Erik Manor

Your having worked in Unix admin did your design use ServerSockets or such.
Do divulge if so.

Yeah, I am probably one of the few people who used sockets over using RMI. I have played with RMI and enjoy using it, but I like the control of sockets. Plus it lends itself easily to multi threading and thread pools. It gave me the chance to write my own protocol which meant having a base abstract class for all messages that could be extended for each command message type that came to the server (score one for OOP of course)

The project took me about 6 weeks to do (about 100 - 150 hours or so). For books I have gained most of basic knowledge from Bruce Eckel's books and what ever I can find on the web. Once I decided to take both the SCJP and SCJD exams I used Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates book JAVA 2 sun cert program & develop. Looking over the posts on this site is very helpful as well. I wouldn't get to wrapped up in the exact specifics of some of the posts though. The exam leaves alot to the developer to come up with and as long as you can justify your own thinking you should be fine.
Hope this helps.

I am stoked to say that I passed the new Sun Certified developer exam. I have been a Unix admin for a few years now and do heavy Enterprise Application Support. I have now passed the both SCJP & SCJD on my first try. SCWCD is next, and a possible career change to development.
Comment: This report shows the total 1.4 SCJD points that could have been awarded in each section, and the actual number of points you were awarded. This is provided to give you per-section feedback on your strengths. The maximum possible score is 400; the minimum to pass is 320.
General Considerations (maximum = 100): 100
Documentation (maximum = 70): 70
O-O Design (maximum = 30): 30
GUI (maximum = 40): 29
Locking (maximum = 80): 58
Data store (maximum = 40): 40
Network server (maximum = 40): 40

Thanks Mark, Makes my job easier

According to the specs on my project the UI ony needs to display results via a JTable, allow users to search, and allow for records to be booked. The application has broader functionality ( allow new records to be created, allow records to be deleted, etc. ) Should I add this functionality into the UI or just leave it out since the instructions do not ask for it?

I have a couple of questions on implementing the database portion of the project.
1.The instructions state that the user should be able to specify the location of the database. If the location specified does not contain a database file should I have the system create a db file with the header information and schema information but no records, or should I throw an error?
2.When the db server is initialized I parse the header information to verify the magic cookie. Other then this I do not read in any of the header or schema info. I have hard coded record length, field off sets, etc. in the code. From the instructions I feel like this is enough for the purpose of the certification. But if this was going to be a real app I would parse the header and schema info to build all my variables and settings. This means little if no change would be required if the db format changed assuming that the header and schema format were still specified in the same format as before. This would be a better design part for the db server but might be an overkill for the purpose of this project.
Any advice would be helpful, Thx.

My instructions state

You may assume that at any moment, at most one program is accessing the database file

I read this as meaning even reads need to reguire a lock?

I am using RandomAccessFile. RandomAccessFile implements DataOutput and DataInput interfaces as do DataOutputStream and DataInputStream. These interfaces are what gives DataInputStream/DataOutputStream their formats the instructions refer to so RandomAccessFile has them too.

I have noticed the same problem with my assignment.
1. My instructions say

i byte flag. 00 implies valid record, 0xFF implies deleted record.

00 is octal for 0 (1 byte), 0xFF is hex for 255. Since byte is signed 255 does not fit in a byte without a cast. With a cast 255 is -1.
2. My instructions also specify that any field where the value does not fill the length pf the field to use null termination. However my data file does not use null place holders but rather space (ascii/byte value 32).
I was just simply going to use 0 and -1 as the flag for the deleted/valid record flag and use space values to fill in remaining byte values in fields instead of null since that is what the data file does. I then was going to note this "along with many other things about this assignment" in the choices.txt file. My fear is that either the instructions are wrong or the db file is wrong and I will be failed automatically if the grader does not realize this.
Also the reason for keeping the file format is because of some app the company runs against it for reporting. Does anyone know if the grader actually does have an app they run against the file to validate the format. If so I need to make sure I have the correct db file/instructions.

I downloaded my project again and it is still the same archive that I got before without the db file. I sent an email to Sun for follow up. It maybe they updated the test for all the first time downloads but forgot to update the test for people who downloaded it a few days ago and got an imcomplete copy like myself.

I got the same email as well today. Good, even though I know part of the assignement is to fill in the gaps for the requirements my instructions just left too much out. Two day vacation

I just downloaded my project today and appear to have the same problem. The only file I received in the jar was an instructions html file, which contains an embedded interface for the db. My guess is that Sun no longer sends the db file to us so implementation is now up to the tester (fixed field length, delimiter, etc). I also sent an email to Sun for clarification and if I hear back I will do a follow up post.
Either way Sun wants to conduct this (gives us the db file or have us implement our own) is fine. But if this is the new way they plan to conduct the test they should update their instructions to get rid of confusion. Also the instructions state to send the original db file with the final package, I assume since they do not provide this I should send the file format I plan to use?