Thread: What gives?

Hello, I am trying to get to grips with Java and specifically at this moment with text input, I wrote this with some help from Dr Google:

package stringvars;
 
import java.util.Scanner;
 
public class StringVariables {
 
  public static void main(String[] args) {
 
  	  Scanner user_input = new Scanner(System.in);
 
  	  String first_name;
  	  System.out.print("Enter your first name: ");
  	  first_name = user_input.next();
 
  	  String family_name;
  	  System.out.print("Enter family name: ");
  	  family_name = user_input.next();
 
  	  String full_name;
  	  full_name = first_name + " " + family_name;
 
  	  System.out.println("You are " + full_name);
  }
}

It did not work…. So I tinkered with it and low and behold, when I removed the top line (package stringvars it worked ☺

So – my question is why?

Thanks in advance for any help – Ian ☺

It works with package stringvars; if that is the true name of your package. My only thought is the name of your package was incorrect otherwise it should have run just fine

Okay - so... I did some digging around and it seams that the Package command is something i would use if I wanted to create a package of classes to use in my program, is this correct? If so - is this something that is becoming obsolete with newer versions of Java? Obviously my version (7.3) didn't need it...

Ian

A package is just a folder in the hierarchy used for organization.
It is not necessary to organize related classes in different packages, you can dump everything into one big pile if you choose to.
As things get more complicated you will be glad to use them.

So.... It is a folder that I create and put whatever classes I require into - hence why the program didn't work originally because I had not created that folder, makes sense now

A couple more questions then:

1. Does the import command pull from the packages folder
2. As I already stated when I removed the top line of code (package stringvars) the program worked... so in this instance, where did the command import pull from?

Thanks - Ian

The import command "pulls from the package" named in the statement.
Take for example the Math class. Officially named java.lang.Math
This tells you the class named Math is in the package named lang which happens to reside in a higher package of the hierarchy named java. The compiler must know where to find the java package to get the ball rolling, this is set up differently based on the development environment.

Drop that class into a folder with the package name and it will be fine, or even create your own new package name, or when you have none at all, it is considered to be in the default package, which is why it works without the statement.