The Problem

[Thomas Wren]

Hey Guys and Gals,

I am facing a problem with a problem. My problem is I do not know how to start this problem. The problem is:


A mail-order house sells five products whose retail prices are as follows: Product 1, $2.98; product 2, $4.50; product 3, %9.98; product 4, $4.49 and product 5, $6.87. Write an application that reads a seris of pairs of numbers as follows:
a) product number b)quantity sold

The program should use a switch statement to determine the retail price for each product. It should calculate and display the total retail value of all products sold. Use a sentinel-controlled loop to determine when the program should stop looping and display the final results.

The program should have two methods. Not counting the main.


Thanks,
Thomas

[Michael Dunn]

> The problem is:

No, that is the task (your task).

What specific problem do you have?

[Thomas Wren]

it should be Product 3 $9.98

[Thomas Wren]

How do I start this program?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Start with

public class TotalRetailValue {
    public static void main(String[] argv) {
    }
}

Compile that, run it. It should do nothing.

Now, add code to open a file, read a line, and display it.

import java.io.*;
 
public class TotalRetailValue {
    public static void main(String[] argv) {
        try {
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("mydatafile.txt"));
            System.out.println(reader.readLine());
            reader.close();
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
     }
}

Compile that; create a file "mydatafile.txt" with some text in it; run the program. It should print out one line from the file.

Now add some code to read two numbers from the file and print them. Edit the data file to contain lines of numbers. Compile the program, run it.

Repeat until the program is working!

If, at any point, the program doesn't do what it should, fix it before moving on.

[Garrett Rowe]

Originally posted by Thomas Wren:
How do I start this program?

I always start by trying to get a little piece working.

public static void main(String[] args)
{
   final int PRODUCT_NO = 1;
   final int PRICE = 298;
   Product productOne = new Product(PRODUCT_NO, PRICE);
 
   System.out.println("Product number = " + productOne.getProductNumber());
   System.out.println("Product price = " + productOne.getPrice() + " cents");
}

Try to get that to read:

Product number = 1
Product price = 298 cents

[Thomas Wren]

Thanks guys.. Have another question?

What if I did something like this;

public static void prodCounters(int N, int prodQ)
{
switch( prod N);
case 1; += prodQ; // increment aCount
break; // necessary to exit switch
case 2; +


how could I finish the rest?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

You shouldn't need to do anything nearly so complex; just use arrays.

[Thomas Wren]

The only problem with using Arrays, Is I havent learned them yet in class.

[Thomas Wren]

import java.util.Scanner; // program uses class Scanner

public class tw54663def
{
private int total; // sum of products
private int Counter; // quantity entered by user
private int aCount; // count of product 1
private int bCount; // count of product 2
private int cCount; // count of product 3
private int dCount; // count of product 4





This is How I think I am suppose to start it... How do i set values to the Products. So it still follows the format of the program.

[Thomas Wren]

Close this one too.. Cause its just bogging down your space.