questions about variables

I know I ask a lot of questions but that's because I'm awesome, awesome to the max.

Anyhow... I have a public method where I declare some variables
I then have a private method that i'm trying to pass these variables to

example

private char superpants(one,two,three,four){
blablablablabla;
}

Where one, two, three, and four were varibales I declared in another public method, can I do this? How do I get this method to recognize those variables as the ones I declared in the other method.

I am having a really hard time grasping the organization of java coming from a perl background

.

[ October 27, 2004: Message edited by: Joe Panully ]

I think u need to specify the variable with its full name.

...dont know if that's what u are after

Hi,

If you declare your variables within your method then they are restricted to your method because of "Variable Scope". Here is the difference

public void yourMethod() {

int i = 0;

}

can't find i outside of the brakets {}

but if we do this

int i;

public void myMethod() {

i = 0;

}

we can see what i is because it was declared outside of the method...

More accurately my question is this:

I need to pass a variable that I used/declared somewhere to another method. Everytime I try this it tells me I need an identifier, which means it wants me to re-declare it I think.

Here is a basic example.

public class hello{
int x=5;

public int tomato(x){
int y=x*5;
return(y);
}
}

Yep it will do that.
Let's see if I can explain.

public class hello{
int x=5;

// Here x is declared and initialized as an instance variable or
// member variable for this class. This variable is accessible to you
// anywhere in your class .. public or protected or private methods
// In following function you can x directly and do not have to declare it
// again.
public int tomato(){
int y=x*5;
return(y);
}

// Now if you wanna define your function such as it takes one input
// parameter you will need to define its type. Perl is a scripting language
// so you dont need to define the type. Java is a TYPED language.. it
// requires type information for every variable you use at compile time.

public int tomato(int x){
// In this function if you use x it will be the value of x that
// you are passing to this function.
// e.g if you call this function as tomato(10) then

int y=x*5; // will be 50 not 25

// If you want to use your memeber variable or instance variable x
// that you defined previously then

int z = this.x * 5 ; // will be 25

//Since you redeclared variable x in this methods formal parameter, it
// takes precedence in this methods scope.
// Using this.x we tell compiler to use the variable in class scope...
}
}

Hope this helps.

More accurately my question is this:

I need to pass a variable that I used/declared somewhere to another method. Everytime I try this it tells me I need an identifier, which means it wants me to re-declare it I think.

Here is a basic example.

public class hello{
int x=5;

public int tomato(x){
int y=x*5;
return(y);
}
}