Thread: Newbie Question...GUI Text input Areas

I am still VERY new to java and programming in general and spend most of my time comparing my code with the example code my teacher provides me with.

    jtfMessage.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
      @Override
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        jlblMessage.setText(jtfMessage.getText());
        jtfMessage.requestFocusInWindow();
      }

Here is a line of code from one my EXAMPLE scripts I am trying to reproduce. BUT in my assignment I want my text box to be receiving a INT not a String. So instead of "jtf.Message.getText();" I would like to imagine I could just type in getINT or something simple but that is obviously not the case. How can I get a int?

JTextField - which I'm guessing these jtfMessage things are - are designed to allow the user to enter and edit text. If you intend to use them for int values then the (conceptually) simplest thing to do is to use getText() and then parse the string that it returns using Integer.parseInt() or the Integer.toString(i) method as mentioned in Oracle's Tutorial.

Of course you may decide you want to do something is the text in the field does not make sense as an integer. This involves the extra complexity of using try/catch.

Java does provide the JFormattedTextField subclass of JTextField for dealing with the display and editing of objects other than strings. But, again, this involves you in more complexity.

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If what you want to do is move from dealing with examples involving text fields holding strings to those associated with int values, I suggest you investigate Integer.parseInt() and Integer.toString(i) and modify a simple example you already understand. Post if you get stuck.

Originally Posted by steme

Here is a line of code from one my EXAMPLE scripts I am trying to reproduce. BUT in my assignment I want my text box to be receiving a INT not a String. So instead of "jtf.Message.getText();" I would like to imagine I could just type in getINT or something simple but that is obviously not the case. How can I get a int?

Easiest way that you can do in 1 chained line or a few lines is to first keep jtf.Message.getText() as that retrieves and represents the value as a String object. To get that into a primitive int, you should first use the int's wrapper class (Integer), which "converts" it from a String object to an Integer object. Next, the .parseInt() method basically parses the Integer object as a primitive int. The one problem with this is this conversion is vulnerable to the user entering inappropriate data, such as letters, symbols, nothing at all, decimals or really big integers. These can be addressed though by try-catch blocks or throwing exceptions.