Beginning Java 7

Beginning Java 7 guides you through version 7 of the Java language and a wide assortment of platform APIs. New Java 7 language features that are discussed include switch-on-string and try-with-resources. APIs that are discussed include Threading, the Collections Framework, the Concurrency Utilities, Swing, Java 2D, networking, JDBC, SAX, DOM, StAX, XPath, JAX-WS, and SAAJ. This book also presents an introduction to Android app development so that you can apply some of its knowledge to the exciting world of Android app development.

This book presents the following table of contents:

Chapter 1 introduces you to Java and begins to cover the Java language by focusing on fundamental concepts such as comments, identifiers, variables, expressions, and statements.

Chapter 2 continues to explore this language by presenting all of its features for working with classes and objects. You learn about features related to class declaration and object creation, encapsulation, information hiding, inheritance, polymorphism, interfaces, and garbage collection.

Chapter 3 focuses on the more advanced language features related to nested classes, packages, static imports, exceptions, assertions, annotations, generics, and enums. Additional chapters introduce you to the few features not covered in Chapters 1

through 3.

Chapter 4 largely moves away from covering language features (although it does introduce class literals and strictfp) while focusing on language-oriented APIs. You learn about Math, StrictMath, Package, Primitive Type Wrapper Classes, Reference, Reflection, String, StringBuffer and StringBuilder, Threading, BigDecimal, and BigInteger in this chapter.

Chapter 5 begins to explore Java's utility APIs by focusing largely on the Collections Framework. However, it also discusses legacy collection-oriented APIs and how to create your own collections.

Chapter 6 continues to focus on utility APIs by presenting the concurrency utilities along with the Objects and Random classes.

Chapter 7 moves you away from the command-line user interfaces that appear in previous chapters and toward graphical user interfaces. You first learn about the Abstract Window Toolkit foundation, and then explore the Java Foundation Classes in

terms of Swing and Java 2D. Appendix C explores Accessibility and Drag and Drop.

Chapter 8 explores filesystem-oriented I/O in terms of the File, RandomAccessFile, stream, and writer/reader classes.

Chapter 9 introduces you to Java's network APIs (e.g., sockets). It also introduces you to the JDBC API for interacting with...read more...