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StaticVariableExampleRunner.java	StaticVariableExampleRunner.java
StringMethods.java	StringMethods.java

Session 3

Classes
The String class
Searching Algorithms
Assignments
1. HackerRank
2. Miscellaneous

Classes

A class is like a blueprint for creating instances of an entity. It defines the member variables and methods for those instances.
For example, a Person class can define instance variables such as name, age, weight, and instance methods growOld, eatFood. Notice how instance methods are verb-like, and instance variables are properties of a person.

class Person {
    String name;
    int age;
    double weightInKg;
    
    void growOld() {
        age = age + 1;
    }
    
    void eatFood() {
        weightInKg = weightInKg + 0.1;
    }
}

Instance methods are non-static methods. This means that they belong to each instance of a class, and not to the class as a whole. This makes complete sense in the above class, each Person instance can independently eat food, and grow old.

Constructors

Constructors are a special variant of functions. They can only be used with the new keyword, to create an instance of a class.

If no constructor is defined, Java provides you with a 0-argument default constructor. In the above Person example, since we have not defined one, it is perfectly valid to create an instance by:

Person p = new Person();

However, this is clearly not what we want. We'd prefer instantiating the Person with his/her name, age and weight. So we can define a constructor as:

class Person {
    ...
    
    Person(String n, int a, double w) {
        name = n;
        age = a;
        weight = w;
    }
}

Remember that, since constructors are functions, you can overload them as well.

class Person {
    ...
    
    Person(String n) {
        name = n;
        age = 20;       // some default value
        weight = 75;    // some default value
    }
    
    Person(String n, int a, double w) {
        name = n;
        age = a;
        weight = w;
    }
}

Instance Variables

An instance variable is a property of a single instance of a class.

When you declare an instance variable, it is given a default value. The default values are as follows:
Numeric data types (byte, short, int, long, float, double): 0
Boolean: false
Object references: null (We will see this in the next session)

However, you may want to provide your own default values. You can do so by assigning a default value to the instance variable at the point of declaration.

class Person {
    int age = 20;
    double weight;  // Defaults to 0.0
    String name;    // Defaults to null
}

Instance Methods

An instance method is used to modify or access one or more instance variables. In the Person class, growOld modifies the age property of that instance. So for example:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Person p1 = new Person("Brandon", 16, 45.0);
    Person p2 = new Person("Rob", 21, 75.2);
    
    System.out.println(p1.age);             // Prints 16
    System.out.println(p1.weight);          // Prints 45.0
    
    System.out.println(p2.age);             // Prints 21
    System.out.println(p2.age);             // Prints 75.2
    
    // It is Brandon's birthday! :P
    p1.growOld();
    
    // Coz he's hungry
    p2.eatFood();
    
    System.out.println(p1.age);             // Prints 17
    System.out.println(p1.weight);          // Prints 45.0
    
    System.out.println(p2.age);             // Prints 21
    System.out.println(p2.weight);          // Prints 75.3
}

Static Methods and Instances

Sometimes, certain values are properties of the class itself, and not different for each instance. For Person, you could say that the number of bones are 206 (conveniently ignoring other factors).

class Person {
    static int noOfBones = 206;
}

Static variables are accessed by using the class name:

// There are two examples of static variables in the below line, can you see it?
System.out.println(Person.noOfBones);

Similarly, static methods belong to the class, and not for each individual instance. Static methods are much more common than static variables, and we have already seen quite a few of them; Math.min(), System.getCurrentTimeMillis(), main.

While it is not recommended, you can access static methods and variables by using instances of the class as well:

// Just an example, don't do this.
Person p = new Person();
System.out.println(p.noOfBones);

This makes sense because it is a property that belongs to the class itself, and so logically applies to every instance of the class.

HOWEVER, it is NOT possible to access instance variables and methods from a "static context", i.e. from a static method.

class Person {
    int age = 0;

    static int someMethod() {
        age += 1;               // THIS WILL NOT COMPILE
    }
}

This is obvious when you think about it. Since a static method belongs to the class as a whole, it does not have a concept of age or weight. It makes no sense to increment age for the Person class, while it did make sense to increment age for an instance of the class.

Practice

Write a class PhoneEmulator. It should have the following methods:
1. call(long phoneNumber)
2. hangUp()
3. isCallOngoing()
4. redial()
5. toggleMute()
6. isMuted()
7. getBill(int rateScheme)
  a. 0 = 2 paisa per second, constant
  b. 1 = free for first 10 seconds, then 3 paisa/s
  c. 2 = 1 paisa/s for first 20 seconds, then 2 paisa/s
  Decide on appropriate return types.
  Think about edge cases.
  1. What happens if you try to hang up when there is no ongoing call?
  2. What happens if you invoke call, when there is already an ongoing call?
    Helpful method: System.getCurrentTimeMillis
Write a class 2DPoint. It should have the following constructors and methods
1. Point()
2. Point(double x, double y)
3. euclideanDistanceTo(Point p) - Distance to Point p, using Euclidean Distance Formula
4. manhattanDistanceto(Point p) - Distance to Point p using Manhattan Distance Formula
5. midpoint(Point a, Point b) - Return the midpoint of the two points.
6. A static variable called ORIGIN, that represents the origin.
  Again, think about which of these methods should be static.

