Create an employee class

[Bravid2001]

I have been given an assignment to create an Employee class that hold a bunch of information. I have simplified the problem becasue this is all so new and complicated to me. For now, I just want the class to hold the employees first name. I need to create an application that uses the Employee class.

Below is my Employee class

public class Employee
{
	// create data fields
	private String firstName;
	private String lastName;
	private String phoneNumber;
	private String address;
	private int id;
	private String title;
	private double Salary;

	// Construct a default Employee object
	public Employee()
	{
	}

	// Construct a second constructor
	public Employee (String newFirstName, String newLastName)
	{
		firstName = newFirstName;
		lastName = newLastName;
	}

	//This method returns a String with the contents of
	//the variable firstName to whatever object calls it
	public String getFirstName()
	{
		return firstName;
	}

	//This method allows the contents of firstName
	//to be changed to store a different String value, should that be required
	public void setFirstName (String newFirstName)
	{
		firstName = newFirstName;
	}

}

Now I need to enter a first name in my test application. This is where I am stuck. I have read through my chapter numerous times. I have searched the internet. I just don't fully understand getters and setters and the syntax used. Below is my test application.

import java.util.Scanner;
public class TestEmployee
{
	public static void main (String[] args)
	{
		//create a new scanner
		Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);

		//create a new employee
		Employee employee1 = new Employee();

		//invoke getFirstName method
		employee1.getFirstName();
		System.out.println ("Enter employee first name");
			employee1.newFirstName = input.next();

		//invoke setFirstName method
		employee1.setFirstName(employee1.getFirstName());


	}
}

I have also attached my files. Thanks.

[sunde887]

Setters take something as an argument and change something about the class. If for instance you have a method

setFirstName(String s);

This would change the firstName instance variable. If you passed in the strong "Bob", then the employees name will be Bob.

Setters allow you to view the information which makes up a class. If you wanted to print the persons first name you could type

System.out.println(e.getFirstName()); //where e is an employee

Since all the instance variables are private you cannot directly access them. Since you cannot directly access them you can't modify a person, and that is why you provide getters and setters.

[Bravid2001]

Thank you Sunde887. This makes sense! My program has progressed. I now have all my getters and setters. I have run into a new problem though that involves inputing the address. When I ask for an address, many strings are returned. I can't figure out how to combine all the strings. I'm using the nextLine() method. It just returns a blank space. I kind of understand why. It is because, if the nextLine() is invoked after a token-reading method, the method reads characters that start from this delimiter and end with the line seperator. The line seperator is read, but it is not part of the string returned by nextLine(). Ok, that's why it happens. But how do I fix this problem.

Here is my new code:

import java.util.Scanner;
public class TestEmployeeV4
{
	public static void main (String[] args)
	{
		//Create variables
		String nameFirst = "";
		String nameLast = "";
		String phone = "";
		String addressOfEmp = "";
		int idEmp = 0;
		String titleEmp = "";
		double salaryEmp = 0.0;
		//add this array to UML
		int numberOfEmployees = 5;


		//create a new scanner
		Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);


		//create a default employee
		Employee myEmployee = new Employee();

		//create a new employee
		Employee myEmployee1 = new Employee(nameFirst, nameLast);


		System.out.println ("Enter employee first name");
			nameFirst = input.next();

		System.out.println ("Enter employee last name");
			nameLast = input.next();

		System.out.println ("Enter employee phone number");
			phone = input.next();

		//how do you tie all these strings together
		System.out.println ("Enter employee address");
			addressOfEmp = input.nextLine();

			

		System.out.println ("Enter employee ID");
			idEmp = input.nextInt();

		System.out.println ("Enter employee title");
			titleEmp = input.next();

		System.out.println ("Enter employee salary");
			salaryEmp = input.nextDouble();

		//invoke setFirstName method
		myEmployee1.setFirstName(nameFirst);

		//invoke setLastName method
		myEmployee1.setLastName(nameLast);

		//invoke setPhoneNumber method
		myEmployee1.setPhoneNumber(phone);

		//invoke setAddress method
		myEmployee1.setAddress(addressOfEmp);

		//invoke setID method
		myEmployee1.setID(idEmp);

		//invoke setTitle method
		myEmployee1.setTitle(titleEmp);

		//invoke setSalary method
		myEmployee1.setSalary(salaryEmp);

		System.out.println("The employee's name is " + myEmployee1.getFirstName() + " " + myEmployee1.getLastName());


	}