How do I set the JTable’s selection mode?

There are three selection modes available in the JTable component. The selection mode can be a single selection, a single interval selection or a multiple interval selection. To set the selection mode we call the JTable.setSelectionMode() method and pass one of the following value as the parameter:

  • ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION
  • ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION
  • ListSelectionModel.MULTIPLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION
package org.kodejava.swing;

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.table.AbstractTableModel;
import javax.swing.table.TableColumnModel;
import java.awt.*;

public class TableSelectionModeDemo extends JPanel {
    public TableSelectionModeDemo() {
        initializePanel();
    }

    public static void showFrame() {
        JPanel panel = new TableSelectionModeDemo();
        panel.setOpaque(true);

        JFrame frame = new JFrame("JTable Single Selection");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setContentPane(panel);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(TableSelectionModeDemo::showFrame);
    }

    private void initializePanel() {
        this.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

        JTable table = new JTable(new PremiereLeagueTableModel());
        TableColumnModel columnModel = table.getColumnModel();
        columnModel.getColumn(0).setPreferredWidth(200);

        // Settings table selection mode. We can use the following
        // three constants to define the selection mode.
        //
        // - ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_SELECTION
        // - ListSelectionModel.SINGLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION
        // - ListSelectionModel.MULTIPLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION
        table.setSelectionMode(ListSelectionModel.MULTIPLE_INTERVAL_SELECTION);

        JScrollPane pane = new JScrollPane(table);
        this.add(pane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 500));
    }

    static class PremiereLeagueTableModel extends AbstractTableModel {
        // TableModel's column names
        private final String[] columnNames = {
                "CLUB", "MP", "W", "D", "L", "GF", "GA", "GD", "PTS"
        };

        // TableModel's data
        private final Object[][] data = {
                {"Chelsea", 8, 6, 1, 1, 16, 3, 13, 19},
                {"Liverpool", 8, 5, 3, 0, 22, 6, 16, 18},
                {"Manchester City", 8, 5, 2, 1, 16, 3, 13, 17},
                {"Brighton", 8, 4, 3, 1, 8, 5, 3, 15},
                {"Tottenham", 8, 5, 0, 3, 9, 12, -3, 15}
        };

        public int getRowCount() {
            return data.length;
        }

        public int getColumnCount() {
            return columnNames.length;
        }

        public Object getValueAt(int rowIndex, int columnIndex) {
            return data[rowIndex][columnIndex];
        }
    }
}
JTable Selection Mode Demo

JTable Selection Mode Demo

How do I handle exceptions using try-catch block?

An exception is an event, which occurs during the execution of a program, that disrupts the normal flow of the program’s instructions. When an abnormal situation occurs within a method, an Exception object is thrown. This object contains information about the error or unusual problems that occur.

Creating an exception object and handing it to the runtime system is called throwing an exception. If you want to deal with the exceptions where they occur, you can include three kinds of code blocks in a method to handle them. try, catch, and finally blocks.

  • The try block encloses code that may give rise to one or more exceptions.
  • The catch block encloses code that is intended to handle exceptions to a particular type that may be thrown in the associated try block.
  • The code in a finally block is always executed before the method ends, regardless of whether any exceptions are thrown in the try block.
package org.kodejava.basic;

public class ExceptionHandlerExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x = 1, y = 0, z = 0;

        try {
            // divide by 0 will throw an exception
            z = ExceptionHandlerExample.divide(x, y);
            System.out.println("z = " + z);
        } catch (ArithmeticException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            System.out.println("Finally block is always executed.");
        }
    }

    /**
     * Divide the given first number by the second number.
     *
     * @param x the first number.
     * @param y the second number.
     * @return the result of division.
     * @throws RuntimeException when an exception occurs.
     */
    private static int divide(int x, int y) throws RuntimeException {
        return x / y;
    }
}

Here is what happening when we run the program:

java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zero
    at org.kodejava.basic.ExceptionHandlerExample.divide(ExceptionHandlerExample.java:28)
    at org.kodejava.basic.ExceptionHandlerExample.main(ExceptionHandlerExample.java:10)
Finally block is always executed.

How do I create a table model for JTable component?

Another way to create and configure a JTable component is using a table model. A table model is more preferred to using array or vector as the data source for the table.

The simplest way to create a table model is by extending the AbstractTableModel abstract class which implements the TableModel interface. The AbstractTableModel implements the standard behaviour of a table model. It implements almost all the methods of the TableModel interface, except three methods.

These three methods are the getValueAt(int rowIndex, int columnIndex) method, the getRowCount() method and the getColumnCount() method. The code below show you how to create a table model.

package org.kodejava.swing;

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.table.AbstractTableModel;
import javax.swing.table.TableColumnModel;
import java.awt.*;

public class TableModelDemo extends JPanel {
    public TableModelDemo() {
        initializePanel();
    }

    public static void showFrame() {
        JPanel panel = new TableModelDemo();
        panel.setOpaque(true);

        JFrame frame = new JFrame("Premiere League - Season 2021-2022");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setContentPane(panel);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(TableModelDemo::showFrame);
    }

    private void initializePanel() {
        // Creates an instance of PremiereLeagueTableModel
        PremiereLeagueTableModel tableModel = new PremiereLeagueTableModel();

        // Creates an instance of JTable with a TableModel
        // as the constructor parameters.
        JTable table = new JTable(tableModel);
        table.setFillsViewportHeight(true);
        TableColumnModel columnModel = table.getColumnModel();
        columnModel.getColumn(0).setPreferredWidth(200);

        JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(table);

        this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 500));
        this.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        this.add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
    }

    static class PremiereLeagueTableModel extends AbstractTableModel {
        // TableModel's column names
        private final String[] columnNames = {
                "CLUB", "MP", "W", "D", "L", "GF", "GA", "GD", "PTS"
        };

        // TableModel's data
        private final Object[][] data = {
                {"Chelsea", 8, 6, 1, 1, 16, 3, 13, 19},
                {"Liverpool", 8, 5, 3, 0, 22, 6, 16, 18},
                {"Manchester City", 8, 5, 2, 1, 16, 3, 13, 17},
                {"Brighton", 8, 4, 3, 1, 8, 5, 3, 15},
                {"Tottenham", 8, 5, 0, 3, 9, 12, -3, 15}
        };

        /**
         * Returns the number of rows in the table model.
         */
        public int getRowCount() {
            return data.length;
        }

        /**
         * Returns the number of columns in the table model.
         */
        public int getColumnCount() {
            return columnNames.length;
        }

        /**
         * Returns the column name for the column index.
         */
        @Override
        public String getColumnName(int column) {
            return columnNames[column];
        }

        /**
         * Returns data type of the column specified by its index.
         */
        @Override
        public Class<?> getColumnClass(int columnIndex) {
            return getValueAt(0, columnIndex).getClass();
        }

        /**
         * Returns the value of a table model at the specified
         * row index and column index.
         */
        public Object getValueAt(int rowIndex, int columnIndex) {
            return data[rowIndex][columnIndex];
        }
    }
}
JTable TableModel Demo

JTable TableModel Demo

How do I set or change JTable column width?

Each column of a JTable component is represented by the TableColumn class. The method for setting or changing the width of the column includes the setMinWidth(), setMaxWidth() and setPreferredWidth(). These methods are used to set the minimum, maximum and the preferred width of the column respectively.

When we set only the preferred width of a table column and the container get resized the preferred width will be used to recalculate the new column width to fill the available space, but the preferred width value itself does not change.

TableColumn object of a table can be obtained by calling table’s getColumnModel() method which return an instance of TableColumnModel. After having the TableColumModel in hand we can get the table’s column by calling the getColumn(int index) method and passes the index of the column.

package org.kodejava.swing;

import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.table.TableColumn;
import java.awt.*;

public class TableColumnWidthDemo extends JPanel {
    public TableColumnWidthDemo() {
        initializePanel();
    }

    public static void showFrame() {
        JPanel panel = new TableColumnWidthDemo();
        panel.setOpaque(true);

        // Creates and configures the JFrame component for our
        // program.
        JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setContentPane(panel);
        frame.setTitle("Premiere League - Season 2021-2022");
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(TableColumnWidthDemo::showFrame);
    }

    private void initializePanel() {
        // Defines table's column names.
        String[] columnNames = {
                "CLUB", "MP", "W", "D", "L", "GF", "GA", "GD", "PTS"
        };

        // Defines table's data.
        Object[][] data = {
                {"Chelsea", 8, 6, 1, 1, 16, 3, 13, 19},
                {"Liverpool", 8, 5, 3, 0, 22, 6, 16, 18},
                {"Manchester City", 8, 5, 2, 1, 16, 3, 13, 17},
                {"Brighton", 8, 4, 3, 1, 8, 5, 3, 15},
                {"Tottenham", 8, 5, 0, 3, 9, 12, -3, 15}
        };

        // Defines table's column width.
        int[] columnsWidth = {
                200, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 50
        };

        // Creates an instance of JTable and fill it with data and
        // column names information.
        JTable table = new JTable(data, columnNames);

        // Configures table's column width.
        int i = 0;
        for (int width : columnsWidth) {
            TableColumn column = table.getColumnModel().getColumn(i++);
            column.setMinWidth(width);
            column.setMaxWidth(width);
            column.setPreferredWidth(width);
        }

        JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(table);
        table.setFillsViewportHeight(true);
        this.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        this.add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 500));
    }
}

Here is the table created by the program above:

JTable Column Width Demo

JTable Column Width Demo

How do I break a paragraph into sentences?

This example show you how to use the BreakIterator.getSentenceInstance() to breaks a paragraphs into sentences that composes the paragraph. To get the BreakIterator instance we call the getSentenceInstance() factory method and passes a locale information.

In the count(BreakIterator bi, String source) method we iterate the break to extract sentences that composes the paragraph which value is stored in the paragraph variable.

package org.kodejava.text;

import java.text.BreakIterator;
import java.util.Locale;

public class BreakSentenceExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String paragraph = """
                Line boundary analysis determines where a text \
                string can be broken when line-wrapping. The \
                mechanism correctly handles punctuation and \
                hyphenated words. Actual line breaking needs to \
                also consider the available line width and is \
                handled by higher-level software.
                """;

        BreakIterator iterator = BreakIterator.getSentenceInstance(Locale.US);

        int sentences = count(iterator, paragraph);
        System.out.println("Number of sentences: " + sentences);
    }

    private static int count(BreakIterator bi, String source) {
        int counter = 0;
        bi.setText(source);

        int lastIndex = bi.first();
        while (lastIndex != BreakIterator.DONE) {
            int firstIndex = lastIndex;
            lastIndex = bi.next();

            if (lastIndex != BreakIterator.DONE) {
                String sentence = source.substring(firstIndex, lastIndex);
                System.out.println("sentence = " + sentence);
                counter++;
            }
        }
        return counter;
    }
}

Our program will print the following result on the console screen:

sentence = Line boundary analysis determines where a text string can be broken when line-wrapping. 
sentence = The mechanism correctly handles punctuation and hyphenated words. 
sentence = Actual line breaking needs to also consider the available line width and is handled by higher-level software.

Number of sentences: 3