Lab 5
Example: Person and its subclasses
Suppose that we are required to model students and teachers in our application. We can
define a superclass called Person to store common properties such as name and address,
and subclasses Student and Teacher for their specific properties. For students, we need to
maintain the courses taken and their respective grades; add a course with grade, print all
courses taken and the average grade. A student takes no more than 30 courses for the entire
program. For teachers, we need to maintain the courses taught currently, and able to add or
remove a course taught. A teacher teaches not more than 5 courses concurrently.
We design the classes as follows.
Superclass Person.java
// Define superclass Person
public class Person {
// Instance variables
private String name;
private String address;
// Constructor
public Person(String name, String address) {
this.name = name;
this.address = address;
// Getters
public String getName() {
return name;
public String getAddress() {
return address;
public String toString() {
return name + "(" + address + ")";
// Define Student class, subclass of Person
public class Student extends Person {
// Instance variables
private int numCourses; // number of courses taken so far, max 30
private String[] courses; // course codes
private int[] grades; // grade for the corresponding course codes
private static final int MAX_COURSES = 30; // maximum number of courses
// Constructor
public Student(String name, String address) {
super(name, address);
numCourses = 0;
courses = new String[MAX_COURSES];
grades = new int[MAX_COURSES];
@Override
public String toString() {
return "Student: " + super.toString();
// Add a course and its grade - No validation in this method
public void addCourseGrade(String course, int grade) {
courses[numCourses] = course;
grades[numCourses] = grade;
++numCourses;
// Print all courses taken and their grade
public void printGrades() {
System.out.print(this);
for (int i = 0; i < numCourses; ++i) {
System.out.print(" " + courses[i] + ":" + grades[i]);
}
System.out.println();
// Compute the average grade
public double getAverageGrade() {
int sum = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < numCourses; i++ ) {
sum += grades[i];
return (double)sum/numCourses;
// Define class Teacher, subclass of Person
public class Teacher extends Person {
// Instance variables
private int numCourses; // number of courses taught currently
private String[] courses; // course codes
private static final int MAX_COURSES = 10; // maximum courses
// Constructor
public Teacher(String name, String address) {
super(name, address);
numCourses = 0;
courses = new String[MAX_COURSES];
@Override
public String toString() {
return "Teacher: " + super.toString();
}
// Return false if duplicate course to be added
public boolean addCourse(String course) {
// Check if the course already in the course list
for (int i = 0; i < numCourses; i++) {
if (courses[i].equals(course)) return false;
courses[numCourses] = course;
numCourses++;
return true;
// Return false if the course does not in the course list
public boolean removeCourse(String course) {
// Look for the course index
int courseIndex = numCourses;
for (int i = 0; i < numCourses; i++) {
if (courses[i].equals(course)) {
courseIndex = i;
break;
if (courseIndex == numCourses) { // cannot find the course to be removed
return false;
} else { // remove the course and re-arrange for courses array
for (int i = courseIndex; i < numCourses-1; i++) {
courses[i] = courses[i+1];
}
numCourses--;
return true;
// A test driver program for Person and its subclasses
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Test Student class
Student s1 = new Student("Tan Ah Teck", "1 Happy Ave");
s1.addCourseGrade("IM101", 97);
s1.addCourseGrade("IM102", 68);
s1.printGrades();
System.out.println("Average is " + s1.getAverageGrade());
// Test Teacher class
Teacher t1 = new Teacher("Paul Tan", "8 sunset way");
System.out.println(t1);
String[] courses = {"IM101", "IM102", "IM101"};
for (String course: courses) {
if (t1.addCourse(course)) {
System.out.println(course + " added.");
} else {
System.out.println(course + " cannot be added.");
for (String course: courses) {
if (t1.removeCourse(course)) {
System.out.println(course + " removed.");
} else {
System.out.println(course + " cannot be removed.");
Student: Tan Ah Teck(1 Happy Ave) IM101:97 IM102:68
Average is 82.5
Teacher: Paul Tan(8 sunset way)
IM101 added.
IM102 added.
IM101 cannot be added.
IM101 removed.
IM102 removed.
IM101 cannot be removed.
