What is Spring?

What is Spring?
Spring is the most popular application development framework for enterprise Java. Millions of developers around the world use Spring Framework to create high performing, easily testable, reusable code.

Spring framework is an open source Java platform and it was initially written by Rod Johnson and was first released under the Apache 2.0 license in June 2003.

Uses of Spring Framework
   
Spring enables developers to develop enterprise-class applications using POJOs. The benefit of using only POJOs is that you do not need an EJB container product such as an application server but you have the option of using only a robust servlet container such as Tomcat or some commercial product.
  
 Spring is organized in a modular fashion. Even though the number of packages and classes are substantial, you have to worry only about ones you need and ignore the rest.

   Spring does not reinvent the wheel instead, it truly makes use of some of the existing technologies like several ORM frameworks, logging frameworks, JEE, Quartz and JDK timers, other view technologies.

 Testing an application written with Spring is simple because environment-dependent code is moved into this framework. Furthermore, by using JavaBean-style POJOs, it becomes easier to use dependency injection for injecting test data.

   
Spring's web framework is a well-designed web MVC framework, which provides a great alternative to web frameworks such as Struts or other over engineered or less popular web frameworks.

   
Spring provides a convenient API to translate technology-specific exceptions (thrown by JDBC, Hibernate, or JDO, for example) into consistent, unchecked exceptions.

  
 Lightweight IoC containers tend to be lightweight, especially when compared to EJB containers, for example. This is beneficial for developing and deploying applications on computers with limited memory and CPU resources.

 Spring provides a consistent transaction management interface that can scale down to a local transaction (using a single database, for example) and scale up to global transactions (using JTA, for example).

JAVA - Collections

The Collections Framework consists of three parts

• interfaces, the abstract data types that the framework supports.
• implementations, the concrete versions of these interfaces.
• algorithms, the predefined actions that can be defined on either the interfaces or their implementations.

1. All implementations are unsynchronized.
2. All implementations are serializable and cloneable
3. All implementations support having null elements.

The predefined algorithms for supporting the framework are found in the Collections and Arrays classes.
   
The collections framework was designed to meet several goals.

• The framework had to be high-performance. The implementations for the fundamental collections (dynamic arrays, linked lists, trees, and hashtables) are highly efficient.

• The framework had to allow different types of collections to work in a similar manner and with a high degree of interoperability.

• Extending and/or adapting a collection had to be easy.

Towards this end, the entire collections framework is designed around a set of standard interfaces. Several standard implementations such as LinkedList, HashSet, and TreeSet, of these interfaces are provided that you may use as-is and you may also implement your own collection, if you choose.
A collections framework is a unified architecture for representing and manipulating collections. All collections frameworks contain the following:

Interfaces: These are abstract data types that represent collections. Interfaces allow collections to be manipulated independently of the details of their representation. In object-oriented languages, interfaces generally form a hierarchy.

Implementations, i.e., Classes: These are the concrete implementations of the collection interfaces. In essence, they are reusable data structures.

Algorithms: These are the methods that perform useful computations, such as searching and sorting, on objects that implement collection interfaces. The algorithms are said to be polymorphic: that is, the same method can be used on many different implementations of the appropriate collection interface.

In addition to collections, the framework defines several map interfaces and classes. Maps store key/value pairs. Although maps are not collections in the proper use of the term, but they are fully integrated with collections.


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Java - Generics

Java Generic methods and generic classes enable programmers to specify, with a single method declaration, a set of related methods or, with a single class declaration, a set of related types, respectively.
Generics also provide compile-time type safety that allows programmers to catch invalid types at compile time.
Using Java Generic concept, we might write a generic method for sorting an array of objects, then invoke the generic method with Integer arrays, Double arrays, String arrays and so on, to sort the array elements.

Generic Methods:

You can write a single generic method declaration that can be called with arguments of different types. Based on the types of the arguments passed to the generic method, the compiler handles each method call appropriately. Following are the rules to define Generic Methods:

• All generic method declarations have a type parameter section delimited by angle brackets (< and >) that precedes the method's return type ( < E > in the next example).
• Each type parameter section contains one or more type parameters separated by commas. A type parameter, also known as a type variable, is an identifier that specifies a generic type name.
• The type parameters can be used to declare the return type and act as placeholders for the types of the arguments passed to the generic method, which are known as actual type arguments.
• A generic method's body is declared like that of any other method. Note that type parameters can represent only reference types, not primitive types (like int, double and char).

