Newbie's Simple Code

[jessewclark]

Hi, everybody.

I'm just starting and I think this may be too simple of a thing to get response on , but I guess I wanted to get feedback from the ground up. I made a simple little class called JaVonNuemann, whose purpose is to basically duplicate itself. It takes a text file with all its own code, and copies it to a new file.

I also had it pop up as a GUI. Right now all the GUI does is allow you to click a button to make the copying happen.

If anybody has any advice as to a better way to do any of this, I'd appreciate hearing it. It's probably too simple a thing to ask about, but I thought I'd see just in case I did some small thing wrong.

public class JaVonNuemann implements ActionListener {
	
	public JaVonNuemann () {
		//Make sure we have nice window decorations.
        JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);

        //Create and set up the window.
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("JaVonNuemann");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        //Make a nice JPanel to hold our components.
        JPanel main = new JPanel ();
        frame.setContentPane(main);
        
        //Add the label.
        JLabel label = new JLabel("Make that thing!");
        main.add(label);
        
        //Make a Button
        JButton button = new JButton ("Make it good!");
        button.setActionCommand("Make It!");
        button.addActionListener(this);
        main.add(button);
        
        //Display the window.
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
	}
		
	    private static void createAndShowGUI() {
	        new JaVonNuemann ();
	    }

	    public static void main(String[] args) {
	        //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
	        //creating and showing this application's GUI.
	        javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
	            public void run() {
	                createAndShowGUI();
	            }
	        });
	    }

	    public void copy() throws IOException {
	    	File inputFile = new File("JaVonNuemann.txt");
	    	File outputFile = new File("JaVonNuemann1.java");
	    	
	    	FileReader in = new FileReader(inputFile);
	        FileWriter out = new FileWriter(outputFile);
	        int c;

	        while ((c = in.read()) != -1)
	           out.write(c);

	        in.close();
	        out.close();
		}
	    
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
			try {
				copy();
			} catch (IOException e1) {
				e1.printStackTrace();
			}
		}

}

[Belisarius]

Unfortunantly, in Java there's no real easy way to copy a file. You seemed to do it in the correct fashion - I haven't worked with files in Java in a while, so I'm a little rusty. The only thing I'd suggest would be to clean up your code so it's a little easier to read. The sticky in this section has a link to Java Coding Conventions that will tell you how to present your code so it's easier to read.

[jessewclark]

Bellisarius,

Thanks for your reply! I've downloaded the code conventions, and I'll read it. It's pretty long, though, and I wonder if there's one big thing that stands out right now?

[Belisarius]

Right now, I'd say make sure your indentations are uniform. That's the biggest hinderance towards making it easy to read.

[jessewclark]

Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't notice that. It wasn't a choice, just a mistake. Thanks again.