Dot Syntax

[jdodle]

When using dot syntax you might have something like char.compareCharacter(argument) and lets say the argument is another char. I know how to retrieve the arguments data, but how do you get the data from char?

Thanks in advance.

[Norm]

how do you get the data from char?

char (an illegal name for a variable: char is a primitive data type) I'll refer to it as aChar.
If aChar is a reference to an instance of a class, you need to read the API doc for that class to see what methods it has that can be called to get the data it contains. For example:
someData = aChar.getSomeData();

[jdodle]

Ok,

first: I know it was an illegal name, I was using it to imply the data type I wanted to compare.

second: I am still confused and probably because I used a bad example, so I will use my specific example.

I have a class called Virus and I have a client method that creates several Virus objects. within this same method I want to check if some of the contents of the objects are the same and to do this I am overriding the equals method but within the Virus class. So I want to call the equals method in the form of object1.equals(object2). I know how to get the data from object2 but how do I get the data from object1?

[jdodle]

Ok I figured it out

Thank you for your help Norm!

[Norm]

In you example: object1.equals(object2)
object1 is the instance of the class whose equals() method is being called. All the values in the instance are available in the method.