Conventions

Throughout the book, concrete programming constructs or program output are presented in a monospaced font. For example, when abstractly discussing server-side programs that use HTTP, we might refer to "HTTP servlets" or just "servlets," but when we say HttpServlet we are talking about a specific Java class.

User input is indicated in boldface, and command-line prompts are either generic ( Prompt> ) or indicate the operating system to which they apply ( DOS> ). For instance, the following indicates that " Some Output " is the result when " java SomeProgram " is executed on any platform.

 Prompt>  java SomeProgram  Some Output 

URLs, filenames, and directory names are presented in a sansserif font. So, for example, we would say "the StringTokenizer class" (monospaced because we're talking about the class name ) and "Listing such and such shows SomeFile.java " (sans-serif because we're talking about the filename). Paths use forward slashes as in URLs unless they are specific to the Windows operating system. So, for instance, we would use a forward slash when saying "look in install_dir /bin " (OS neutral) but use backslashes when saying "see C:\Windows\Temp " (Windows specific).

Important standard techniques are indicated by specially marked entries, as in the following example.

Core Approach

Pay particular attention to items in "Core Approach" sections. They indicate techniques that should always or almost always be used.

Notes and warnings are called out in a similar manner.