Example:

Following example illustrates how we can print array of different type using a single Generic method:

public class GenericMethodTest
{
   // generic method printArray                         
   public static < E > void printArray( E[] inputArray )
   {
      // Display array elements              
         for ( E element : inputArray ){        
            System.out.printf( "%s ", element );
         }
         System.out.println();
    }

    public static void main( String args[] )
    {
        // Create arrays of Integer, Double and Character
        Integer[] intArray = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
        Double[] doubleArray = { 1.1, 2.2, 3.3, 4.4 };
        Character[] charArray = { 'H', 'E', 'L', 'L', 'O' };

        System.out.println( "Array integerArray contains:" );
        printArray( intArray  ); // pass an Integer array

        System.out.println( "\nArray doubleArray contains:" );
        printArray( doubleArray ); // pass a Double array

        System.out.println( "\nArray characterArray contains:" );
        printArray( charArray ); // pass a Character array
    } 
}

This would produce the following result:

Array integerArray contains:
1 2 3 4 5 6

Array doubleArray contains:
1.1 2.2 3.3 4.4 

Array characterArray contains:
H E L L O

Bounded Type Parameters:

There may be times when you'll want to restrict the kinds of types that are allowed to be passed to a type parameter. For example, a method that operates on numbers might only want to accept instances of Number or its subclasses. This is what bounded type parameters are for.
To declare a bounded type parameter, list the type parameter's name, followed by the extends keyword, followed by its upper bound.

Example:

Following example illustrates how extends is used in a general sense to mean either "extends" (as in classes) or "implements" (as in interfaces). This example is Generic method to return the largest of three Comparable objects:

public class MaximumTest
{
   // determines the largest of three Comparable objects
   public static <T extends Comparable<T>> T maximum(T x, T y, T z)
   {                      
      T max = x; // assume x is initially the largest       
      if ( y.compareTo( max ) > 0 ){
         max = y; // y is the largest so far
      }
      if ( z.compareTo( max ) > 0 ){
         max = z; // z is the largest now                 
      }
      return max; // returns the largest object   
   }
   public static void main( String args[] )
   {
      System.out.printf( "Max of %d, %d and %d is %d\n\n", 
                   3, 4, 5, maximum( 3, 4, 5 ) );

      System.out.printf( "Maxm of %.1f,%.1f and %.1f is %.1f\n\n",
                   6.6, 8.8, 7.7, maximum( 6.6, 8.8, 7.7 ) );

      System.out.printf( "Max of %s, %s and %s is %s\n","pear",
         "apple", "orange", maximum( "pear", "apple", "orange" ) );
   }
}

This would produce the following result:

Maximum of 3, 4 and 5 is 5

Maximum of 6.6, 8.8 and 7.7 is 8.8

Maximum of pear, apple and orange is pear

Generic Classes:

A generic class declaration looks like a non-generic class declaration, except that the class name is followed by a type parameter section.
As with generic methods, the type parameter section of a generic class can have one or more type parameters separated by commas. These classes are known as parameterized classes or parameterized types because they accept one or more parameters.

Example:

Following example illustrates how we can define a generic class:

public class Box<T> {

  private T t;

  public void add(T t) {
    this.t = t;
  }

  public T get() {
    return t;
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
     Box<Integer> integerBox = new Box<Integer>();
     Box<String> stringBox = new Box<String>();
    
     integerBox.add(new Integer(10));
     stringBox.add(new String("Hello World"));

     System.out.printf("Integer Value :%d\n\n", integerBox.get());
     System.out.printf("String Value :%s\n", stringBox.get());
  }
}

Java Collections Framework

Prior to Java 2, Java provided ad hoc classes such as Dictionary, Vector, Stack, and Properties to store and manipulate groups of objects. Although these classes were quite useful, they lacked a central, unifying theme. Thus, the way that you used Vector was different from the way that you used Properties.
The collections framework was designed to meet several goals.

• The framework had to be high-performance. The implementations for the fundamental collections (dynamic arrays, linked lists, trees, and hashtables) are highly efficient.
• The framework had to allow different types of collections to work in a similar manner and with a high degree of interoperability.
• Extending and/or adapting a collection had to be easy.

Towards this end, the entire collections framework is designed around a set of standard interfaces. Several standard implementations such as LinkedList, HashSet, and TreeSet, of these interfaces are provided that you may use as-is and you may also implement your own collection, if you choose.
A collections framework is a unified architecture for representing and manipulating collections. All collections frameworks contain the following:

• Interfaces: These are abstract data types that represent collections. Interfaces allow collections to be manipulated independently of the details of their representation. In object-oriented languages, interfaces generally form a hierarchy.
• Implementations, i.e., Classes: These are the concrete implementations of the collection interfaces. In essence, they are reusable data structures.
• Algorithms: These are the methods that perform useful computations, such as searching and sorting, on objects that implement collection interfaces. The algorithms are said to be polymorphic: that is, the same method can be used on many different implementations of the appropriate collection interface.

