array being overwritten

[Daniel Hyslop]

I have a program with three classes the first `Employee class` introduces a hashIndex calculated from empName the second `EmployeeSort` takes the hashIndex and places the employee class instance into an array of which will be eventually be Employee class objects.I have the Last class passing the name and job using the JOptionPane unfortunately each pass overwrites the last entry in EmployeeSort .Could anyone point me to what I am doing wrong in the program.Heres the code

class Employee 
{
    private String empName;
    private String empJob;
    private int index;
 
    //setmethod values of empName and empJob from EmployeeList JOptionPane
    public void setEmpName(String empName)
    {
        this.empName=empName;
    }
    public void setEmpJob(String empJob)
    {
        this.empJob=empJob;
    }
    public String getEmpName()
    {
        return empName;
    }
    public String getEmpJob()
    {
        return empJob;
    }   
     // the method for calculating the index
 
    public int hashIndexCalc(String empName) 
    {
        /*set the characters in empName to uppercase for calculation
          purposes*/
        String calcName=empName.toUpperCase();
 
        // Set the instance variables required for the calculation
          
        int hashChar=0;
        int hashTotal=0;
        int hashIndex=0;
 
        /*use a loop set to the size of name entered to iterate through
         the name ,using the charAt() String method to evaluate each
         character */
 
        for(int lp=0;lp<empName.length();lp++)
        { 
            hashChar = calcName.charAt(lp);
            if(hashChar==32)       //32 is the char value of " "(space)
            {                      //space is not required in caculation
                hashChar=0;        //Set space to zero for calculation 
            }
               //the HashTotal is increased every loop by char value
               hashTotal=hashTotal+hashChar; 
        }
               /*devide hashTotal by number of elements that will be in
                 the hashArray in Storage*/
 
               EmployeeSort modulusSize = new EmployeeSort(empName);
 
               hashIndex=hashTotal%modulusSize.empArray.length;
  
        System.out.println("hashIndex inhashIndexCalc in Employee is = "+hashIndex);
        return  hashIndex;
    }
}
 
class EmployeeSort
{
    private String empName; 
    private int hashIndex;
    Employee []empArray = new Employee[5];
 
    EmployeeSort(String empName)
    {
        this.empName=empName;
    }
     
    public void setArray()
    {
        Employee index = new Employee();
        hashIndex=index.hashIndexCalc(empName);      
        System.out.println("value from setArray() in EmployeeSort of hashIndex is "+hashIndex);
 
        endOfBreaklp:
        for(int lp=0;lp<empArray.length;lp++)
        {
           if(lp==hashIndex&&empArray[lp]!=null)
           {
              hashIndex++; 
           }
           if(lp==hashIndex&&empArray[lp]==null)
           {
               empArray[lp]=new Employee();
               System.out.println("loop"+lp+" has been attributed "+empArray[lp]);
           }
            
           if(hashIndex==empArray.length&&empArray[lp]!=null)
           {
              hashIndex=0;lp=0;
           }
               for(int breaklp=0;breaklp<empArray.length;breaklp++)
               {
                   if(empArray[lp]!=null)
                   {
                       break endOfBreaklp;
                   }
               }
        }
        for(int checklp=0;checklp<empArray.length;checklp++)
        {
            System.out.println("empArray = "+empArray[checklp]);
        }
    }
}
 
public class EmployeeList
{
    public static void main(String[]args)
    {
        String empName=" ";
        String empJob=" ";
        for(int lp=0;lp<5;lp++)
        {
            empName=JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter a name");
            empJob=JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter a job title");
            EmployeeSort empSort1 = new EmployeeSort(empName );
            empSort1.setArray();
        }
        Employee emp1 = new Employee( );
        emp1.setEmpName(empName);
        emp1.setEmpJob(empJob);
        System.out.println("empName in EmployeeList is "+ empName);
        System.out.println("empJob in EmployeeList is "+ empJob+"\n");
 
        System.out.println("values in Employee class");
        System.out.println("hashIndex in hashIndexCalc is "+emp1.hashIndexCalc(empName));
        System.out.println("empName in getEmpName() is "+emp1.getEmpName());
        System.out.println("empJob in getEmpJob() is "+emp1.getEmpJob()+"\n");
        System.exit(0);
    }

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Whoa!!! my eyes are cross-eyed after reading that code. What are you trying to do? I don't understand what you are trying to do here, but I think problem might be in this code

for(int lp=0;lp<5;lp++)
        {
            empName=JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter a name");
            empJob=JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Please enter a job title");
            EmployeeSort empSort1 = new EmployeeSort(empName );
            empSort1.setArray();
        }

You are creating a new EmployeeSort in each iteration of the loops. Every time the loop finishes one iteration the empSort1 object goes out of scope \, and a new one is created whenver you do "new EmployeeSort". In each iteration EmployeeSort has only one employee's information. So, when the loop finishes the last EmployeeSort will have the last employees information. Is that your problem?

[Daniel Hyslop]

correct ,the aim of the program is to end up with an array of Employee objects in employeeSort ,sorted according to hashIndex == element
if the element == full then hashIndex +1.the final outcome requires an output from the mainProgram

[Jayesh Lalwani]

Then you need to have just one EmployeeSort object created outside the loop. Inside the loop you need to get the Employee objects to the one and only EmployeeSort object.

I'm not entirely sure what your setArray function does, but my guess is that it is suppossed to sort the employees. I think you need to clean up the code around there too. It is rather convuluted. It looks like you are trying to store the empolyee at the hashIndex, and in case of collision you move to the next index. There are much cleaner ways of doing that