CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javamethodstypesreturn
Win
Win

Reputation: 217

returning custom data type (class?) in java

Background

I wrote a java method to navigate between days, months and years. This is an example of one Method:

    public MyDate nextMonth(){
    if (month<12){
        month++;
        setDay(1);
        return MyDate();

    }
    else
        nextYear();
        return MyDate();
}

MyDate is the class name. The constructor looks like this:

public MyDate(int year, int month, int day) {
        setYear(year);
        setMonth(month);
        setDay(day);
    }

The Method is supposed to return values like this:

MyDate d1 = new MyDate(2012, 2, 28);
System.out.println(d1);             // Tuesday 28 Feb 2012
System.out.println(d1.nextDay());   // Wednesday 29 Feb 2012
System.out.println(d1.nextMonth()); // Thursday 1 Mar 2012
System.out.println(d1.nextYear());  // Tuesday 1 Jan 2013

Situation

So, I wrote the code for all three methods except I cannot get it to return a MyDate type - which is needed for other methods and toString and so on.

My Question

How do I get these kinds of methods to return a type MyDate?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 4504

Answers (1)

rajuGT
rajuGT

Reputation: 6414

The return statement should return current modifying object, not the new MyDate object, so change the return method to return current object using this, as shown below

public MyDate nextMonth(){
    if (month<12){
        month++;
        setDay(1);
        return this;               //return current object
    }
    else
        nextYear();
    return this;               //return current object
}

Upvotes: 2

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