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Lab04 Solution
Introduction to File I/O, command line arguments, Exceptions, and Iterators
# Given Instructions
Command-line Arguments
When you input the command:
javac -d . *.java
Everything after the javac command is said to be its arguments. Java lets us write programs that accept and handle command-line arguments too. That is exactly what String[] args are in the main methods you write. The String array args will hold all the command line arguments you pass in when you run the program at the command line.
The following class, EchoArgs.java has been provided for you:
package lab04;
import java.util.Arrays;
/* YOUR ANSWERS HERE:
* ------------------
* 1.
* 2.
* 3.
* 4.
* 5.
*/
public class EchoArgs {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(args));
}
}
This program simply prints any command line arguments you give to it. In the given comment block, fill in what gets print out when you execute (copy/paste each command)
java lab04.EchoArgs
java lab04.EchoArgs hello
java lab04.EchoArgs hello world
java lab04.EchoArgs "hello world"
java lab04.EchoArgs *
Your answers in the comment will be graded.
Exceptions
You may have encountered Exceptions in doing previous assignments but we are now going to formally introduce them. Simply put, exceptions are the way for signalling and handling when things go wrong during a program's runtime. When working with an array, one exception we could come across is ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException. This will happen when accessing an element with an index less than zero or an index greater than or equal to the array's length.
package lab04;
public class ArrayExample{
public static void main(String[] args){
double[] array = new double[10];
//insert the numbers 1 through 10
//is this loop okay?
for(int i = 1; i <= array.length; i++){
array[i-1] = i;
}
//if there was no issue above, do you see an issue here?
for(int i = 0; i < array.length; i++){
System.out.println(array[i-1]);
}
}
}
A more common exception is NullPointerException which happens whenever you try to do something with nothing.
While primitive (basic) types like int have predefined default values like 0, arrays' and Objects' default value is null.
If you don't initialize an Object, it remains null. If you then try and call a method on that Object, you will get a
NullPointerException for trying to do something (call a method) on nothing (the null Object). See if you can spot the bug in the
following code:
class BadClass {
private int[] myArray;
public BadClass() {
System.out.println("There are " + myArray.length + " elements");
}
public static void main(String[] args){
BadClass breaks = new BadClass();
}
}
Recall exceptions are for signalling and handling errors. To signal an error (i.e. exception) we throw a new Exception object.
Once you signal an error, the function caller can choose to either handle or ignore the exception.
The IllegalArgumentException class is commonly used to tell the method caller they have provided an
illegal argument to the method.
public double factorial(int num) {
if (num < 0) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot take factorial of negative number");
}
// ...
}
A common error that might occur when doing input/output with files is that the file might not be there.
This is what the FileNotFoundException class represents. To handle the possibility of an error, we try to do the
dangerous code, and if anything goes wrong we catch it.
try{
FileReader myFile = new FileReader("file_that_doesnt_exist.txt");
}
catch(FileNotFoundException e) {
System.out.println("That file does not exist!");
}
All the above examples can be found in the folder Exception_Examples. Feel free to compile and run them for yourself to see the exceptions occur first hand.
Armed with knowledge of how to use command-line arguments and exceptions, let's do some coding.
Reading from text file
Create a class, FileExtractor with two private fields, an int[] named array and List<Integer named list. The idea of this class is to hold an array and list whose elements it reads from a given file.
Import the following:
import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.io.File;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
Create a constructor that accepts a String fileName. The constructor will populate array and list with integers read from the file with name fileName. The body of your constructor will start off with
public FileExtractor(String fileName){
list = new ArrayList<Integer();
// try-with-resources block (sc is the resource we are trying to use)
try(Scanner sc = new Scanner(new File(fileName))){
}
catch(Exception e){
}
}
The Scanner class is for scanning files and reading their data. We will try to read integers from
it and if anything goes wrong, we will catch the error. The format of the files you will be reading from is:
num_1
num_2
.
.
.
num_N
where each integer that is to be included in list and array are on their own line. With our scanner named sc,
we can retrieve the next integer from the file by calling the method nextInt() on our Scanner sc.
In the try block, while there is a next integer to scan (you can check if there is more to scan using Scanner's hasNext() method), add the next integer to list. Once you have added all the integers to list, initialize array so that it has the same length as the size of list. Finally, copy over each int from list to array using a for loop.
