A Concise Introduction to Data Structures using Java

Mark J. Johnson

• Publisher: Chapman and Hall/CRC
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781498759816
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Games
• Index: Computer Science

A student-friendly text, A Concise Introduction to Data Structures Using Java takes a developmental approach, starting with simpler concepts first and then building toward greater complexity. Important topics, such as linked lists, are introduced gradually and revisited with increasing depth. More code and guidance are provided at the beginning, al

Chapter 1

A Brief Introduction to Java

Before beginning our study of data structures, we take a quick tour of the main features of the Java programming language. More advanced features of Java will then be introduced as they are needed. This chapter assumes that you have some programming experience but not necessarily in Java.

A current Java Development Kit (JDK) is required to develop software in Java. All of the examples in this text were written using Java SE 7.

1.1 Basics

We begin with an example that computes factorials in Listing 1.1.

Listing 1.1: Factorial

 1 public class NumericFunctions {

 2 public static int factorial(int n) {

 3 int result = 1;

 4 for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {

 5 result *= i;

 6 }

 7 return result;

 8}

 9

10 public static void main(String[] args) {

11 for (int n = 1; n <= 10; n++) {

12 System.out.print(n);

13 System.out.print(" ");

14 System.out.println(factorial(n));

15 }

16}

17}

Although this is a short program, it illustrates a number of features of the Java language. This section is therefore a bit longer than most, so don’t necessarily try to remember everything on first reading. Instead, notice what is here, pay attention to things that are different from what you expected, and plan to refer back to this section as questions arise.

The Java Tutorial [13] is a good resource for learning Java, as is The Java Programming Language [1]. The authoritative Java reference is the Java Language ...