"identifier expected" error please help

[Srinjoy Das]

THe following code yields an identifier expected error at * can somebody help

class student
{
int marks;
String name;
student()
{
marks=0;
}

System.out.println(name);*
System.out.println(marks);
}

[Chris Allen]

class student {
  int marks;
  String name;
  student() {
    marks=0;
  }
 
  public static void main(String[] args) { 
    student s = new student();
    System.out.println(s.name);
    System.out.println(s.marks);
  }
}

Think about why the program prints null and 0.
[ July 11, 2004: Message edited by: Chris Allen ]

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Hi Srinjoy,

Welcome to JavaRanch!

Chris' question aside, the error message is telling you (in a hard-to-understand way) that you've got Java statements appearing outside of a method body. At the "top level" of a class, you can only have member variable declarations, not statements like the "System.out.println()" calls. Those have to be in a method (as in Chris's example.)