Solutions to
Quick Check Questions 7
Defining Your Own Classes—Part 2
7.1 Returning an Object from a Method
1. What’s wrong with the following declaation?
class Question {
Person student;
public void getStudent( ) {
return student;
}
...
}
The return type for the getStudent method must be Person as in
public Person getStudent( ) {
return student;
}
2. Define a Vehicle class. It has a data member owner of type Person.
Include an accessor to retrieve the owner person and a mutator to set
the owner.
1
2 Solutions to Chapter 7 Quick Check Questions
Answer:
class Vehicle {
private Person owner;
public Person getOwner( ) {
return owner;
}
public void setOwner(Person person) {
owner = person;
}
}
7.2 The Reserved Word this
1. Write a single statement to express the following operations on frac-
tions using the methods from the Fraction class:
f5 = (f1 + f2) / (f3 - f4)
Answer:
//assume f1, ..., f5 are declared and
//assigned values
f5 = f1.add(f2).divide(f3.minus(f4));
2. If the add method is defined thus
public void add(Fraction frac) {
int a, b, c, d;
a = this.getNumerator(); //get this fraction’s
b = this.getDenominator(); //num and denom
c = frac.getNumerator(); //get frac’s num
d = frac.getDenominator(); //and denom
setNumerator(a*b + c*b); //updates this
setDenominator(b*d); //fraction’s num and denom
Solutions to Chapter 7 Quick Check Questions 3
why is it wrong to use the method as
f3 = f1.add(f2);
Because this add method is a void method. The method does not re-
turn a Fraction object. Rather, it adds the argument Fraction object
to the receiving Fraction object. The correct would be
f1.add(f2);
3. Write statements to assign the sum of fractions f1 and f2 to fraction f3
using the add method defined in Quick Check question 2 above.
f1.add(f2);
f3 = f1;
The Fraction object f3 becomes the sum of f1 and f2, but the value
of f1 will change also. If we do not want f1 to change (which proba-
bly is the case for most situations), then we write
f3 = new Fraction(f1);
f3.add(f2);
7.3 Overloaded Methods and Constructors
1. Are there any conflicts in the following three constructors for ClassX
to be valid?
public ClassX( int X ) {
...
}
public ClassX( float X ) {
...
}
4 Solutions to Chapter 7 Quick Check Questions
public ClassX( int Y ) {
...
}
Yes, the first and the third constructors have the same signature so
they cannot be overloaded.
2. Define a Student class. A Student has a name. Define two construc-
tors, one with no argument and another with the name as its argument.
Initialize the name to a default value Unknown for the zero-argument
constructor.
Answer:
class Student {
private String name;
public Student( ) {
name = "Unknown"; // or this("Unknown");
}
public Student(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
...
}
3. Rewrite the following constructors, so the first one calls the second
one:
public ClassOne(int alpha) {
this.alpha = alpha;
this.beta = 0;
}
public ClassOne(int alpha, int beta) {
this.alpha = alpha;
this.beta = beta;
}
Solutions to Chapter 7 Quick Check Questions 5
Answer:
public ClassOne(int alpha) {
this(alpha, 0);
}
7.4 Class Variables and Methods
No Quick Check Questions.
7.5 Call-by-Value Parameter Passing
1. What is the name of the scheme used in Java to pass arguments to a
method?
Call-by-value (also called as Pass-by-value).
2. What is the output from the following code?
class Question {
private int one;
public void myMethod( int one ) {
this.one = one;
one = 12;
}
}
class Test {
public static void main(String[] arg) {
int one = 30;
Question q = new Question();
q.myMethod(one);
System.out.println(one);
}
}
Answer:
30
6 Solutions to Chapter 7 Quick Check Questions
7.6 Organizing Classes into a Package
No Quick Check Questions.
7.7 Using Javadoc Comments for Class Documentation
1. Add javadoc comments to the following class:
class Instructor {
private String name;
public void setName(Sring name) {
this.name = name;
}
public String getName( ) {
return name;
}
}
Answer:
/**
* The class to model an instructor
*
* @author Dr. Caffeine
*/
class Instructor {
/** the name of this instuctor */
private String name;
/**
* Assigns the name to this instructor
*
* @param name the name to assign
*/
public void setName(Sring name) {
this.name = name;
}
/**
* Returns this instructor’s name
*
* @return the name of this instructor
*/
public String getName( ) {
Solutions to Chapter 7 Quick Check Questions 7
return name;
}
}
2. What is the purpose of @author tag?
The @author tag is used to record the author of the class.
7.8 The Complete Fraction Class
No Quick Check Questions
7.9 Sample Development:Library Overdue Checker
No Quick Check Questions
