CSA Unit 3 Terms

Parameter

Parameter

Any of a set of characteristics that distinguish different members of a family of tasks. Parameterizing a task means identifying a set of its parameters.

Formal Parameter

A variable that appears inside parentheses in the header of a method that is used to generalize the method's behavior.

Actual Parameter

A specific value or expression that appears inside parentheses in a method call.

Method Signature

The name of a method, along with its number and type of parameters.

Return

To send a value out as the result of a method that can be used in an expression in your program. Void methods do not return any value.

Object

A programming entity that contains state (data) and behavior (methods).

Class

A category or type of object.

Index

An integer used to specify a location in a sequence of values. Java generally uses zero-based indexing (with 0 as the first index value, followed by 1, 2, 3, and so on).

Exception

A runtime error that prevents a program from continuing its normal execution.

Immutable Object

An object whose value cannot be changed.

charAt(index)

Character at a specific index.

endsWith(text)

Whether or not the string ends with some text.

indexOf(text)

Index of a particular character or String (-1 if not present).

substring(start, stop)

Characters from start index to just before stop index.

Console Input Responses

Typed by the user when an interactive program pauses for input.

Constructor

A method that creates and initializes an object. Objects in Java programs must be constructed before they can be used.

next()

Reads and returns the next token as a String.

Token

A single element of input (e.g., one word, one number).

Whitespace

Spaces, tab characters, and new line characters.

Package

A collection of related Java classes.

Import Declaration

A request to access a specific Java package.

Declaring New Scanner:

Scanner console = new Scanner (System.in);

Method Overloading

The ability to define two or more different methods with the same name but different method signatures.