IDI Software Component Library
© 2005 Information Disciplines, Inc., Chicago

Angle (Java Class Definition)

Author:

Conrad Weisert, Information Disciplines, Inc., Chicago

Purpose:

Many scientific and engineering applications as well as some business applications need to manipulate angles. (Java programmers who represent angles as primitive floating-point numbers, as if they were coding in Fortran, sacrifice the units integrity, error checking, maintainability, and simplicity of objects.)

Usage Get the source code Angle.java, compile it, and store the .class file in your directory path. For compatibility with the Java Math library and other software, the range of values is (-pi,pi], i.e. not [0,2pi). Normalization is automatic with all operations including constructors. Constructors

What about the C++ version? Java may be a poor choice of language for computation that involves angles, because of both inefficiency and unnatural syntax. You'll find IDI's more efficient and more natural C++ Angle class in Conrad Weisert's book Object Oriented Computation in C++ and Java or contact IDI.

Usage documentation reminder We've explained why we avoid the JAVADOC style of usage documentation.

   Angle(double radians) 
   Angle(int deg, int min, int sec)  //  (See Note 1)
   Angle(int deg, int min)	     //  (See Note 1)		
   Angle(Angle theta)       	     // (copy constructor)	
   Angle()                           // (default value = 0)

Note 1: For these mixed unit constructors, the signs of the individual integer components are treated algebraically; normally they should all be the same, e.g. to specify -22.5 degrees code Angle(-22,-30).

Accessor functions

   double theta.toRadians()   
   double theta.toDegrees(); 
   short  theta.degrees();
   short  theta.minutes();	
   short  theta.seconds(); 	//  (rounded)

Arithmetic and relational operator functions