Thread: Fun little problem I made for myself, and now I need help trying to solve it.

Originally Posted by 0ffConstantly

....I do feel like I've gotten a little bit better understanding of how int variables and strings work...
Anyways here is my problem.

I am trying to loop this method to keep going until a certain condition is true. I want it to stop only when it randomly displays a set time, let's say 07:07:07.

So: You have a timer that has three int fields: hour, minute, and second. You have a method that takes three ints and uses them to set the "time" of the timer, as represented by its three int fields.

So, here could be the next step:

Create three public methods: One that returns the int value of the hour field, one returns the int value of the minute field, and, well, you get the idea.

I mean, having the program create a String suitable for printing is a nice touch, but why the heck would you want your main program have to parse that string every stinkin' time it needed to see what the hour,minute,second timer values are? (There is a counter-argument that favors doing everything with Strings, but I'll leave that to experts who might want to chime in.) There are certainly other ways. Maybe "better" ways from some points of view. But I would like to build on what you started...

Anyhow, with these three "getter" methods here's the plan for a test program:

Obtain, somehow, three integer values that correspond to hours, minutes and seconds of an "alarm" time. Maybe have the user enter a String of form "hh:mm:ss" for the "alarm" time and parse the String. Or have the user enter three integers for hour, minute, and second of the "alarm" time. Or, for starters, just hard-code the integer values into the program.

Now, first of all, I seriously recommend that you pick meaningful values for classes. I mean, my alarm clock might be named "Dopey" and I would be named "Grumpy," but for purposes of programming, I would call the class with the timer something like MilTimer or some such thing. Be creative. You can probably do better that, but, not "tuna" Please. (You will thank me later, when you leave your schooldays behind.)

Anyhow, the class that I build to test the timer might go like this:

class TestTime {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        MilTimer timer = new MilTimer();
 
        // For now, just hard-code the alarm time.
        int alarmHours = 7;
        int alarmMinutes = 7;
        int alarmSeconds = 7;
 
        // I think it might be enlightening to see how many random
        // time calls it makes to arrive at the alarm time.  I'll keep count
        // with a variable creatively named "count."
        //
        int count = 0;
        //
        // Now, here's the loop that sets random times until it reaches
        // the alarm time:
        //
        while (/* Put boolean conditions that make the loop continue until hour, minute, second
                  values from the timer all match alarmHours, alarmMinutes and alarmSeconds */)
        {
            ++count;
            timer.setTime((int)((Math.random()*24)),  // Hours go from 0 through 23
                          (int)((Math.random()*60)),  // Minutes go from 0 through 59
                          (int)((Math.random()*60))); // Seconds go from 0 through 59
            //
            // Print out each one
            //
            System.out.printf("%10d: %s\n", count, timer.toMilitary());
        }
        //
        //  After it finally reaches the alarm time, print a summary.
        //
        System.out.printf("Number of random times to get to %s = %d\n", timer.toMilitary(), count);
 
    } // End of main method
} // End of class definition

A "typical" run might look like

.
. // A LOT of numbers
.
105266: 12:56:49
105267: 15:40:58
105268: 06:37:34
105269: 19:33:38
105270: 16:05:46
105271: 07:07:07
Number of random times to get to 07:07:07 = 105271


After a few runs where you can see each and everything go scrolling off the screen, you will probably want to comment out the print statement inside the loop and just show the summary. Run it a few times. What kind of count values do you observe? Would it make any difference if you used a different alarm time?

What if you made a big loop that ran the main part of this, say 1000 times and calculated the average count value. What would you expect the average count value to be? See how much fun you can have with a simple little program like this that even a beginner can conceive and implement? Man! What a rush! My creative juices are really flowing now!

Anyhow...

My approach was this: Even though I didn't like the name you gave the class, I like that your timer used separate integer variables for hours, minutes and seconds. I will build my program around those three integers.

Some people would use a single integer that represents total seconds since 00:00:00, and would supply methods that would convert three integers (h, m, s) to total seconds and convert total seconds back to (h, m, s). Maybe I would have done it that way, or maybe I would have done it your way. The actual implementation of a "real" clock might favor one approach over the other, and you can experiment with different ways of doing things once you get your testbed in place.

Now, maybe your approach would be different and maybe your implementation would be different, but one big thing about program design is to define and visualize what the output will be.

This is where the Big Bucks are: Program design. Making decisions. Even though I showed some implementation details before I showed the output, my visualization of the functionality and of the specific output came before I wrote a single line of code. (Well, I started with your timer class and went from there. Lots of times that's what you do. Other times you start from scratch.)

Anyhow, once program design is complete, if you "do it right," you can use your newly-learned knowledge of Java to create the program. The actual implementation will be a "snap."

The only thing that remains TBD (To Be Done) in main() is to fill in the parentheses in the while(){} loop statement.

You want to continue the loop as long as (hours don't match) OR (minutes don't match) OR (seconds don't match).

Just use Java boolean expressions where "!=" (not equal) is used for the (don't match) conditions and "||" is used for the connective OR, OK?

Cheers!

Z

Yeah, the class names were just from the tutorial. I usually like to stay more organized. Anyways thank you! That really helped. I was struggling with how to get integer values to compare and how to compare. Once I got a vague idea of how to do it. I just typed it in and after a few syntax corrections from the IDE and it prompting me to make the int values Static I got it to work. I didn't make it as fancy as yours but here is the code of mine that I got to work just the way I wanted.

class apples{
 
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		tuna tunaObject = new tuna();
 
		 int alarmHours = 7;
	        int alarmMinutes = 7;
	        int alarmSeconds = 7;
 
	        int counter = 0;
 
 
	 while (alarmHours!=tuna.getHour() || alarmMinutes!=tuna.getMinute() || alarmSeconds!=tuna.getSecond()){
 
		{
			++counter;
		tunaObject.setTime((int)((Math.random()*23)+1), (int)((Math.random()*59+1)), (int)((Math.random()*59)+1));
		System.out.println(tunaObject.toMilitary());
		}
	}
		System.out.println("it took "+ counter+ " tries");
}
 
}

public class tuna {
 
	public static int hour;
	public static int minute;
	public static int second;
 
	public void setTime(int h, int m, int s){
		hour = ((h>=0 && h<24) ? h : 0);
		minute= ((m>=0 && m<60) ? m : 0);
		second = ((s>=0 && s<60)? s : 0);
	}
 
	public static int getHour() {
	       return hour;
	    }
	public static int getMinute() {
	       return minute;
	    }
	public static int getSecond() {
	       return second;
	    }
 
	public String toMilitary(){
		return String.format("%02d:%02d:%02d", hour, minute, second);
	}
 
 
}

I got

...
22:56:54
05:37:22
08:28:40
04:14:27
22:11:26
07:07:07
it took 85992 tries

Now that we've got that done. I feel a little bit accomplished. Haha, I'm still taking babysteps with this java thing. Anyways if anybody has any input on how to make this code more efficient? Or how they would have solved it. I'd love to see your code and read your explanation.
Thanks guys!