In addition to collections, the framework defines several map interfaces and classes. Maps store key/value pairs. Although maps are not collections in the proper use of the term, but they are fully integrated with collections.

The Collection Interfaces:

The collections framework defines several interfaces. This section provides an overview of each interface:

SN	Interfaces with Description
1	The Collection Interface This enables you to work with groups of objects; it is at the top of the collections hierarchy.
2	The List Interface This extends Collection and an instance of List stores an ordered collection of elements.
3	The Set This extends Collection to handle sets, which must contain unique elements
4	The SortedSet This extends Set to handle sorted sets
5	The Map This maps unique keys to values.
6	The Map.Entry This describes an element (a key/value pair) in a map. This is an inner class of Map.
7	The SortedMap This extends Map so that the keys are maintained in ascending order.
8	The Enumeration This is legacy interface and defines the methods by which you can enumerate (obtain one at a time) the elements in a collection of objects. This legacy interface has been superceded by Iterator.

The Collection Classes:

Java provides a set of standard collection classes that implement Collection interfaces. Some of the classes provide full implementations that can be used as-is and others are abstract class, providing skeletal implementations that are used as starting points for creating concrete collections.
The standard collection classes are summarized in the following table:

SN	Classes with Description
1	AbstractCollection Implements most of the Collection interface.
2	AbstractList Extends AbstractCollection and implements most of the List interface.
3	AbstractSequentialList Extends AbstractList for use by a collection that uses sequential rather than random access of its elements.
4	LinkedList Implements a linked list by extending AbstractSequentialList.
5	ArrayList Implements a dynamic array by extending AbstractList.
6	AbstractSet Extends AbstractCollection and implements most of the Set interface.
7	HashSet Extends AbstractSet for use with a hash table.
8	LinkedHashSet Extends HashSet to allow insertion-order iterations.
9	TreeSet Implements a set stored in a tree. Extends AbstractSet.
10	AbstractMap Implements most of the Map interface.
11	HashMap Extends AbstractMap to use a hash table.
12	TreeMap Extends AbstractMap to use a tree.
13	WeakHashMap Extends AbstractMap to use a hash table with weak keys.
14	LinkedHashMap Extends HashMap to allow insertion-order iterations.
15	IdentityHashMap Extends AbstractMap and uses reference equality when comparing documents.

The AbstractCollection, AbstractSet, AbstractList, AbstractSequentialList and AbstractMap classes provide skeletal implementations of the core collection interfaces, to minimize the effort required to implement them.
The following legacy classes defined by java.util have been discussed in previous tutorial:

SN	Classes with Description
1	Vector This implements a dynamic array. It is similar to ArrayList, but with some differences.
2	Stack Stack is a subclass of Vector that implements a standard last-in, first-out stack.
3	Dictionary Dictionary is an abstract class that represents a key/value storage repository and operates much like Map.
4	Hashtable Hashtable was part of the original java.util and is a concrete implementation of a Dictionary.
5	Properties Properties is a subclass of Hashtable. It is used to maintain lists of values in which the key is a String and the value is also a String.
6	BitSet A BitSet class creates a special type of array that holds bit values. This array can increase in size as needed.

The Collection Algorithms:

The collections framework defines several algorithms that can be applied to collections and maps. These algorithms are defined as static methods within the Collections class.
Several of the methods can throw a ClassCastException, which occurs when an attempt is made to compare incompatible types, or an UnsupportedOperationException, which occurs when an attempt is made to modify an unmodifiable collection.
Collections define three static variables: EMPTY_SET, EMPTY_LIST, and EMPTY_MAP. All are immutable.

SN	Algorithms with Description
1	The Collection Algorithms Here is a list of all the algorithm implementation.

How to use an Iterator ?

Often, you will want to cycle through the elements in a collection. For example, you might want to display each element.
The easiest way to do this is to employ an iterator, which is an object that implements either the Iterator or the ListIterator interface.
Iterator enables you to cycle through a collection, obtaining or removing elements. ListIterator extends Iterator to allow bidirectional traversal of a list and the modification of elements.

SN	Iterator Methods with Description
1	Using Java Iterator Here is a list of all the methods with examples provided by Iterator and ListIterator interfaces.

