Java beginner3: Input and Output

Here we treat

1. how to read input from the keyboard, 
2. use that input to calculate a result, and then 
3. format that result for output.

                               The System Class

Probably you have been using System.out.println for a while, but you might not have thought about what it means.

1. System is a class that provides methods related to the “system” or environment where programs run. 
2. It also provides System.out, which is a special value(is a System class's field that's a PrintStream (static) object. Cause static we can use it directly --without use of the new operator) that provides methods for displaying output, including println().

In fact, we can use System.out.println to display the value of System.out:

System.out.println(System.out);

The result is:

java.io.PrintStream@685d72cd

This output indicates that System.out is a PrintStream object which is defined in a package called java.io.

A package is a collection of related classes; java.io contains classes for “I/O” which stands for input and output.

The numbers and letters after the @ sign are the address of System.out object, represented as a hexadecimal (base 16) number in computer's memory.
The address of a value is its location in the computer’s memory, which might be different on different computers. In this example the address is 685d72cd, but if you run the same code you might get something different.

As shown in Figure below, System (public) class is defined in a file called System.java, and PrintStream (public) class is defined in PrintStream.java. These files are part of the Java library(API), which is an extensive collection of classes you can use in your programs.

                              The Scanner Class

The System class also provides the special value System.in, which is an InputStream class's object that provides methods for reading input from the keyboard.

These methods are not easy to use; fortunately, Java provides other classes that make it easier to handle common input tasks.

For example, Scanner is a class that provides methods for inputting words, numbers, and other data. Scanner is provided by java.util, which is a package that contains classes so useful they are called “utility classes”.
Before you can use Scanner, you have to import it like this:

import java.util.Scanner;

This import statement tells the compiler that when you say Scanner, you mean the one defined in java.util.

It’s necessary because there might be another class named Scanner in another package. Using an import statement makes your code unambiguous.

Import statements can’t be inside a class definition. By convention, they are usually at the beginning of the file.

Next you have to create a Scanner:

Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);

This line declares a Scanner variable named in and creates a new Scanner object that takes input from System.in stream object.

Scanner provides a method called nextLine() that reads a line of input from the keyboard and returns a String. The following example reads two lines and repeats them back to the user:

import java.util.Scanner; 

 public class Echo { 

     public static void main(String[] args) {
        String line;
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in); 

        System.out.print("Type something: ");
        line = in .nextLine();
        System.out.println("You said: " + line); 

        System.out.print("Type something else: ");
        line = in .nextLine();
        System.out.println("You also said: " + line);
    }
}

If you omit the import statement and later refer to Scanner, you will get a compiler error like “cannot find symbol”. That means the compiler doesn’t know what you mean by Scanner.

You might wonder why we can use the System class without importing it. System
belongs to the java.lang package, which is imported automatically.

According to the documentation, java.lang “provides classes that are fundamental to the design of the Java programming language.” 

The String class is also part of the java.lang package.

                                Program Structure

At this point, we have seen all of the elements that make up Java programs. Figure below shows these organizational units.

To review,

1. a package is a collection of classes, which define methods. 
2. Methods contain statements, some of which contain expressions. 
3. Expressions are made up of tokens, which are the basic elements of a program, including numbers, variable names, operators, keywords, and punctuation like parentheses, braces and semicolons.

The standard edition of Java comes with several thousand classes you can import, which can be both exciting and intimidating. You can browse this library (you can change the number in the address according to the Java version you're interested).

Most of the Java library itself is written in Java.

Note there is a major difference between

1. the Java language, which defines the syntax and meaning of the elements in Figure , and 
2. the Java library, which provides the built-in classes.

                            Inches to Centimeters

Now let’s see an example that’s a little more useful. Although most of the world has adopted the metric system for weights and measures, some countries are stuck with English units.
For example, when talking with friends in Europe about the weather, people in the United States might have to convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit and back. Or they might want to convert height in inches to centimeters.

We can write a program to help.

We’ll use a Scanner to input a measurement in inches, convert to centimeters, and then display the results. 

The following lines declare the variables and create the Scanner:

int inch;
double cm;
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);

The next step is to prompt the user for the input.

1. We’ll use print instead of println so they can enter the input on the same line as the prompt. 
2. And we’ll use the Scanner method nextInt(), which reads input from the keyboard and converts it to an integer:

System.out.print("How many inches? ");
inch = in.nextInt();

Next we multiply the number of inches by 2.54, since that’s how many centimeters there are per inch, and display the results:

cm = inch * 2.54;
System.out.print(inch + " in = ");
System.out.println(cm + " cm");

This code works correctly, but it has a minor problem.

If another programmer reads this code, they might wonder where 2.54 comes from. For the benefit of others (and yourself in the future), it would be better to assign this value to a variable with a meaningful name.

                           Literals and Constants

A value that appears in a program, like 2.54 (or "string literal"), is called a literal.

