Android SDK installation doesn't find Java JDK

In order to fix this press Back when you get the notification and then Next. This time it will find the JDK.

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Java: Why processing a sorted array is faster than a unsorted array

Consider a railroad junction:

Now for the sake of argument, suppose this is back in the 1800s - before long distance or radio communication.

You are the operator of a junction and you hear a train coming. You have no idea which way it will go. You stop the train to ask the captain which direction he wants. And then you set the switch appropriately.

Trains are heavy and have a lot of inertia. So they take forever to start up and slow down.

Is there a better way? You guess which direction the train will go!

• If you guessed right, it continues on.
• If you guessed wrong, the captain will stop, back up, and yell at you to flip the switch. Then it can restart down the other path.

If you guess right every time, the train will never have to stop.
If you guess wrong too often, the train will spend a lot of time stopping, backing up, and restarting.

Consider an if-statement: At the processor level, it is a branch instruction:

You are a processor and you see a branch. You have no idea which way it will go. What do you do? You halt execution and wait until the previous instructions are complete. Then you continue down the correct path.

Modern processors are complicated and have long pipelines. So they take forever to "warm up" and "slow down".

Is there a better way? You guess which direction the branch will go!

• If you guessed right, you continue executing.
• If you guessed wrong, you need to flush the pipeline and roll back to the branch. Then you can restart down the other path.

If you guess right every time, the execution will never have to stop.
If you guess wrong too often, you spend a lot of time stalling, rolling back, and restarting.

This is branch prediction. I admit it's not the best analogy since the train could just signal the direction with a flag. But in computers, the processor doesn't know which direction a branch will go until the last moment.

So how would you strategically guess to minimize the number of times that the train must back up and go down the other path? You look at the past history! If the train goes left 99% of the time, then you guess left. If it alternates, then you alternate your guesses. If it goes one way every 3 times, you guess the same...

In other words, you try to identify a pattern and follow it. This is more or less how branch predictors work.

Most applications have well-behaved branches. So modern branch predictors will typically achieve >90% hit rates. But when faced with unpredictable branches with no recognizable patterns, branch predictors are virtually useless.

Further reading: "Branch predictor" article on Wikipedia.

As hinted from above, the culprit is this if-statement:

if (data[c] >= 128)
    sum += data[c];

Notice that the data is evenly distributed between 0 and 255. When the data is sorted, roughly the first half of the iterations will not enter the if-statement. After that, they will all enter the if-statement.

This is very friendly to the branch predictor since the branch consecutively goes the same direction many times. Even a simple saturating counter will correctly predict the branch except for the few iterations after it switches direction.

Quick visualization:

T = branch taken
N = branch not taken

data[] = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, ... 250, 251, 252, ...
branch = N  N  N  N  N  ...   N    N    T    T    T  ...   T    T    T  ...

       = NNNNNNNNNNNN ... NNNNNNNTTTTTTTTT ... TTTTTTTTTT  (easy to predict)

However, when the data is completely random, the branch predictor is rendered useless because it can't predict random data. Thus there will probably be around 50% misprediction. (no better than random guessing)

data[] = 226, 185, 125, 158, 198, 144, 217, 79, 202, 118,  14, 150, 177, 182, 133, ...
branch =   T,   T,   N,   T,   T,   T,   T,  N,   T,   N,   N,   T,   T,   T,   N  ...

       = TTNTTTTNTNNTTTN ...   (completely random - hard to predict)

So what can be done?

If the compiler isn't able to optimize the branch into a conditional move, you can try some hacks if you are willing to sacrifice readability for performance.

Replace:

if (data[c] >= 128)
    sum += data[c];

with:

int t = (data[c] - 128) >> 31;
sum += ~t & data[c];

This eliminates the branch and replaces it with some bitwise operations.

(Note that this hack is not strictly equivalent to the original if-statement. But in this case, it's valid for all the input values of data[].)

