A stapler staples; it doesn't talk but more important is that your logic is flakey
here and there. A new stapler contains 100 staples. If it contains, say 40 staples
I can add 60 more staples; more simply don't fit. It is quite easy to translate these
notions to Java code:
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public class Stapler {
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public static final int MAXSTAPLES= 100;
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private int staples= MAXSTAPLES; // init at construction time
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//
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// not really needed constructor:
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public Stapler() { } // do nothing
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...
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}
This is the first skeleton of the Stapler class: it contains 100 staples. Now add
a 'staple' method; it can staple one staple if it contains staples; it returns true
if it succeeded and false if it was empty:
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public boolean staple() {
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if (staples > 0) {
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staples--;
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return true;
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}
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return false;
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}
Note that it doesn't say anything, i.e. it just staples and returns whether or not
it had succeeded. An overloaded method that staples n times could look like this:
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public int staple(int n) { // staple n staples
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while (n > 0 && staple()) { // protect against nonsense values
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staple(); // staple once
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n--;
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}
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return n; // return the number of staples to do
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}
Refilling the stapler takes a bit of 101 math: when it has x <= 100 staples left
you can add 100-x more staples to it. Suppose we can't remove staples from
the stapler:
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public int refill(int n) { // try to add n staples to the stapler
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if (n > 0) { // protect against nonsense values
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int newStaples= Math.min(staples+n, MAXSTAPLES);
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n-= newStaples-staples; // those didn't fit
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staples= newStaples; // refill the stapler
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}
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return n; // return number of staples that couldn't be added
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}
You can poop up this little class a bit more by adding a getter method. You can
extend this class by a TalkingStapler that indeed tells what it's doing (that'd be
a bit of a silly stapler if you'd ask me, but feel free to add whatever you want).
kind regards,
Jos
