Some browsers do not display a table cell’s background color unless the cell contains some HTML content. It is often handy to use table cell background colors to “paint” a

Most implementations of STL (Standard Template Library) use pointers as the underlying representation of iterators. However, an iterator doesn’t have to be a pointer, and there’s a good reason for

Since namespaces are relatively new in C++, some compilers do not support this feature yet. To workaround this lack of support, you can use struct holding static member functions: struct

When launching a data file with the ShellExecute() function, Windows tries to find the associated application and open the data file with this application. But what happens if no association

Although VB’s SSTab control behaves as if each tab page is a container, it actually uses a single container for all tab pages. This can cause unexpected behavior if you

Sorry, you can’t change the Appearance property of a text box at run time?but you can make it look like you have! If set to none, a 3-D picture box

Conventional wisdom suggests that to delete an array element, you must move up all the subsequent elements to close the “gap” left by the deleted item. However, if the sequence

A nice feature of programs like Netscape’s newsreader is the ability to display the entire title of an article even though only part of it fits in the list box

One of the most common gotchas for beginning Java programmers involves comparing Objects, especially Strings, with the == operator. Every Object in Java has a unique location in the Java

When you begin all Swing-based applications, you must set the look and feel and add a WindowListener so that when a user clicks on the exit box, the program exits.

JToggleButtons work well when you want buttons that stay down or up inside the JToolBar. You can also make them behave like Radio buttons (only one button down at a

If you want to play a sound when someone visits your Web page, an effective, simple, browser-independent approach is to insert a META refresh tag that loads the sound file.

A static member function does not receive an implicit this argument. It can be invoked even when no object instance exists: #include < ctime >using namespace std;class Clock {public: static

The format string “%f” in printf() call displays trailing zeros of its argument: float num = 1.33; printf( “%f”, num); // output: 1.330000 To get rid of the trailing zeros,

Built-in arrays in C++ reside in contiguous chunks of memory. The Standard, however, does not guarantee that elements of a vector occupy contiguous memory. All current STL implementations store vector

Question: Do you know of any LayoutManager that would allow me to lay out components exactly where I want them, or any other way of doing so? Answer: There is

Question: Is there a Java equivalent class or method for the Unix Internet address manipulation routines like inet_ntoa()? Answer: Java does not have direct analogs for the inet functions that

Question: I want my RMI server application to populate a java.awt.List with data on the client with a method invocation. What’s the best way to do this? Answer: When writing

Question: I would like to add an icon to the header of a column of a JTable indicating the direction the column is currently sorted. Answer: It can be pretty

Question: How can I make my Java application install its own colormap? Answer: The ability to allow a Java application to install its own colormap is not supported by the

Question: I have a CAB file produced by Wise Installation System 7.0 that contains an application setup.exe. I need to create an HTML file that will download the CAB file.

A function try block is a function whose body consists of a try block with its associated handlers (catch-statements). A function try block is probably most often used in a

A function can specify explicitly what type of exception it may throw. An exception specification, however, is not checked at compile time, but rather at run time: class X {};int

When placing JButtons in the JToolBar, use gif icons that are 25 x 25 pixels. Then create a ToolButton class that sets the insets to zero so that the buttons

For quick Java development, consider using MicroEdge’s Visual SlickEdit (http://www.slickedit.com) instead of an IDE. It recognizes and highlights Java keywords and inserts braces and indents code correctly. To make it

C and C++ programmers are accustomed to using the atoi() function to convert strings to numeric integer values. Although Java doesn’t have an atoi() method, it provides the same capability

Although Java does not provide a destructor as in C++, you can use an overridden finalize() method for similar purposes. The overridden finalize() method is invoked on an object before

Even though Java does not have a constant type, you can achieve the same effect by declaring and initializing variables that are static, public, and final. After the variables have

Many developers using ODBC, JDBC, OLE DB, and ADO are unaware that there is a standards-compliant solution for expressing dates, times, and timestamps in SQL statements. When writing queries in

“ODBC-compliant database” and “JDBC-compliant database” are nonsequiturs. ODBC and JDBC clients can connect to databases that store behavior in the form of methods, triggers, constraints, and stored procedures. The ODBC