Java

Read an XML document

below is the basic Java DOM approach to reading an xml document (file) into memory

DocumentBuilderFactory docBuilderFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder docBuilder;
Document doc;
try {
	docBuilder = docBuilderFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
	doc = docBuilder.parse (new File("FileName"));
}
catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
	e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (SAXException e) {
	e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (IOException e) {
	e.printStackTrace();
}		

People say Java is long-winded

Compare the Java code below to the C version underneath

public class HelloWorld {	
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      System.out.println( "I'm Alive!!");
   }	
}

and in C

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  printf("Hello World!\n");
  return 0;
}

The java version is really only encumbered by one extra statement (the class statement) which, granted my be a little redundant in such a simple case, is not really an issue. The vast majority of beginners just accept that it is part of the language - just a container in which to put code and data.

And here is a much prettier version - it pops up a dialog box and only adds one more line:

import javax.swing.JOptionPane;

public class PopHelloWorld {
	
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "I'm Alive!!", "Hello", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
   }
}

Round to n significant figures

I needed to round numbers to a given number of significant figures, irrespective of their size, here is an example of what I cam up with:

        public static void main(String[] args) {
        double vals[] = {123456.00, 1.23456, 0.00123456 };        
        
        double sigFigs = 3;
        double base10 = Math.log(10);//factor to convert to natural log to base 10
        
        for(double v : vals) {
            
            //get the number of digits in the value
            int nDigits =  1 + (int) (Math.round(Math.log(v)/base10));
            
            //create a scaling factor
            double factor = Math.pow(10,nDigits) /  Math.pow(10,sigFigs);
            //divide by the factor, round and multiply to reduce the significant figures
            double vSigFigs = Math.round( v/factor) * factor;
            
            /* the double above is pretty close but being a double means that it may not be exact 
             * convert to a BigDecimal of the correct scale */
            BigDecimal bd = new BigDecimal(vSigFigs);
            // the scale is the number of digits after the decimal point
            int scale = 1 + Math.abs( (int)Math.round( (Math.log(factor)/base10) ) );
            bd = bd.setScale( scale , BigDecimal.ROUND_HALF_UP);
            System.out.println("Value=" + v + "  rounded=" + bd.toPlainString());
            
            
        }
    }

List database tables/columns

Here is a way of listing the tables and columns in a database via JDBC

import java.sql.*;

public class ReadDb {


    public static void main(String[] args) {
      
      //open the db
      try {
        // Load the JDBC driver
        String driverName = "oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver";
        Class.forName(driverName);
    
        // Create a connection to the database
        String serverName = "localhost";
        String portNumber = "1521";
        String sid = "db";
        String url = "jdbc:oracle:thin:@" + serverName + ":" + portNumber + ":" + sid;
        String username = "user";
        String password = "password";
        Connection cnn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);

        String catalog = null;
        String schema  = null;
        for (int i=0; i<args.length; i=i+2) {
           {
            if (args[i].equals("-cat")) {
              catalog = args[i+1];
            }
            else if (args[i].equals("-scm")) {
              schema = args[i+1];
            }
          }
        }

        listTables(cnn, catalog, schema);

        cnn.close();

      } 
      catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
          // Could not find the database driver
        e.printStackTrace();
      } 
      catch (SQLException e) {
        // Could not connect to the database
        e.printStackTrace();
      }
      catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
        System.out.println("Error in argument list");
      }
   }

  public static void listTables(Connection cnn, String catalog, String schema) {
    try {
        // Gets the database metadata
        DatabaseMetaData dbmd = cnn.getMetaData();
    
        // Specify the type of object; in this case we want tables
        String[] types = {"TABLE"};
        ResultSet resultSet = dbmd.getTables(null, null, "%", types);
    
        // Get the table names
        while (resultSet.next()) {
         
          // Get the table name
          String tableName = resultSet.getString(3);
    
          // Get the table's catalog and schema names (if any)
          String tableCatalog = resultSet.getString(1);
          String tableSchema = resultSet.getString(2);

          //should we list this catalog/schema?
          boolean listCat = true;          
          if (catalog != null && !catalog.equals(tableCatalog)) listCat=false;
          boolean listScm = true;          
          if (schema != null && !schema.equals(tableSchema)) listScm=false;

          if (listCat && listScm) {
            try {
              System.out.println('\n' + tableName + "\t" + tableCatalog + "\t" + tableSchema);
              //list columns - seems that we need to do a select * from table and 
              //then get columns from result set
              String sql = "SELECT * from " + tableName;

              // Create a result set
              Statement stmt = cnn.createStatement();
              ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);
    
              // Get result set meta data
              ResultSetMetaData rsmd = rs.getMetaData();
              int numColumns = rsmd.getColumnCount();
    
              // Get the column names; column indices start from 1
              for (int i=1; i<numColumns+1; i++) {
                try {
                  String columnName = rsmd.getColumnName(i);
                  System.out.println( columnName);
                } catch (SQLException e) {
                  System.out.println("Error reading column info for table " + tableName);
                  e.printStackTrace();
                }              
              }
            } catch (SQLException e) {
              System.out.println("Error reading column info for table " + tableName);
              e.printStackTrace();
            } 
          }//if listCat and listScm
        }// while db meta data

    } catch (SQLException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }


  }


}