Errata

missing references to the Java keyword "this" This keyword is an important core
part of the Java language. I think because it's also a common word, it
may have been dropped by mistake.

byte b = ~12; // ~00000110 ==> 11111001 or -13 decimal

this should read:

byte b = ~12; // ~00001100 ==> 11110011 or -13 decimal

The operator shifts ... should read The >> operator shifts ...

Signed Right Shift () should read Signed Right Shift (>>)

Example 10-1 ShowComponents, 2nd edition

Component elements are never added to the components vector so the panel comes
out blank. To correct, the very bottom of the code should read:

continue nextarg;
}
}
System.err.println("Warning: No such property: " + name);
}
components.addElements(component); // this line added
}
return components;

}
}

The okay and cancel buttons pop down the dialog but do not destroy it.
If the user trys to bring the dialog up a second time, it appears to hang. Ad
ding the dispose() command after the hide() command fixes the problem.

okay.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
hide();
dispose();
}
});

cancel.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
selectedFont = null;
hide();
dispose();
}
});

The text describing FilterOutputStream says, "This class ... must be subclassed to
perform some sort of filtering operation and may not be instantiated directly." This
is untrue. Although FilterInputStream cannot be instantiated, because its only
constructor is protected, the same is not true of FilterOutputStream, whose
constructor is public.

Although instantiating a FilterOutputStream is not very useful (the Sun 1.4
documentation says, "The class FilterOutputStream itself simply overrides all methods
of OutputStream with versions that pass all requests to the underlying output stream.
Subclasses of FilterOutputStream may further override some of these methods as well
as provide additional methods and fields."), it can be done. The following code
creates the file "foo.out" in the current directory:

import java.io.*;
public class foo {
public static void main(String[] unused) throws IOException {
FilterOutputStream fos =
new FilterOutputStream(new FileOutputStream("foo.out"));
fos.close();
}
}

The ExecuteSQL sample code uses the getObject() method to obtain a generic col
umn value and then the toString() method of class Object is used to print it.
This can lead to mismatches between the column width (obtained earlier with ge
tColumnDisplaySize()) and the actual value being printed. One such case is a D
OUBLE datatype -- a longer value may be stored than what is returned as the di
splay size. A superior approach to using getObject().toString() is to use the
getString(i) method which the ResultSet implements just for this purpose and w
hich should return a length compatible with the display size.

The text says to use toString() to convert a StringBuffer to a String. Doing this
copies the entire buffer to a string, and not just the contents. Using substring(0)
will create a String containing only the contents of the StringBuffer.

See also:
Bug Parade: 4259569
StringBuffer.toString() can cause large memory usage

[2/00 printing; this is the description of java.text.SimpleDateFormat]
The last sentence on the page reads "Any characters in the format string that do not appear in this table appear literally in the f
ormatted date." This is not quite true: alphabetic characters (or rather, the ASCII subset of alphabetic characters, that is, uppe
r and lowercase letters A-Z) are reserved even if they do not have any assigned meaning in the table. If an unassigned letter appe
ars unquoted in a format string, any attempt to use that format string will result in an IllegalArgumentException being thrown with
the message "Illegal pattern character 'X'". Fortunately, although not mentioned in the book, it is possible to include such char
acters - along with actual pattern characters from the table - literally in the format string, by surrounding them with single quot
ation marks. For example, you can use the string "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss" to get the ISO 8601 recommended format for combined date/
time strings.