D.8. Java API Packages
As you’ve seen, Java contains many predefined classes that are grouped into categories of related classes called packages. Together, these are known as the Java Application Programming Interface (Java API), or the Java class library. A great strength of Java is the Java API’s thousands of classes. Some key Java API packages used in this book’s appendices are described in Fig. D.4, which represents only a small portion of the reusable components in the Java API.
The set of packages available in Java is quite large. In addition to those summarized in Fig. D.4, Java includes packages for complex graphics, advanced graphical user interfaces, printing, advanced networking, security, database processing, multimedia, accessibility (for people with disabilities), concurrent programming, cryptography, XML processing and many other capabilities. Many other packages are also available for download at java.sun.com.
You can locate additional information about a predefined Java class’s methods in the Java API documentation at docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/. When you visit this site, click the Index link to see an alphabetical listing of all the classes and methods in the Java API. Locate the class name and click its link to see the online description of the class. Click the METHOD link to see a table of the class’s methods. Each static method will be listed with the word “static” preceding its return type.