set appropriately to handle average and peak loads. If a servlet or JSP file is called frequently with identical URL parameters then they can be dynamically cached to improve performance. Turn the application server tracing off unless required for debugging. Some application servers support lazy loading and dirty marker strategies with EJB to improve performance. Q 124: Explain some of the J2EE best practices? BP FAQ A 124: Recycle your valuable resources by either pooling or caching. You should create a limited number of resources and share them from a common pool (e.g. pool of threads, pool of database connections, pool of objects etc). Caching is simply another type of pooling where instead of pooling a connection or object, you are pooling remote data (database data) and placing it in the memory (using Hashtable etc). Avoid embedding business logic in a protocol dependent manner like in JSPs, HttpServlets, Struts action classes etc. This is because your business logic should be not only executed by your Web clients but also required to be shared by various GUI clients like Swing based stand alone application, WAP clients etc. Automate the build process with tools like Ant, CruiseControl, and Maven etc. In an enterprise application the build process can become quite complex and confusing. Build test cases first (i.e. Test Driven Development (TDD), refer section Emerging Technologies) using tools like JUnit. Automate the testing process and integrate it with build process. Separate HTML code from the Java code: Combining HTML and Java code in the same source code can make the code less readable. Mixing HTML and scriptlet will make the code extremely difficult to read and maintain. The display or behavior logic can be implemented as a custom tags by the Java developers and Web designers can use these Tags as the ordinary XHTML tags. It is best practice to use multi-threading and stay away from single threaded model of the servlet unless otherwise there is a compelling reason for it. Shared resources can be synchronized or used in read-only
- 224. Enterprise – Bestpractices and performance considerations 223 manner or shared values can be stored in a database table. Single threaded model can adversely affect performance. Apply the following JSP best practices: Place data access logic in JavaBeans: The code within the JavaBean is readily accessible to other JSPs and Servlets. Factor shared behavior out of Custom Tags into common JavaBeans classes: The custom tags are not used outside JSPs. To avoid duplication of behavior or business logic, move the logic into JavaBeans and get the custom tags to utilize the beans. Choose the right “include” mechanism: What are the differences between static and a dynamic include? Using includes will improve code reuse and maintenance through modular design. Which one to use? Refer Q31 in Enterprise section. Use style sheets (e.g. css), template mechanism (e.g. struts tiles etc) and appropriate comments (both hidden and output comments). If you are using EJBs apply the EJB best practices as described in Q82 in Enterprise section. Use the J2EE standard packaging specification to improve portability across Application Servers. Use proven frameworks like Struts, Spring, Hibernate, JSF etc. Apply appropriate proven J2EE design patterns to improve performance and minimize network communications cost (Session façade pattern, Value Object pattern etc). Batch database requests to improve performance. For example Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(……). Statement stmt = con.createStatement(). stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Address…………”); stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Contact…………”); stmt.addBatch(“INSERT INTO Personal”); int[] countUpdates = stmt.executeBatch(); Use “PreparedStatements” instead of ordinary “Statements” for repeated reads. Avoid resource leaks by Closing all database connections after you have used them. Cleaning up the objects after you have finished with them especially when an object having a long life cycle refers to a number of objects with short life cycles, then you have the potential for memory leak. Having the resource (i.e. database connections, statements, etc) clean up code in a finally {} block, which is always executed, even if an exception is thrown. Handle and propagate exceptions correctly. Decide between checked and unchecked (i.e. RunTime) exceptions. Q 125: Explain some of the J2EE best practices to improve performance? BP PI FAQ A 125: In short, manage valuable resources wisely and recycle them where possible, minimize network overheads and serialization cost, and optimize all your database operations. Manage and recycle your valuable resources by either pooling or caching. You should create a limited number of resources and share them from a common pool (e.g. pool of threads, pool of database connections, pool of objects etc). Caching is simply another type of pooling where instead of pooling a connection or object, you are pooling remote data (database data), and placing it in memory (using Hashtable etc). Unused stateful session beans must be removed explicitly and appropriate idle timeout should be set to control stateful session bean life cycle. Use effective design patterns to minimize network overheads (Session facade, Value Object etc Refer Q84, Q85 in Enterprise section), use of fast-lane reader pattern for database access (Refer Q86 in Enterprise section). Caching of retrieved JNDI InitialContexts, factory objects (e.g. EJB homes) etc. using
