[Solved] toString() issues

[Jason Job]

I'm in my second semester of college and we never really messed with creating our own toString methods in code before. It's all a bit new to me, and google has been less than helpful as I'm just not following where it's coming from.

I have three classes

Workforce
This class's constructor calls a method which uses a while loop. This calls a first name and a last name switch method to choose a random first and last name (out of about 30 names) and adds 20 workers to ArrayList : LaborForce. It will also call a method to generate a random employee number, a random salary (hourly and yearly), and year they started working at the company.
It then runs a second while loop while the index is less than 20 to return all 20 employees and their employee numbers along with the rest of the information.
So far this has just generated the memory address for the "ProductionWorker", my current code to output this information is just
System.out.println(LaborForce.get(index));
and such is my problem


Employee
Is a superclass of class Productionworker, this class requests an input for Name, employee#, year, hourlywage
it has a toString() method that returns all of these fields.

ProductionWorker
is a subclass of class Employee and also has a toString method which calls the super's tostring method. This also uses a super call in the constructor for the name, enumber, etc.

Please help! Thanks

[Maneesh Godbole]

Welcome to the Ranch.
I read your post twice and still can't understand what your question is. Could you please rephrase?

[Raymond Tong]

So you don't know how to override/write toString method?

[Jason Job]

Sigh, I had a lot typed out here when my browser freaked out.
I realized that netbeans wasn't saving the changes I made to the project (for whatever reason) it seemed to be saving the information to a seperate save of the class with the same name, outside of my project. I've been spoiled with BlueJ as of thus far, and am trying to branch out into other editors. However I have having trouble creating test classes to use.

My main question about the toString() method, is that when creating it in a class does it need to be then called elsewhere? Or does it override another method and then take care of business itself when you system.out.println?

Also, could anyone help me design a test class for this so that I would know what to do in the future? I basically just want to make sure that when the Workforce constructor is called, it outputs what I want.

Employee

public class Employee
{
    /* a class that's used for each employee that hs the fields Name, Employee Number, year they were 
     * hired and the employees weekly earnings. 
     * At first glance, I am looking at the accessor methods to retrieve an employees name, employee
     * number, or even year they were hired and I'm thinking how will any of these be relevant without
     * supplying other information. You can access each individual object this way, but shouldn't there
     * be a lookup method? I suppose we will find out! 
     */
    private String Name;
    private String eNumber;
    private int year;
    private double wEarnings;
    
    
    public Employee(String Name, String eNumber, int year, double wEarnings)
    {
        this.Name = Name;
        this.eNumber = eNumber;
        this.year = year;
        this.wEarnings = wEarnings;
    }
    
    public String getName()
    {
        // Accessor method to retrieve the Employee's name
        return Name;
    }
    public String geteNumber()
    {
        // Accessor method to retrieve the Employee's number
        
        return eNumber;
    }
    public int getYear()
    {
        // Accessor method to retrieve the year they were hired.
        return year;
    }
    public double getEarnings()
    {
        // Go figure, another accessor method to find out something like how much they earn weekly!
        return wEarnings;
    }
    
    public void changeName(String newName)
    {
        // Mutate!
        Name = newName;
    }
    /*public void changeENum(String newNum) 
    *{ It wouldn't make sense to change an employee's number, so this is being omitted!
    *   eNumber = newNum;
    * Mutate!
     }*/
   
   public void newEarnings(double newEarnings)
   {
       wEarnings = newEarnings;
    }
   
   public String toString(){
       return Name + " " +  eNumber + " " + year + " " + wEarnings;
               
       }
   
}
    

Production Worker

public class ProductionWorker extends Employee
{
    private double hRate;
    public ProductionWorker(String Name, String eNumber, int year, double wEarnings,double hRate) 
    {
        super(Name, eNumber, year, wEarnings);
        this.hRate = hRate;
    }

    public double getRate()
    {
        return hRate;
    }
    public void changeRage(double newRate)
    {
        hRate = newRate;
        
    }
    
    public String toString(){

        return super.toString() + " " + hRate;
        
    }
    
}
    

WorkForce

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Random;

// The purpose of this class is to initialize an ArrayList of 20 employees
// filling out the Name, eNumber, Year, wEarnings, and hRate.

public class WorkForce
{
    private ArrayList<ProductionWorker> LaborForce;
    Random randomGenerator = new Random();
    String firstNameString = "Invalid First Name Entered";
    String lastNameString = "Invalid Last Name Entered";
    String eNumber = "999-X";
    int year = 0000;
    double wEarnings = 1111;
    double hRate = 2222;
    
    public WorkForce()
    {
        //populate();
        generateWorkForce();   
    }
    //public void populate() {
        //firstName();
        //lastName();
        //eID();
        //wEarnings();
        //hRate();
        //startYear();
   // }
    public void generateWorkForce(){
        LaborForce = new ArrayList<ProductionWorker>();
        int i = 0;
        String Name = "Error";        
        
        while (i < 20) {
            firstName();
            lastName();
            eNumber();
            year();
            hRate();
            wEarnings();
            
            Name = firstNameString + " " + lastNameString;
            ProductionWorker newWorker = new ProductionWorker(Name,eNumber,year,wEarnings,hRate);
            LaborForce.add(newWorker);
            i++;
        }    
        int printIndex = 0;
        int index = LaborForce.size();
        while (printIndex < index){
           // System.out.println(LaborForce.);
            printIndex++;
        }
        
