Initializing a variable from another method

[erikjd21]

All other aspects of this assignment work perfectly, the final part is to have the weekly wage figured in a separate method. I have created the method, but I get the error that the variables are not initialized. When I attempt to initialize the variables by giving them values, they do not pull the values from the prior method, so the final output is wrong. You guys have helped me a ton so far, and Im sure this is something very simple I am overlooking. But I have been googling for hours now.

Here is the code:

package payrollwk4;//This is the project for the payroll checkpoint.

import java.util.Scanner;//This imports the utility "Scanner" for use by the program.



public class Employee
{ 
    

    public void getInfo()
    {

        Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in); 





        String name; 
        double hours;
        double wages; 
         

        boolean stop = false;
        while (!stop)
        {
        System.out.println("Welcome to Payroll manager!");
        System.out.println("Please enter stop when you are finished");
        System.out.println(""); 



        System.out.print("Please enter the Employee's Name:");
        name = input.next();
        System.out.print("");
                if (name.equals("stop"))
                    {
                    System.out.println("Thank you for using payroll manager!");
                    stop = true;
                    input.close();
                    break;
                    }
                else
                {


        System.out.print( "Now enter the number of hours " + name + " has worked:");
            boolean negHours;
            do
            {
            hours = input.nextDouble();
            negHours = hours < 0;
            if (negHours)
                {
                System.out.print("Please enter a positive number:");
                }
            }while (negHours);


        System.out.print("Now enter " + name + "'s hourly wage:$");
            boolean negWages;
            do
             {
             wages = input.nextDouble();
             negWages = wages < 0;
             if (negWages)
                {
                System.out.print("Please enter a positive number:");
                }
             }while (negWages);

        
                }
        calcPay();

        }
        
    }
    public void calcPay()
    {
        double weeklypay;
        String name;
        double hours;
        double wages;

        weeklypay = (hours * wages);// error here
        System.out.println(name + " will get paid " + weeklypay + " this week."); // and here
        System.out.println("");
    }


    }

Thank you for any help.

[Iron Lion]

Have you tried declaring the variables outside the method?

[sunde887]

The employee class should have instance variables. Don't declare them in methods. They won't exist outside of the method. Calculate pay throws an error because you are declaring new local variables for the employees class info and not initializing them.

class Employee{
  instance variables
  constructor to instantiate instance variables
  calculate wage method uses the instance variables 
}

[erikjd21]

Thank you Sunde887, I knew it was something stupid simple. I apologize for the stupid questions, this is all very new to me.

Iron, thank you for the reply.

I needed to declare the variables outside of the methods, rather than inside of both of them.

Works perfect now.

Thanks again guys.

[sunde887]

You're welcome. Glad to have helped. Please mark your thread solved with the thread tools at the top of the page.