UtilityClasses 4.1
by Cory McKay Copyright (C) 2023 (GNU GPL)
OVERVIEW
UtilityClasses is an open source multi-purpose Java class library that implements commonly used functionality. As a library, it does not have any executable components.
UtilityClasses was developed as part of the jMIR music classification research software suite, and may be used either as part of this suite or may be incorporated into other software projects independently.
GETTING MORE INFORMATION
More information on jMIR is available at http://jmir.sourceforge.net.
Please contact Cory McKay (cory.mckay@mail.mcgill.ca) with any bug reports or questions relating to the software.
LICENSING AND LIABILITY
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You may obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
The UtilityClasses software makes use of the Yahoo! SDK to submit queries to the Yahoo! engine. This SDK comes with a BSD license. Queries submitted to Yahoo's Web Services must comply with Yahoo!'s terms of service, available at http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms.
COMPATIBILITY
The UtilityClasses software is written in Java, which means that it can in principle be run on any system that has the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed on it. It is particularly recommended that this software be used with Windows or Linus, as it was developed and tested primarily under these operating systems. Although the software should still run perfectly well on OS X, Solaris or any other operating system with the JRE installed on it, users should be advised that this software has not yet been fully tested on these platforms, so difficulties may be encountered.
The current version of UtilityClasses was developed and tested with version 17 of the JDK (Java Development Kit), and because it uses certain features not necessarily present in earlier versions of Java, it is suggested that users have Java 17 or later installed on their systems in order to run jSymbolic properly.
INSTALLING THE JAVA RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT
If your system already has the JRE installed, as will most typically be the case, you may skip this section. If not, you will need to install the JRE in order to run this project. The JRE can be downloaded for free from the Java web site. The JDK typically includes the JRE, or the JRE can simply be installed alone.
When the JRE download is complete, follow the installation instructions that come with it in order to install it.
INSTALLING UtilityClasses
The project can be accessed at http://jmir.sourceforge.net. This distribution includes a pre-compiled Jar file, the source code and extensive documentation. All of this is delivered in a zipped file, from which the project files can be extracted.
Two directories are contained in the distribution zip file:
- Third-Party-Jars: Contains the distributable third-party software used by the project. These need to be included in the UtilityClasses build (in the NetBeans context, this means adding the jar files found here as libraries).
- UtilityClasses: The UtilityClasses project, presented in the form of a
NetBeans project. Contains the following directories and files:
- dist: Contains a pre-compiled UtilityClasses.jar file (and associated libraries) for direct inclusion in other projects.
- javadoc: Javadoc documentation for the project source code.
- licenses: Licenses associated with the project and its dependencies.
- nbproject: NetBeans project files. This is only relevant to those wishing to use the software in a NetBeans IDE context; it is certainly possible to use the software in other development environments as well.
- src: The project's source code.
- test: The project's unit testing code.
- manifest.mf: The manifest used when building the project Jar file.
- nbbuild.xml: NetBeans build instructions. Only relevant if using the NetBeans IDE.
- README.md: Basic overall documentation of the project.
UPDATES SINCE VERSION 1.0
UtilityClasses 4.1
- Added new static statistics methods to MathAndStatsMethods
UtilityClasses 4.0
- Various bug fixes
- Substantial new miscellaneous methods (no changes to existing functionality)
- Updates to code documentation
UtilityClasses 3.1:
- mckay.utilities.webservices.ProxyServerAccessor.ProxyServerAccessor
- A new class for testing for and configuring settings needing to access the web using a proxy server
- mckay.utilities.staticlibraries.StringMethods
- Added the new passwordBasedDecrypt and passwordBasedEncryptin methods for encrypting and decrypting strings
- mckay.utilities.staticlibraries.MiscellaneousMethods
- A new class for performing miscellaneous taks. Includes a static method for running as a subprocess a command in a specified environment and for collecting any resulting output. Also includes a method for parsing command line arguments.
- mckay.utilities.staticlibraries.NetworkMethods
- A new class for performing network-related tasks. Includes static methods for making HTTP GET and POST requests to servers using Java.
UtilityClasses 3.0:
- Various bug fixes
- Various new functionality