Thread: Class not passing information

Hello, I am a student and I'm working on a problem.

I have written other small class and method assignments without a problem, but I'm getting confused as to what's wrong with my code.

I'm doing a simple assignment where I'm asked to create a class, and then populate and display it in another. I can compile without any errors, so it makes it a little harder to troubleshoot.

Here is my code from the first class.

public class PayrollML
{
		private String	 name;			//employee's first and last name
		private int		 idNumber;		//Employee's ID number
		private double	 rate;			//Employee's hourly rate
		private double	 hours;		//employee's hours worked
 
 
	public void setName( String name )
	{
		name = (name != null ? name : "No name" );
	}
 
	public void setIdNumber( int idNumber )
	{
		idNumber = ( idNumber >=0?  idNumber : 0 );
	}
 
	public void	setRate( double rate )
	{
		rate = ( rate >= 0? rate :0 );
	}
 
	public void setHours( double hours )
	{
		hours	= ( hours >= 0?  hours  : 0 );
	}
 
	public String getName()
	{
		return name;
	}
 
	public int getIdNumber()
	{
		return idNumber;
	}
 
	public double getRate()
	{
		return rate;
	}
 
	public double getHours()
	{
		return hours;
	}
 
}

Here is the second class to create and instance, populate it and then display the information.

import javax.swing.*;
 
class PayrollMLInput
{
	public static void main( String [] args )  //fill in the information for the employees
	{
 
		String input;
		String payName;
		int payIdNumber;
		double payRate;
		double payHours;
		double payGross;
 
		//creates an object from the payroll class.
		PayrollML Payee1 = new PayrollML();
 
		[COLOR="Orange"]// I assume this area is where the problem lies.  Setting the data.  I cannot tell for sure, since it all compiles without errors.[/COLOR]
		[COLOR="Red"]input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog( "Please enter employee name.");
		payName = input;
		Payee1.setName(payName);
 
		input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog( "Please enter employee ID."); 
		payIdNumber = Integer.parseInt(input);
		Payee1.setIdNumber(payIdNumber);
 
		input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog( "Please enter employee rate of pay in dollars per hour.");
		payRate = Double.parseDouble(input);
		Payee1.setRate(payRate);
 
		input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog( "Please enter employee hours worked.");
		payHours = Double.parseDouble(input);
		Payee1.setHours(payHours);
 
		payGross = (Payee1.getRate() * Payee1.getHours());[/COLOR]
 
[COLOR="Orange"]//Unless this is the issue and I'm not calling it correctly.  Either way, I cannot tell for sure where my error is.  To me it looks like I've named the class and parameters correctly.[/COLOR]
		JOptionPane.showMessageDialog( null,   "Employee is "	+ Payee1.getName()	  + "\n"
														 + "Id Number: "	+ Payee1.getIdNumber() + "\n"
														 + "Makes " 		+ Payee1.getRate()	  + " Per Hour\n"
														 + "Worked "		+ Payee1.getHours()	  + " hours this week\n"
														 + "Earned "		+ payGross 				  + " dollars");
 
		System.exit(0);
	}	
}

When I run the second program, after all the JOptionPane promts are completed, I get nulls and zero's for the displayed data.

Any help in pointing out my error would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Can you add some comments to the code showing where the problem is
and showing what the displayed data is?

Add some calls to println() to show all the values to the console and copy them here. Copy the second arg to the showMessageDialog() method and paste it into the println()

I'm going to add the comments to the first post.

The displayed data is this when I use the System.out.println().

Employee is null
Id Number: 0
Makes 0.0 Per Hour
Worked 0.0 hours this week
Earned 0.0 dollars

I think that the second class PayrollMLInput isn't passing the data to the PayrollML class. I really don't understand why.

The problem is because you are utilizing the same name for local variables (parameters) as the object variable names.

This means that the object variable names will be "hidden". You must tell java you mean the object value by using the "this" reference.

For example:

private class Test
{
    public int theValue;
 
    public void printValue(int theValue)
    {
        // object value is hidden!
        System.out.println("value passed to the function: " + theValue);
        System.out.println("value stored in this object: " + this.theValue);
    }
 
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        Test myTest = new Test();
        myTest.theValue = 5;
        myTest.printValue(3);
    }
}

helloworld922,

I just figured out what you meant.

I had to change code in my first class to this.

	public void setName( String zName )
	{
		name = (zName != null? zName : "No name" );
	}
 
	public void setIdNumber( int zIdNumber )
	{
		idNumber = ( zIdNumber >=0?  zIdNumber : 0 );
	}
 
	public void	setRate( double zRate )
	{
		rate = ( zRate >= 0? zRate :0 );
	}
 
	public void setHours( double zHours )
	{
		hours	= ( zHours >= 0?  zHours  : 0 );

Thank you very much.

Thank you Norm.

I didn't actually see your post until I edited my post above.

I was too busy thinking my PayrollMLInput class was the problem and I didn't think to look at the PayrollML class itself. I saw my error there and slapped my forehead.

Thank you both for your help.