Glossary - Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design - page 646

computer architecture— The structure and
interaction of the hardware components of a
computer.
concatenation— See string concatenation.
condition— A boolean expression used to
determine whether the body of a selection or
repetition statement should be executed.
conditional coverage— A strategy used in
white-box testing in which all conditions in a
program are executed, producing both true
and false results. See also statement coverage.
conditional operator— A Java ternary operator
that evaluates one of two expressions based on
a condition.
conditional statement— See selection statement.
const— A Java reserved word that is not cur-
rently used.
constant— An identifier that contains a value
that cannot be modified. Used to make code
more readable and to facilitate changes. Defined
in Java using the final modifier.
constructor— A special method in a class that is
invoked when an object is instantiated from the
class. Used to initialize the object.
container— A Java graphical user interface
component that can hold other components.
See also containment hierarchy.
containment hierarchy— The relationships
among graphical components of a user inter-
face. See also container.
content pane— The part of a top-level container
to which components are added.
control characters— See nonprintable characters.
controller— Hardware devices that control the
interaction between a computer system and a
particular kind of peripheral.
coupling— The strength of the relationship
between two software components. See also
cohesion.

CPU— See central processing unit.
data stream— An I/O stream that represents a
particular source or destination for data, such
as a file. See also processing stream.
data structure— Any programming construct,
either defined in the language or by a program-
mer, used to organize data into a format to
facilitate access and processing. Arrays, linked
lists, and stacks can all be considered data
structures.
data type— A designation that specifies a set of
values (which may be infinite). For example,
each variable has a data type that specifies the
kinds of values that can be stored in it.
data transfer device— A hardware component
that allows information to be sent between
computers, such as a modem.
debugger— A software tool that allows a pro-
grammer to step through an executing program
and examine the value of variables at any point.
See also jdb.
decimal— The base-10 number system, which
humans use in everyday life. See also binary.
default— A Java reserved word that is used to
indicate the default case of a switch statement,
used if no other cases match.
default visibility— The level of access desig-
nated when no explicit visibility modifier is
used to declare a class, interface, method, or
variable. Sometimes referred to as package
visibility. Anything declared with default vis-
ibility is visible only to classes in the same
package.
defect testing— Testing designed to uncover
errors in a program.
delimiter— Any symbol or word used to set the
boundaries of a programming language con-
struct, such as the braces ( {} ) used to define a
Java block.