Assignment Solution


Introduction




It is in your best interest to do this assignment as soon as possible —ideally as soon as you have Java and




Eclipse working on your computer. The assignment serves two purposes:




It introduces you to the Java assert statement, which you will use in assignment A1.



It helps you get started with Eclipse including: creating a new project, running method main, adding a “VM argument” (VM stands for Virtual Machine) to the run configuration, and under-standing the error messages returned by the Java compiler.



Getting help




If you don't know where to start, don't understand some of the terms used in this assignment, feel lost, etc., please SEEK HELP FROM THE COURSE STAFF IMMEDIATELY. Or ask a question and look for answers on Piazza. Do not wait. A little in-person help can do wonders. See the course homepage for the contact information for the instructors, TAs, and consultants.




The Java assert statement




The Java assert statement has the form




assert <boolean expression ;




To execute an assert statement, evaluate the <boolean expression; if it is true, do nothing; if it is false, “throw” a java.lang.AssertionError error. Throwing Exception AssertionError caus-es the program to stop executing and print an error message indicating that the line of the program con-taining the assert statement whose <boolean expression evaluated to false. (You’ll learn about “throwing Exceptions” in a week or two.)




For example, suppose you have the following on lines 17 and 18.




x= 5;




assert x == 6;



and execute the program (we see later how to do that). You get output like the following:




Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AssertionError
 at Bee.main(Bee.java:18)




Style guideline: Parentheses are not needed around the <boolean expression. Do not write “as-sert (x==6);” —while it is syntactically correct, it is harder to read. Put spaces around the operator ==.




Creating an Eclipse project




To create a new project, do the following:




Launch Eclipse



Create a new project using menu item File — New — Java Project. In the window that opens:



Give it project name a0



Check that it is using execution environment JavaSE-1.8 or some other version 8 JRE.



Click the Finish button
CS2110 Assignment A0. The Java assert statement and Eclipse !2







Some notes:




We create separate folders for source (.java) and class (.class) files



We don’t add the projects to Working sets. We do not deal with Working sets in 2110.



Add a new class to the project using menu item File — New — Class. In the window that opens:



Give it the name A0



MAKE SURE THE FIELD LABELED “Package:” IS EMPTY! Delete all text in it.



Under “Which method stubs would you like to create?” check only the box “public static void main(…)”
Click the Finish button



You will see class A0 appear in the main pane of the Eclipse window.



Set some Eclipse preferences. Use menu item Preferences. In the window that opens, select Gen-eral - Editors - Text Editors. In the Text Editors pane, do this:

Check the box “Show line numbers”,



Set the “Displayed tab width” to 4,



Check the box “Show print margin”,



Set the “Print margin column” to 80,



Set “When mouse moved into hover” to “Enrich immediately”,



Click “Apply and Close”.



Class A0 contains a definition of a method called main. When a certain menu item is used, method main will be called, resulting in its body (the text between{ and }) being executed. We’ll do that in a minute. First, copy the following lines and paste them into the body, in place of the comment “// TODO Auto-generated method stub” —you can remove that comment:



System.out.println("Executing method main."); int x= 5;




System.out.println("x is now " + x); assert x == 6;

System.out.println("The assert statement was not executed");




If the lines are not indented well —for example, the first } should appear under the p of the word public above it— select all lines by using control-A (pc) or command-A (mac) and then using control-I (pc) or command-I (mac). The class is now properly indented. It should have no errors in it and the program can be executed.



Use menu item Run — Run. This causes method main to be executed, and you should see three lines of output:



Executing method main.




x is now 5




The assert statement was not executed




This indicates that the assert statement was not executed. We next show you how to fix it so that the assert statement is executed.
CS2110 Assignment A0. The Java assert statement and Eclipse 3!







Making sure assert statements are executed




A nice thing about assert statements is that their execution can be turned on or off. Thus, after testing a program thoroughly using assert statements to help test and debug, when you want to actually use the program to get something done, you can leave assert statements in the program but not have them exe-cuted during program execution. Then, if an error is detected later on, or changes have to be made in the program, you can turn on assert-statement execution to again help in testing and debugging.




Here is how to turn assert-statement execution on. First, make sure that A0.java is selected in the Package Explorer pane. Then:




In Eclipse, choose menu item Run — Run Configurations



In the window that opens, click tab Arguments



In the field titled VM arguments, type: -ea



Click button Apply, near the bottom of the pane



Click button Close at the bottom of the window.



Having done that, run the program again using menu item Run — Run. The output should now be:




Executing method main.




Exception in thread "main" x is now 5 java.lang.AssertionError




at A0.main(A0.java:11)




or




Executing method main.




x is now 5




Exception in thread "main"




java.lang.AssertionError




at A0.main(A0.java:11)




The last three lines indicate that an “exception” was “thrown” in method main. In this case, the exception was an AssertionError, and it occurred on line 11. You will learn about exceptions and throwing them later on in the course.




Note: on your Eclipse, the line number may be different, depending on, for example, you putting extra blank lines at the beginning.




Fix your Eclipse so that line numbers always show. To do that, choose menu item Eclipse — Prefer-ences; then select General - Editors - TextEditors. Make sure Text Editors is highlighted. Check box “Show line numbers”. Click Apply and then OK.




Fixing Eclipse so that assert statement are aways executed




Do the following to make sure that assert statements are always executed.




Open JavaHyperText in your favorite browser.



In the top horizontal navigation bar, choose menu item Eclipse — Assert statement.



Follow the directions for Permanently turning on assert-statement execution.



What to Submit




On the CMS for the course, submit source file A0.java by the due date given by the CMS.