need some help on indentifier

[Sally Curtis]

hello, i am writing a class that recieves a army time(800, 2400, ect) and assigns it a medicine that should be taken... i want my constructor to make int clock equal to the time the is sent to the class. how would i do that?

  
public class Meds
{
  private static String pill;//
  private static int clock;//
  //Constructors
  public Meds ()
  {
  int clock=????;
  }
  //Accessors
  String getPill()
  {
 int  clock;
 String IronPills;
 String Calcium;
 String Vitamin;
 String Antibiotic;
 String None;
 switch(clock)
 {
 case 400:
 return Antibiotic;
                 break;
 case 800:
 return IronPills;
 return Vitamin;
 return Antibiotic;
                 break;
 case 1100:
 return Calcium;
                 break;
 case 1200:
                 return IronPill;
                 return Antibiotic;
                 break;
 case 1600:
 return Antibiotic;
 break;
 case 1800:
 return IronPill;
 break;
 case 2000:
 return Calcium;
 return Antibiotic;
 break;
 case 2100:
 return Vitamin;
                 break;
 default:
                 return None;
                 break;
    }
  }
  
}

[Stan James]

Long case statements like that always sound an alarm to me. They're a little hard to follow and could easily be a site of frequent change. So, how else can we associate a time with one or more meds?
If the times are strictly on the hour, you might make a 24-slot array and put the meds for 12:00 midnight in slot 0, 1:00 in slot 1, etc. You'd have to convert 800 to 8 for example, but that sounds pretty easy.
Another way to associate things is a Map. Maybe something like:

public void initialize()
{
  Map myMeds = new HashMap();
  myMeds.put( "400", "Antibiotic" );
  myMeds.put( "800", "IronPills, Vitamin, Antibiotic" );
  etc.
}
// and later on to get the meds for a given hour:
public String getMedsFor( int aTime )
{
   String medsForNow = myMeds.get( ""+aTime );
   if ( null == medsForNow )
      medsForNow = "none";
   return medsForNow;
}

I suspect you are BRAND new to Java because of a number of syntax problems in your code, so I suggest you write the smallest possible piece of running code you can manage and work from there. Feel free to post your progress for more help!
BTW: If you don't have a bookmark for the JDK docs, make one now! http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/index.html You can look and see how Map works for you. Like, why did I make the time a String?