Thread: Stuck with an Event Generator

Hey guys!

Was recommended this forum by a friend of mine and the expertise here seems to be beyond anything I've seen before, so I'm thrilled to learn a lot from it. I'm currently studying a Object Oriented Java course in Sweden through BlueJ (the course book is David Barnes' Objects First With Java) and I'm currently stuck at a problem concerning randomizers, HashMaps and those kind of things.

The object is to enter a persons name and then generate seven different events and 'mood points' on each day of the week (these mood points will be different on every event). There are four different classes for this:

Person: [Java] class: Person - Pastebin.com
EventGenerator: [Java] class: EventGenerator - Pastebin.com
Event: [Java] class: Event - Pastebin.com
Dice: [Java] class: Dice - Pastebin.com

The problem I'm having is how to write the code in Person and generally the methods listWeek(), affectMood() and generateDayEvent(). I think I'm heading the right direction, but I can't figure out how to generate a new event for each day —*the main problem is really how to fetch the data from the generator.

Notice: I'm asking you to give me the code needed, because this is a problem I have to solve in school. But I'm asking you for some guidance and suggestions.

If you prefer me to paste the code directly into this post, I'll do that. Not sure about the manners in here. (:

Best regards

I can't figure out how to generate a new event for each day —*the main problem is really how to fetch the data from the generator.

How about using the idea of a listener? The code that wants the events would register itself as a listener with the event generator. The event generator would call the listener when it generated a new event.

Thank you for the replies! Helped out a lot and the only thing I've got left is some NullPointerException for my ArrayList (we haven't learned List yet, so don't bother telling me to use that .

[Java] class: Person (updated) - Pastebin.com

So I'm getting the NullPointerException at line 54 and I don't get why and how to solve it. Haven't I filled the ArrayList in the constructor?

What variable on line 54 is null? If you can't tell by looking at the code, add a println just before line 54 and print out the values of all the variables used on line 54 to see which variable is null.

If you want anyone to look at your code, please post it in the thread.

Originally Posted by Norm

What variable on line 54 is null? If you can't tell by looking at the code, add a println just before line 54 and print out the values of all the variables used on line 54 to see which variable is null.

If you want anyone to look at your code, please post it in the thread.

But I posted a link to it. It's right where it said "[Java] class: Person (updated) - Pastebin.com". If that's not a welcomed way of displaying code, I can include it instead.

Please post your code in the thread. Be sure to wrap it in code tags.
See: http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com...do=bbcode#code
Did you look at the code on line 54? And print out the values of the variables used there?

Yes, I did, and it just printed null. But that shouldn't be correct, in my mind, because I used the add() method in the constructor. What am I missing out on here?

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
/**
 * Requires a name and then generates a week with random events for each day of the week.
 * Every event affects the mood in a specific way.
 * The mood starts at the value of 200.
 * 
 * @author Erik Blomqvist
 * @version 2011-11-07
 */
public class Person
{
    private String mName;
    private int mMood;
    private HashMap<String, Event> mWeekEvent;
    private EventGenerator mGenEvent;
    private ArrayList<String> mWeekday;
 
 
    /**
     * Constructor for objects of class. Automatically fills the list with random events.
     * Requires the name of a person.
     * 
     * @param name Name of the person
     */
    public Person(String name)
    {
        mName = name;
        mMood = 200;
        mWeekEvent = new HashMap<String, Event>();
        mGenEvent = new EventGenerator();
        ArrayList<String> mWeekday = new ArrayList<String>();
 
        mWeekday.add(new String("Måndag"));
        mWeekday.add(new String("Tisdag"));
        mWeekday.add(new String("Onsdag"));
        mWeekday.add(new String("Torsdag"));
        mWeekday.add(new String("Fredag"));
        mWeekday.add(new String("Lördag"));
        mWeekday.add(new String("Söndag"));
    }
 
    /**
     * The only public method which prints out the randomized week events and how the person's
     * mood is affected.
     */
    public void listWeek()
    {
        System.out.println("Hej, " + mName);
        System.out.println(" Du startar med gott humör på nivå: " + mMood);
        System.out.println(" Din vecka slumpar sig såhär...");
 
        for(String thisDay : mWeekday) {
            // Vänta en sekund...
            wait(1000);
            System.out.println(thisDay);
            generateDayEvent();
            Event thisEvent = (Event)mWeekEvent.get(thisDay);
            System.out.println(thisEvent);
            affectMood(thisDay);
            System.out.println(" Ditt humör är nu på: " + mMood);
        }
    }
 
    /**
     * The method to affect the total mood value based on the day of the week parameter.
     * 
     * @param day Day of the week
     */
    private void affectMood(String day)
    {
        Event thisEvent = (Event)mWeekEvent.get(day);
        int newMood = thisEvent.getAffectMood();
        mMood += newMood;
    }
 
    /**
     * Generates seven different events and puts them in the mWeekEvent HashMap.
     */
    private void generateDayEvent()
    {
        for(String thisDay : mWeekday) {
            mWeekEvent.put(thisDay, mGenEvent.generateEvent());
        }
    }
 
    /**
     * Wait for a specified number of milliseconds before finishing.
     * This provides an easy way to specify a small delay which can be
     * used when producing animations.
     * @param  milliseconds  the number 
     */
    private void wait(int milliseconds)
    {
        try
        {
            Thread.sleep(milliseconds);
        } 
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            // ignoring exception at the moment
        }
    }
}

edit: The reason I posted it on Pastebin is due to the fact that this forum doesn't support Java color highlighting and line numbers.

Originally Posted by Norm

Then why is the variable null? You need to look back through your code and see why that variable is null.
Obviously you and the computer disagree on what you code is doing. I'll bet on the computer as being correct. So you need to figure out what is happening.

Does your IDE tell you when you create a local variable that has the same name as a class variable? You should turn on that warning so the IDE will tell you if you are "hiding" a class variable with a local variable.
Hint: That is your problem.

Ah, got it. Should have been mWeekday = new ArrayList<String>(); and not ArrayList<String> mWeekday = new ArrayList<String>;