Hey guys, I'm working on a project at the moment and I been wondering how I can figure out if there is a class in the JAVA API that some of my classes could inherit from. As you know the JAVA API is huge! Is there a strategy to lean about different classes and interfaces that could be useful for whatever I'm working on? Thanks for the help!
If you have a look at this page:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/
In the top left corner, you should be able to see "Packages". If you learn what each general package is all about (example java.nio.* is about IO, java.swing.* is about a graphics framework), then you should be able to find what you are looking for. The Java API is indeed huge, but it may help you that the Java classes are hierarchically organized in packages and sub-packages, and if you know how to look through those packages, you should be able to easily see whether what you need exists in one of the Java packages or not. For example, Color classes will probably not be in Java.security. They are in java.awt.* package which is all about another graphics framework similar to java.swing.* which supersedes it (swing is meant to replace awt).
Make also sure to also learn about java Strings, arrays, and collections - those are basic and this is where you should start playing if you are new with Java (I don't know if you are).
I would suggest you start coding, and when you have a need to express something, and don't know how, just google it. You may also find some tutorials that expand on a specific subject (that is - how to apply related functions from a package to achieve a particular goal).
Thanks for the response! I found this very helpful thank you.