Thread: Using set/get methods and arrays

Hi guys, forgive me if breaking all sorts of laws in Java, I'm only a couple weeks into learning it and I've been struggling the whole way through. Right now what I was trying to do was create an array using the titles of five books and to test to see if my approach was working I tried to output the result. It seems like there's an error in my set/get methods. The code compiles, but my output is null.

So my real question is, can I do what I'm trying to achieve? That is, pull array variables from set/get methods? Is there a better approach or would this work (note: I'm supposed to have get/set methods so those have to stay, I'm struggling with my constructors and arrays at the moment) I'll be working with this some more while I wait for a response so if I figure it out first I'll update with a solved tag and the code I end up using to do so, thanks!

import java.util.Arrays;
 
public class BookStore2 {
 
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        Book Book1 = new Book("978-0-7653-6264-3", "Wizard's First Rule", "Terry Goodkind", 1994, "Tom Doherty Associates, LLC", 7.99f);
        Book Book2 = new Book("0-812-54809-4", "Stone of Tears", "Terry Goodkind", 1995, "Tom Doherty Associates, LLC", 7.99f);
        Book Book3 = new Book("0-812-55147-8", "Blood of the Fold", "Terry Goodkind", 1995, "Tom Doherty Associates, LLC", 7.99f);
        Book Book4 = new Book("0-439-15411-1", "Dracula", "Bram Stroker", 1897, "Scholastic Inc", 4.99f);
        Book Book5 = new Book("0-440-94060-5", "I Am The Cheese", "Robert Cormier", 1977, "Dell Laurel-Leaf", 5.50f);
 
        String[] titleArray = new String[] {Book1.gettitle, Book2.gettitle, Book3.gettitle, Book4.gettitle, Book5.gettitle}; 
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(titleArray));
 
    }
 
 
}
 
 
class Book{
 
  String ISBN;
  String title;
  String name;
  int year;
  String publisher;
  float price;
    String gettitle; // removed, this must have been part of the problem I was having
 
  public Book(String ISBN, String title, String name, int year, String publisher, float price){
      this.ISBN = ISBN;
      this.title = title;
      this.name = name;
      this.year = year;
      this.publisher = publisher;
      this.price = price;
  }
   public void setISBN(String ISBN){
       this.ISBN = ISBN;
   }
   String getISBN(){
       return ISBN;
   }
   public void settitle(String title){
       this.title = title;
   }
   String gettitle(){
       return title;
   }
   public void setname(String name){
       this.name = name;
   }
   String getname(){
       return name;
   }
   public void setyear(int year){
       this.year = year;
   }
   int getyear(){
       return year;
   }
   public void setpublisher(String publisher){
       this.publisher = publisher;
   }
  String getpublisher(){
      return publisher;
  }
   public void setprice(float price){
       this.price = price;
   }
   float getprice(){
       return price;
   }
   // list of getters
 
 
} // end class book

Updated code:

import java.util.Arrays;
 
public class BookStore2 {
 
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        Book book1 = new Book("978-0-7653-6264-3", "Wizard's First Rule", "Terry Goodkind", 1994, "Tom Doherty Associates, LLC", 7.99f);
        Book book2 = new Book("0-812-54809-4", "Stone of Tears", "Terry Goodkind", 1995, "Tom Doherty Associates, LLC", 7.99f);
        Book book3 = new Book("0-812-55147-8", "Blood of the Fold", "Terry Goodkind", 1995, "Tom Doherty Associates, LLC", 7.99f);
        Book book4 = new Book("0-439-15411-1", "Dracula", "Bram Stroker", 1897, "Scholastic Inc", 4.99f);
        Book book5 = new Book("0-440-94060-5", "I Am The Cheese", "Robert Cormier", 1977, "Dell Laurel-Leaf", 5.50f);
 
        String[] titleArray = new String[] {book1.gettitle(), book2.gettitle(), book3.gettitle(), book4.gettitle(), book5.gettitle()}; 
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(titleArray));
        System.out.println(book1.gettitle());
 
    }
 
 
}
 
 
class Book{
 
  String ISBN;
  String title;
  String name;
  int year;
  String publisher;
  float price;
 
 
  public Book(String ISBN, String title, String name, int year, String publisher, float price){
      this.ISBN = ISBN;
      this.title = title;
      this.name = name;
      this.year = year;
      this.publisher = publisher;
      this.price = price;
  }
   public void setISBN(String ISBN){
       this.ISBN = ISBN;
   }
   String getISBN(){
       return ISBN;
   }
     String gettitle(){
       return title;
   }
   public void settitle(String title){
       this.title = title;
   }
   public void setname(String name){
       this.name = name;
   }
   String getname(){
       return name;
   }
   public void setyear(int year){
       this.year = year;
   }
   int getyear(){
       return year;
   }
   public void setpublisher(String publisher){
       this.publisher = publisher;
   }
  String getpublisher(){
      return publisher;
  }
   public void setprice(float price){
       this.price = price;
   }
   float getprice(){
       return price;
   }
   // list of getters
 
 
} // end class book

Okay, I found part of my problem, instead of writing this code:

 String[] titleArray = new String[] {Book1.gettitle, Book2.gettitle, Book3.gettitle, Book4.gettitle, Book5.gettitle}; 
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(titleArray));
        System.out.println(Book1.gettitle);

I changed it to:

    String[] titleArray = new String[] {Book1.title, Book2.title, Book3.title, Book4.title, Book5.title}; 
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(titleArray));
        System.out.println(Book1.title);

To answer your questions Norm, the variable I was trying to get to print is the title variable from my Book class. The variables should be assigned using the constructors that you see for Book1 - Book5.

As for the second part of your question, I am uncertain what you mean by a variable and method with the same name maybe I am reading it wrong or understanding it wrong, but they appear to be all with different names?

With the exclusion of, I found a duplicate gettitle line in my code near the beginning of the Book class, I removed that as I assume it was part of the problem.

Edit: I see what you mean, you meant the variable gettitle and the method gettitle. Yeah, the variable for gettitle was not supposed to be there, it was removed once I found that it was there and then correcting the code to title instead of gettitle resulted in the correct output.

Originally Posted by Norm

See gettitle: It's a String and the name of a method

I removed the String already, as it was part of my confusion, that was the reason for producing a null value instead of a syntax error. I also made adjustments to the variable names to help readability and you pointed out the error that caused all of this to begin with. I wasn't understanding why it wasn't calling on the get methods, and it was because I left out the parenthesis (book1.gettitle()) at the end.

I'll probably be asking for more help soon, this stuff gives me one heck of a headache.

I will update the thread as solved, I don't think there is much that can be asked here and still remain on-topic.

Thank you, Norm.