Returning an object

[dom12]

I am working on a project that does different operations on fractions. I have created fraction objects called f1 and f2, with numerator and denominator as their parameters.

My teacher has instructed us to make it work with this in the main method:

fraction f1 = new fraction(3,4);
fraction f2 = new fraction(1,8);
fraction result = f1.plus(f2);

Now assuming that everything in the plus method works correctly, how would I return a fraction?

In the fraction class I have:

public fraction plus(fraction f)

but I don't know how to return an object.
Would I just return the two parameters like:

return (numerator,denominator);

?

Sorry if my terminology or explanation is poor, but I'm in my first semester of java.

[Zack]

If you have an object in the function, like this:

public fraction plus(fraction f) {
    this.value += f.value;
}

Then you can just return this.

If you do something like this...

public fraction plus(fraction f) {
    fraction n = new fraction(this.value + f.value);
}

Then you'll want to return n instead.

Personally I'd go with the first method, but it all depends what you have so far. I'm just using .value as a placeholder for whatever your data already is, since I can't see your actual source.

[dom12]

Thanks Zack! I used the second method and all is working now.

[makpandian]

Try to understand how it works.