Notice that we have a catch block that catches any Exception. However, we want to handle a FileNotFoundException in a specialized way. To do this, add another catch block between the try block and the catch block provided:
catch(FileNotFoundException e){
}
PLEASE NOTE: The order you place these two catch blocks matters. In general, you want to start with the most specialized Exception and then add more catch blocks for more general Exceptions.
In the FileNotFoundException catch block, assign array to an empty array, that is, an array of length 0. If anything wrong occurs, this leaves the array empty and not null. Note that list was already initialized to an empty ArrayList, so we don't have to do anything for list in this catch block. Additionally, add the following to the FileNotFoundException catch block:
System.out.println("File '" + fileName + "' not found, initializing both 'list' and 'array' to be empty\n");
In the Exception catch block, which will catch all other errors, add the following:
System.out.println("Error occurred while extracting data:\n");
e.printStackTrace();
Next, create getter methods for array and list as well as a toString method that returns:
"array: " + Arrays.toString(array) + "\nlist: " + list.toString();
Now to test your FileExtractor implementation, create a class called FileExtractorTester with a main method.
In the main method, check how many arguments you were passed in through the command-line. If you have not received exactly 1 argument, throw an IllegalArgumentException with the following message:
The program requires exactly 1 argument, the name of a file to be opened
Otherwise, create a new FileExtractor object, passing in the single command-line argument to the constructor. Print out a statement detailing what you expect to be printed out (see below). Then print out the FileExtractor object you created. You can just print the object, since we implemented the toString() method in the FileExtractor class.
The following file, input.txt has already been provided for you:
5
20
8
13
46
7
Run the FileExtractorTester with input.txt as a command line argument. Test that your program's output statements match.
More with the enhanced for loop
Back in the FileExtractor class, create a method public void removeOddElements(). This method has two for loops,
they must both be enhanced for loops or no credit. The void means that the method returns nothing. This method will have the effect
of removing the odd elements of array, or from another perspective, only keeping the even elements.
First, we must know how many even elements are in the array so use an enhanced for-loop to count the number of even ints in array. An int is even if that int divided by 2 has remainder 0, or in Java/C/Python i % 2 == 0. Make a temporary array whose length is the number of even ints in array.
Make an int index variable, initialized to 0, to track which index in the temporary array we are at.
Use an enhanced for loop to go through array once more. If the current int is even, copy it to the index slot in the
temporary array and increment index. After the for loop, we must assign the temporary array to array to make our changes persist after the method.
Back in the main method of FileExtractorTester, after you create the FileExtractor object and print it, call the removeOddElements() method on it. Print out what you expect to be printed out as well as the FileExtractor object after removal to verify your method works.
Still in this main method, but at the end, declare an int array of length 5. Print it out using Arrays.toString(). Note each element gets int's default of 0. Copy/paste the following enhanced for loop code:
int n = 0;
for (int i : array) {
i = n;
n++; // shorthand to increment by 1
}
Print out the array again. What do you see? What you expected? The array still has all zeroes because of how the enhanced for loop works. When we said for (int i : array), we made i a reference variable (pointer in C-speak) that refers to each element. So when we assign n to i, it is not the array element we are overwriting but the reference to the array element. Regular for loops must be used if you need to assign values to elements.
Enhanced for loops are best when you don't care about the indices of the element and you're only reading elements (not writing as we saw above).
Still in the main method, make an array of Strings with four strings of your choice. Use an enhanced for loop to print out each string and each string's length (number of characters), separated by a space (" "). A String's length is given by the length method (e.g. myString.length()). Make sure what is printed out makes sense.
USING ECLIPSE WITH THE COMMAND LINE. First the files have to be at the outer level of the Project, not in src and not in the package. They will appear at the bottom like this:
Next open the Configurations (the tine black down arrow next to the green Run arrow) -- sorry it is rotated!
In the Run Configurations Window pick the (x)= Arguments tab. Put in input.test, click Apply and then Run
Highlighting some Tricky Aspects of ArrayLists
Back in FileExtractor, create a method public void removeEvenElements(). Unlike removeOddElements(), which modified the field array, this method will modify our field list. Add the following enhanced for loop, which looks slick compared to the work we had to do in removeOddElements above:
for(Integer i : list){
//note i is not an index here, it is an Integer object found in list
if(i % 2 == 0) list.remove(i);
}
Recall that last lab we told you there was a remove() method that takes the index of the element in a List that you want to remove. It turns out there is another remove() method that will allow you to remove an object from the list (in this case one of the Integers). This means the above code will compile.
