What am I doing wrong (one line of code) ...

[Jesse Crockett]

What is wrong with this line of code?

 String[] files = File.list()

[Keith Lynn]

The problem is that list() is an instance method in the File class, which means that you have to call the method list() using a reference to an instance of a File.

[Jesse Crockett]

You mean something like this peculiar bit:

File f = new File(".");

I've been trying to figure this out for several hours.

[Keith Lynn]

Yes. The list() method returns a String array of the filenames in the directory represented by the File object or null if the File object doesn't represent a directory.

What are you trying to do?
[ December 09, 2006: Message edited by: Keith Lynn ]

[Jesse Crockett]

Thanks for helping. Somehow I have a way of figuring out my problem right before my question gets answered here. That's ultimately to my benefit, of course...

thanks :-)

[marc weber]

Looks like this is resolved, but just to summarize...

If a method is static, then it belongs to the class. You can (and should) call it using the class name.

ClassName.staticMethod();

If a method is not static, then it is an instance method, and it belongs to a particular instance of that class. In this case, you must create an instance in order to call the method.

ClassName myInstance = new ClassName();
myInstance.instanceMethod();