Creating and Modifying a Class

Create the project with the right classes

We need a Main driver class to test your cats. Start by creating a NetBeans project named CatDraw within your csci/201 directory. As usual, when you see the New Project window select General under Categories and Java Application under Projects. This should create a project with a Main class within the catdraw project.

Now you're going to do something different. You're going to add a second class to your project. Within the Projects panel, right click on the project name, CatDraw, and then follow the menu selections New → Java class... to bring up a New Java Class window.

When you are done creating classes, your Projects panel should resemble the one shown below.

If it doesn't, call your instructor over.

Working with two classes

In this lab you will be working with two different classes The upper-right panel of your NetBeans window should now have two tabs, one for the Java file Main.java and one for Cat.java. You will need to use these tabs to switch between the two classes as you work on this lab.

As you edit a class, the Navigator panel, generally located in the middle of the left side of NetBeans window, will display the methods and instance variables of your class. Consult the Navigator panel frequently throughout this lab to make sure you are modifying the right class. Switch between the two classes right now and make sure your Navigator panel matches those shown below.

Main	Cat

The Navigator window for Main shows that it has a single method called main and a single constructor Cat's Navigator window show only the one constructor.

Adding methods to your class

Study the two methods shown below. They look just just like the cat diagrams found at the beginning of the lab except that each line of the drawings have been placed within a call to the System.out.println method.

    public static void printLeftPounce() {
        System.out.println("                       ,'    ") ;
        System.out.println("                      ( (    ") ;
        System.out.println("                       ) )   ") ;
        System.out.println("                      / /    ") ;
        System.out.println("                     / /     ") ;
        System.out.println("                  ,-'  `-.   ") ;
        System.out.println("                ,'        \  ") ;
        System.out.println("     _    , _,-'    (      ) ") ;
        System.out.println("     )`--/,)         `.   (  ") ;
        System.out.println("    /      \ (         )  /  ") ;
        System.out.println("   6),6>    ) \     )_/  /   ") ; 
        System.out.println(" __(Y:.  _,'   )   /(((_/    ") ;
        System.out.println("((_^---'`._,-'   /  ```   hjw") ;
        System.out.println("'''       ((( _.-'           ") ;
        System.out.println("          '''                ") ;
    }
    
    public static void printRightPounce() {
        System.out.println("   (`.                           ") ;
        System.out.println("    ) )                          ") ;
        System.out.println("   ( (                           ") ;
        System.out.println("    \ \                          ") ;
        System.out.println("     \ \                         ") ;
        System.out.println("   .-'  `-.                      ") ; 
        System.out.println("  /        `.                    ") ;
        System.out.println(" (      )    `-._ ,    _         ") ;
        System.out.println("  )   ,'         (.\--'(         ") ;
        System.out.println("  \  (         ) /      \        ") ;
        System.out.println("   \  \_(     / (    <6 (6       ") ;
        System.out.println("    \_)))\   (   `._  .:Y)__     ") ;
        System.out.println("     '''  \   `-._.'`---^_)))    ") ;
        System.out.println("           `-._ )))       ```    ") ;
        System.out.println("                ```           hjw") ;
    }

Go to your Cat.java program and cut-and-paste the printLeftPounce and printRightPounce methods into your Cat class. That's the Cat class, not the Main class!

These should be added immediately after the Cat constructor.

    public Cat() {
    }

Your Navigator window for Cat should now show its two methods.

Escape sequences

Well, that didn't quite work. You've got red lines under some of those System.out.println calls. The problem is the backslashes ('\'). Remember how the escape sequence '\n' was used to put a linefeed (new line) in a string? String escape sequences are ways to place special characters, such a tabs ('\t'), quote marks ('\"'), and linefeeds ('\n') into strings. All escape sequences begin with a backslash. If want to include a real backslash in a string, you must use the escape sequence '\\'. Yep, that's two backslashes.

Go into your printLeftPounce and printRightPounce methods and double all the backslashes. This should makes the red lines go away. If you are having trouble doing this, get the attention of someone who isn't.

If you'd like to learn a song about escape sequences, look at The Telnet Song by Java developer Guy Steele.

Calling static methods

At this point you should be able to build and run your project. However, nothing happens.

You need to go into the file Main.java and edit the main method of the Main class of the catdraw package. See the big hint below.

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Cat.printLeftPounce() ;
        Cat.printRightPounce() ;
    }

Do not add the above method to the Cat class. It goes in the Main class.

Now compile and run your program.

Calling classy methods

In spite of what you've seen so far, static methods really aren't that useful. We want to create some Cat objects and call some of their methods.

Start by creating two Cat variables within the main method. Name one lefty and name the other called righty. Next add a call to the printLeftPounce (or printRightPounce) method of both cats.

Here's how this is done for lefty. We think you can figure it out for righty.

        Cat lefty = new Cat() ;
        lefty.printLeftPounce() ;

Static versus Dynamic methods

Go back to your Cat class. Remove the modifier static from the declarations of both the printLeftPounce and printRightPounce methods.