• In general, there’s nothing wrong with literals. But when numbers like 2.54 appear in an expression with no explanation, they make code hard to read.
• And if the same value appears many times, and might have to change in the future, it makes code hard to maintain.

Values like that are sometimes called magic numbers (In our case being “magic” is not a good thing). 

A good practice is to assign magic numbers to variables with meaningful names, like this:

double cmPerInch = 2.54;
cm = inch * cmPerInch;

This version is easier to read and less error-prone, but it still has a problem.

Variables can vary, but the number of centimeters in an inch does not. Once we assign a value to cmPerInch, it should never change.
Java provides a language feature that enforces that rule, the keyword final.

final double CM_PER_INCH = 2.54;

Declaring that a variable is final means that it cannot be reassigned once it has been initialized. If you try, the compiler reports an error. Variables declared as final are called constants. By convention, names for constants are all uppercase, with the underscore character (_) between words.

                               Formatting Output

When you output a double using print or println, it displays up to 16 decimal
places:

System.out.print(4.0 / 3.0);

The result is:

1.3333333333333333

That might be more than you want. System.out provides another method, called
printf, that gives you more control of the format. The “f ” in printf stands for “formatted”.
Here’s an example:

System.out.printf("Four thirds = %.3f", 4.0 / 3.0);

The first value in the parentheses is a format string that specifies how the output
should be displayed. This format string contains ordinary text followed by a format specifier, which is a special sequence that starts with a percent sign. The format specifier %.3f indicates that the following value should be displayed as floating-point, rounded to three decimal places. The result is:

Four thirds = 1.333

The format string can contain any number of format specifiers; here’s an example with two:

int inch = 100;
double cm = inch * CM_PER_INCH;
System.out.printf("%d in = %f cm\n", inch, cm);

The result is:

100 in = 254.000000 cm

Like print, printf does not append a newline. So format strings often end with a
newline character.

The format specifier %d displays integer values (“d” stands for “decimal”). The values are matched up with the format specifiers in order, so inch is displayed using %d, and cm is displayed using %f.

Learning about format strings is like learning a sub-language within Java. There are many options, and the details can be overwhelming. For more details, refer to the documentation of java.util.Formatter.

The easiest way to find documentation for Java classes is to do a web search for “Java” and the name of the class.

                             Centimeters to Inches

Now suppose we have a measurement in centimeters, and we want to round it off to the nearest inch. It is tempting to write:

inch = cm / CM_PER_INCH;  // syntax error

But the result is an error—you get something like,

“Bad types in assignment: from double to int.” 

The problem is that the value on the right is floating-point, and the variable on the left is an integer.

The simplest way to convert a floating-point value to an integer is to use a type cast, so called because it molds or “casts” a value from one type to another. 

The syntax for type casting is to put the name of the type in parentheses and use it as an operator.

double pi = 3.14159;
int x = (int) pi;

The (int) operator has the effect of converting what follows into an integer. In this example, x gets the value 3.
Like integer division, converting to an integer always rounds toward zero, even if the fraction part is 0.999999 (or -0.999999).

In other words, it simply throws away the fractional part.

Type casting takes precedence over arithmetic operations. 

In this example, the value of pi gets converted to an integer before the multiplication. So the result is 60.0, not 62.0.

double pi = 3.14159;
double x = (int) pi * 20.0;

Keeping that in mind, here’s how we can convert a measurement in centimeters to inches:

inch = (int) (cm / CM_PER_INCH);
System.out.printf("%f cm = %d in\n", cent, inch);

The parentheses after the cast operator require the division to happen before the type cast. And the result is rounded toward zero; we will see in a little how to
round floating-point numbers to the closest integer.


                               Modulus Operator

Let’s take the example one step further: suppose you have a measurement in inches and you want to convert to feet and inches. The goal is divide by 12 (the number of inches in a foot) and keep the remainder.
The division operator (/), computes the quotient of two numbers.

If the numbers are integers, it performs integer division. 

Java also provides the modulus operator (%), which divides two numbers and computes the remainder.

Using division and modulus, we can convert to feet and inches like this:

quotient = 76 / 12;   // division
remainder = 76 % 12;  // modulus

The first line yields 6. The second line, which is pronounced “76 mod 12”, yields 4. So 76 inches is 6 feet, 4 inches.

The modulus operator turns out to be surprisingly useful. E.g.,

1. you can check whether one number is divisible by another: if x % y is zero, then x is divisibleby y. 
2. You can use modulus to “extract” digits from a number: x % 10 yields the rightmost digit of x, and x % 100 yields the last two digits. 
3. Also, many encryption algorithms use the modulus operator extensively.

                           Putting It All Together

At this point, you have seen enough Java to write useful programs that solve everyday problems. You can

1. import Java library classes, 
2. create a Scanner, 
3. get input from the keyboard, 
4. format output with printf, and 
5. divide and mod integers.

