Java Development Exercises
Overview
Almost all lectures and tutorialsl in this course will concentrate on the design and analysis of data structures and algorithms. However, assignments will include questions that must be answered by developing Java programs and giving evidence that these correctly and efficiently solve the problems they should.
A small amount of help to set up your Java development environment will be provided during the second week of the course. Students will be expected to make use of the supplied material — available on this page — and work independently to get things running, after that.
Useful Information If You Just Arrived — or Only Use Windows
Most of the students in this course have completed two half-courses in computer science at the University of Calgary and they can probably skip over the beginning of the material that follows. Students who are also familiar with the UNIX/Linux operating system and have already been using it to do course work, for computer science courses, can possibly skip over the rest as well. However, students who have only been using the Windows operating system will need to become familiar with UNIX/Linux and the support for this provided by the Department of Computer Science.
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Computer Science Technical Support: Students who have just arrived at the University of Calgary may need to start here, in order to obtain a CPSC user account and learn about the general computing services that are available.
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Remote Access — SSH: This is one of the articles linked to, from the general “Technical Support” page above. It gives information about how the department's computing facilities can be accessed from off-campus.
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UNIX/Linux Tutorial: Students who have only used Windows, before this, should work through everything in the “Unix/Linux for Beginners” section of this online tutorial. The section on “Unix/Linux Shell Programming” is also recommended, and might be quite useful later on, when “testing using shell scripts” is considered.
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Bash Guide for Beginners: The tutorial given by the previous link might be all that you need! It discusses the use of any of several similar “shell command languages.” This second tutorial concerns one of these shell command command languages, namely, the language “Bash” that is used, by default in the computer science department.
The first three chapters include information — including information about “Shell initialization files” — that will might be useful if you need to make changes to your computing environment, in order to use Java development tools, during this course. It is not clear that you will need material in later chapters during this course, but they might be of interest.
Exercise #1: Waking Up and Smelling the Roses (or the Coffee)
This includes steps to follow in order to make sure that Java can be used with the Department of Computer Science’s systems, along with links to information about the Java programming language.
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Things To Do
- Links Mentioned in This Exercise:
Exercise #2: Connecting the Dots (or the Class Files)
This includes instructions that you can follow in order to make sure that Java class files are stored, and found, in standard places. This is important, and you should make sure that things work as expected now, because it is not guaranteed that your source code will be compilable by markers when you submit code for assessment, otherwise!
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Things To Do
- Code Mentioned in This Exercise: [ Fibonacci1.java ]
Exercise #3: Enjoying Coffee at Home
This includes instructions that you can follow to set up a Java development on your computer at home (if you do not already have one), so that most of your work can be done without logging onto a compute server at school. Please note, though, that any code that you submit for assessment will be compiled, run and tested using the Department of Computer Science's Unix compute servers — so that marks might be lost, or your code might not be marked at all, if your code cannot be compiled and run in this way.
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Things To Do
- Links to Software Download Sites
- Other Links of Interest:
- Support for Windows Users: Setting the CLASSPATH in Windows 10: A suggested way to do this, without learning about DOS or using a UNIX/Linux environment
- Cygwin: A runtime environment that can be used on Windows to run UNIX/Linux command shells like “bash”
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Windows Subsystem for Linux:
A runtime environmnet that can be used for Windows 10 to run
many UNIX/Linux command-line tools, utilities and applications
- Eclipse: An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can be used to develop, compile and run Java programs on many computing platforms
- Netbeans: Another Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can be used to develop, compile and run Java programs. While it cannot handle projects as large as Eclipse can, and is not as customizable, it is easier to learn
Exercise #4: Give a Man a Fish... (About Oracle’s Java Documentation)
This includes information about Oracle’s online Java documentation. It also mentions a problem with the Java implementations from Lecture #3 and Tutorial Exercises #3 and #4, and encourages you to try to use the online documentation, being discussed, to develop better Java implementations to solve the problem that has been noticed.