- 225. 224 Enterprise – Best practices and performance considerations the service locator design pattern, which reduces expensive JNDI access with the help of caching strategies. Minimize serialization costs by marking references (like file handles, database connections etc), which do not require serialization by declaring them ‘transient’ (Refer Q19 in Java section). Use pass-by-reference where possible as opposed to pass by value. Set appropriate timeouts: for the HttpSession objects, after which the session expires, set idle timeout for stateful session beans etc. Improve the performance of database operations with the following tips: Database connections should be released when not needed anymore, otherwise there will be potential resource leakage problems. Apply least restrictive but valid transaction isolation level. Use JDBC prepared statements for overall database efficiency and for batching repetitive inserts and updates. Also batch database requests to improve performance. When you first establish a connection with a database by default it is in auto-commit mode. For better performance turn auto-commit off by calling the connection.setAutoCommit(false) method. Where appropriate (you are loading 100 objects into memory but use only 5 objects) lazy load your data to avoid loading the whole database into memory using the virtual proxy pattern. Virtual proxy is an object, which looks like an object but actually contain no fields until when one of its methods is called does it load the correct object from the database. Where appropriate eager load your data to avoid frequently accessing the database every time over the network. Tech Tip #7: Q. How do you identify a Java process id in a UNIX machine? $> ps –def | grep java Q. How do you get a thread dump of a Java process in a UNIX machine? $> kill -3 <process-id> Q. If you have multiple java processes running in a UNIX machine, how would you identify a particular process? $> /usr/ucb/bin/ps auxwww | grep java | grep <specific-process-description> Q. What tools/commands do you use to help you identify an out of control Java process in a UNIX machine? UNIX stat tools/commands like jvmstat, vmstat, iostat etc. Q. How would you display the number of active established connections to localhost in a UNIX machine? $> netstat –a | grep EST Q. How do you find out drive statistics in a UNIX machine? $> iostat -E
- 226. Enterprise – Logging,testing and deployment 225 Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment Q 126: Give an overview of Log4J? SF FAQ A 126: Log4j is a logging framework for Java. Log4J is designed to be fast and flexible. Log4J has 3 main components which work together to enable developers to log messages: Loggers [was called Category prior to version 1.2] Appenders Layout Logger: The foremost advantage of any logging API like Log4J over plain System.out.println is its ability to disable certain log statements while allowing others to print unhindered. Loggers are hierarchical. The root logger exists at the top of the hierarchy. The root logger always exists and it cannot be retrieved by name. The hierarchical nature of the logger is denoted by “.” notation. For example the logger “java.util” is the parent of child logger “java.util.Vector” and so on. Loggers may be assigned priorities such as DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR and FATAL. If a given logger is not assigned a priority, then it inherits the priority from its closest ancestor. The logging requests are made by invoking one of the following printing methods of the logger instance: debug(), info(), warn(), error(), and fatal(). Appenders and Layouts: In addition to selectively enabling and disabling logging requests based on the logger, the Log4J allows logging requests to multiple destinations. In Log4J terms the output destination is an appender. There are appenders for console, files, remote sockets, JMS, etc. One logger can have more than one appender. A logging request for a given logger will be forwarded to all the appenders in that logger plus the other appenders higher in the hierarchy. In addition to the output destination the output format can be categorized as well. This is accomplished by associating layout with an appender. The layout is responsible for formatting the logging request according to user’s settings. Sample configuration file: #set the root logger priority to DEBUG and its appender to App1 log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, App1 #App1 is set to a console appender log4j.appender.App1=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender #appender App1 uses a pattern layout log4j.appender.App1.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout. log4j.appender.App1.layout.ConversionPattern=%-4r [%t] %-5p %c %x -%m%n # Print only messages of priority WARN or above in the package com.myapp log4j.Logger.com.myapp=WARN XML configuration for Log4j is available, and is usually the best practice. If you have both the log4j.xml and log4j.properties, then log4j.xml takes precedence. Q 127: How do you initialize and use Log4J? SF CO A 127: public class MyApp { //Logger is a utility wrapper class to be written with appropriate printing methods static Logger log = Logger.getLogger (MyApp.class.getName()); public void my method() { if(log.isDebugEnabled()) log.debug(“This line is reached………………………..” + var1 + “-” + var2); ) } } Q 128: What is the hidden cost of parameter construction when using Log4J? SF PI A 128:
