Thread: Help with making classes as a variable type!

Hi, I'm quite new to java, and I've come to the point where there are just some things that I don't get no matter where I look or what I read up.

I've been confused with using a created class as a variable type for quite some time now. Take this class for example:

public class Dragon {
 
	private String name;
	private boolean breathesFire;
 
	public Dragon(String name, boolean breathesFire) {
		this.name = name;
		this.breathesFire = breathesFire;
	}
 
	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}
 
	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}
 
	public boolean isBreathesFire() {
		return breathesFire;
	}
 
	public void setBreathesFire(boolean breathesFire) {
		this.breathesFire = breathesFire;
	}
}

This was provided by my lecturer. In another class, he has done this:

package com1003.objectville.composition;
 
public class Knight {
 
	private String name;
	[B]private Dragon dragon;[/B]
 
	public Knight(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}
 
	public Knight(String name, Dragon dragon) {
		this.name = name;
		this.dragon = dragon;
	}
 
	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}
 
	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}
 
	public Dragon getDragon() {
		return dragon;
	}
 
	public void setDragon(Dragon dragon) {
		this.dragon = dragon;
	}
 
	public String toString() {
		String s = "Knight: "+name;
		if (dragon != null) {
			s += ", his dragon is: "+dragon.getName();
		}
		return s;
	}
}

Now I've made my area of concern in bold above. You see how he makes the private variable "dragon" type "Dragon"? So he wrote "private Dragon dragon" instead of "private int dragon" or something that I usually see. And this type "Dragon" is the class name of the first piece of code provided. I don't see how you can do this, and why you do this.

Could someone explain what's going on, and why it's done this way in the code above?

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.

he wrote "private Dragon dragon" instead of "private int dragon" or something that I usually see. And this type "Dragon" is the class name of the first piece of code provided. I don't see how you can do this,

Well, you do it as your teacher has illustrated. There is a dragon associated with each knight. In code this is expressed by putting a field declared as Dragon in the class Knight.

and why you do this.

You do this because not everything can (conveniently) be expressed as an int. The knight might have an age, for instance, and this could be expressed using an int field:

public class Knight {
 
    private String name;
    private int age;
    private Dragon dragon;

But there is only so much you can do with an int. A knight might make it one larger each year (and eat cake), but that's about it.

The knight might also want to address his dragon: "<insert name here>, prepare to do battle!". But ints don't have names, so this rather natural sort of behaviour would be impossible if the dragon variable were just an int. But, by declaring dragon as of type Dragon the programmer can use the fact that it has a getName() method and write:

System.out.println(dragon.getName() + ", prepare to do battle!");

According to me,
i think You are passing object of the Dragon class in Knight constructor, you need variable of type Dragon class to hold that object.
otherwise you can't hold value.
int Dragon can't be taken--- as Knight(_,Dragon dragon), here dragon contains two variables that are declared in first code..
so using this type of variable you can access the variable of Dragon in knight class.
Hope you find this helpful for understanding