Method not visible help?? Java

Question

I have an issue with a method not being visible to another class and I can't figure it out. I have a Shopping_Basket class that has a Merchandise list (Merchandise is a class). I'm trying to have the Merchandise list in the Shopping_basket class to reach a getItemCost method in the Merchandise class. However i get an error that the method is not visible... I can't figure out what's wrong:

public class Shopping_Basket { 
   private List<Merchandise> basket;
   public List<Merchandise> getList() {
    return basket;
}

   public Shopping_Basket() {
    basket = new ArrayList<Merchandise>();
   }
   public double getTotalCost() {
    double j = 0; 
    for (int i = 0; i < this.getList().size(); i++){            
         j += basket.get(i).getItemCost();
    }
    return j;
}

Here's the Merchandise Class:

public class Merchandise {
private String item_name;

private int item_cost;

public Merchandise(String name, int cost) {
    this.item_name = name;
    this.item_cost = cost;
}
public String getItemName() {
    return item_name;
}

public double getItemCost() {
    return item_cost;
}

So error in the getTotalCost() method and it says the getItemCost() is not visible... help?

Answer 1

Your code is fine, and actually compiles and executes fine. See below and cross check if you did everything right (I have just added a main() method in order to execute your code):

$ cat > Merchandise.java
public class Merchandise {

        private String item_name;

        private int item_cost;

        public Merchandise(String name, int cost) {
                this.item_name = name;
                this.item_cost = cost;
        }

        public String getItemName() {
                return item_name;
        }

        public double getItemCost() {
                return item_cost;
        }
}

$ cat > Shopping_Basket.java
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Shopping_Basket {

        private List<Merchandise> basket;

        public List<Merchandise> getList() {
                return basket;
        }

        public Shopping_Basket() {
                basket = new ArrayList<Merchandise>();
        }

        public double getTotalCost() {
                double j = 0;
                for (int i = 0; i < this.getList().size(); i++) {
                        j += basket.get(i).getItemCost();
                }
                return j;
        }

        public static void main(String[] args) {
                Shopping_Basket sb = new Shopping_Basket();
                System.out.println(sb.getTotalCost());

        }

}

$ javac Shopping_Basket.java

$ java Shopping_Basket
0.0

So, as I said and as you can see, the code is good. For the compiler, at least because there are a couple of things to point out:

• In Merchandise, item_cost is an int, but getItemCost() returns a double
• The name of your class Shopping_Basket should be modified to something like ShoppingBasket