Mr Gs Java Jive

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					Mr G’s Java Jive
#6: Idiot-Proofing and the Gatling Class
   With this handout you’ll start using the gatling class to idiot-proof your programs.

Java Made Easy
   As you’ve probably already figured out, Java is a very powerful language with many different commands
   in many different classes that allow you to do all kinds of things. The problem is that some of the
   simplest things you might want to do have commands that aren’t very easy to figure out. In a course
   that insisted on you learning how to use Java the way it is “out of the box,” you’d probably be made to
   figure out how to write the incredibly complex code needed to perform these simple tasks. However,
   since the point of this course is to introduce you to Java with as little pain as possible and get you
   writing useful programs as quickly as possible, I’ve taken a different position.
       You should remember that there are two main types of classes: standalone and helper. So far we’ve
   been writing standalone classes (and remember, standalone classes must have one and only one main
   method). Now it’s time to take a look at a helper class. Helper classes are like libraries of code written
   by you or someone else, that have easy to use methods that you can use in your standalone programs.
   Far from being a case of cheating or the “easy way out,” this is actually the way that Java was designed
   to be used.
       With that in mind, I’ve created the gatling class for you to use. But before you use it, we have to
   take a look at some of the many things that can go wrong.

Users and Idiots
   It can safely be said that many (if not most) users are idiots. No matter how well-designed a program
   might be, there is sure to be a few bonehead users who either don’t understand how it’s supposed to be
   run, or who delight in specifically ignoring the instructions to see what happens. It is for these people
   that the saying “Make it idiot-proof, and they’ll build a better idiot” was coined.
       We’re going to take a few minutes to act like idiots, and give the converse program input that it
   wasn’t designed to accept, so we can see what happens. Note that in this case we’re not being idiots, but
   simply acting like them in the name of research.

Bad Input
   Let’s start out with a simple piece of bad input: with a nod to the old Patrick McGoohan TV show The
   Prisoner, we’ll put in the user’s name as 6. That’s right, the number 6. Check out what happened below:

   Well, that seems to have run just fine, and now it wants to know what year the user was born in. Let’s
   put in nineteen sixty-five. Notice that we’re going to input the words nineteen sixty-five, and not the
   number 1965. What happens now?
       Ouch! When we did that, we got kicked right back to the class window, which gave us the error
   message shown below. But what does it mean?

Mr G’s Java Jive: Idiot-Proofing and the Gatling Class                                            Page 6-1
Type Mismatch Explained
   The program crashed when you tried to put in words where it expected a number, or rather a String
   where it expected an int. Because they were two different types it’s called a type mismatch. BlueJ
   even highlighted the line in the program that generated the error (even though the error was really
   user generated).
       But wait a minute! You’re probably wondering why the program didn’t crash and give us a type
   mismatch error the first time, when we put in the user’s name as 6. After all, that’s an int and not a
   String, right?
       Well, actually, String is probably the most lenient data type there is. Just about everything can be
   considered a String. So when we entered the number 6, Java was just fine with it. It read it as the
   digit 6 rather than the number 6. So no type mismatch.
       On the other hand, the int type is very restrictive. If what you enter there doesn’t match the int
   type, it’ll crash and burn. Let’s try another example to check that out. Enter any name you want, but
   enter the number 3.14159 as the year. You entered a number, what was the problem this time?
       The problem was that your number was a real number and the program was looking for an integer
   (remember, that’s what int means). When given a real number where an integer is expected, Java
   doesn’t automatic truncate or round the number because it doesn’t know which of the two you want to
   do. Instead, it just gives you an error message that says that you should either rewrite the program or
   give it the appropriate input.

Solving the Problem
    What you need are some methods that get the type of information you want, and only the type of
    information you want. You need a method that will get an int and won’t accept anything else from the
    user. Java doesn’t have this natively, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. It just means that
    someone has to write the code for it. Fortunately for you, someone has, and that someone is me. The
    code you need for the methods you crave is all in the helper class (remember that term)

Getting the File
   You’ll find this file at the URL Once you get there, you’ll want
   to save this into your project folder by using the Save As command. When you do this, the Mac
   operating system will ask you if you want to append the extension .txt to the file (because it thinks it’s
   looking at a text file). Just tell it “no.”

Looking Under the Hood - I
   OK, the good news here is that I’m not going to make you examine and take apart every line of code
   that’s in this class. I am, however, going to make you take a quick look so that you get an idea of what’s
   in there and what it does. Let’s start off with the comments, and even then, I’m not going to make you
   look at everything (mainly because there’s not enough room on this page).

