Java Reference
In-Depth Information
2.9 The API Documentation
The classes and methods of the Java library are listed in the API documentation. The
API is the Ȓapplication programming interfaceȓ. A programmer who uses the Java
classes to put together a computer program (or application) is an application
programmer. That's you. In contrast, the programmers who designed and implemented
the library classes such as
PrintStream
and
Rectangle
are system programmers.
You can find the API documentation on the Web [
3
]. Point your web browser to
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/index.html
. Alternatively,
you can download and install the API documentation onto your own computerȌsee
Productivity Hint 2.1
.
The API (Application Programming Interface) documentation lists the classes and
methods of the Java library.
The API documentation documents all classes in the Java libraryȌthere are thousands
of them (see
Figure 12
). Most of the classes are rather specialized, and only a few are
of interest to the beginning programmer.
Locate the
Rectangle
link in the left pane, preferably by using the search function
of your browser. Click on the link, and the right pane shows all the features of the
Rectangle
class (see
Figure 13
).
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Figure 12
The API Documentation of the Standard Java Library