- 227. 226 Enterprise – Logging, testing and deployment Do not use in frequently accessed methods or loops: CO log.debug (“Line number” + intVal + “ is less than ” + String.valueOf(array[i])); The above construction has a performance cost in frequently accessed methods and loops in constructing the message parameter, concatenating the String etc regardless of whether the message will be logged or not. Do use in frequently accessed methods or loops: CO if (log.isDebugEnabled()) { log.debug (“Line number” + intVal + “ is less than ” + String.valueOf(array[i])); } The above construction will avoid the parameter construction cost by only constructing the message parameter when you are in debug mode. But it is not a best practice to place log.isDebugEnabled() around all debug code. Q 129: What is the test phases and cycles? SD FAQ A 129: Unit tests (e.g. JUnit etc, carried out by developers). There are two popular approaches to testing server-side classes: mock objects, which test classes by simulating the server container, and in-container testing, which tests classes running in the actual server container. If you are using Struts framework, StrutsTestCase for JUnit allows you to use either approach, with very minimal impact on your actual unit test code. System tests or functional tests (carried out by business analysts and/or testers). Integration tests (carried out by business analysts, testers, developers etc). Regression tests (carried out by business analysts and testers). Stress volume tests or load tests (carried out by technical staff). User acceptance tests (UAT – carried out by end users). Each of the above test phases will be carried out in cycles. Refer Q14 in How would you go about… section for JUnit, which is an open source unit-testing framework. Q 130: Brief on deployment environments you are familiar with? FAQ A 130: Differ from project team to project team [Hint] : Application environments where “ear” files get deployed. Development box: can have the following instances of environments in the same machine (need not be clustered). Development environment used by developers. System testing environment used by business analysts. Staging box: can have the following instances of environments in the same machine (preferably clustered servers with load balancing) Integration testing environment used for integration testing, user acceptance testing etc. Pre-prod environment used for user acceptance testing, regression testing, and load testing or stress volume testing (SVT). [This environment should be exactly same as the production environment]. Production box: Production environment live site used by actual users. Data environments (Database) Note: Separate boxes [not the same boxes as where applications (i.e. ear files) are deployed] Development box (database). Used by applications on development and system testing environments. Separate instances can be created on the same box for separate environments like development and system testing.
- 228. Enterprise – Logging,testing and deployment 227 Staging Box (database) Used by applications on integration testing and user acceptance testing environments. Separate instances can be created on the same box for separate environments. Production Box (database) Live data used by actual users of the system. General Tip #7: Some interviewers would like to purposely disagree with your answer or confuse you even if you are sure that you are right. If you are confident then you should not give in. You should try to persuade your interviewer that you are right. If you cannot persuade your interviewer then how are you going to persuade your business users or fellow developers? Once I was asked When would you use a “const” keyword in Java?. My answer was that even though it is a reserved word in Java, it is not yet in use in Java (as of version Java 5.0, may be added to the language in the future). The interviewer quizzed me further by saying, Are you sure? My answer was yes, and then went on to say that in Java you declare a constant with a “final” keyword.
- 229. 228 Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational Enterprise – Personal and Behavioral/Situational Q 131: Tell me about yourself or about some of the recent projects you have worked with? What do you consider your most significant achievement? Why do you think you are qualified for this position? Why should we hire you and what kind of contributions will you make? FAQ A 131: [Hint:] Pick your recent projects and enthusiastically brief on it. Interviewer will be looking for how passionate you are about your past experience and achievements. Also is imperative that during your briefing, you demonstrate on a high level(without getting too technical) how you applied your skills and knowledge in some of the following key areas: Design Concepts: Refer Q02, Q03, Q19, Q20, Q21, Q91, Q98, and Q101. Design Patterns: Refer Q03, Q24, Q25, Q83, Q84, Q85, Q86, Q87, Q88 and Q111. Performance issues: Refer Q10, Q16, Q45, Q46, Q97, Q98, Q100, Q123, and Q125. Memory issues: Refer Q45 and Q93 Multi-threading (Concurrency issues): Refer Q16, Q34, and Q113 Exception Handling: Refer Q76 and Q77 Transactional issues: Refer Q43, Q71, Q72, Q73, Q74, Q75 and Q77. Security issues: Refer Q23, Q58, and Q81 Scalability issues: Refer Q20, Q21, Q120 and Q122. Best practices: Refer Q10, Q16, Q39, Q40, Q46, Q82, Q124, and Q125 Refer Q75 – Q89 in Java section for frequently asked non-technical questions. Q. Give me a high level description of your experience with the Java platform? What APIs do you have experience with? [Hint:] Servlet, JSP, JDBC, JNDI, EJB, JMS, Swing, Applet, etc. Q 132: Have you used any load testing tools? What source control systems have you used? What operating systems are you comfortable with? Which on-line technical resources do you use to resolve any design and/or development issues or to keep your knowledge up to date apart from Google? SD A 132: Load testing tools: Rational Robot, JMeter, LoadRunner, etc. Source control systems: CVS, Subversion, VSS (Visual Source Safe), Rational clear case etc. Refer Q14 in How would you go about section…. for CVS. Operating systems: NT, Unix, Linux, Solaris etc Online technical resources : http://www.javaranch.com, http://www.theserverside.com, http://java.sun.com/ etc. Q 133: Tell me a time where you had to deal with a difficult person? Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person? FAQ A 133: Situation: When you had started a new job as a technical lead with an insurance company, where you had to manage a small team of 4-5 developers. All your team members were quite co-operative and friendly except for one member whom you would like to call Mr. X. Every time you had to talk to Mr. X you could sense some resistance to co-operate and disclose any work related information. Mr. X is also in disagreement with your views, opinion etc. Why was this person difficult? The root cause for this behavior was due to Mr. X was overlooked for the position of technical lead after having worked on the system for about 3 years. Action: How did you handle that person? You had decided to be patient and tactful with Mr. X to earn his respect. After talking to a few members of the team and with your own observation you had determined that Mr. X was very technically talented but was not too popular with the business users because he always looked at things only from the technology perspective and failed to look at things from the business perspective and consequently turned a deaf year to some of the business requirements and also did not build a good rapport with the business. You always believed that having a good rapport and effective communication with the business is vital for the success of a project. So you decided to organize a two day workshop for your team and key
- 230. Enterprise – Personaland Behavioral/Situational 229 business users on agile development methodology with the focus on building a better communication with the business. You had organized an external off-site workshop with the help of an external facilitator. You could feel during and after the workshop that Mr.X started to realize the importance of building a good rapport with the business. At early stages you minimized any contacts with Mr.X to avoid any confrontational situations and with time and patience you managed to earn his respect by being flexible and tactful, being genuinely appreciative of Mr. X’s technical skills and contribution, being able to get Mr. X to realize the importance of building a good rapport with the business, giving Mr. X more responsibility and making him feel important. Results: Mr. X became more co-operative and also endeavored to build a better rapport with the business. Note: Some times you would be put in a difficult situation with the question, what would you do if no matter what you do, you cannot get along with a person say Mr Y? You could say that you would try to be patient and minimize or if possible avoid any contacts with Mr. Y to prevent any unpleasant situations. If that is not possible then you would have a discussion with your manager to see if he/she could improve the situation by mediating between you and Mr. Y. If none of the above approaches work then you would either move to a different team within the same organization or to another organization in the best interest of you and your organization. Q 134: What did you like best and least about your previous company? FAQ A 134: The above question reveals a lot about you. You need to make sure that what you like about your last job should be appealing to the job you are being interviewed for and what you liked least is not much importance. Liked best: You could say that you were able to enhance your skills in problem solving, coping with stressful situations, ability to meet deadlines etc. Also can say that you acquired new technical skills and experience by learning new frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry etc. Liked least: You could say that you were self-motivated and worked hard to achieve your deadlines but some of your team mates slacked off from time to time and you had to pick up the extra work to achieve the team goal. Note: The above answer discusses a negative aspect with a positive spin. You could also say that it was not challenging enough for you, but be prepared to explain, why it was not challenging enough for you. Q 135: Describe a situation when working as a team produced more successful results than if you had completed the project on your own? FAQ A 135: Situation: You could say that you have enjoyed working independently and as a member of the team, throughout your career and you could do both equally well. You could then say that you were involved in a project, which had a very tight deadline because it had to be completed before the end of financial year. You had to work in a team of 5 developers. Action: You tried to get everyone involved coming up with an effective solution to meet the deadline without compromising on quality by making time for brain-storming sessions with your team members where there are no right or wrong ideas. The creativity, collective experiences and skills of a group of people were going to be greater than that of one person and this can achieve better results through co-operation and motivation. Results: Team involvement motivated team members work smart and at times work long hours. You were able to meet the tight dead-line as a team without compromising on quality. General Tip #8: Some interviewers would like to ask questions that are impossible to answer to evaluate your problem solving skills. I was once asked How many gas stations are there in Sydney? Do not get upset. Try to solve it creatively because the interviewer is not looking for an exact answer but how well you go about solving it. My answer to the above question was looking up a Sydney street directory or ringing up Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) for number of major intersections in Sydney and multiply that by 2 (i.e. on average 2 gas stations per intersection). Alternatively you could say that there are 3 million people in Sydney of which 60% are above 18 years (i.e. 3,000,000 * 0.60 = 1.8 million) and hence hold a license. Say every 5 minutes a car pull up at a gas station (i.e. Say in 20 hours 240 cars will be serviced ). So to serve 1.8 million cars you would require 1,800,000/240 = 7500 gas stations. Another possible question might be, How many hair dressers are there in Sydney? How many liters of paint is required to paint the Sydney harbor? [Hint: Make a replica to a reduced scale say 1:100,000 (i.e. replica:actual) and evaluate the liters of paint required by painting the replica first and then multiply the result by 100,000. ]
