Java Reference
In-Depth Information
methods; how to write unit test-like tests into your code (see
Avoiding the Need for Debug-
Java 1.4 API Changes
Java SE 1.4 introduced a variety of technologies, such as a standardized Java implementation
of regular expressions (see
Chapter 4
). Regular Expressions, while borrowed from formal
language theory or theoretical computer science, found singularly powerful use in early Unix
systems as the basis for almost all pattern-matching commands. Larry Wall extended them
with his Perl language (see
Learning Perl
and
Perl Cookbook
[O'Reilly]); it is these exten-
ded regexes that Java implements (with a few minor changes). See
Chapter 4
for plenty of
details on regex.
To facilitate “exception translation” to provide tiering isolation, the platform introduced “ex-
ception chaining”, the ability to wrap one exception in another; many of the standard Excep-
tion types were modified to support this. Recognizing the increasing importance of the
eXtensible Markup Language, 1.4 introduced the options covered in
Chapter 20
(the Java
API for XML Processing, or JAXP). Finally, recognizing that applets were never going to
take over the world, this release brought about
Java Web Start
.
There were a number of other features added, such as:
3. Security and crypto (JCE, JSSE, JAAS)
What Was New in Java 5
Java 5 (JDK 1.5) is the other “largest” release, containing a variety of changes both in the
language and in the APIs.
Java 5 Language Changes
Language changes include:
▪ foreach loop
▪ Enumeration types (
enum
keyword)