Try to build and run your project. You should get a really weird Java error message about IncompatibleClassChangeError.

Return to your Main class. Notice that the Cat.printLeftPounce() and Cat.printRightPounce() are now red-lined. Because these calls begin with the name of a class, rather than an object, they are static method calls. When we removed static as a modifier of printLeftPounce and printRightPounce, these calls became illegal.

Static methods are actually relatively rare in Java code. That's one of the reasons why you must explicitly use the modifier static when you want to create one.

Go ahead and fix this problem be deleting the two offensive method calls from the Main class.

Adding state to the object

Objects would be rather boring and useless if they were all the same. We want to enhance our Cat class so that Cat objects have a little bit of internal memory that remembers if the cat pounces to the left or right. This is done with instance variables.

A instance variable is declared inside a class but outside a method. This means that the variable can be accessed by all the methods of a class. Go to the Cat class and modify it so that the beginning of Cat class looks like this:

public class Cat {
    boolean pouncesLeft = true;

You've now defined an instance variable for the Cat class. Be sure you can still build your project before going further. Also, make sure your Navigator panel shows the new inference variable. If not, you better talk with the instructor.

Our new instance variable can be used to specialize each Cat object. Each Cat now has an internal boolean attribute called pouncesLeft. If a method "looks" at the value of pouncesLeft, it can modify its behavior.

Let's add the following additional method (by cut-and-paste) to the Cat class to take advantage of the pouncesLeft variable.

    public void printPounce() {
       if (pouncesLeft) {
           printLeftPounce() ;
       } else {
           printRightPounce() ;
       }
    }

This new method uses the instance variable pouncesLeft to determine in which direction the cat will pounce. Your Navigator window will should show your new method.

Going public or private

External "users" of the Cat object really ought to call printPounce, rather than printLeftPounce or printRightPounce.

Go to the Cat class and remove the public modifier from the printLeftPounce and printRightPounce methods. If you build and run your project, every thing still seems to work fine.

Take a look at the Navigator. Note that the icons in front of the printLeftPounce and printRightPounce have been changed to indicate that these methods are no longer public.

This time add the modifier private to printLeftPounce and printRightPounce methods. You can still build the project, but that's due to some laziness on the part of NetBeans. If you clean the project and then build it, you'll see problems. But better yet, just look at the Main class. There you will see that the calls to printLeftPounce and printRightPounce have been red-lined. That's because a class' private methods can be invoked only within the class.

You should also note that the Navigator has changed the icons for printLeftPounce and printRightPounce. The new icons have little locks to indicate that outsiders can't mess with these methods.

It would be reasonable to assume that this exercise has shown that a method with neither the public nor private modifiers is effectively public. However, that ain't the case. It's actually in a third state called package-private, which means it is public to classes created in its own package and private to classes created in other packages. In our case, both Cat and Main are within the catdraw package. That's why Cat's printPounce is public to Main's Main. Of course, all this is very confusing. Consequently, it's best to explicitly use either private and public as a method modifier rather than fall into the state of package-private.

In order to proceed with this lab, we must fix the problem in the main method. Do this by changing all the Cat method calls in the Main class to be to the public printPounce, rather than the private printLeftPounce or printRightPounce. Wait here until you can clean, build, and run your project.

Modifying an object the wrong way

If you run your project, you'll see the cat is always pouncing to the the left. That's because there's no code to change the pouncesLeft instance variable of a Cat object.

A poor way to solve this problem (which might result in deducted points in a homework assignment) would be to abuse the package-private nature of the pouncesLeft variable and add the following statement to the Main class.

       righty.pouncesLeft = false ;

Just this once, go ahead and do it. If you put this statement right before the call righty.printPounce(), you'll see a changed cat.

Generally, it's not safe to let class "users" modify instance variables. Let's eliminate this possibility by adding the private modifier to our declaration of pouncesLeft as shown below.

    private boolean pouncesLeft = true;

Now the Navigator windows has associated a locking icon with pouncesLeft.

You should also see that the offensive assignment to the instance variable in Main is now red-lined. Remove the assignment so we can go on.

Modifying an object the right way

Instance variables should be modified through method calls. Go to the Cat class and add the following method declaration.

    public void setPouncesLeft(boolean b) {
        pouncesLeft = b ;
    }

Now if you call righty.setPounceLeft(false), the Cat method will change its internal instance variable pouncesLeft to false. Spent one minute thinking about that. It's important.

If you follow the JavaBeans naming convention (and you should even if you, like some CSCI 201 instructors, have no idea why this is important), you should have both set and get methods for your class' significant properties. This means your should also add the following method to your Cat class.

    public boolean getPouncesLeft() {
        return pouncesLeft ;
    }

You're on you own for this one

Even though cats never come when called, humans give cats names anyway. Add an instance variable to the Cat object for storing a cat's name. Then add two methods getName and setName to access the cat's name.

Modify the main method to (1) use the setName method to set lefty's name to "Lefty" and righty's name to "Righty" (or whatever) and (2) use the getName method to obtain the cat's name for printing with System.out.println.