How to use a Comparator ?

Both TreeSet and TreeMap store elements in sorted order. However, it is the comparator that defines precisely what sorted order means.
This interface lets us sort a given collection any number of different ways. Also this interface can be used to sort any instances of any class (even classes we cannot modify).

SN	Iterator Methods with Description
1	Using Java Comparator Here is a list of all the methods with examples provided by Comparator Interface.

Java - Data Structures

The data structures provided by the Java utility package are very powerful and perform a wide range of functions. These data structures consist of the following interface and classes:

• Enumeration
• BitSet
• Vector
• Stack
• Dictionary
• Hashtable
• Properties

All these classes are now legacy and Java-2 has introduced a new framework called Collections Framework, which is discussed in next tutorial:

The Enumeration:

The Enumeration interface isn't itself a data structure, but it is very important within the context of other data structures. The Enumeration interface defines a means to retrieve successive elements from a data structure.
For example, Enumeration defines a method called nextElement that is used to get the next element in a data structure that contains multiple elements.
To have more detail about this interface, check The Enumeration.

The BitSet

The BitSet class implements a group of bits or flags that can be set and cleared individually.
This class is very useful in cases where you need to keep up with a set of Boolean values; you just assign a bit to each value and set or clear it as appropriate.
To have more detail about this class, check The BitSet.

The Vector

The Vector class is similar to a traditional Java array, except that it can grow as necessary to accommodate new elements.
Like an array, elements of a Vector object can be accessed via an index into the vector.
The nice thing about using the Vector class is that you don't have to worry about setting it to a specific size upon creation; it shrinks and grows automatically when necessary.
To have more detail about this class, check The Vector.

The Stack

The Stack class implements a last-in-first-out (LIFO) stack of elements.
You can think of a stack literally as a vertical stack of objects; when you add a new element, it gets stacked on top of the others.
When you pull an element off the stack, it comes off the top. In other words, the last element you added to the stack is the first one to come back off.
To have more detail about this class, check The Stack.

The Dictionary

The Dictionary class is an abstract class that defines a data structure for mapping keys to values.
This is useful in cases where you want to be able to access data via a particular key rather than an integer index.
Since the Dictionary class is abstract, it provides only the framework for a key-mapped data structure rather than a specific implementation.
To have more detail about this class, check The Dictionary.

The Hashtable

The Hashtable class provides a means of organizing data based on some user-defined key structure.
For example, in an address list hash table you could store and sort data based on a key such as ZIP code rather than on a person's name.
The specific meaning of keys in regard to hash tables is totally dependent on the usage of the hash table and the data it contains.
To have more detail about this class, check The Hashtable.

The Properties

Properties is a subclass of Hashtable. It is used to maintain lists of values in which the key is a String and the value is also a String.
The Properties class is used by many other Java classes. For example, it is the type of object returned by System.getProperties( ) when obtaining environmental values.

Java – Packages The import Keyword:

The import Keyword:

If a class wants to use another class in the same package, the package name does not need to be used. Classes in the same package find each other without any special syntax.

Example:

Here, a class named Boss is added to the payroll package that already contains Employee. The Boss can then refer to the Employee class without using the payroll prefix, as demonstrated by the following Boss class.

package payroll;

public class Boss
{
   public void payEmployee(Employee e)
   {
      e.mailCheck();
   }
}

What happens if Boss is not in the payroll package? The Boss class must then use one of the following techniques for referring to a class in a different package.

• The fully qualified name of the class can be used. For example:

payroll.Employee

• The package can be imported using the import keyword and the wild card (*). For example:

import payroll.*;

• The class itself can be imported using the import keyword. For example:

import payroll.Employee;

Note: A class file can contain any number of import statements. The import statements must appear after the package statement and before the class declaration.

The Directory Structure of Packages:

Two major results occur when a class is placed in a package:

• The name of the package becomes a part of the name of the class, as we just discussed in the previous section.
• The name of the package must match the directory structure where the corresponding bytecode resides.

