If you’ve been reading this book sequentially, you’ve read all about the core Java language constructs, including the object-oriented aspects of the language and the use of threads. Now it’s time to shift gears and start talking about the Java Application Programming Interface (API), the collection of classes that compose the standard Java packages and come with every Java implementation. Java’s core packages are one of its most distinguishing features. Many other object-oriented languages have similar features, but none has as extensive a set of standardized APIs and tools as Java does. This is both a reflection of and a reason for Java’s success. Table 10-1 lists some of the important packages in the API and their corresponding chapters in this book.
Table 10-1. Java API packages
Package | Contents | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
Basic language classes | 4–9 | |
Reflection | 7 | |
Thread utilities | 9 | |
International text classes and regular expressions | 10 | |
Utilities and collections classes | 10–12 | |
Input and output Input and output | 12 12 | |
Networking and Remote Method Invocation classes | 13–14 | |
Remote Method Invocation classes | 13 | |
Web applications | 15 | |
Swing GUI and 2D graphics | 16–20 | |
Images, sound, and video | 21 | |
JavaBeans API | 22 | |
The Applet API | 23 | |
The XML API | 24 |
As you can see in Table 10-1, we
have examined some classes in java.lang
in earlier chapters while looking at the core language constructs. Starting
with this chapter, we throw open the Java toolbox and begin examining the
rest of the API classes, starting with text-related utilities, because they
are fundamental to all kinds of applications.
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