Default value of String upon construction

[Return 0]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum and to Java, but not programming. I have the below code. What I am trying to do is create a bag to store items in. I have an abstract class called Object, which right now is just a shell. My Item class is derived from Object. So what I want to do is create an Item called bag with say 10 slots, or whatever number, to serve as a player's inventory. I then want to add any item to the bag where there is an open slot. Right now I'm just trying to display the names of each item in a for loop which bombs when it reaches index 2 where i have not added an item.

I'm not quite sure I understand why. Do I need to create an empty Item of some sort and go ahead and fill in the remaining bag slots for this to work? For some reason I was under the impression that the array setup 10 objects and defaulted their members to something. Any help would be appreciated.

public class Driver
{
    public static void main( String[] args )
    {
        Item bag[]  = new Item[10];
        Item potion = new Item( "Potion", "Consumable" );
        Item sword  = new Item( "Short Sword", "Sword" );

        for ( int i = 0; i < bag.length; i++ )
        {
            System.out.println( bag[i].getItemName() );
        }
    }
}

and...

public class Item extends Object
{
    private String itemName;
    private String itemType;

    // Empty constructor
    Item()
    {
    }

    // Overloaded constructor
    Item( String n, String t )
    {
        itemName = n;
        itemType = t;
    }

    public String getItemName()
    {
        if ( this.itemName.isEmpty() )
        {
            return "Empty Slot";
        }
        else
        {
            return this.itemName;
        }       
    }
}

[masijade]

An Object[] (any type of object) is initialised with a null reference in all slots until you put something else there.

[Return 0]

I see. So what would be the best way to output that a slot is empty?

EDIT: Figured it out, just check for null... originally I was checking for NULL which didn't work. Thanks.

[masijade]

if (array[index] == null)

[DarrylBurke]

I have an abstract class called Object ...

It's bad practice to duplicate a class name that already exists in the standard JDK and doubly bad practice to duplicate a class name that exists in the java.lang package.

But it's triply (or worse) bad practice to duplicate the class name of the class that sits at the top of the Java class hierarchy: Object.

db

[Return 0]

It's bad practice to duplicate a class name that already exists in the standard JDK and doubly bad practice to duplicate a class name that exists in the java.lang package.

But it's triply (or worse) bad practice to duplicate the class name of the class that sits at the top of the Java class hierarchy: Object.

db

Ha, I figured it probably already existed. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll rename it.