Back in FileExtractorTester, add a call to removeEvenElements() on the FileExtractor object, immediately after the removeOddElements() call. Compile and run the class.
What happened? You should now see that you get a ConcurrentModificationException. It turns out you cannot use enhanced for loops when you are trying to remove elements from a list. The reason is that enhanced for loops are syntatic sugar for using an Iterator, but you are still trying to call the remove() method of list rather than explicitly using the remove() method of an Iterator. You can read more about this here, and we will describe Iterators below.
So what can we do instead? One thing that works is something like the following, using a traditional for loop:
for(int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++){
//we can post decrement i, so after remove is called, i is adjusted for
//the shift of elements
if(list.get(i) % 2 == 0) list.remove(i--);
}
Notice that since a list shrinks, if we remove an element, then we need to shift i to the left, so we don't skip elements. The above will compile, and in fact work, but it is a bit janky. Do NOT use the traditional for loop shown here, even though it works, it is considered bad practice. Points will be taken off if you include it.
What is considered the best approach? We can use an Iterator<T. Add the import java.util.Iterator to FileExtractor. An Iterator is used to iterate over a data structure, in this case, our list. List has an iterator() method built in, which will return an Iterator that we can use to iterate over our list.
In removeEvenElements(), add the following line of code:
Iterator<Integer iter = list.iterator();
Notice that iter an Iterator<Integer because list holds Integers. We can check if the Iterator<Integer iter has more elements to iterate over in list using the method hasNext(), which returns true if there is more Integers for iter to iterate over, and false otherwise. So, while iter has more elements to iterate over, we can grab the next Integer i using the line:
Integer i = iter.next();
Calling the next() method will not only grab the next Integer in list, but iter will keep track internally, so that when you call next() again, it will return the element that comes after the one returned by next() previously. We can remove Integer i if it is even, by calling:
iter.remove();
The remove() method for Iterator iter will remove the last element that was returned when iter.next() was called. Additionally, it will automatically account for list shrinking, which means you do not have to account for elements being shifted around as you remove from list. All of that is handled for you internally. This is why Iterators are a preferred method for removing elements from an ArrayList, such as list. The final code in removeEvenElements() should now be:
Iterator<Integer iter = list.iterator();
while(iter.hasNext()){
Integer i = iter.next();
if(i % 2 == 0) iter.remove();
}
Go ahead and rerun FileExtractorTester and confirm you get the correct output. array should hold all the even elements, and list should hold all the odd elements from the original input.txt file.
Add this code to your files
Add any of the following imports to FileExtractor.java that you don’t have yet:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;
import java.util.stream.Stream;
MAKE SURE YOU DECLARED list as List<Integerlist;, not ArrayList<Integerlist. You did INSTANTIATE list as an ArrayList in the first constructor above.
Add this code to FileExtractor.java
public FileExtractor(){
}
public static FileExtractor makeUsingStream(String fileName) {
var retVal = new FileExtractor();
try (Stream<String lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(fileName))) {
retVal.list = lines
.map(line - line.trim())
.filter(line - line.length() 0)
.map(Integer::valueOf)
.collect(Collectors.toList());
retVal.array = retVal.list.stream()
.mapToInt(v - v)
.toArray();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return retVal;
}
public void streamRemoveOddElements() {
array = list.stream()
.mapToInt(v - v)
.filter(x - x%2 == 0)
.toArray();
}
public static FileExtractor oldWayButWorksOnAllFiles(String fileName) {
// Many have seen the Scanner version breaks on very large files
// this version does work. I have not seen the results from the
// Stream version and have not tested it myself
var retVal = new FileExtractor();
retVal.list = new ArrayList<();
try (var b = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName))) {
String readLine = "";
while((readLine = b.readLine()) != null) {
retVal.list.add(Integer.valueOf(readLine.trim()));
}
retVal.array = new int[retVal.list.size()];
int i = 0;
for(int x : retVal.list) retVal.array[i++] = x;
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return retVal;
}
Add this test code to FileExtractorTester.java
var test1 = FileExtractor.makeUsingStream(args[0]);
test1.streamRemoveOddElements();
System.out.println(test1);
var test2 = FileExtractor.oldWayButWorksOnAllFiles(args[0]);
test2.streamRemoveOddElements();
System.out.println(test2);
