Need help understanding a task in Java.

Discussion in 'Programming' started by mk24, Dec 2, 2008.

  1. #1
    Hello,
    I am studying java at university. I have an assignment which requires me to read in a text file and extract certain pieces of information on it. I can do this, and have already written the code for these parts. However, I'm not supposed to print the information on screen, this is what my prof said:

    "You need to build an API. This means you need a set of classes which
    represent an EMBL record and a sequence. So, you need at least two
    classes...[]...Nor does it say anything at all about displaying the information back to the user"

    I don't understand what it is exactly i'm supposed to do. I have 2 classes, one to get the EMBL records, and one to get the sequence. What do I do with that information? He said i have to "build an object" but I don't understand what that means or how to do that:confused:

    Thank you.
     
    mk24, Dec 2, 2008 IP
  2. daringtakers

    daringtakers Well-Known Member

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    #2
    Why dont you clarify with your prof.

    It could be like this,
    - You need to build and API to parse text files.
    - Create classes which represents EMBL record and a sequence (One for each).
    - Create a class which exposes functions like parse(String filePath) which accepts the file path as argument and
    parses it (create instance of EMBL and sequence class).
    - Provide a functiona like print() which prints information on Console.
    - You can provide an overloaded version of print(OutputStream out) which accepts outputstream and write information on the stream.

    This is called API to parse text file. but you may want to clarify this with your prof
     
    daringtakers, Dec 2, 2008 IP