Simulator display issues

[Tallguy]

Hello hello,

I for my assignment it is to continue on the steps to creating a fully working LoTR battle simulator, each assignment building off each other. This assignment to is randomize 'actor' variables (name/speed etc) for a user defined army (light/dark) and for a size that they speficify. Im kinda new to java so . . .

-we need a array of refences that refernecs individual 'actors' then display everything to the screen

code:

for (int i=0; i<nLightArmy; i++){         armyOfLight[i] = new ActorFactory();         armyOfLight[i].armyOfLight();         //JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,armyOfLight[i].toString());         outPut +=armyOfLight[i].toString();                                         }         for (int i=0; i<nLightArmy; i++){                 JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,armyOfLight[i].toString()); }         //JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,outPut + "\n");

im having a problem with displaying all the data together on one GUI screen, each class 'sends' it data forward but i cant seem to get the data to display i get 'ActorFatcory@15443e54' for each actor?? Why is this doing it?

[Tony]

1) Generics make Java suck less.

code:

List<Actor> armyOfLight = new ArrayList<Actor>(); for(Actor army_member : armyOfLight) {   ... }

No casting. No off-by-one errors. Awesome APIs for the data structure.

Quote:

'ActorFatcory@15443e54' for each actor

Yes, you're assigning an ActorFactory instead of an Actor.

code:

armyOfLight[i] = new ActorFactory();

A factory pattern is typically used as:

code:

ActorFactory my_factory = new ActorFactory(); ... my_actor = my_factory.get_new_actor();

But that only makes sense if creation of new instances involves processes outside of a typical constructor.

[DemonWasp]

The default implementation of the toString() method returns ClassName@Address. To make it display something else, override it by adding a method with this exact signature:

public String toString()

With an implementation that returns a String representing your Actor.

[Tallguy]

awesome ty,
Tony i would use arraylist, but for this assignment we are not allowed.

This is what i did, and something in another class to fix my previous error

code:

for (int i = 0; i < nDarkArmy; i++) {                         armyOfDarkness[i] = new ActorFactory();                         armyOfDarkness[i].armyOfDarkness();                         outPutDarkness += armyOfDarkness[i].actor.toString();           }

now the only problem i have is.....

To display all the data i have used:

code:

public void dispalyAll() {                                 JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null , "Army of light ;" + outPutLight + "\nArmy of darkness;"+outPutDarkness); }

why is 'null;' still showing up? it says "Army of light;null;.....data", what can i do to get rid of this?

[Tony]

So it seems that null is from outPutLight in

code:

"Army of light ;" + outPutLight

Search for the use of the name to see where you create this field, and how it is populated with data.