toString method [duplicate]

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Possible Duplicate:

toString method

I have been asked to change the print method into a toString method that displays the exact same information when called. I'm not sure how i can put the if statements of the print method into the tostring function. Here is the original class we have been given. any help is appreciated!

 public class Item
 {
private String title;
private int playingTime;
private boolean gotIt;
private String comment;

/**
 * Initialise the fields of the item.
 * @param theTitle The title of this item.
 * @param time The running time of this item.
 */
public Item(String theTitle, int time)
{
    title = theTitle;
    playingTime = time;
    gotIt = false;
    comment = "<no comment>";
}

/**
 * Enter a comment for this item.
 * @param comment The comment to be entered.
 */
public void setComment开发者_如何学Python(String comment)
{
    this.comment = comment;
}

/**
 * @return The comment for this item.
 */
public String getComment()
{
    return comment;
}

/**
 * Set the flag indicating whether we own this item.
 * @param ownIt true if we own the item, false otherwise.
 */
public void setOwn(boolean ownIt)
{
    gotIt = ownIt;
}

/**
 * @return Information whether we own a copy of this item.
 */
public boolean getOwn()
{
    return gotIt;
}




    /**
 * Print details of this item to the text terminal.
 */
public void print()
{
    System.out.print(title + " (" + playingTime + " mins)");
    if(gotIt) {
        System.out.println("*");
    } else {
        System.out.println();
    }
    System.out.println("    " + comment);
}

}

---

The toString() method is simply a method like any other. It just has to return a String.

To convert your existing print() method:

1. rename it to toString()
2. declare it to return a String
3. build the string in the method using a StringBuilder and call toString() on that to get your return value

---

This is not the most efficient or best way to do it, but it is easy to understand. It resembles the print() function quite a lot. The easier way to do it is the toString method below.

public void print()
{
    System.out.print(title + " (" + playingTime + " mins)");
    if(gotIt) {
        System.out.println("*");
    } else {
        System.out.println();
    }
    System.out.println("    " + comment);
}
@Override
public String toString()
{
    String r = title + " (" + playingTime + " mins)";
    if(gotIt) {
        r = r + "*\n";
    } else {
        r = r + "\n";
    }
    r = r + "    " + comment;
    return r;
}
public void print2()
{
    System.out.println( this.toString() );
}