S8354: Java from the very beginning Part III- Exercises
Ex. 1 Polynomial
In this exercise you will write and call a Java method to evaluate a degree 2 polynomial function. A degree 2 polynomial is an equation of the form
ax2
+ bx + c
1) Open the Polynomial.java file which is in the Polynomial folder.
2) The first step is to complete the body of the “for” loop in the main method. Locate the following comment inside main:
// TO DO
// Call the polynomial method with argument x, and save the result in
// polynomialAtX
Add a line of source code which calls a method “polynomial”, passing in x as the method argument, and storing the return value in polynomialAtX. You will define the polynomial method in step 3.
3) Define the polynomial method. Find the comment:
// TO DO
// Define a method called polynomial which returns the value of the polynomial at
// its argument, x.
// Make use of the identity (ax + b)x + c = ax^2 + bx + c
// Declare the method as static.
and declare the polynomial method immediately beneath it. We are going to make polynomial a static, or class, method since we haven’t learnt about objects yet! To do this you need to add the static modifier to your method declaration:
public static int polynomial( int x ) {
}
4) Inside the body of the polynomial function, calculate the value of ax2 + bx + c, and return the result as the return value of the method. The constants a,b and c have already been defined for you at the top of the source code.
5) Save and run the program. What is the value of the polynomial function when x = 5?
Ex. 2 JavaDoc
In this exercise you will use Eclipse to create documentation for a Java class. Eclipse relies on an external tool (that is provided by the JDK) called javadoc. We will need to configure Eclipse to use this tool.
1) Open the Circle.java file which is in the JavaDoc folder. Look at the code and comments.
2) Since the JRE provided by Eclipse by default does not contain the javadoc tool, it is necessary to download and install a Java Developer Kit (JDK), which is freely available from the IBM Web site. However, IBM’s JDK has already been installed for this lab, so we can move onto the next step. The instructor will tell you where this has been installed.
3) To configure the Eclipse environment, from the menu bar, select Window -> Preferences. Expand the Java folder and select Javadoc. Enter the location of the javadoc in the Javadoc command text box. Click OK to apply the changes.
Now the Eclipse environment has been configured to use the javadoc tool to create documentation, we can specify exactly what documentation should be created.
4) We are only interested in generating documentation for the classes in the JavaDoc folder. Select the JavaDoc folder in the Package Explorer view. From the menu bar, select File -> Export.
This will display an “Export” dialog box. Select Javadoc from the export destination list and click Next.
We can decide which members will be documented. The javadoc tool will document members arranged by the following visibilities:
Private (all classes and all members)
Package (package, protected and public classes and members)
Protected (protected and public classes and members)
Public (only public classes and members)
For the purposes of this lab, select Private.
Take a note of the destination. This is where Eclipse will generate the documentation. The documentation could be created anywhere on the filesystem. However, to include it within the JavaDoc folder, replace the trailing doc with JavaDoc\doc.
Click Finish to complete the process and, if necessary, confirm that you would like the javadoc location updating.
The results of this operation will be seen appearing in the console view.
5) The newly-created documentation will appear in the Package Explorer view. This documentation is more easily viewed in the Resource Perspective.
Click the Resource Perspective icon 
.
Expand JavaDoc -> doc to reveal the documentation.
Look through these files to get an idea of what has been generated.
· packages.html lists all of the packages in the documented code. We didn’t declare any packages so our list is empty.
· Circle.html is the documentation for the circle class. Compare the generated documentation to the source file and see how the two compare.
· index.html displays a variety of methods for displaying the class and member information.
Java from the very beginning Part III- Example Solutions
Ex. 1 Polynomial
/**
* A Java application to calculate the value of a degree 2 polynomial
*/
class Polynomial {
// A polynomial of degree 2 in x is given by
// a x^2 + b x + c,
//
// Polynomial constants a,b and c: these can be accessed by any method of the
// class
private static final int a = 10;
private static final int b = 5;
private static final int c = -7;
/**
* Main method - prints a table of values for the polynomial
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
int polynomialAtX;
for(int x = 0; x <= 10; x++) {
// TO DO
// Call the polynomial method with argument x, and save the result in
// polynomialAtX
polynomialAtX = polynomial(x);
System.out.println(x + "\t\t" + polynomialAtX);
}
} // end of main method
// TO DO
// Define a method called polynomial which returns the value of the polynomial at
// its argument, x.
// Make use of the identity (ax + b)x + c = ax^2 + bx + c
// Declare the method as static for now.
/**
* Calculate the polynomial function at x
*/
public static int polynomial(int x) {
int returnValue;
returnValue = (((a*x) + b) * x) + c;
return returnValue;
}
} // end of class
The output of the program is:
0 -7
1 8
2 43
3 98
4 173
5 268
6 383
7 518
8 673
9 848
10 1043