Benchmarks: Core i7 920 @ 3.5 GHz

C++ - Visual Studio 2010 - x64 Release

//  Branch - Random
seconds = 11.777

//  Branch - Sorted
seconds = 2.352

//  Branchless - Random
seconds = 2.564

//  Branchless - Sorted
seconds = 2.587

Java - Netbeans 7.1.1 JDK 7 - x64

//  Branch - Random
seconds = 10.93293813

//  Branch - Sorted
seconds = 5.643797077

//  Branchless - Random
seconds = 3.113581453

//  Branchless - Sorted
seconds = 3.186068823

Observations:

With the Branch: There is a huge difference between the sorted and unsorted data.
With the Hack: There is no difference between sorted and unsorted data.
In the C++ case, the hack is actually a tad slower than with the branch when the data is sorted.
A general rule of thumb is to avoid data-dependent branching in critical loops. (such as in this example)

GCC 4.6.1 with -O3 or -ftree-vectorize on x64 is able to generate a conditional move. So there is no difference between the sorted and unsorted data - both are fast.

VC++ 2010 is unable to generate conditional moves for this branch even under /Ox.

Intel Compiler 11 does something miraculous. It interchanges the two loops, thereby hoisting the unpredictable branch to the outer loop. So not only is it immune the mispredictions, it is also twice as fast as whatever VC++ and GCC can generate! In other words, ICC took advantage of the test-loop to defeat the benchmark...

If you give the Intel Compiler the branchless code, it just out-right vectorizes it... and is just as fast as with the branch (with the loop interchange).

This goes to show that even mature modern compilers can vary wildly in their ability to optimize code...

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Including another XHTML in XHTML using JSF 2.0 Facelets

Most basic way is <ui:include>. The included content must be placed inside <ui:composition>.

Kickoff example of the master page /page.xhtml:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
    <h:head>
        <title>Include demo</title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        <h1>Master page</h1>
        <p>Master page blah blah lorem ipsum</p>
        <ui:include src="/WEB-INF/include.xhtml" />
    </h:body>
</html>

The include page /WEB-INF/include.xhtml:

<ui:composition 
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
    <h2>Include page</h2>
    <p>Include page blah blah lorem ipsum</p>
</ui:composition>

This needs to be opened by /page.xhtml.

A more advanced way of including is templating. This includes basically the other way round. The master template page should use <ui:insert> to declare places to insert defined template content. The template client page which is using the master template page should use <ui:define> to define the template content which is to be inserted.

Master template page /WEB-INF/template.xhtml:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">
    <h:head>
        <title><ui:insert name="title">Default title</ui:insert></title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        <div id="header">Header</div>
        <div id="menu">Menu</div>
        <div id="content"><ui:insert name="content">Default content</ui:insert></div>
        <div id="footer">Footer</div>
    </h:body>
</html>

(the header, menu and footer can in turn even be <ui:include> files)

Template client page /page.xhtml (note the template attribute):

<ui:composition template="/WEB-INF/template.xhtml"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets">

    <ui:define name="title">
        New page title here
    </ui:define>

    <ui:define name="content">
        <h1>New content here</h1>
        <p>Blah blah</p>
    </ui:define>
</ui:composition>

This needs to be opened by /page.xhtml. If there is no <ui:define>, then the default content inside <ui:insert> will be displayed instead, if any.

Note that the files which aren't supposed to be publicly accessible by just entering/guessing its URL are been placed in /WEB-INF folder, like as the include file and the template file. See also Which XHTML files do I need to put in /WEB-INF and which not?

Also note that there isn't any markup outside <ui:composition> nor <ui:define>. You can put any, but they will be ignored by Facelets. Putting markup in there is only useful for web designers. See also Is there a way to run a JSF page without building the whole project?

For a live example of advanced Facelets templating, check the WebContent folder of OmniFaces showcase site source code.

