How to store user input from subclass into variables from superclass

[mc54321]

This is an example of what the superclass that I've been given looks like (I'm not allowed to change anything about it):

public class Superclass 
{
	private String answer;
	
	public Superclass(String reply)
	{
		answer = reply;
	}
	
	public Superclass()
	{
		answer = "";
	}

	public void setAnswer(String reply)
	{
		answer = reply;
	}
        
        public String getAnswer()
	{
		return answer;
	}

The goal of my program is to ask the user a question in the subclass, such as "What is your dog's name?", and get their input. I'm supposed to inherit the methods/variables from the superclass, store the user's input in the superclass' variable, and then output it.

System.out.print("Pleae enter the variable: ");
	  // I've been using "input.nextLine()" to get the user input, but can't get the input assigned to 
          the superclass variable

I'm very confused about what all those methods in the superclass do, especially the second Superclass method. I'm also not sure which ones I can bring into my subclass.

I see that the superclass uses getter/setter methods, but I don't understand how to utilize them in my class.



Thank you.
- MC

[arieltal]

you define a subclass, which uses the extends keyword.

class SubClass extends Superclass

the methods which declared public are accesible for the subclass, the private variable isn't.
you need to use the getter/setter methods to access the private variable.

SubClass ins = new SubClass();
ins.setAnswer(answer);

which will use the setAnswer method to change the private variable..

[mc54321]

Using that, I get an error message.

ins.setAnswer(answer);
// The error message says that "answer" is not visible

I had already had an instantiation written in my program, looking like:

Subclass x = new Subclass();

Should that be kept in? Or does Subclass ins = new Subclass(); do the same thing?

[Fubarable]

don't use the key word answer. Instead pass any String into the setAnswer(...) method:

 
Subclass sub = new Subclass();
sub.setAnswer("Foo");
system.out.println(sub.getAnswer());

[arieltal]

yeah as Fubarable said, i didn't mean that answer is the variable in the superclass, just a local variable..

[mc54321]

Thank you. That helped a lot. Now the only thing is, how can I get it to output the user's input instead of "Foo"?

[Fubarable]

Thank you. That helped a lot. Now the only thing is, how can I get it to output the user's input instead of "Foo"?

Put the user's input into an object of this class first.

[mc54321]

Thank you.