Return time to another class

Question

I'm trying to collect the minute of the hour. This seems to work in this class. Now I want to use intTime in an other class for some calculations. How do I return intTime. I tried to use the same principles when returning a attribute of an instance, but time is not related to any of the objects I use. Is getIntTime viable?

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.*;

public class Time extends Database{
    public Time(){
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat ("HH:mm:ss");
        String stringTime = sdf.format (cal.getTime());

        int intTime = 0;

        stringTime = stringTime.substring(3,5); // retrieve the minutes (is recorded as string)
        intTime = Integer.parseInt(stringTime);
    }

    public String getStringTime() {
        return intTime;
    }

    public static void main (String[] args) {
    }
}

Answer 1

You need to define the intTime as a class member. In your code, the intTime is 'living' only inside the constructor.

import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.*;

public class Time extends Database{
    // class member defined in the class but not inside a method.
    private int intTime = 0;
    public Time(){
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat ("HH:mm:ss");
        String stringTime = sdf.format (cal.getTime());

        // vars defined here, will be gone when method execution is done.

        stringTime = stringTime.substring(3,5); // retrieve the minutes (is recorded as string)

        // setting the intTime of the instance. it will be available even when method execution is done.
        intTime = Integer.parseInt(stringTime);
    }

    public String getStringTime() {
        return intTime;
    }

    public static void main (String[] args) {
        // code here
    }
}