How to depict if the customer rep is serving a customer at the moment ?

Answers follow in bold:

Given :

We have a queue of customer rep. Question : Is this a queue of available customer rep ? They are asking you to make a queue of available reps yes, once the rep has be assigned to a costumer, the rep should be taken out of the queue

Each Customer rep has a list of customer it supported. Question : Got confused from the statement in Customer Rep class where we are adding the customer after the chat is ending ? Or Adding considering that is the start of the char,. I mean is it a list of customers each customer rep has supported or is supporting at the moment? The list is supposed to be costumers the rep HAS supported

What I am trying to find is how to depict if a customer rep is free.

Are we aiming to find it from the queue ( say the last one is the free one and the first one is still serving ) ? Or Is it determined from the assisted list of customers ( size = 0) something like that ? Use the Queue(click to see the API) class to make a queue, that way, you can use .poll() to take the costumer rep from the top of the queue every time and the .add() method to add them back in at the back of the queue when they are finished with the costumer

Hope this helps you understand the task better. Up-vote if it did please :-)

Thanks Chris.

I tried to run it but still having some problems which I am sure u can figure out in a second.

{code} import java.util.ArrayDeque; import java.util.Queue;

public class CallCenter { Queue<CustomerSupportRep> mSupportReps;

public CallCenter(Queue<CustomerSupportRep> queue) { mSupportReps = queue; }

public void acceptCustomer(Customer customer) { CustomerSupportRep csr; /******************************************** * TODO (1) * Wait until there is an available rep in the queue. * While there is not one available, playHoldMusic * HINT: That while assignmentcheck loop syntax we used to * read files seems pretty similar ******************************************** */

boolean repsAvailable=mSupportReps.poll()!=null;

while(repsAvailable) {
  csr = mSupportReps.poll();
  csr.assist(customer);
  if (csr.getAssistedCustomers().contains(customer)) {
    mSupportReps.add(csr);
  } 
  else {
  System.out.printf ("%s not found",customer.getName()); 
  }

if(!repsAvailable) {
  playHoldMusic();
  break;
}
}

/********************************************
 * TODO (2) 
 * After we have assigned the rep, call the 
 * assist method and pass in the customer
 ********************************************
 */




/********************************************
 * TODO (3) 
 * Since the customer support rep is done with
 * assisting, put them back into the queue.
 ********************************************
 */

}

public void playHoldMusic() { System.out.println("Smooooooth Operator....."); }

}

{code}

Thanks Chris I have done this as below . However, I think the way the question has been framed to use a loop is not a clear requirement here though and confuses. The below solution uses no Loop . I hope you understand.

Many Thanks again and I have upvoted your answer.

{code} import java.util.ArrayDeque; import java.util.Queue;

public class CallCenter { Queue<CustomerSupportRep> mSupportReps;

public CallCenter(Queue<CustomerSupportRep> queue) { mSupportReps = queue; }

public void acceptCustomer(Customer customer) { CustomerSupportRep csr = mSupportReps.poll(); /******************************************** * TODO (1) * Wait until there is an available rep in the queue. * While there is not one available, playHoldMusic * HINT: That while assignmentcheck loop syntax we used to * read files seems pretty similar ******************************************** */

/********************************************
 * TODO (2) 
 * After we have assigned the rep, call the 
 * assist method and pass in the customer
 ********************************************
 */

/********************************************
 * TODO (3) 
 * Since the customer support rep is done with
 * assisting, put them back into the queue.
 ********************************************
 */

     //if there where any reps in the queue, csr will now be assigned that rep, if not, csr == null. (TODO 1 == OK)
    if (mSupportReps.poll() != null)   {
        //enters if statement and calls the assist method on csr (TODO 2 == OK)
        csr.assist(customer);
        //When the assist method ends, the rep is placed back in the queue. (TODO 3 == OK)
        mSupportReps.add(csr);
    } else {
        playHoldMusic();
    }

}

public void playHoldMusic() { System.out.println("Smooooooth Operator....."); }

}

{code}

Thanks Chris , I think it should have been mentioned in the task definition to make things clearer but I am glad you were able to help me out which I am so thankful again !