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How the Quick Reference Is Generated
For the
As Java has evolved, so has my system for generating Java quick reference material. The current system is part of a larger commercial documentation browser system I'm developing (visit http://www.davidflanagan.com/Jude for more information about it). The program works in two
The first pass begins by reading the class files for all of the classes and interfaces to be documented. Almost all of the API information in the quick reference is available in these class files. The notable exception is the names of method arguments, which are not stored in class files. These argument names are obtained by parsing the Java source file for each class and interface. Where source files are not available, I obtain method argument
Once the API information has been obtained by reading class files, source files, and javadoc files, the program spends some time sorting and cross-referencing everything. Then it stores all the API information into a single large data file.
The second pass reads API information from that data file and outputs quick reference chapters using a custom XML doctype. Once I've generated the XML output, I hand it off to the production team at O'Reilly. In the past, these XML documents were converted to troff and formatted with GNU groff using a highly customized macro package. In this edition, the chapters were converted from XML to Framemaker instead, using in-house production tools.
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Acknowledgments
Many people helped in the creation of this book, and I am grateful to them all. I am indebted to the many, many readers of the first four editions who wrote in with comments, suggestions, bug
Deb Cameron was the editor for the fifth edition. Deb edited not only the material that was new in this edition but also made the time to
As usual, I've had a crack team of technical reviewers for this edition of the book. Gilad Bracha of Sun reviewed the material on generic types. Josh Bloch, a former Sun employee who is now at Google, reviewed the material on enumerated types and annotations. Josh was also a reviewer for the third and fourth editions of the book, and his helpful input has been an invaluable resource for me. Josh's book
Effective Java Programming Guide
(Addison Wesley) is highly recommended. Neal Gafter, who, like Josh, left Sun for Google,
The fourth edition was also reviewed by a number of engineers from Sun and elsewhere. Josh Bloch reviewed material on assertions and the Preferences API. Bob Eckstein reviewed XML material. Graham Hamilton reviewed the Logging API material. Ron Hitchens reviewed the New I/O material. Jonathan Knudsen (who is also an O'Reilly author) reviewed the JSSE and Certification Path material. Charlie Lai reviewed the JAAS material. Ram Marti reviewed the JGSS material. Philip Milne, a former Sun employee, now at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, reviewed the material on the JavaBeans persistence mechanism. Mark Reinhold reviewed the
java.nio
material. Mark
The third edition also benefited greatly from the contributions of reviewers who are intimately familiar with the Java platform. Joshua Bloch, one of the primary authors of the Java collections framework, reviewed my descriptions of the collections classes and interfaces. Josh was also helpful in discussing the
Timer
and
TimerTask
classes of Java 1.3 with me. Mark Reinhold, creator of the
java.lang.ref
package, explained the package to me and reviewed my documentation of it. Scott Oaks reviewed my descriptions of the Java security and cryptography classes and interfaces. The documentation of the
javax.crypto
package and its subpackages was also reviewed by Jon Eaves. Finally, Chapter 1 was improved by the comments of reviewers who were
not
already familiar with the Java platform: Christina Byrne reviewed it from the standpoint of a novice programmer, and Judita Byrne of Virginia Power
For the second edition, John Zukowski reviewed my Java 1.1 AWT quick reference material, and George Reese reviewed most of the remaining new material. The second edition was also blessed with a "dream team" of technical reviewers from Sun. John Rose, the author of the Java inner class specification, reviewed the chapter on inner classes. Mark Reinhold, author of the new character stream classes in java.io , reviewed my documentation of these classes. Nakul Saraiya, the designer of the Java Reflection API, reviewed my documentation of the java.lang.reflect package.
Mike Loukides provided high-level direction and guidance for the first edition of the book. Eric Raymond and Troy Downing reviewed that first editionthey helped spot my errors and omissions and offered good advice on making the book more useful to Java programmers.
The O'Reilly production team has done its usual fine work of creating a book out of the electronic files I submit. My thanks to them all.
As always, my thanks and love to Christie.
David Flanagan
http://www.davidflanagan.com
March 2005
