java object help?

Question

Hey, I am writing a program and I am stumped. During the program I am creating several of the same type objects. I am trying to give each object it's own "reference number" I guess you could say. But, after all the classes are created, all of the objects have the same number assigned to them. This is an excerpt of what I am using when creating an object and assigning a number. 

private static int Number = 0;
static int count = 0;

public xxx(){
this.Number = count;
count += 1;
}

It seems that all of the objects are going back and grabbing the last value of count and using that.

Tom V · Accepted Answer

It's because you're using a static variable for your number.  Static values are the same across all instances (objects) of the class.

What you want is to remove the static modifier from the "number" variable, but keep it for the "count" variable.  That way, every object you instantiate will up the count by 1, but save off the current count to a private number variable.

Anonymous · Answer

This is going to kill you -  you declared the int count as 'static', which, by definition, means that it's value cannot be changed. So, for starters, you need to change it to public or private, and get rid of the static.

However, this may not completely solve the problem, as any time the class is called, it may reinitialize the 'count' value to 0. I think if I were you, I would add the objects to an arraylist in the procedure calling this class after instantiating them. That is what array lists are for. If you want, you could make some kind of property called 'referenceNumber' for the class, and increment it each time the class is called.
Good luck, and happy coding.

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java object help?

2 Answers