Monthly Archives: August 2010

Java instaniate an abstract class… sort of…

Posted on by

At work I had to create some test data for a junit test. The function I’m testing expects a super abstract class to be passed in and I need to test the same function for bunch of child classes. I wish I could just pass in the parent class but since it’s abstract I cannot instantiate it. I wonder if there is a way using reflection so I can instantiate the class?? Since I could not find a way, I used the following:

public void testSomeFunction() throws Exception {
	ParentData data1 = populate(ChildDataOne.class);
	//..test..

	ParentData data2 = populate(ChildDataTwo.class);
	//..test..
}

private static ParentData populate(Class clazz) throws Exception {
	ParentData data = clazz.newInstance();
	data.setProperty1("1");
	data.setProperty2("2");
	data.setProperty3("3");
	data.setProperty4("4");
	data.setProperty5("5");
	return data;
}

Setting private property without setter in Java

Posted on by

Not really a new trick but I had to look for the syntax today to use reflection to set a private property on an object to use it in a junit test.

Class clazz = someFooObject.getClass();
Field f = clazz.getDeclaredField("somePrivateField");
f.setAccessible(true);
f.set(someFooObject, new Integer(50));

writing an ajax app for Sequence

Posted on by

Yesterday I attended Ted Neward‘s game design session at nofluff. It inspired me to begin to implement the game sequence in an ajax app. It will be a private app since I only plan to play it with some friends. But it will be hosted somewhere on my website so it can be accessed from anywhere.

Sequence is a board game my husband and I often played with two of our friends. It’s their favorite game. When I started thinking last night about potentially creating a web version so we don’t need to be physically at their house to play, I became very excited. I believe I may create something that will work with the help of php, mysql + jQuery (ajax).

Why this idea excites me

  • Before I started as a professional Java developer, I always coded in php & mysql (somewhat a LAMP developer on the side). However most of my old applications and sites are down. I no longer have the desire to maintain them. Now this is a great opportunity and incentive for me to go back to php & mysql and write something I enjoy.
  • PHP has a special place in my heart. Just a while ago, a coworker asked for my help to create him something to help with the manual text file processing he has to do every month. It only needs to be quick & dirty app. I threw together a php app in half an hour for him. It was super cool. He loved it.
  • jQuery is my favorite javascript library. You don’t have to look far in my blog to find that out. So the more I get to work with it, the happier I am.
  • I can also involve my husband on this project. Even though he’s not a programmer but he knows this game as well as I do. Normally he doesn’t have much of stake in my apps but this time he can be my lab rat :)
  • With this project, I also get to play with UI. I started as a web designer. So CSS & HTML have been my passion. There will be quite a bit of UI involved in the designing of this game.
  • It’s fun because it will be very useful. I very much look forward to the day that I can have our friends joining the game.
  • I can blog about it! I may not share my final product with the public but I will definitely share my progress & experience. Hopefully there will be challenges where I can learn some new stuff.

Last night I started brainstorming with my hushand as how I want the game to work. I started table designing and UI designing. This morning I put together a very prototype version of the UI.
sequence phase 001
I leveraged jQuery’s “redmond” theme. This way I can use all of the cool jQuery UI widgets and benefit from reusing its css for elements I want to style and create a semi prof looking app in no time.