getting first item in a linkedList

[TopNFalvors]

I have the method below that is supposed to return the first item in a doubly linked list:

private Node<T> head;	 

public Node<T> returnHead() {
	 	return head;
	 }

I then call the method like this:

System.out.println("Head = " + myLinkedList.returnHead());

I don't get any errors, but I get this strange string returned:
Head = myLinkedList$Node@42e816

I'm not sure exactly what this is I'm getting. The items in the list are a list of books(String).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Zack]

It's because the Node<T> object has no good toString() method, so it returns what appears to be gibberish. (It's really not, but I'm not sure you really want to know what it means...)

So, you can either give all your nodes in there a toString() method that displays something usable, or pick specific member variables from it to display instead.

[TopNFalvors]

Thanks...for a toString method I just need to convert it to string? .NET has a toString function built-in...how does one do that in Java?

Thanks again

[doWhile]

Every object in java has toString method (is used by println statements to print the object), which by default does what the API says it does (see Object (Java Platform SE 6) ). Override this function if you wish this method to returns something different

[TopNFalvors]

Oh ok that makes sense.

I just want the toString method to return the actual string contained in the list, nothing fancy...so I guess I can just use the built-in method.

Thanks!