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C# C# Objects Loops and Final Touches Foreach Loops

evanpavan
evanpavan
5,025 Points
Posted by evanpavan
evanpavan
5,025 Points

Can someone lend a hand with the code challenge?

I'm getting a compiler error below. How do I introduce a variable in the loop without this error or avoid using a variable altogether?

"FrogStats.cs(11,20): error CS0103: The name `runningTotalTonguelength' does not exist in the current context Compilation failed: 1 error(s), 0 warnings"

namespace Treehouse.CodeChallenges
{
    class FrogStats
    {
        public static double GetAverageTongueLength(Frog[] frogs)
        {                 
            foreach(Frog frog in frogs)
            {
                double runningTotalTonguelength = runningTotalTonguelength + frog.TongueLength;  
            }
            return runningTotalTonguelength / frogs.Length;
        }
    }
}

3 Answers

Luis Duenas
Luis Duenas
5,967 Points

If you declare a variable outside of a static method, and you want to use it inside of the method, the variable has to be static too.

You can learn more about static classes and static class members variables here.

This code worked for me in the challenge:

namespace Treehouse.CodeChallenges
{
    class FrogStats
    {
        public static double GetAverageTongueLength(Frog[] frogs)
        {
            double runningTotalTonguelength = 0.0;
            foreach(Frog frog in frogs)
            {
                runningTotalTonguelength = runningTotalTonguelength + frog.TongueLength;  
            }
            return runningTotalTonguelength / frogs.Length;
        }
    }
}
Luis Duenas
Luis Duenas
5,967 Points
Luis Duenas
Luis Duenas
5,967 Points

You need to declare your variable outside of the scope of the foreach loop, remember that a variable only lives in the scope where it was created.

evanpavan
evanpavan
5,025 Points
evanpavan
evanpavan
5,025 Points

Thanks. This is the code that ended up working.

Can anyone tell me why the runningTotalTonguelength variable had to be a static variable? The definition of static methods and classes makes sense but static member variables are not clear to me. 

namespace Treehouse.CodeChallenges
{
    class FrogStats
    {
        public static double runningTotalTonguelength = 0;
        public static double GetAverageTongueLength(Frog[] frogs)
        {                 
            foreach(Frog frog in frogs)
            {
                double runningTotalTonguelength = runningTotalTonguelength + frog.TongueLength;  
            }
            return runningTotalTonguelength / frogs.Length;
        }
    }
}