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Is Java "pass-by-reference" or "pass-by-value"?

I always thought Java was pass-by-reference; however I've seen a couple of blog posts (for example, this blog) that claim it's not. I don't think I understand the distinction they're making.

What is the explanation?

Iterate through a HashMap [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
How do I iterate over each Entry in a Collection Map?

What's the best way to iterate over the items in a HashMap?

"implements Runnable" vs. "extends Thread"

From what time I've spent with threads in Java, I've found these two ways to write threads:

With implements Runnable:

public class MyRunnable implements Runnable {
    public void run() {
        //Code
    }
}
//Started with a "new Thread(new MyRunnable()).start()" call

Or, with extends Thread:

public class MyThread extends Thread {
    public MyThread() {
        super("MyThread");
    }
    public void run() {
        //Code
    }
}
//Started with a "new MyThread().start()" call

Is there any significant difference in these two blocks of code ?

Create ArrayList from array

I have an array that is initialized like:

Element[] array = {new Element(1), new Element(2), new Element(3)};

I would like to convert this array into an object of the ArrayList class.

ArrayList<Element> arraylist = ???;

Why does this code using random strings print "hello world"?

The following print statement would print "hello world". Could anyone explain this?

System.out.println(randomString(-229985452) + " " + randomString(-147909649));

And randomString() looks like this:

public static String randomString(int i)
{
    Random ran = new Random(i);
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    while (true)
    {
        int k = ran.nextInt(27);
        if (k == 0)
            break;

        sb.append((char)('`' + k));
    }

    return sb.toString();
}

Proper use cases for Android UserManager.isUserAGoat()?

I was looking at the new APIs introduced in Android 4.2. While looking at the UserManager class I came across the following method:

public boolean isUserAGoat()

Used to determine whether the user making this call is subject to teleportations.

Returns whether the user making this call is a goat.

How and when should this be used?

How can I create an executable JAR with dependencies using Maven?

I want to package my project in a single executable JAR for distribution.

How can I make Maven package all dependency JARs into my JAR?

How to efficiently iterate over each Entry in a Map?

If I have an object implementing the Map interface in Java and I wish to iterate over every pair contained within it, what is the most efficient way of going through the map?

Will the ordering of elements depend on the specific map implementation that I have for the interface?

Is there a unique Android device ID?

Do Android devices have a unique ID, and if so, what is a simple way to access it using Java?

Why is printing "B" dramatically slower than printing "#"?

I generated two matrices of 1000 x 1000:

First Matrix: O and #.
Second Matrix: O and B.

Using the following code, the first matrix took 8.52 seconds to complete:

Random r = new Random();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    for (int j = 0; j < 1000; j++) {
        if(r.nextInt(4) == 0) {
            System.out.print("O");
        } else {
            System.out.print("#");
        }
    }

   System.out.println("");
 }

With this code, the second matrix took 259.152 seconds to complete:

Random r = new Random();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    for (int j = 0; j < 1000; j++) {
        if(r.nextInt(4) == 0) {
            System.out.print("O");
        } else {
            System.out.print("B"); //only line changed
        }
    }

    System.out.println("");
}

What is the reason behind the dramatically different run times?

As suggested in the comments, printing only System.out.print("#"); takes 7.8871 seconds, whereas System.out.print("B"); gives still printing....

As others who pointed out that it works for them normally, I tried Ideone.com for instance, and both pieces of code execute at the same speed.

Test Conditions:

• I ran this test from Netbeans 7.2, with the output into its console
• I used System.nanoTime() for measurements

Does finally always execute in Java?

I have a try/catch block with returns inside it. Will the finally block be called?

For example:

try {  
    something();  
    return success;  
}  
catch (Exception e) {   
    return failure;  
}  
finally {  
    System.out.println("i don't know if this will get printed out.");
}

I know I can just type this in an see what happens (which is what I'm about to do, actually) but when I googled for answers nothing came up, so I figured I'd throw this up as a question.

