Talkwards

The question if Java passes parameters by value or by reference seems to be one of the things newcomers to the Java language stumble upon quite often.

In general the answer is simple: Java is always pass-by-value.

What does this mean?

Pass-by-value means that you get a copy of the passed in object to work with, as opposed to a reference to it.

Let’s exemplify.  Assume we have a method that manipulates a List object:

public void updateList(List list) {

    ..;

}

Now, assume we’d like to replace the passed-in list with another list we’ve created inside the method.  We might like to do something like:

public void updateList(List list) {

    List myList = new ArrayList();

    // add objects to myList

    list = myList; // replace list with my new list? *WRONG*

}

However, if we test this new method we’ll find list has not changed at all.

This is because list is a copy of the object we passed-in to the method, and not the passed-in object itself.  list has been passed-by-value!

So, are we unable to change variables that are passed-in to a method in Java?  Can we only change them by returning a new object?

No.

And this is where the confusion sets in, because while we’re unable to replace the passed-in object list with another object, we’re perfectly allowed to manipulate it’s member objects.

Basically this means if we want to replace a passed-in list with our own list we must do:

public void updateList(List list) {

    List myList = new ArrayList();

    // add objects to myList

    list.clear(); // empty passed-in list

    list.addAll(myList); // replace passed-in list with my new list!

}

Since we never try to replace list itself, the whole method works just fine and does what we expect.

A quote from the Art of War that might have some baring on Agile development techniques:

31. Water shapes its course according to the nature
of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works
out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.

32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape,
so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

But then again, we all know war is agile, right?

Or another quote I heard (source unknown, original language Swedish):

Meeting all requirements in programming is like walking on water.  It’s easy if the water and the requirements are frozen…

Looking around for an easy way to create applications with text GUIs for running over SSH terminals I came across CHARVA. CHARVA’s API copies Swings, it unfortunately is not built on top of Swing but is a copy of Swing. This forces implementers to import classes in the charva.awt and charvax.swing packages instead of traditional awt and swing classes. However, the result is rather nice, at least if you’re looking to run applications off a server on a simple Point-of-Sale or Point-of-Service (POS) terminal that may not even support graphics.

In my case I’m looking into making a simple app that I can use to keep track of passwords, both when I’m at home (regular swing) and when I’m away (at work or similar) and only able to access the application via SSH (CHARVA).

For more info, check out CHARVA here: http://www.pitman.co.za/projects/charva/index.html

I’ve just had the rather unsettling experience of trying to deploy a new jar file (one I recompiled after some changes). This file were to be deployed on a rather old set up of Java 1.4.2. On first try everything broke with the classic “Unsupported major.minor version 50.0″.

So I went back to the drawing board. I installed java 1.4, and made sure my development Tomcat was running it. Then I did some research and found out how to make Eclipse compile 1.4 compliant code. I started and I got the same error still.

Once I figured out what was wrong I realized I was an idiot (Doh!). The error I’ve gotten wasn’t for any file part of the jar I was trying to deploy but for “index_jsp”. The thing is my Tomcat compiled my JSP:s into class files and never looked at them again until they were changed. I am sure there’s several ways to solve the problem, I just went and deleted the files in the “work”-directory (those pertaining to my Context).

The preferences window for setting source and target versions for Java compilation

Now over to how to make Eclipse code projects to a certain Java version.

There are two values you will want to keep track of. The source version and the target version. The source version tells what version your source code is written in. Whereas the target version tells what version of Java you want your class files in.

If for instance you have a project written in Java 1.4 source style, but you have to run it on a Java 5 you’d set the source version to 1.4 and the target to 1.5. You are now compiling Java 1.4 source into Java 5 class files.  Unfortunately you’re not able to do the opposite, compile Java 5 source code into Java 1.4 class files.  This is probably due to API incompatibilities, Java 5 has a larger API than Java 1.4.

Now, in Eclipse you have two settings in three places that controls the source and target versions of your compilations. Under Window->Preferences->Java->Compiler (Eclipse 3.4) you’re able to set the versions for the whole IDE.

When you create a new project you’re able to determine what version of Java (source and target you want) and right clicking on a project and choosing Properties->Java Compiler, you have the same dialog as before.

You set the target level in the select box “Compiler compliance level”, and optionally by unchecking the “Use default compliance settings” you’re able to change the target (“Generated .class files compatibility”) and source respectively.

If you experience other problems you may want to “clean” your project(s). Cleaning a project means all compiled files are removed and all source files are recompiled (something the IDE will do by itself when you change compilation versions, but if you want to be sure, you can do it manually). This is done by choosing Project->Clean. In the dialog you can chose to clean all projects or just those you select.

Opening a site Google has listed as spreading malicious software via the browser.

What is an SQL-injection. How can it affect my site. How does it happen and how can I avoid it?

Since Firefox (2 and 3) and MSIE 7 started using Google’s (and others) system for blocking sites that produce harmful web pages the problem with SQL-injections have been put on the spot.

What happens is that an attacker hacks a site by placing their own SQL-code into the database of the victim system. Instead of just performing a DOS (denial of service) attack bringing the whole site down by for instance deleting all the tables or doing something else harmful to the site the attacker plants client side browser code in the database making all visitors run client side code that will infect their computer with a virus. This virus may do everything from listening in on traffic between the client (web browser) and bank applications, to connecting the client system to a botnet.

