Thread: Having trouble understanding assignment dealing with constructors with classes??

Hey all, I'm having quite a bit of trouble understanding the assignment that was given to me. I don't understand how you can have several constructors... when you just need one? I'm not quite sure I understand what it's asking for as the teacher wasn't as clear as I'd like.

EDIT: just changed the class file and the main file... it is now updated... is that what they meant by three constructors?

Program 5: 	Class Construct & Constructors 
 
Problem Description:
 
  An Internet service provider has three different subscription 
   packages for its customers:
 
   Package A:  For $15 per month with 50 hours of access provided.
               Additional hours are $2.00 per hour over 50 hours.
               Assume usage is recorded in one-hour increments, 
 
   Package B:  For $20 per month with 100 hours of access provided.
               Additional hours are $1.50 per hour over 100 hours.
 
   Package C:  For $25 per month with 150 hours access is provided.
               Additional hours are $1.00 per hour over 150 hours.
   Assume 30-day billing cycle.
 
 
   Design a Customer Class. The Customer Object has one
   principal behavior: PayBill. You will need other methods
   to support that behavior.
 
   Design three Constructors:
      Full set of parameters.
      Customer ID.
      No-Arg.
 
      Write a program that creates four Customer Objects.
      Each object pays the bill.
      Invoke each constructor. 
      Validate all input.
 
 
   Demonstrate your design using the following Test Cases:
 
   Cust ID Test Case    Package     Hours
   ------- ---------    -------     -----
    1101       1           A          90
    2202       2           B         140
    3303       3           C         190
    4404       4           b         730

And here is what I have so far for the main method...

public class customerPayBill{
 
 
	public static void main(String[] args){
 
		Customer mark = new Customer("1101", "1", "A", 90);
		Customer julie = new Customer("2202");
		Customer dubstep = new Customer("3303");
		Customer joey = new Customer();
		mark.payBill();
		julie.payBill();
		dubstep.payBill();
		joey.payBill();
 
	}
}

And here is what I have for the class called Customer...

 
public class Customer{
 
	private String customerID;
	private String testCase;
	private String ispPackage;
	private double hours;
 
 
	public Customer(String custID, String testC, String pack, double h){
 
 
		customerID = custID; //customer ID
		testCase = testC; // test case #
		ispPackage = pack; // which package the customer has
		hours = h; //# of hours used up by customer
 
	}
 
	public Customer(String custID){
 
		customerID = custID;
 
 
 
		if(customerID == "2202")
		{
			testCase = "2";
			ispPackage = "B";
				hours = 140;
		}
 
		else if (customerID == "3303"){
 
			testCase = "3";
			ispPackage = "C";
				hours = 190;
		}
 
 
	}
 
	public Customer(){
		customerID = "4404";
		testCase = "4";
		ispPackage = "B";
		hours = 730;
 
 
	}
 
	public void payBill(){
 
		double price = 0;
 
		if(ispPackage == "A")
		{
			price = 15 + (2.00*(hours - 50));
			System.out.println("Customer ID: " + customerID +  " owes the company $" + price);
		}
 
			else if(ispPackage == "B")
			{	price = 20 + (1.50*(hours - 100));
				System.out.println("Customer ID: " + customerID +  " owes the company $" + price);
			}
					else if (ispPackage == "C")
				{
					price = 25 + (1.00*(hours - 150));
					System.out.println("Customer ID: " + customerID +  " owes the company $" + price);
				}
 
	}
}

My output is

 
Customer ID: 1101 owes the company $95.0
Customer ID: 2202 owes the company $80.0
Customer ID: 3303 owes the company $65.0
Customer ID: 4404 owes the company $965.0

Possibly, though I'm not sure if that's the intent. It's best to check with a member of the teaching staff to make sure.

In general the test cases should be separate from the constructors (i.e. don't hard-code customer ID 2202 to package B with 140 hours).

For standard Java programming practices, what's likely to happen is you'll leave some fields initiated to a "default" value which creates a complete object.

For example, take take the second constructor which accepts just a customer ID. It's obvious that it should simply accept a customer ID and assign that to the appropriate field. However, you shouldn't assume that its ID indicates anything special about what package they have or how many hours they've used. So an appropriate choice may be to say all new customers which don't specify these fields get package A and they haven't used any hours.

The constructor which takes no arguments would like-wise have a similar behavior as above, though you'd have to pick a customer ID for them (for example a random number, or default to 0).

Now you can create setter methods which allow the client to modify which package a customer has, how many hours they've used, and even what their ID is. It's also possible to make checks to ensure that inputs are correct. For example, it makes no sense for a customer to have used -10 hours of internet. These methods typically have a form similar to this:

// example setter method
public void setHours(double hours)
{
    if(hours >= 0)
    {
        // ok to replace current hours
        this.hours = hours;
    }
}

Then when you want to modify a particular customer's properties, you simply need to call that method.

// inside your main method
Customer dave = new Customer();
dave.setCustomerID("9999");
dave.setISPPackage("C");
dave.setHours(1.5);

One other thing I'd like to point out which isn't highlighted by the test cases is the way you're handling the payBill method.

Currently you're simply subtracting off the amount of hours each package allows you to have without overage charges. This works so long as the customer always uses as many or more hours than their plan allows. However, if the customer uses less than that amount the code would lead one to believe that the customer gets reimbursed for unused hours. In fact, if a customer has plan A and uses 0 hours of internet, the payBill method would say they owe -$85, or that the company needs to pay the customer $85. I'll leave it to you to try and figure out a way to remedy this problem (hint: use if/else statements).

Last note: If you're implementing the Customer class in this manner, you don't need a testCase field. Again, that's something specific to a test case, not something which would be found in a generic Customer. This information can be captured elsewhere.

Ask if you have any questions about the above information.

What I mean by keeping test cases separate is that your implementation shouldn't depend on the provided test cases, but must be able to handle them correctly from an "end user" perspective, i.e. your implementation of Customer shouldn't need to be changed to be able to handle other test cases, such as a new Customer with id = 1234, package C, with 30 hours used.