How to get methods to see variables in other methods

I am working on my class assignment and I am still having problems understanding how to get variable data to flow from one method to another method. For a sample I am just trying to make a press of a button change a text box to be equal to the data stored in an array[0]. I do not understand how to get the method with the button to be able to see the data in the method with the array. What do I need to do to be able to use the data in the array in the button method? I keep getting an error " Can't find symbol: variable itemNum"

//Array
public void storedata() {
String[] itemNum = {"1","2"};
}

//VCR FIRST BUTTON
private void jButton1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
String temp = itemNum[0];
jTextField1.setText(temp);
}

you may modify your method storedata to return String[]

or you can declare a global variable String[] xxx

The class that holds the array could have a public method that gets array contents for a specific index, something like:

Code:

---

public String getItem(int index)
{
  // may wish to throw an exception
  // if the index is out of bounds
  return itemNum[index]
}

---

Then the GUI class that holds the button (or more importantly, the class that holds the button's action listener) needs to have a variable that refers to the relevant array-holding object.

edit: or just have a getter for the entire array as suggested by mtyoung above.

Thanks for the quick replys, but I just can't grasp this what seems to be simple task. Instead of setting the textbox to a variable value when the button is pressed I tried a string value and the program worked. Everything I do to try and get the array value or any variable value to update the textbox I run into variable not found errors. Any additional help would be greatly appreciated as I am very new to Java and if I can get past this I will be able to complete my program with ease. Here is a better example of how my code is actually layed out.



public class MYGUI extends javax.swing.JFrame {
private void jButton1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {

String temp = "5";
jTextField1.setText(temp);
}

}
private void jButton1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {

String temp = "5";
jTextField1.setText(temp);
}


class storedata {
String[] itemNum = {"1","2"};
}

}

variable not found errors.


can you show part of code with the above error and other related code?