i need some tips on this question

Introduction
You have been requested to create an application for a bookshop that helps to keep track of books.

Your Tasks:
You are required to create the following classes for your application:
1. The class to describe attributes of books (title, author, publisher and price). Provide relevant methods.
2. The class should store collection of books (using an array). This class should also keep track of the total number of books in the collection, the total cost of the books in the collection, the average cost, the most expensive and cheapest book respectively
3. There should be methods available to add books to the collection, remove books from the collection and output a report of the book collection (see the example of program output that follows at the end. Note how the output is formatted). Hint: Use tab to format the output.

Program Requirements:
You should implement inheritance, composition and arrays to store the book details. There is no need to implement any databases or files.


Sample output

Book Collection

Number of Books : 4
Total cost : $ 202.00
Average cost : $ 50.50

Book List:

Title Author Publisher Price ($)

Operating System Concepts Silberschatz Wiley 65.00

SAMS Teach Yourself Perl Laura Lemay SAMS 95.00

Programming in C Dr.P Sellapan Sejana 48.00

Programming in Java John R. Hubbard McGraw-Hill 57.00


Cheapest Book is:
Programming in C Dr.P Sellapan Sejana 48.00

Most Expensive Book is:
SAMS Teach Yourself Perl Laura Lemay SAMS 95.00


i am not asking for a complete code, but i hope you can help me in this assignment,i am still new in java and trying to ask some help from you guys.i need some hints or tips how to do this kind of question

Now, the assignment is pretty self explanatory, it tells you excactely what classes to write up and what their fields and methods should be. I'll provide the backbone of the Book class without methods and constructors, just to get you started.

Code:

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public class Book {
  private String title, author, publisher;
  private double price;
}

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Try to write up the methods for this class. A tip, it's good practice for any class to override at least the toString() method, this should make the printAll method in the book collection class much easier. If you have any more questions, post them.

may i ask how to set a input for this assignment?

Either read the input from a file or from the user.
There are many sample programs here for both techniques.
Look for FileReader and BufferedReader classes for from a file and the Scanner class for from a user at the keyboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reeveliew

i need some hints or tips how to do this kind of question

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here is some example code. the first class is Book which has almost all methods you wanted. this class has 2 constructors, the first parametrized with an int which creates the library with the given size. i used an array, because this was your requirement, but an arraylist is more convenient. the second constructor is for creating a book. a better design would be, if you store only books in the Book class and create a class called Library which holds all add, remove, print and so on methods. here is the code:

Code:

---

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class Book {
        // This class should also keep track of the total number of books
        public static int numberOfBooks = 0;
       
        private String title;
        private String author;
        private String publisher;
        private double price;
        Book[] library;
       
        public Book(int n) {
        // The class should store collection of books (using an array).
                library = new Book[n];   
        }
       
        public Book(String t, String a, String p, double price) {
                this.title = t;
                this.author = a;
                this.publisher = p;
                this.price = price;
        }
       
        public static int getNumberOfBooks() {
                return numberOfBooks;
        }

        public String getTitle() {
                return title;
        }

        public String getAuthor() {
                return author;
        }

        public String getPublisher() {
                return publisher;
        }

        public double getPrice() {
                return price;
        }

        public Book[] getLibrary() {
                return library;
        }

        public void addBook(Book book) {
        // There should be methods available to add books to the collection
                library[numberOfBooks] = book;
                numberOfBooks++;
        }
       
        public void removeBook(Book book) {
                List<Book> list = new ArrayList<Book>(Arrays.asList(library));
                list.remove(book);
                library = list.toArray(library);
                numberOfBooks--;

        }
       
        public double totalCost() {
        // the total cost of the books in the collection
                double sum = 0;
                for (int i = 0; i < Book.getNumberOfBooks(); i++) {
                        sum += library[i].getPrice();
                }
                return sum;
        }
       
        // report of the book collection, for the moment with no tab
        public void reportBooks() {
                System.out.println("\n*** Total books in library: " + Book.numberOfBooks + " ***");
                for (int i = 0; i < Book.getNumberOfBooks(); i++) {
                        System.out.println(library[i].getAuthor() + ","
                                        + library[i].getTitle() + ","
                                        + library[i].getPublisher()+ ","
                                        + library[i].getPrice());
                }
        }
               