Now we will put everything together in a complete program:

import java.util.Scanner; 

/**
 * Converts centimeters to feet and inches.
 */
public class Convert { 

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        double cm;
        int feet, inches, remainder;
        final double CM_PER_INCH = 2.54;
        final int IN_PER_FOOT = 12;
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);

 
        // prompt the user and get the value
        System.out.print("Exactly how many cm? ");
        cm = in .nextDouble(); 

        // convert and output the result
        inches = (int)(cm / CM_PER_INCH);
        feet = inches / IN_PER_FOOT;
        remainder = inches % IN_PER_FOOT;
        System.out.printf("%.2f cm = %d ft, %d in\n", 

                          cm, feet, remainder);
    } // main()

} // Convert

1. Although not required, all variables and constants are declared at the top of main. This practice makes it easier to find their types later on, and it helps the reader know what data is involved in the algorithm.
2. For readability, each major step of the algorithm is separated by a blank line and begins with a comment. It also includes a documentation comment (/**).
3. Many algorithms, including the Convert program, perform division and modulus together. In both steps, you divide by the same number (IN_PER_FOOT).
4. When statements get long (generally wider than 80 characters), a common style convention is to break them across multiple lines. The reader should never have to scroll horizontally.

                                 The Scanner Bug

Now that you’ve had some experience with Scanner, there is an unexpected behavior I want to warn you about. The following code fragment asks users for their name and age:

System.out.print("What is your name? ");
name = in.nextLine();
System.out.print("What is your age? ");
age = in.nextInt();
System.out.printf("Hello %s, age %d\n", name, age);

The output might look something like this:

Hello Grace Hopper, age 45

When you read a String followed by an int, everything works just fine. But when
you read an int followed by a String, something strange happens.

System.out.print("What is your age? ");
age = in.nextInt();
System.out.print("What is your name? ");
name = in.nextLine();
System.out.printf("Hello %s, age %d\n", name, age);

Try running this example code. It doesn’t let you input your name, and it immediately displays the output:

What is your name? Hello , age 45

To understand what is happening, you have to understand that the Scanner doesn’t see input as multiple lines, like we do. Instead, it gets a “stream of characters” as shown in Figure below

The arrow indicates the next character to be read by Scanner. When you call
nextInt(), it reads characters until it gets to a non-digit. Figure below shows the state of the stream after nextInt() is invoked.

At this point, nextInt() returns 45. The program then displays the prompt "What is your name? " and calls nextLine(), which reads characters until it gets to a newline. But since the next character is already a newline, nextLine() returns the empty string "".

To solve this problem, you need an extra nextLine() after nextInt().

System.out.print("What is your age? ");
age = in.nextInt();
in.nextLine(); // read the newline
System.out.print("What is your name? ");
name = in.nextLine();
System.out.printf("Hello %s, age %d\n", name, age);

This technique is common when reading int or double values that appear on their own line. First you read the number, and then you read the rest of the line, which is just a newline character(consumed by nextLine() ).

                                   Exercises


Exercise 3-1.
When you use printf, the Java compiler does not check your format string. See what happens if you try to display a value with type int using %f. And what happens if you display a double using %d? What if you use two format specifiers, but then only provide one value?

Exercise 3-2.
Write a program that converts a temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit. It should

1. prompt the user for input, 
2. read a double value from the keyboard, 
3. calculate the result, and 
4. format the output to one decimal place. For example, it should display "24.0C = 75.2 F". Here is the formula. Be careful not to use integer division! F =C * 9/5 + 32

Exercise 3-3.
Write a program that converts a total number of seconds to hours, minutes, and seconds. It should

1. prompt the user for input, 
2. read an integer from the keyboard,
3. calculate the result, and 
4. use printf to display the output. For example, "5000 seconds = 1 hours, 23 minutes, and 20 seconds". Hint: Use the modulus operator.

Exercise 3-4.
The goal of this exercise is to program a “Guess My Number” game. When it’s finished, it will work like this:

I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100(including both).
Can you guess what it is?
Type a number: 45
Your guess is: 45
The number I was thinking of is: 14
You were off by: 31

To choose a random number, you can use the Random class in java.util. Here’s how it works:

import java.util.Random;

public class GuessStarter {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // pick a random number
        Random random = new Random();
        int number = random.nextInt(100) + 1;
        System.out.println(number);
    }
    
}

Like the Scanner class we already saw, Random has to be imported before we
can use it. And as we saw with Scanner, we have to use the new operator to create a Random (number generator).
Then we can use the method nextInt() to generate a random number. In this example, the result of nextInt(100) will be between 0 and 99, including both. Adding 1 yields a number between [1..100], including both.

1. Write the program to prompt the user, then use a Scanner to read a line of user input. Compile and test the program.
2. Read the user input as an integer and display the result. Again, compile and test.
3. Compute and display the difference between the user’s guess and the number that was generated.

Resources

• Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Allen B. Downey
• Tools (code formatter, code syntax color)