The Java Tutorials are practical guides for programmers who want to use the Java programming language to create applications. They include hundreds of complete, working examples, and dozens of lessons. Groups of related lessons are organized into "trails".

For the most accurate and up-to-date tutorials, please access the latest version from Oracle's official website for the Java SE Tutorials (Last Updated 03/17/2011), which can be found at: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial.

The Java SE Tutorials primarily describe features in Java SE 6. For best results, download JDK 6.
What's New
Enjoy quizzes? Take a minute to answer this quiz about Java applets. Java Applets Quiz

The Java Tutorials are continuously updated to keep up with changes to the Java Platform and to incorporate feedback from our readers. Included in recent releases:


* The JLayer component, introduced in Java SE 7, is explained in How to Decorate Components with JLayer.

* As of Java SE 7 build 130, the NIO.2 File I/O package has been updated, with new and simplified API. The File I/O (Featuring NIO.2) section has been modified to reflect these changes.

* Samples that demonstrates how to use RowSet objects have been added to the JDBC trail. Please see Using RowSet Objects for more information. In addition, a sample that shows you how to integrate JDBC with a GUI API, in particular the Swing API, has been added. Please see Using JDBC with GUI API for more information.

* The latest version of the Unicode Standard is Unicode 6.0. The Java tutorial has new coverage for Unicode:
o Unicode, a lesson in the Internationalization trail.
o Converting Latin Digits to Other Unicode Digits
o Unicode Support, a page in the Regular Expressions lesson.

* As a result of Project Coin, several changes were introduced to the Java language:
o The Primitive Data Types page has been updated to discuss binary literals and to mention that underscore characters can appear anywhere between digits in a numerical literal.
o The switch Statement page has been updated to reflect the ability to switch on a String object.
o The Diamond Operator has been added to generics. See the Type Inference section for more information.
o Using non-reifiable parameters with varags methods is also new. See Using Non-Reifiable Parameters with Varargs Methods for more information.
o The ability to catch more than one type of exception with a single exception handler has been added. See The catch Blocks for more information.
o The try-with-resources statement ensures that a resource (such as a BufferedReader) is closed when the program is finished with it. See The try-with-resources Statement for more information.

The Java Tutorials include content for features in the upcoming Java SE 7 release. Java SE 7 specific content will be revised as necessary to accommodate changes in feature specification before the final Java SE 7 release.
Trails Covering the Basics
These trails are available in book form as The Java Tutorial, Fourth Edition. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.

* Getting Started — An introduction to Java technology and lessons on installing Java development software and using it to create a simple program.
* Learning the Java Language — Lessons describing the essential concepts and features of the Java Programming Language.
* Essential Java Classes — Lessons on exceptions, basic input/output, concurrency, regular expressions, and the platform environment.
* Collections — Lessons on using and extending the Java Collections Framework.
* Swing — An introduction to the Swing GUI toolkit, with an overview of features and a visual catalog of components. See below for a more comprehensive tutorial on Swing.
* Deployment — How to package applications and applets using JAR files, and deploy them using Java Web Start and Java Plug-in.
* Preparation for Java Programming Language Certification — List of available training and tutorial resources.

Creating Graphical User Interfaces
This trail is available in book form as The JFC Swing Tutorial. To buy this book, refer to the box to the right.

* Creating a GUI with Swing — A comprehensive introduction to GUI creation on the Java platform.

Specialized Trails and Lessons
These trails and lessons are only available as web pages.

* Custom Networking — An introduction to the Java platform's powerful networking features.
* The Extension Mechanism — How to make custom APIs available to all applications running on the Java platform.
* Full-Screen Exclusive Mode API — How to write applications that more fully utilize the user's graphics hardware.
* Generics — An enhancement to the type system that supports operations on objects of various types while providing compile-time type safety. Note that this lesson is for advanced users. The Java Language trail contains a Generics lesson that is suitable for beginners.
* Internationalization — An introduction to designing software so that it can be easily be adapted (localized) to various languages and regions.
* JavaBeans — The Java platform's component technology.
* JDBC Database Access — Introduces an API for connectivity between the Java applications and a wide range of databases and a data sources.
* JMX— Java Management Extensions provides a standard way of managing resources such as applications, devices, and services.
* JNDI— Java Naming and Directory Interface enables accessing the Naming and Directory Service such as DNS and LDAP.
* JAXP — Introduces the Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.4 technology.
* RMI — The Remote Method Invocation API allows an object to invoke methods of an object running on another Java Virtual Machine.
* Reflection — An API that represents ("reflects") the classes, interfaces, and objects in the current Java Virtual Machine.
* Security — Java platform features that help protect applications from malicious software.
* Sound — An API for playing sound data from applications.
* 2D Graphics — How to display and print 2D graphics in applications.
* Sockets Direct Protocol — How to enable the Sockets Direct Protocol to take advantage of InfiniBand.


from : http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/