The `String` class

The String class is a rather special class in Java, since it has several behaviors that make it appear to be a primitive.

// Use of a String literal
String a = "hello";

// The + operator can be used on strings
String b = a + ", world";

The best place to understand a new class is by referring to the Javadocs. The JavaDocs for the String class are here

Working with the `char` datatype

When manipulating String instances, it is often useful to be able to manipulate individual characters. A useful tip to remember is that char is a numeric-like data type, and you can do arithmetic on it.

// You can iterate!
for (char c = 'a'; c <= 'z'; c++) {
	// Do something with c
}

// To convert a lowercase char into uppercase
int upperLowerDiff = 'A' - 'a';
char bigH = (char)('h' + upperLowerDiff);

// You can reason about this very simply
// 'A' - 'a' = 'H' - 'h'
// 'A' - 'a' + 'h' = 'H'

// Similarly

// To convert uppercase char into lowercase
int lowerUpperDiff = 'a' - 'A';
char bigH = (char)('H' + upperLowerDiff);

// When you want to count frequencies of characters, a nifty trick is to use an array, and index it by character value
String s = "wewillcountcharacters";
char[] cArray = s.toCharArray();

// Given that you will MOSTLY work with only ASCII, and not UNICODE
// You only need a size of 128 for counting characters in an arbitrary String
int[] frequencies = new int[128];

for (char c : cArray) {
	frequencies[c] += 1;
}

Note: Arrays are object-like. You can notice several similarities between arrays and objects:

The .length property
Typicaly use of new when creating arrays.

This gives us a third feature of an array:
When you don't assign values to individual cells in an array, they follow the default value rule.
This is how we are able to execute the line frequencies[c] += 1, because all cells of the array were initialized to 0.

Practice:

Searching Algorithms

Searching is a technique which is used to find whether an element with a particular value/properties exists in the given collection or not. If it does, we need to print/return the index where it is stored.

Two of the most widely used algortihms are Linear Search and Binary Search.

Linear Search:

This algorithm compares each element with the elementToBeFound till either the element is found or the entire array is traversed.

def linearSearch(int a[], int elementToBeFound):
    
    for i from 0 until a.length:
        if a[i]==elementToBeFound 
            // Element found at index i 
            return i
			
    // Element not found in the array(return not called)
    return -1

Binary Search:

When the input data is sorted, we can use some optimisation, instead of traversing the entire array.
Beginning with the middle of the array, in each iteration we see whether the current mid is greater than, less than or equal to the elementToBeFound.

If the middle element is smaller than the elementToBeFound, then the elementToBeFound will be in the right half.
If the middle element is greater than the elementToBeFound, then the elementToBeFound will be in the left half.
At each step, we need to update our varibles to work on the selected half of the array.

def binarySearch(int a[], int elementToBeFound):
    start = 0
    end = a.length
	
    while(start <= end):
        // find the mid based on current start and end.
        mid = (start + end)/2
		
	if(a[mid]==elementToBeFound)
        // element found at position = mid 
            return mid
			
        if(a[mid] > elementToBeFound)
            // element lies in the left half of the array 
            end = mid - 1
			
            if(a[mid] < elementToBeFound)
            // element lies in the right half of the array
            start = mid + 1
			
    // element not found!
    return -1

Important notes

Binary Search works only for sorted arrays!
The whole idea revolves around deciding whether the element lies in left or the right half of the current array.
Let's say we were to search an element at the last position in a sorted array containing 100 elements-
Using Linear Search - the loop will run 100 times to reach 100th element.
Using Binary Search - the while loop will 7 times to reach 100th element.

In fact, any element in this array can be found via binary Search in a maximum of 7 comparisons. This is because :
Time complexity for linearSearch is O(N) and,
Time complexity for binarySearchis O(log2(N)).
Essentially, we are decreasing the array size by half at each stage which makes the algorithm faster.
Did you know you have been applying binary search all your lives? - Dictionaries. Think about it.

Assignments

HackerRank

Miscellaneous

Make a MathUtil class. It should contain the following methods:
1. gcd(long a, long b)
2. lcm(long a, long b)
3. min(long[] arr)
4. min(int[] arr)
5. max(long[] arr)
6. max(int[] arr)
7. average(long[] arr)
  Think whether these should be instance methods or static methods. Decide on appropriate data types.
Write a recursive version of binarySearch function written above.

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Session03

Session03

README.md

Session 3

Table of Contents

Classes

Constructors

Instance Variables

Instance Methods

Static Methods and Instances

Practice

The `String` class

Working with the `char` datatype

Searching Algorithms

Linear Search:

Binary Search:

Important notes

Assignments

HackerRank

Miscellaneous

Files

Session03

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Directory actions

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Latest commit

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Session03

Folders and files

parent directory

README.md

Session 3

Table of Contents

Classes

Constructors

Instance Variables

Instance Methods

Static Methods and Instances

Practice

The String class

Working with the char datatype

Searching Algorithms

Linear Search:

Binary Search:

Important notes

Assignments

HackerRank

Miscellaneous

The `String` class

Working with the `char` datatype