constructor question

[Rene Rad]

I'm studying java and as part of my project I have to create a constructor that initializes 6 instance variables, 2 of them are doubles (2 Strings and 2 ints too) and I need to work in that those two doubles do not go below 0. If one of them is negative it has to set the relevant field to 0. The other numeric fields will be initialized to 0.

I know how to create an if else that will check one field but I'm lost on how to do 2. Belowis what I have so far but it's wrong. Can anyone provide insight?

Thanks.

 
public class SchoolItem
{
    // instance variables
    private String description;
    private String stockCode;
    private int quantityInStock;
    private int quantitySold;
    private double purchasePrice;
    private double salePrice;

 /**
 *  Constructor for School Item 
 */    
    public SchoolItem(  String description,
                        String stockCode,
                        double purchasePrice,
                        double salePrice)
    {       
        if (purchasePrice < 0)
        {
            this.description = description;
            this.stockCode = stockCode;
            quantityInStock = 0;
            quantitySold = 0;
            this.purchasePrice = 0;
            this.salePrice = salePrice;
        }
        
        if (salePrice < 0)
        {
            this.description = description;
            this.stockCode = stockCode;
            quantitySold = 0;
            quantityInStock = 0;
            this.purchasePrice = purchasePrice;
            this.salePrice = 0;
        }
        else 
        {
            this.description = description;
            this.stockCode = stockCode;
            quantitySold = 0;
            quantityInStock = 0;
            this.purchasePrice = purchasePrice;
            this.salePrice = salePrice;
        }
    }
   

[pete stein]

You've got a bit of unnecessary redundancy in that code. I recommend that you just modify the single field inside the if block. e.g.,

    public SchoolItem(  String description,
                        String stockCode,
                        double purchasePrice,
                        double salePrice)

        this.description = description;
        this.stockCode = stockCode;
        quantityInStock = 0;
        quantitySold = 0;
        if (purchasePrice < 0)
        {
            this.purchasePrice = 0;
        }
        else
        {
            this.purchasePrice = purchasePrice;
        }

        if (salePrice < 0)
        {
            //.... etc...
        }

[Rene Rad]

Thanks, this worked great. I commented this thread into my source code for credit. Home I don't get marks docked but whatever.

Thanks again.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

I suggest you see whether you can reduce those if-elses to a single line with the ?: operator.

[Rob Spoor]

Or in this case simply use Math.max.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Of course, Math.max uses ?: in the implementations I have seen.