Incompatible Types: Cannont be converted

Question

So I've created a three classes; PetStore, Pet, and Bird. The PetStore class is the main class, pet extends PetStore and then Bird extends off of Pet

And now I've created a driver class with the following code.

public class Main{
     public static void main(String[] args){
         //create a pet objects
         Bird macaw = new Bird("hyacinth macaw", 300.99, 48.0);

         //create a pet store
         PetStore happyPetsInc = new PetStore();

         //add the pets to the pet store
         happyPetsInc.addPet(macaw);

I'm trying to add the bird object to the arraylist in PetStore.

I'm getting the error: "incompatible types: Bird cannont be converted to java.lang.String"

someone flagged this and said to post the PetStore and Bird Class so here that is:

public class PetStore
{
    //varibles
    String pet;

    //ArrayList
    ArrayList<String> Pets = new ArrayList<String>();

    //constructor
    public PetStore(){

    }

    /**
     * add the paramameter to the ArrayList
     * @param pet
     * @return void
     */
    public void addPet(String pet){
        Pets.add(pet);
    }

    /**
     * removes the paramater to the ArrayList
     * @param pet
     * @return true(success) false(failure)
     */
    public boolean sellPet(String pet){
        this.pet = pet;
        if (Pets.contains(pet)){
            Pets.remove(pet);
            return true;
        }else{
            return false;
        }
    }

    /**
     * counts the number of elements in the ArrayList
     * @param none
     * @return int, the number of the elements in Pets
     */
    public int getInventoryCount(){
        return Pets.size();
    }

    /**
     * displays information about the pets in the ArrayList
     * @param none
     * @return void
     */
    public String toString(){
        for (int i = 0; i < Pets.size(); i++){
            System.out.println("Pet #" + (i + 1));
            String index = Pets.get(i);
            return index.toString();
        }
        return "\n";
    }
}
public class Bird extends Pet
{
    //varibale
    double wingspan;
    //constuctor
    public Bird(String species, double cost, double wingspan){
        super(species, cost);
        this.wingspan = wingspan;
    }

    /**
     * Sets the wingspan of the bird
     * @param wingspan
     * @return none
     */
    public void setWingspan(double wingspan){
        this.wingspan = wingspan;
    }

    /**
     * Gets the wingspan of the bird
     * @param none
     * @return double
     */
    public double getWingspan(){
        return this.wingspan;
    }

    /**
     * Displays strings describing the bird
     * @param none
     * @return String
     */
    public String toString(){
        return "Species: " + species + "\nCost: $" + cost + "\nBird (Wingspan: " + wingspan + " inches)";
    }
}

Answer 1

you should define a Pet class, then in PetStore change

String pet; 

to

Pet pet;

and also

ArrayList<String> Pets = new ArrayList<String>(); 

to

ArrayList<Pet> Pets = new ArrayList<Pet>(); 

Answer 2

The idea of object oriented programming is, to have classes and instances of classes (objects) to represent real life objects. Hence, a PetStore is about pets, not strings. So do this:

In PetStore replace

ArrayList<String> Pets ...
addPet(String pet)...
sellPet(String pet)...

with

ArrayList<Pet> Pets
addPet(Pet pet)
sellPet(Pet pet)

Also, in PetStore.toString() replace

String index = Pets.get(i);

With

Pet index = Pets.get(i);