        // TODO the average cost,
        // TODO the most expensive
        // TODO cheapest book respectively
       
}

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to run the code above i create a library and some books with this code:

Code:

---

public class BookExample {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
                // Create a store for 10 books
                Book library = new Book(10);
                // Create book b1
                Book b1 = new Book("War and Peace", "Tolstoi", "Publisher 1", 60.80);
                // add book b1
                library.addBook(b1);
                // Create book b2
                Book b2 = new Book("Great Expectation", "Charles Dickens",
                                "Publisher 2", 73.20);
                // add book b1
                library.addBook(b2);

                library.reportBooks();
                System.out.println("\nTotal cost" + library.totalCost());

                // remove Tolstoi
                library.removeBook(b1);
                // see what happens :)
                library.reportBooks();

                System.out.println("\nTotal cost: " + library.totalCost());
        }
}

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the output don't look like you want but i think you can format it. hope, this code give you some hints. have fun.

i will test the code and try to understand how it work. by the way if i meet any problem can i drop you a mail?

dude, i saw 2 book in the library, but the output only show one, how to solve it?

need some help with those most expensive, cheapest and average of price

Quote:

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need some help with those most expensive, cheapest and average of price

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Cheapest will be the one with the lowest price. Get the price of the first one and compare against the next. If cheaper save it to compare against the next until done.
Same for expensive.
You must know how to to an average: Total/count

ya i have those code but i got no idea how to put in there..

System.out.println("Average Cost : RM. " + Average);
for(int i=0; i < Price.length; i++){
if (Price[i] > max){
max = Price[i];
tExp = Title[i];
aExp = Author[i];
pExp = Publisher[i];
}
if (Price[i] < min){
min = Price[i];
tCheap = Title[i];
aCheap = Author[i];
pCheap = Publisher[i];
}

This is how you would do it manually:
Take a piece of paper and draw a square on it to hold the lowest price.
Put the price of the first item in the square.
Get the next item.
compare the price of that item with the price in the square
If the price is lower, replace the value in the square with the current price.
If more items loop back to the "Get the..." step
When done with looking at all the items, the lowest price is in the square.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reeveliew

ya i have those code but i got no idea how to put in there..

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here is a small example how to implement min and max. you can take the code and put it in separate methods.

Code:

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        public void bookStats() {
                // initialize the cheapest book with element 0
                Book min = library[0];
                // initialize the most expensive book with element 0
                Book max = library[0];
                double sum = 0;
               
                for (int i = 0; i < Book.getNumberOfBooks(); i++) {
                        // the total cost of the books in the collection
                        sum += library[i].getPrice();
                        // find cheapest book
                        if (library[i].getPrice() < min.getPrice()) {
                                min = library[i];
                        }
                        // find mostexpensive
                        if (library[i].getPrice() > max.getPrice()) {
                                max = library[i];
                        }
                }
                // print the sum, min and max to the console
                System.out.println("\n*** Statics of your library ***");
                System.out.println("The total cost of all book are: " + sum);
                System.out.println("The cheapest book in the library is " + min.getTitle()
                                + " from " + min.getAuthor() + " with a price of " + min.getPrice());
                System.out.println("The most expensive book in the library is " + max.getTitle()
                                + " from " + max.getAuthor() + " with a price of " + max.getPrice());       
        }

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and here is the output i got with my simulated 3 books

Quote:

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*** Total books in library: 3 ***
Tolstoi,War and Peace,Publisher 1,60.8
Charles Dickens,Great Expectation,Publisher 2,73.2
Josua Bloch,Effective Java (2nd Edition),Sun,100.75

*** Statics of your library ***
The total cost of all book are: 234.75
The cheapest book in the library is War and Peace from Tolstoi with a price of 60.8
The most expensive book in the library is Effective Java (2nd Edition) from Joshua Bloch with a price of 100.75

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i think i done already, wait for the final test result, thx for all the help

how to add the average price?