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How to: Send Email in Android using JavaMail API without the default/built in app

Send e-mail in Android using the JavaMail API using Gmail authentication

Steps to create a sample Project:

MailSenderActivity.java

YOUR PACKAGE;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class MailSenderActivity extends Activity {

    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        final Button send = (Button) this.findViewById(R.id.send);
        send.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

            public void onClick(View v) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub

                try {   
                    GMailSender sender = new GMailSender("username@gmail.com", "password");
                    sender.sendMail("This is Subject",   
                            "This is Body",   
                            "user@gmail.com",   
                            "user@yahoo.com");   
                } catch (Exception e) {   
                    Log.e("SendMail", e.getMessage(), e);   
                } 

            }
        });

    }
}

GmailSender.java

YOUR PACKAGE;

import javax.activation.DataHandler;   
import javax.activation.DataSource;   
import javax.mail.Message;   
import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication;   
import javax.mail.Session;   
import javax.mail.Transport;   
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;   
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;   
import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;   
import java.io.IOException;   
import java.io.InputStream;   
import java.io.OutputStream;   
import java.security.Security;   
import java.util.Properties;   

public class GMailSender extends javax.mail.Authenticator {   
    private String mailhost = "smtp.gmail.com";   
    private String user;   
    private String password;   
    private Session session;   

    static {   
        Security.addProvider(new com.provider.JSSEProvider());   
    }  

    public GMailSender(String user, String password) {   
        this.user = user;   
        this.password = password;   

        Properties props = new Properties();   
        props.setProperty("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp");   
        props.setProperty("mail.host", mailhost);   
        props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");   
        props.put("mail.smtp.port", "465");   
        props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", "465");   
        props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class",   
                "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");   
        props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.fallback", "false");   
        props.setProperty("mail.smtp.quitwait", "false");   

        session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, this);   
    }   

    protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {   
        return new PasswordAuthentication(user, password);   
    }   

    public synchronized void sendMail(String subject, String body, String sender, String recipients) throws Exception {   
        try{
        MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);   
        DataHandler handler = new DataHandler(new ByteArrayDataSource(body.getBytes(), "text/plain"));   
        message.setSender(new InternetAddress(sender));   
        message.setSubject(subject);   
        message.setDataHandler(handler);   
        if (recipients.indexOf(',') > 0)   
            message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, InternetAddress.parse(recipients));   
        else  
            message.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, new InternetAddress(recipients));   
        Transport.send(message);   
        }catch(Exception e){

        }
    }   

    public class ByteArrayDataSource implements DataSource {   
        private byte[] data;   
        private String type;   

        public ByteArrayDataSource(byte[] data, String type) {   
            super();   
            this.data = data;   
            this.type = type;   
        }   

        public ByteArrayDataSource(byte[] data) {   
            super();   
            this.data = data;   
        }   

        public void setType(String type) {   
            this.type = type;   
        }   

        public String getContentType() {   
            if (type == null)   
                return "application/octet-stream";   
            else  
                return type;   
        }   

        public InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {   
            return new ByteArrayInputStream(data);   
        }   

        public String getName() {   
            return "ByteArrayDataSource";   
        }   

        public OutputStream getOutputStream() throws IOException {   
            throw new IOException("Not Supported");   
        }   
    }   
}  

JSSE Provider

/*
 *  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 *  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 *  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 *  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 *  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 *  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 *  limitations under the License.
 */

/**
 * @author Alexander Y. Kleymenov
 * @version $Revision$
 */


import java.security.AccessController;
import java.security.Provider;

public final class JSSEProvider extends Provider {

    public JSSEProvider() {
        super("HarmonyJSSE", 1.0, "Harmony JSSE Provider");
        AccessController.doPrivileged(new java.security.PrivilegedAction<Void>() {
            public Void run() {
                put("SSLContext.TLS",
                        "org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.SSLContextImpl");
                put("Alg.Alias.SSLContext.TLSv1", "TLS");
                put("KeyManagerFactory.X509",
                        "org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.KeyManagerFactoryImpl");
                put("TrustManagerFactory.X509",
                        "org.apache.harmony.xnet.provider.jsse.TrustManagerFactoryImpl");
                return null;
            }
        });
    }
}

ADD 3 jars found in the following link to your Android Project

• mail.jar
• activation.jar
• additionnal.jar

Run the project and check your recipient mail account for the mail. Cheers!!

Hope this helps

P.S. And don't forget that you cannot do network operation from the any UI activity in android. Hence it is recommended to use AsyncTask to avoid network on main thread exception.

Jar files : https://code.google.com/p/javamail-android/

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