Here is simple way of managing your files in Java:
Put the source code for a class, interface, enumeration, or annotation type in a text file whose name is the simple name of the type and whose extension is .java. For example:

// File Name :  Car.java

package vehicle;

public class Car {
   // Class implementation.   
}

Now, put the source file in a directory whose name reflects the name of the package to which the class belongs:

....\vehicle\Car.java

Now, the qualified class name and pathname would be as below:

• Class name -> vehicle.Car
• Path name -> vehicle\Car.java (in windows)

In general, a company uses its reversed Internet domain name for its package names. Example: A company's Internet domain name is apple.com, then all its package names would start with com.apple. Each component of the package name corresponds to a subdirectory.
Example: The company had a com.apple.computers package that contained a Dell.java source file, it would be contained in a series of subdirectories like this:

....\com\apple\computers\Dell.java

At the time of compilation, the compiler creates a different output file for each class, interface and enumeration defined in it. The base name of the output file is the name of the type, and its extension is .class
For example:

// File Name: Dell.java

package com.apple.computers;
public class Dell{
      
}
class Ups{
      
}

Now, compile this file as follows using -d option:

$javac -d . Dell.java

This would put compiled files as follows:

.\com\apple\computers\Dell.class
.\com\apple\computers\Ups.class

You can import all the classes or interfaces defined in \com\apple\computers\ as follows:

import com.apple.computers.*;

Like the .java source files, the compiled .class files should be in a series of directories that reflect the package name. However, the path to the .class files does not have to be the same as the path to the .java source files. You can arrange your source and class directories separately, as:

<path-one>\sources\com\apple\computers\Dell.java

<path-two>\classes\com\apple\computers\Dell.class

By doing this, it is possible to give the classes directory to other programmers without revealing your sources. You also need to manage source and class files in this manner so that the compiler and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) can find all the types your program uses.
The full path to the classes directory, <path-two>\classes, is called the class path, and is set with the CLASSPATH system variable. Both the compiler and the JVM construct the path to your .class files by adding the package name to the class path.
Say <path-two>\classes is the class path, and the package name is com.apple.computers, then the compiler and JVM will look for .class files in <path-two>\classes\com\apple\compters.
A class path may include several paths. Multiple paths should be separated by a semicolon (Windows) or colon (Unix). By default, the compiler and the JVM search the current directory and the JAR file containing the Java platform classes so that these directories are automatically in the class path.

Set CLASSPATH System Variable:

To display the current CLASSPATH variable, use the following commands in Windows and UNIX (Bourne shell):

• In Windows -> C:\> set CLASSPATH
• In UNIX -> % echo $CLASSPATH

To delete the current contents of the CLASSPATH variable, use :

• In Windows -> C:\> set CLASSPATH=
• In UNIX -> % unset CLASSPATH; export CLASSPATH

To set the CLASSPATH variable:

• In Windows -> set CLASSPATH=C:\users\jack\java\classes
• In UNIX -> % CLASSPATH=/home/jack/java/classes; export CLASSPATH

Java - Packages

Packages are used in Java in order to prevent naming conflicts, to control access, to make searching/locating and usage of classes, interfaces, enumerations and annotations easier, etc.
A Package can be defined as a grouping of related types(classes, interfaces, enumerations and annotations ) providing access protection and name space management.
Some of the existing packages in Java are::

• java.lang - bundles the fundamental classes
• java.io - classes for input , output functions are bundled in this package

Programmers can define their own packages to bundle group of classes/interfaces, etc. It is a good practice to group related classes implemented by you so that a programmer can easily determine that the classes, interfaces, enumerations, annotations are related.
Since the package creates a new namespace there won't be any name conflicts with names in other packages. Using packages, it is easier to provide access control and it is also easier to locate the related classes.

Creating a package:

When creating a package, you should choose a name for the package and put a package statement with that name at the top of every source file that contains the classes, interfaces, enumerations, and annotation types that you want to include in the package.
The package statement should be the first line in the source file. There can be only one package statement in each source file, and it applies to all types in the file.
If a package statement is not used then the class, interfaces, enumerations, and annotation types will be put into an unnamed package.

Example:

Let us look at an example that creates a package called animals. It is common practice to use lowercased names of packages to avoid any conflicts with the names of classes, interfaces.
Put an interface in the package animals:

/* File name : Animal.java */
package animals;

interface Animal {
   public void eat();
   public void travel();
}

Now, put an implementation in the same package animals:

package animals;

/* File name : MammalInt.java */
public class MammalInt implements Animal{

   public void eat(){
      System.out.println("Mammal eats");
   }

   public void travel(){
      System.out.println("Mammal travels");
   } 

   public int noOfLegs(){
      return 0;
   }

   public static void main(String args[]){
      MammalInt m = new MammalInt();
      m.eat();
      m.travel();
   }
} 

Now, you compile these two files and put them in a sub-directory called animals and try to run as follows:

$ mkdir animals
$ cp Animal.class  MammalInt.class animals
$ java animals/MammalInt
Mammal eats
Mammal travels