The Java Tutorials are practical guides for programmers who want
to use the Java programming language to create applications. They
include hundreds of complete, working examples, and dozens of
lessons. Groups of related lessons are organized into "trails".
For the most accurate and up-to-date tutorials,
please access the latest version from Oracle's official website for the
Java SE Tutorials (Last Updated 03/17/2011), which can be found at:
http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial.
The Java SE Tutorials primarily describe features in Java SE 6.
For best results, download JDK 6.
Enjoy quizzes? Take a minute to answer this quiz about Java applets.
The Java Tutorials are continuously updated to keep up with changes to
the Java Platform and to incorporate feedback from our readers.
Included in recent releases:
- The
JLayer component, introduced in Java SE 7,
is explained in How to Decorate
Components with JLayer.
- As of Java SE 7 build 130, the NIO.2 File I/O package has
been updated, with new and simplified API. The
File I/O (Featuring NIO.2)
section has been modified to reflect these changes.
- Samples that demonstrates how to use
RowSet objects
have been added to the JDBC trail.
Please see Using RowSet Objects
for more information. In addition, a sample that shows you how to integrate
JDBC with a GUI API, in particular the Swing API, has been added.
Please see Using JDBC with
GUI API for more information.
- The latest version of the Unicode
Standard is Unicode
6.0. The Java tutorial has new coverage for Unicode:
- As a result of
Project Coin,
several changes were introduced to the Java language:
- The Primitive
Data Types page has been updated to discuss binary literals
and to mention that underscore characters can
appear anywhere between digits in a numerical literal.
- The switch
Statement page has been updated to reflect the ability to
switch on a
String object.
- The Diamond Operator
has been added to generics. See the
Type
Inference section for more information.
- Using non-reifiable parameters with varags methods is also new.
See Using
Non-Reifiable Parameters with Varargs Methods for more information.
- The ability to catch more than one type of exception with a single
exception handler has been added. See
The
catch
Blocks for more information.
- The
try-with-resources statement ensures that a resource
(such as a BufferedReader) is closed when the program is
finished with it. See
The
try-with-resources Statement for more information.
The Java Tutorials include content for features in the upcoming Java SE 7
release. Java SE 7 specific content will be revised as necessary to
accommodate changes in feature specification before the final Java SE 7
release.
Trails Covering the Basics
These trails are available in book form as
The Java
Tutorial, Fourth Edition. To buy this book,
refer to the box to the right.
- Getting Started
— An introduction to Java technology and lessons on
installing Java development software and using it to create a
simple program.
- Learning the Java Language
— Lessons describing the essential concepts and features
of the Java Programming Language.
- Essential Java Classes
— Lessons on exceptions, basic input/output,
concurrency, regular expressions, and the platform
environment.
- Collections —
Lessons on using and extending the Java Collections Framework.
- Swing — An introduction
to the Swing GUI toolkit, with an overview of features and a
visual catalog of components. See below for a more
comprehensive tutorial on Swing.
- Deployment —
How to package applications and applets using JAR files, and
deploy them using Java Web Start and Java Plug-in.
- Preparation
for Java Programming Language Certification
— List of available training and tutorial resources.
Creating Graphical User Interfaces
This trail is available in book form as
The JFC Swing
Tutorial. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.
Specialized Trails and Lessons
These trails and lessons are only available as web pages.
- Custom Networking
— An introduction to the Java platform's powerful
networking features.
- The Extension Mechanism
— How to make custom APIs available to all applications
running on the Java platform.
- Full-Screen
Exclusive Mode API — How to write applications
that more fully utilize the user's graphics hardware.
- Generics —
An enhancement to the type system that supports operations on
objects of various types while providing compile-time type
safety. Note that this lesson is for advanced users. The Java Language trail contains a Generics lesson that is
suitable for beginners.
- Internationalization —
An introduction to designing software so that it can be easily
be adapted (localized) to various languages and regions.
- JavaBeans —
The Java platform's component technology.
- JDBC Database Access —
Introduces an API for connectivity between the Java
applications and a wide range of databases and a data sources.
- JMX— Java Management
Extensions provides a standard way of managing resources
such as applications, devices, and services.
- JNDI— Java Naming and
Directory Interface enables accessing the Naming and Directory
Service such as DNS and LDAP.
- JAXP — Introduces
the Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.4 technology.
- RMI — The Remote Method
Invocation API allows an object to invoke methods of
an object running on another Java Virtual Machine.
- Reflection — An API
that represents ("reflects") the classes, interfaces, and
objects in the current Java Virtual Machine.
- Security — Java
platform features that help protect applications from
malicious software.
- Sound — An API for
playing sound data from applications.
- 2D Graphics — How to
display and print 2D graphics in applications.
- Sockets Direct Protocol — How to
enable the Sockets Direct Protocol to take advantage of
InfiniBand.
