Thread: Java assignment help

Hello everyone, first off, I want to say I'm new to the forums. Thus, this is my first time communicating. That said, I do need some assistance with an assignment. But alas, before I go into details I should probably profess my profficency within Java. I'm adequate to say the least. In regards to basics like variables (Strings, Booleans, Intergers and Doubles) I'm fine with those. Its just I'm having a hard time comprehending the other stuff. I've tried speaking with my professor, but to be not as harsh, his discussions haven't really helped me.

In fact, they've at times made me more confused. Being that I want to be a programmer this hasn't been a positive experience and since I am in a desperate spot. Alas, I'm probably being very rude right now. I sincerely apologize for the rant and wasting people's time. But anyway, allow me to get onto the assignment. The instructions for the assignment are shown as follows:

The purpose of this assignment is to continue working with the concepts of encapsulation and container classes.

In this program, you will

Define a class called State to model a U.S. state. Each State object will hold several years of population statistics.
Define a class called U_S_States to function as a container to hold a collection of State objects. (This includes writing a collection of methods for manipulating and displaying any one or all States.)
Create a main class to act as a client of the above two classes.

Now, in terms of the problem, he's given us templates for the classes, such as States. My question specifically pertains to arrays. Now, I do know the basics of arrays, specifically being lists which store variables, and their uses with For Loops. But how do you add or subtract them? Specifically, within my program there's a method that states you need to find the change within the two population arrays. All in all, I do apologize if this isn't enough information. If you want me to, I'll post the code here for reference.

Finally, I read your rules on Spoon-feeding and that is something I do not want. I wish support so as to lead me to a solution. One cannot master something unless he or she is put through the test. All in all, I thank everyone very much for taking the time to read my post.

in response to: But how do you add or subtract them? Specifically, within my program there's a method that states you need to find the change within the two population arrays. All in all, I do apologize if this isn't enough information. If you want me to, I'll post the code here for reference.

I believe you're asking how to do a mathematical operation on two numbers located in arrays.
The real question is how to reference the information in a specific place.

Lets say you have 2 arrays with data in them

arrayA { 7, 24, 92, 18}

arrayB { 48, 12, 2, 1}

First, you reference items in an array using their index, which starts at 0 and goes to the end of the array.
For example, the index of 7 in arrayA is 0, while the index of 18 is 3.

so to actually reference and perform operations on this data, you can say, arrayA[0] instead of saying 7. Or you can say, arrayB[2] instead of saying 12.

Does that help?