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Things To Do
- Java Documentation Discussed in This Exercise
- Python and Java Code Mentioned in This Exercise
- Fibonacci1.py: Python Implementation of an Algorithm from Lecture #2
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Fibonacci1.java:
Java Implementation of an Algorithm from Lecture #2
- Fibonacci2.py: Python Implementation of an Algorithm from Tutorial Exercise #3
- Fibonacci2.java: Java Implementationof an Algorithm from Tutorial Exercise #3
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Fibonacci2a.java:
Better Implementation of an Algorithm from Tutorial Exercise #3
- Fibonacci3.py: Python Implementation of an Algorithm from Lecture #3
- Fibonacci3.java: Java Implementation of an Algorithm from Lecture #3
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Fibonacci3a.java:
Better Java Implementation of an Algorithm from Lecture #3
- Fibonacci4.py: Python Implementation of an Algorithm from Tutorial Exercise #4
- Fibonacci4.java: Java Implementation of an Algorithm from Tutorial Exercise #4
- Fibonacci4a.java: Better Java Implementation of an Algorithm from Tutorial Exercise #4
Exercise #5: What Do You Mean, My Code Isn’t Flawless?.... Part One
This discusses the use of the test harness, JUnit, to run tests on Java programs.
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Things To Do
- Jova Code Used in This Exercise
- Fibonacci3b.java: An implementation of a modified version of the algorithm introduced in Lecture #3
- FibLoopTest.java: Unit tests for the fibLoop method in the above program
Exercise #6: What Do You Mean, My Code Isn’t Flawless?... Part Two
This discusses the use of Unix shell scripts to perform additional tests on programs.
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Things To Do
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Fibonacci3b.java:
A Java program that is tested in this exercise
- Shell Scripts Mentioned in This Exercise
- test_Fibonacci3b_main.sh: Tests for the main method of Fibonacci3b.java
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test_Fibonacci3b.sh:
Tests for the main and inner method of Fibonacci3b.java
- Additional Files and Links:
- test_main_output.txt: Output that should be obtained from an execution of test_Fibonacci3b_main.sh
- Bash Scripting Tutorial for Beginners
Exercise #7: Documentation on Steroids I — How To Be More Assertive
This discusses the use of “assert” statements to make programs self-checking, in order to make testing and debugging easier, without compromsing the correctness or efficiency of these programs.-
Things To Do
- Programs Used in This Exercise:
- Fibonacci3c.java: From Lecture #3: A reliable, but less efficient, Fibonacci number calculator
- Fibonacci4c.java: From Tutorial Exercise #4 — A more space-efficient Fibonacci number calculator
Exercise #8: Holy Software Flaw, Batman!!! How Are We Going To Get Out of THIS!?!?!
This introduces the Java code debugger “jdb” and takes you through an example of its use.
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Things To Do
- Programs Used in This Exercise:
- Fibonacci4c.java: Another version of this program, with an error deliberately introduced
Exercise #9: Documentation on Steroids II — Javadoc
This provides more information about the use of “javadoc” to produce online documentation for Java programs.
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Things To Do
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Sketch of Proof of Correctness of the Program Considered in
This Exercise
- Code Used in This Exercise:
- Fibonacci.java: Program whose documentation is being produced
- SlowFibonacciTest.java: Tests for one of the methods in the above program
- EvalTest.java: Tests for another of the methods in the above program
- test_Fibonacci_main.sh: Tests for the main method in the above program
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test_Fibonacci.sh:
Tests for all methods in the above program
- Documentation of the above program, produced using Javadoc
Exercise #10: Time Keeps on Ticking... Ticking... Ticking...
This describes the UNIX/Linux “time” utility, which can be used to measure the time used by a software execution.
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Things To Do
- FibonacciWithLoop.java: Another implementation of the iterative algorithm introduced in Tutorial Exercise #4
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Fibonacci.java:
Implementation of the algorithm introduced in Development
Exercise #9
The following shell scripts for use at home are based on the assumption that the GNU time utility has been installed and is available as
/usr/local/bin/time
They will need to be edited if the utility has been installed somewhere else and they cannot be used, at all, if this has not been installed at all — so that the “time” utility that is part of the UNIX/Linux shell is to be used instead.
- Shell Scripts for Use at School
- time_FibonacciWithLoop.sh: Shell script that times executions of FibonacciWithLoop.java
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time_Fibonacci.sh:
Shell script that times executions of Fibonacci.java
- Shell Scrips for Use at Home
- time_FibonacciWithLoop.sh: Shell script that times executions of FibonacciWithLoop.java
- time_Fibonacci.sh: Shell script that times executions of Fibonacci.java
Exercise #11: A “Profiler” Isn’t Just Somebody Who Catches Bad Guys on TV
This introduces the Java profiler, “visualvm” which can be used to measure and display information about the computing resources used when a program is executed.