       //includes the following methods:
       // int getInt()
       //    gets an integer value from the keyboard with idiot checking
       // float getFloat()
       //    gets a float value from the keyboard with idiot checking
       // double getDouble()
       //    gets a double value from the keyboard with idiot checking
       // char getChar()
       //    gets a single character from the keyboard, with idiot checking
       //     String getLine()
       //    gets an entire line of text from the keyboard
       // String getNext()
       //    get next word from the keyboard

Mr G’s Java Jive: Idiot-Proofing and the Gatling Class                                            Page 6-2
   From this you can see that there are a whole bunch of get methods. In my little world, the word get
   always begins any method whose job it is to get information from somewhere. Hence getInt(),
   getFloat(), getDouble(), and all the other members of the get family.
       Now let’s take a look at one specific method, the one we’re going to be using, getInt().

Looking Under the Hood - II
   This is where we dissect the getInt() method to see how it works. Don’t worry, you won’t have to write
   anything like this (yet), but taking a close look at it helps you to understand not only how this method
   works, but gives you a sneak peek at some other programming concepts. Let’s take this section by
   section, starting with the instance variables.

       public static int getInt()
       {//start getInt
          //instance variables
            String mystring;
            Scanner myScanner = new Scanner(;
            int mynum = 0;
            boolean validnum = false;

   First of all, what’s up with calling these instance variables? This comes from a 10-dollar word that has
   to do with how objects are created. Don’t worry about it yet.
       As far as mystring, myScanner, and mynum go, you’ve dealt with all three of these types already.
   They should be old friends. What’s new here is the boolean variable validnum. I’ve set this to false
   because while I’m looking for a valid integer, I’m going to assume that the number isn’t valid until proven
   otherwise. You’ll see why in a minute.

       //do the work
            while (!validnum)
            {//start the loop

   In the section shown above, I’ve started a while loop. A while loop does something over and over as long
   as a certain condition is true. In this case the condition that needs to be true is for validnum to be
   false. That’s what !validnum means. It means “not validnum,” and is shorthand for validnum is false.
       The next line gets a line of text from the keyboard and puts it into a String called mystring.


   Here I’ve used a try statement. A try is like a fancy if. Oh wait, we haven’t talked about if statements
   yet. Anyway, a try statement tries something to see if it will work. In this case, what I’m trying is to
   see if the String mystring contains a valid integer value that we can put into the int mynum. This is
   done using a method from the Integer helper class called parseInt. The parseInt method takes a look
   at the string and tries to convert it into an int value. If it’s successful, and can put that value into
   mynum, then the value of validnum changes to true.
       If it’s not successful, then it throws an error exception.

Mr G’s Java Jive: Idiot-Proofing and the Gatling Class                                             Page 6-3
                 catch (NumberFormatException x)
                     System.out.print(" That was not a valid number. Please try again: ");
                 }//end the loop

   When someone throws something at you, you usually try to catch it, and that’s what happens next. A try
   statement is always followed by a catch statement so that any error messages go to the catch instead
   of to the user.
       Here I’m looking for a NumberFormatException that I’m calling x. If x is thrown, then the catch
   statement catches it and does two things as a result. The first is to say that validnum is false (strictly
   speaking, this may not be necessary, since it started out as false, but we’ll leave it this way just to be
   safe). The second thing it does is to tell the user that they entered bad data and need to try again.
   This is a much better way to handle the situation than simply crashing.
       The loop continues to run until the user enters a string that this method can parse as an integer and
   validnum changes to true.

                return mynum;
          }//end getInt

   Finally, once a valid value is entered, getInt returns this to whatever method called it in the first place.

Using getInt
    In order for this to work, we need to change two lines of code in Converse. Take a look at the example

       //get input
         System.out.print("Hi! What's your name? ");
         System.out.print("Nice to meet you "+name+". What year were you born in? ");
         born = myScanner.nextInt() gatling.getInt();
         System.out.print("Cool. And what year is it now? ");
         now = myScanner.nextInt() gatling.getInt();

   There we’ve changed myScanner.nextInt() to gatling.getInt(). Compile it, run it, and see what happens.

   Once again, this doesn’t stand for object-oriented programming. It won’t compile because it can’t find Why can’t it find it if we’ve put it into our project folder? Because while the computer
   knows it’s there, BlueJ doesn’t. To solve this problem, simply quit out of BlueJ and open it back up again.
   Now you should see a new item in your project window: the gatling file.

Mr G’s Java Jive: Idiot-Proofing and the Gatling Class                                                Page 6-4
   Not only does your project now include, but you should see an arrow pointing from Converse
   to gatling. This is to show the relationship between them. Converse is using code from inside of gatling.
       Now you’re ready to compile and run Converse again.

   Now, if Clark enters some bad data, specifically, a non-integer response when an integer has been asked
   for, the results will be a little different. Check out the example below:

   As you can see, this program will not let Clark go until he puts in a valid response to what year he was
   born in. The program doesn’t spew error messages all over the screen, it just politely and firmly keeps
   telling Clark that he’s entered bad data and asking him to try again.
        But we haven’t totally idiot-proofed this program. There are other ways for users to be stupid
   here, and we’ll explore them, and the solutions, in handout #7.

Mr G’s Java Jive: Idiot-Proofing and the Gatling Class                                           Page 6-5
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