Totally and cluelessly stuck on challenge

Hi Gabriel,

The first bit needs you to add a construtor to the Forum class. That looks like:

public Forum (String topic) {
  mTopic = topic;
}

Next, you need to add the relevant private fields based on the existing constructor. It has two parameters called firstName and lastName, so you just need to create member variables with appropriate names as well as getter methods:

public class User {
  private String mFirstName;  
  private String mLastName;

  public String getFirstName() {
    return mFirstName;
  }

  public String getLastName() {
    return mLastName;
  }

  public User(String firstName, String lastName) {
    // TODO:  Set the private fields here
    mFirstName = firstName;  // set the member variables here too
    mLastName = lastName;
  }
}

There's quite a bit to add in that last one!! And the next part is a large one too - so I'll post this now and add the remaining bits in a minute when I've worked through it.

Steve.

... continued ...

The next part wants tou to add a constructor to the ForumPost class - it gives you the parameters and you can see the member variables. You also need to add a getter for mDescription.

  public ForumPost(User author, String title, String description){
    mAuthor = author;
    mTitle = title;
    mDescription = description;
  }

  public String getDescription() {
    return mDescription;
  }

Now, if I remember rightly, comes the tricky bit!! First you need to uncomment the addPost method in Forum.java. Also, we need to uncomment the lines inside Example.java - especially the last one as that will drive the errors that you need to fix. You follow your nose through the errors and fix them one by one. Let's have a go!

The first line in main is:

Forum forum = new Forum("Java");

Will that work? Yes it will - the constructor in the Forum class takes a string. So that's fine ... move on ...

The next line is:

User author = new User();

We wrote the constructor for this - it needs a first and last name. The comment above it says: // Take the first two elements passed args so now we know where to get the parameters from!

User author = new User(args[0], args[1]);

Next up is a new ForumPost. Again, we wrote its constructor so know what it wants. Just where to find those things?! It takes an author, title and description. We have created one of those above this line - the others we're invited to add something personal. I declined:

ForumPost post = new ForumPost(author, "Title", "Description");

I know that's a lot of typing and reading - feel free to ask questions!

I do hope it helps.

Steve.

Hi Steve,

Thanks so much, I passed the challenge! One thing I don't quite understand. The line you wrote that I am supposed to uncomment, User author = new User();, I ended up not needing that because it was already defined, so once I commented that, I was able to complete the tasks. Just wondering why this was? Thanks!

Gabriel