Reading a Quick-Reference Entry

The quick-reference entries for classes and interfaces contain quite a bit of information. The sections that follow describe the structure of a quick-reference entry, explaining what information is available, where it is found, and what it means. While reading the descriptions that follow, you may find it helpful to flip through the reference section itself to find examples of the features being described.

Class Name, Package Name, Availability, and Flags

Each quick-reference entry begins with a four-part title that specifies the name, package name, and availability of the class, and may also specify various additional flags that describe the class. The class name appears in bold at the upper left of the title. The package name appears, in smaller print, in the lower left, below the class name.

The upper-right portion of the title indicates the availability of the class; it specifies the earliest release that contained the class. If a class was introduced in Java 1.1, for example, this portion of the title reads “Java 1.1”. The availability section of the title is also used to indicate whether a class has been deprecated, and, if so, in what release. For example, it might read “Java 1.1; Deprecated in Java 1.2”.

In the lower-right corner of the title you may find a list of flags that describe the class. The possible flags and their meanings are as follows:

checked

The class is a checked exception, which means that it extends java.lang.Exception, but ...

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