    }
    
    // The following two methods use a switch to find a random First and Last
    // name. They are then concatenated above.
    public void firstName(){        
        int nameRandom = randomGenerator.nextInt(31) + 1;
        switch (nameRandom) {
            case 1: firstNameString = "Adam"; break;
            case 2: firstNameString ="George"; break;
            case 3: firstNameString ="Chris"; break;
            case 4: firstNameString ="Steve"; break;
            case 5: firstNameString ="Bob"; break;
            case 6: firstNameString ="Paul"; break;
            case 7: firstNameString ="Jim"; break;
            case 8: firstNameString ="Tim"; break;
            case 9: firstNameString ="Shane"; break;
            case 10: firstNameString ="Mike"; break;
            case 11: firstNameString ="Jason"; break;
            case 12: firstNameString ="Mike"; break;
            case 13: firstNameString ="Mary"; break;
            case 14: firstNameString ="Krystle"; break;
            case 15: firstNameString ="Adele"; break;
            case 16: firstNameString ="Rachel"; break;
            case 17: firstNameString ="Jessica"; break;
            case 18: firstNameString ="Kristin"; break;
            case 19: firstNameString ="Maddie"; break;
            case 20: firstNameString ="Sara"; break;
            case 21: firstNameString ="Fara"; break;
            case 22: firstNameString ="Erica"; break;
            case 23: firstNameString ="Angela"; break;
            case 24: firstNameString ="Brittany"; break;
            case 25: firstNameString ="Alsion"; break;
            case 26: firstNameString ="Lauren"; break;
            case 27: firstNameString ="Natalie"; break;
            case 28: firstNameString ="Nicole"; break;
            case 29: firstNameString ="Shelby"; break;
            case 30: firstNameString ="Joey"; break;
            case 31: firstNameString ="Brandon"; break;
        }
}
    
    public void lastName() {
        int lastNameRandom = randomGenerator.nextInt(32) + 1;
        
        switch (lastNameRandom) {
            case 1: lastNameString = "Sayer"; break;
            case 2: lastNameString = "Clark"; break;
            case 3: lastNameString = "Job"; break;
            case 4: lastNameString = "Bowen"; break;
            case 5: lastNameString = "Hagmann"; break;
            case 6: lastNameString = "Rovetto"; break;
            case 7: lastNameString = "Defebo"; break;
            case 8: lastNameString = "Matthews"; break;
            case 9: lastNameString = "Lawrence"; break;
            case 10: lastNameString = "Hunter"; break;
            case 11: lastNameString = "Esposito"; break;
            case 12: lastNameString = "Lind"; break;
            case 13: lastNameString = "Abrams"; break;
            case 14: lastNameString = "Gruber"; break;
            case 15: lastNameString = "DeBoer"; break;
            case 16: lastNameString = "Sundy"; break;
            case 17: lastNameString = "Folwell"; break;
            case 18: lastNameString = "McVaugh"; break;
            case 19: lastNameString = "Drake"; break;
            case 20: lastNameString = "Angelus"; break;
            case 21: lastNameString = "Caswell"; break;
            case 22: lastNameString = "Masters"; break;
            case 23: lastNameString = "Segal"; break;
            case 24: lastNameString = "Garro"; break;
            case 25: lastNameString = "Alexander"; break;
            case 26: lastNameString = "Hathaway"; break;
            case 27: lastNameString = "Jones"; break;
            case 28: lastNameString = "Dislavo"; break;
            case 29: lastNameString = "Gallardo"; break;
            case 30: lastNameString = "Iannuzzi"; break;
            case 31: lastNameString = "Marquette"; break;
            case 32: lastNameString = "Bear"; break;
        }
        
    }
    
    public void eNumber(){
        // Generates a number between 0 and 999, then adds a character between
        // A and M for employee #
        int eNumberRandomizer = randomGenerator.nextInt(999);
        int randomLetterGenerator = randomGenerator.nextInt(13) + 1;
        char randomLetter = (char) (randomLetterGenerator + 'a');
        
        Character randomLetterW = new Character (randomLetter);
        Integer eNumberW = new Integer(eNumberRandomizer);
        eNumber = eNumberW.toString() + "-" + randomLetterW.toString();
        
    }
    
    public void year() { 
        // This method generates a random # between 1 and 2 to decide on the
        // century. If 1, it can be between 1960 and 1999. If 2, between 2000
        // and 2011
        int Century = randomGenerator.nextInt(1) + 1;
        if (Century > 1){
            int twoThousandAnd = randomGenerator.nextInt(11) + 1;
            year = Century + 0 + twoThousandAnd;
        }
        else {
            int nineTeenHundredAnd = randomGenerator.nextInt(40) + 1;
            nineTeenHundredAnd = 100 - nineTeenHundredAnd;
            year = Century + 9 + nineTeenHundredAnd;
        }
    }
    
    public void hRate(){
        // This method generates a random number between 0 and 43, then adds
        // 6 to live within the bounds of $6-$50
        double hEarnings = randomGenerator.nextInt(44) + 6;
        hRate = hEarnings;
    }
    
    public void wEarnings(){
        // This method takes the hourly rate generated above and multiplies it
        // by the full time work hours
        wEarnings = hRate * 40;
    }
}
    

[Jason Job]

Alright, scratch that last response. I made a test class

 

public class Test {
    public static void main (String[] Args)
    {
        WorkForce newWorkForce = new WorkForce();
    }
}
   

and my output is mostly fine. Just need to fix a few things. Looks like the toString override worked just great. Yay for netbeans messing with me

[Maneesh Godbole]

I have edited your last two posts.
Please UseCodeTags (code instead of quote)

[Campbell Ritchie]

You can create an array of names and use the "random" number to select from the array. That is more object-oriented than a switch. You can use nextInt(myArray.length) and it will match the array perfectly.