[Question] Beginner Java question.

[greenegzofyoshi]

Hi I'm relatively new to programming and I'd like to ask a question about a homework assignment I was given. I don't really understand the API as of yet but am trying each day to make sense of things.

My homework assingment is :

Write a class ChristmasTree whose toString method yields a string depicting a Christmas tree. The Tester class outputs what I'm guessing is the memory location of the ChristmasTree object, but I can't figure out how I am supposed to return a string depicting a christmas tree via the toString method? My teacher does not explain anything(she hardly speaks English, how she got a job as a professor is beyond me). Any help you can offer, or even make sense of the question / point me in the right direction would be cool.

These are my codes.

public class ChristmasTreeTester {
	public static void main(String[] args)
	{
		ChristmasTree tree = new ChristmasTree();
		System.out.println(tree.toString());
	}

}

public class ChristmasTree {
	private String Tree;
	public ChristmasTree()
	{
		Tree = ("       /\\       \n      /  \\ \n     /    \\ \n    /      \\ \n    -------- \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   ");
	}
}

[Strupantwn]

I'm not an expert on java, but I believe I am able to help. First you should look up the toString() method on the java API and find out what it does (Object (Java 2 Platform SE v1.4.2) ). Now if you're a beginner, it may look like jibberish to you. Basically, toString() is a method of an object that converts whatever you need to a string. What you want to do, i'm guessing, is to override the method ( meaning that you want to replace what toString() does with what you want it to do, which is to print out a christmas tree).

public class ChristmasTree 
{    
   private String Tree;     
   public ChristmasTree()    
   {         
       Tree = ("       /\\       \n      /  \\ \n     /    \\ \n    /      \\  \n    -------- \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   ");      
   }
}

What you did was to construct a ChristmasTree object with properties "Tree" meaning that ChristmasTree object will be able to print out a christmas tree if you so desire. Frankly I would just move everything to the toString() instead.

class ChristmasTree 
{
    private String Tree;
    
    public String toString()
    {
        return Tree = ("       /\\       \n      /  \\ \n     /    \\ \n    /      \\ \n    -------- \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   ");
    }
}

But if your professor requires to go have a constructor, then this works as well:

class ChristmasTree 
{
    private String Tree;
    
    public ChristmasTree()
    {
        Tree = ("       /\\       \n      /  \\ \n     /    \\ \n    /      \\ \n    -------- \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   \n      \"  \"   ");
    }
    
    public String toString()
    {
       return Tree;
    }
}

[Phygar]

^ what he said.
All objects have a toString() method that will return some string representation of itself. By default, what it gives you is not very useful, but this method can be overridden, and you can create your own version of it. Simply create a method named toString() that returns a string representation of the Christmas tree.

[greenegzofyoshi]

Thank you both for the help, I appreciate your inputs and have given you reputation (;