How to avoid Java code in JSP files?

I'm new to Java EE and I know that something like the following three lines

<%= x+1 %>
<%= request.getParameter("name") %>
<%! counter++; %>

is an old school way of coding and in JSP version 2 there exists a method to avoid Java code in JSP files. Can someone please tell me the alternative JSP 2 lines, and what this technique is called?

Generating random integers in a specific range

I am trying to generate a random intvalue with Java, but in a specific range.

For example:

My range is 5-10, meaning that 5 is the smallest possible value and 10 is the biggest. Any other number in between these numbers is possible to be a value, too.

In Java, there is a method random() in the Math class, which returns a double value between 0.0 and 1.0. In the class Random there is the method nextInt(int n), which returns a random int value in the range of 0 (inclusive) and n (exclusive). I couldn't find a method, which returns a random integer value between two numbers.

I have tried the following things, but I still have problems: (minimum and maximum are the smallest and biggest numbers).

Solution 1:

randomNum = minimum + (int)(Math.random() * maximum); 

Problem:

randomNum can be bigger than maximum.

Solution 2:

Random rn = new Random();
int n = maximum - minimum + 1;
int i = rn.nextInt() % n;
randomNum =  minimum + i;

Problem:

randomNum can be smaller than minimum.

How do I solve these problems?

I have tried also browsing through the archive and found:

• Expand a random range from 1–5 to 1–7
• Generate random numbers uniformly over an entire range

But I couldn't solve the problem.

Avoiding != null statements

The idiom I use the most when programming in Java is to test if object != null before I use it. This is to avoid a NullPointerException. I find the code very ugly, and it becomes unreadable.

Is there a good alternative to this?

I want to address the necessity to test every object if you want to access a field or method of this object. For example:

if (someobject != null) {
    someobject.doCalc();
}

In this case I will avoid a NullPointerException, and I don't know exactly if the object is null or not. These tests appear throughout my code as a consequence.

Why is processing a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?

Here is a piece of C++ code that seems very peculiar. For some strange reason, sorting the data miraculously makes the code almost six times faster.

#include <algorithm>
#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    // Generate data
    const unsigned arraySize = 32768;
    int data[arraySize];

    for (unsigned c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
        data[c] = std::rand() % 256;

    // !!! With this, the next loop runs faster
    std::sort(data, data + arraySize);

    // Test
    clock_t start = clock();
    long long sum = 0;

    for (unsigned i = 0; i < 100000; ++i)
    {
        // Primary loop
        for (unsigned c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
        {
            if (data[c] >= 128)
                sum += data[c];
        }
    }

    double elapsedTime = static_cast<double>(clock() - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

    std::cout << elapsedTime << std::endl;
    std::cout << "sum = " << sum << std::endl;
}

• Without std::sort(data, data + arraySize);, the code runs in 11.54 seconds.
• With the sorted data, the code runs in 1.93 seconds.

Initially, I thought this might be just a language or compiler anomaly. So I tried it in Java.

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Random;

public class Main
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        // Generate data
        int arraySize = 32768;
        int data[] = new int[arraySize];

        Random rnd = new Random(0);
        for (int c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
            data[c] = rnd.nextInt() % 256;

        // !!! With this, the next loop runs faster
        Arrays.sort(data);

        // Test
        long start = System.nanoTime();
        long sum = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i)
        {
            // Primary loop
            for (int c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
            {
                if (data[c] >= 128)
                    sum += data[c];
            }
        }

        System.out.println((System.nanoTime() - start) / 1000000000.0);
        System.out.println("sum = " + sum);
    }
}

With a somewhat similar, but less extreme result.

My first thought was that sorting brings the data into the cache, but my next thought was how silly that is, because the array was just generated.

• What is going on?
• Why is a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?
• The code is summing up some independent terms, and the order should not matter.