Sample Exam Question

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The sample question for the Sun Certified Java Programmer Exam 310-020 is:

Given the following code:

import java.util.Date;
      
public class Example {
	public static void main(String args[]) {
		Date d1 = new Date (99, 11, 31);
		Date d2 = new Date (99, 11, 31);
		method(d1, d2);
		System.out.println("d1 is " + d1 
				+ "\nd2 is " + d2);
	}
      
	public static void method(Date d1, Date d2) {
		d2.setYear (100);
		d1 = d2;
	}
}

Which one or more of the following correctly describe the behavior when this program is compiled and run?

a) compilation is successful and the output is:

d1 is Fri December 31 00:00:00 GMT 1999
d2 is Fri December 31 00:00:00 GMT 1999

b) compilation is successful and the output is:

d1 is Fri December 31 00:00:00 GMT 1999
d2 is Sun December 31 00:00:00 GMT 2000

c) compilation is successful and the output is:

	d1 is Sun December 31 00:00:00 GMT 2000
	d2 is Sun December 31 00:00:00 GMT 2000

d) the assignment 'd1 = d2' is rejected by the compiler because the Date class cannot overload the operator '='.

e) the expression (d1 is " + d1 + "\nd2 is " + d2) is rejected by the compiler because the Date class cannot overload the operator '+'.

Discussion

All the interesting stuff that happen in the Example class is in method. main simply initializes some data and prints the results. In method, the followning happens:

1. d2 has its year set to 100 (really 2000, as 99 maps to 1999). This changes the data that is stored in d2.
2. Object d1 is set to be the same as d2. This is a change of the actual reference, not in the data at d1.

Both of these line are perfectly legal, and do not result in a compilation error, so d) is false. I will also point out here that e) is also false, because Java is smart enough to call the method toString() for any object that is used in a String context. toString() is defined by the Object class and so it is available on all classes in Java. Most non-trivial classes override toString() to return more explicit information about themselves.

The question becomes, how does altering an object in method effect the object in the calling method? It seems obvious that if Java is to be usable, that the call d2.setYear(100); must alter the data in d2 and that change must be visible to the calling method. So the value of d2 is changed. But what happens when the actual object reference is changed, as happens when d1 = d2;? Within method, d1 now refers to the same underlying object as d2. So within method, the year for d1 is 2000. However, within method, d1 is an automatic variable the is on the stack the refers to an object on the head. The assignment of d1 does not change the object, only the reference to it. As d1 is local to method, when method returns, the value of d1 is lost.

Answer

The answer is b). a) is false because we know that the data in d2 was changed. c) is false because we know that the data in d1 was not changed. The names d1 and d2 are used in both main and method to be confusing. They are different and stored on the stack in different places. All are local to their method.