How do I get event handler to keep track of how many times the user clicked it?

Question

I am a little confused as to what I am doing wrong here. The user gets 3 rolls and I am trying to use a counter to determine how many times they have clicked the JavaFX button. When I initialize the diceRollCounter before the event handler I get an error. and if I initialize the diceRollCounter within the event handler, I get the diceRollCounter resetting back to zero every time the button is clicked, which defeats its purpose.

int diceRollCounter = 0;

rollDice.setOnAction(e-> {
    if (diceRollCounter < 3) {
        cup.shakeCup();
        diceRollCounter++;
    } else if (diceRollCounter > 3) {
        Text noMoreRolls = new Text();
        noMoreRolls.setText("You are out of rolls for this round");
        noMoreRolls.setX(355);
        noMoreRolls.setY(525);
        root.getChildren().add(noMoreRolls);
    }
});

Answer 1

The problem is that you can't change a local variable with an event. Try using this:

rollDice.setOnAction(new EventHandler<>() {
    int diceRollCounter = 0;

    public void handle(ActionEvent e) {
        if (diceRollCounter < 3) {
            cup.shakeCup();
            diceRollCounter++;
        } else if (diceRollCounter > 3) {
            Text noMoreRolls = new Text();
            noMoreRolls.setText("You are out of rolls for this round");
            noMoreRolls.setX(355);
            noMoreRolls.setY(525);
            root.getChildren().add(noMoreRolls);
        }
    }
});

Here is an article about the issue you encountered.

An explanation about anonymous classes (where I wrote new EventHandler<>() {...}).