- 231. 230 Enterprise – Software development process Enterprise – Software development process Q 136: What software development processes/principles are you familiar with? Which one have you liked the most and which one have you liked the least? SD FAQ A 136: Agile (i.e. lightweight) software development process is gaining popularity and momentum across organizations. Agile software development manifesto [Good read: http://www.agilemanifesto.org/principles.html]. Highest priority is to satisfy the customer. Welcome requirement changes even late in development life cycle. Business people and developers should work collaboratively. Form teams with motivated individuals who produce best designs and architectures. Teams should be pro-active on how to become more effective without becoming complacent. Quality working software is the primary measure of progress. Why is iterative development with vertical slicing used in agile development? Your overall software quality can be improved through iterative development, which provides you with constant feedback. Traditional Vs Agile approach Traditional approach With the tradional approach, Say for Presentation Layer example we have a fundamental flaw in the technical scope data layer, if this flaw gets only picked up milestone 1 after the milestone 3, then there will be lot milestone 2 milestone 3 Business Layer Business Layer of rework to be done to the business and the presentation layer. This is the major drawback with the traditional development Data Layer Data Layer Data Layer approach where there is no vertical slicing. project time Agile (light weight )approach Presen Presentation tation Layer Presentation Layer As you can see with the agile iterative technical scope Layer approach, a vertical slice is built for each iteration. So any fundamental flaw in iteration 1 iteration 2 iteration 3 Busine Business layer ss Business Layer design or coding can be picked up early layesr and rectified. Even deployment and testing Data will be carried out in vertical slices. Data Layer Data Layer Layer project time Several methodologies fit under this agile development methodology banner. All these methodologies share many characteristics like iterative and incremental development, test driven development, stand up meetings to improve communication, automatic testing, build and continuous integration of code etc. Among all the agile methodologies XP is the one which has got the most attention. Different companies use different flavors of agile methodologies by using different combinations of methodologies. How does vertical slicing influence customer perception? With the iterative and incremental approach, customer will be comfortable with the progress of the development as opposed to traditional big bang approach.
- 232. Enterprise – Softwaredevelopment process 231 Traditional Vs Agile perceived functionality As far as the developer is concerned As far as the developer is concerned 65% of coding has been completed but 65% of coding has been completed and Traditional from the customer's view only 20% of Agile from the customer's view 65% of the the functionality has been completed functionality has been completed. So the customer is happy. Presentation Layer Presentation Layer Business Layer Business Layer Data Layer Data Layer EXtreme Programming [XP] simple design, pair programming, unit testing, refactoring, collective code ownership, coding standards, etc. Refer Q10 in “How would you go about…” section. XP has four key values: Communication, Feedback, Simplicity and Courage. It then builds up some tried and tested practices and techniques. XP has a strong emphasis on testing where tests are integrated into continuous integration and build process, which yields a highly stable platform. XP is designed for smaller teams of 20 – 30 people. RUP (Rational Unified Process) Model driven architecture, design and development; customizable frameworks for scalable process; iterative development methodology; Re-use of architecture, code, component, framework, patterns etc. RUP can be used as an agile process for smaller teams of 20-30 people, or as a heavy weight process for larger teams of 50-100 people. Refer Q103 – Q105 in Enterprise section. Feature Driven Development [FDD] Jeff De Luca and long time OO guru Peter Coad developed feature Driven Development (FDD). Like the other adaptive methodologies, it focuses on short iterations that deliver tangible functionality. FDD was originally designed for larger project teams of around 50 people. In FDD's case the iterations are two weeks long. FDD has five processes. The first three are done at the beginning of the project. The last two are done within each iteration. Develop an Overall Model Build a Features List Plan by Feature Design by Feature Build by Feature The developers come in two kinds: class owners and chief programmers. The chief programmers are the most experienced developers. They are assigned features to be built. However they don't build them alone. Instead the chief programmer identifies which classes are involved in implementing the feature and gathers their class owners together to form a feature team for developing that feature. The chief programmer acts as the coordinator, lead designer, and mentor while the class owners do much of the coding of the feature. Test Driven Development [TDD] TDD is an iterative software development process where you first write the test with the idea that it must fail. Refer Q1 in Emerging Technologies/Frameworks section… Scrum Scrum divides a project into sprints (aka iterations) of 30 days. Before you begin a sprint you define the functionality required for that sprint and leave