Needless to say, the SQL-injection attack has become a problem not so much for the owner of the originally defunct site as for the visitors to said site. (Although users of the web should not underestimate the consequence of a good virus protection, system update policy and secure browsing policy).

Since the owner of the vulnerable software won’t notice any detour from business as usual (and neither will most infected clients), nobody is the wiser to the problem.

This is why Google (and others) have started evaluating (and flagging) sites with bad content, and why Firefox and MSIE (and probably others) have started blocking them.

Read entire article.

I’ve come across a problem in one of my projects at work. It consists of searching and replacing data in a MySQL server. The data to be replaced is an old URL used in lots of text fields all over the place, it is the customers own site URL but since they moved, they now want all URLs to point to their new location.

Searching the web and checking up the MySQL function database returns the following useful command:

REPLACE(str, from_str, to_str)

It would in my case be used like this:

UPDATE myTable SET theTextField =
REPLACE(theTextField, 'http://the.old.site', 'http://the.new.site');

myTable is the table containing the data I want to replace, theTextField is the exact field in which this data is located. Obviously “http://the.old.site” is the existing information, that I want to replace, and “http://the.new.site” is the information this string should be replaced with.

Very simple, very elegant. Now all I have to do is try it out as well. (Expect more reports on the progress of this work!)

Anybody who ever came into contact with RUP (which is the name of Rational’s — now IBM’s — version of the Unified Process) may have stumbled upon their web application created to support the process. In there you can find work flows, actor and artifact definitions, templates etc etc.

I did, come across it some ten or so years ago. Since then I’ve had the (mis)fortune to work at companies with their own “UP” or what-have-you-versions of development processes. However, imagine my surprise and delight when I came across an Open version of UP (sponsored by the Eclipse project) with the web application, the actors and templates and all.

You may have heard of the Large Hadron Collider or perhaps concerns about its safety, and if not you may still have come across this funny web page to test if it has destroyed the world yet.

Check the source for the last one as well, there are a few laughs. Their test to see if the world has ended is:

if (!(typeof worldHasEnded == "undefined")) {
    document.write("YUP.");
} else {
    document.write("NOPE.");
}

If the undefined variable worldHasEnded is not “undefined” then there’s some really spooky stuff going on… like the end of the world… otherwise we’re all safe and sound. In the same spirit I’m offering a test for world destruction for Java (and possibly C++ and other object oriented languages as well):

System.out.print("Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet? ");
if (this == null) {
    System.out.println("Yes!");
}
else {
    System.out.println("Nope");
}

Is the object running this test not existing any more… then risk is neither is the rest of the world…

Of course, we’ll have to wait until sometime in the end of October or beginning of November before they actually start colliding protons… and then perhaps the world will end…

Small beauties in programming… and not all of them are made up either ;o)

DoNothing:

function DoNothing() {
Nothing();
}

Find one error:

private static final int TWENTYFOUR = 24;
private static final int THIRTYEIGHT = 32;
private static final int FOURTYTWO = 42;

Or how I came to realize I could live a life time without .NET and be just as happy.

I’m just fresh from having tried to iterate a list… and delete items from it while iterating.  In .NET with C#.

It turns out a statement like:

void deleteFromList(IList<X> list) {
     foreach (X x in list) {
        if (x.DeleteMe) {
            list.Remove(x);
        }
    }
}

Will throw an InvalidOperationException stating you cannot perform a foreach and delete at the same time.  This is actually not that big of a surprise, or it shouldn’t be…  the same happens in Java if you delete and iterate at the same time.

This is how I would have done this in Java:

void deleteFromList(List<X> list) {
     Iterator<X> itr = list.iterator();
     while (itr.hasNext()) {
	X x = itr.next();
        if (x.DeleteMe) {
            itr.remove();
        }
    }
}

It’s simple, clean and it does not throw exceptions. If you believe the code may be run asynchronously, slap on a “synchronized” and you’re home safe.

So, how to do this with .NET?  Well, you can’t use Enumerators (which are the .NET “equivalent” of iterators), they don’t have a remove method.  Further worse, if you are unlucky enough to run version 1.1 your only option seems to be some unholy concoction like:

void deleteFromList(IList<X> list) {
    IList<X> toBeDeleted = new List<X>();

    foreach (X x in list) {
        if (x.DeleteMe) {
            toBeDeleted.Add(x);
        }
    }

    foreach (X x in toBeDeleted) {
        list.Remove(x);
    }
}

Don’t even start a conversation on synchronization with this mixup.  Anyway, those who are “lucky” enough to code .NET 2.0 can do something like:

myList.RemoveAll(delegate(X x) { return x.DeleteMe; });

Now, if you’d like to base the “DeleteMe” calculation on some external paramter like input to the deleteFromList method or if you’d like to do more than just delete x you’ll have to experiment, it’s probably possible… with a solution like the double lists above perhaps?

Regardless.  Someone said it was old news to be a Java programmer, I can only guess because of the lower hour wastage when you program Java systems, which in turn means lower bills to the clients and finally lower wages to the programmers.

It costs to be on top…