FAQ: Access, Encapsulation, and Scope - Other Private Methods

Frequently Asked Questions Uncategorized
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This community-built FAQ covers the “Other Private Methods” exercise from the lesson “Access, Encapsulation, and Scope”.

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This exercise can be found in the following Codecademy content:

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FAQs on the exercise Other Private Methods

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2

STUCK OR BUG
I even checked the solution which is the same I tried. I tried a few different ways to put in the checkingAccount.java method like the straight forward return AB type or by using double interest = AB and return interest. But I keep getting red notice that I should use return AB which is what I did. And other ways means just BA the other way round.

So, I’m stuck here and cannot continue. Is it a bug or what?

1 Like
3

For the first part, I got the answer but it wasnt considered correct until I tried getting the same answer using a different method. The answer it took was:

private double calculateNextMonthInterest() {
return this.interestRate * this.balance;
}

I tried about 3 or 4 different ways of writing this code and got the same answer but it took only this one as correct. Not sure why but thats okay. I deepend my understanding of the different ways the code can be written so its okay.

This should probably still be fixed by someone, though.

3 Likes
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“return this.interestRate*this.balance;” does not pass even though it is totally valid
it needs to be "return this.interestRate * this.balance; " (notice the empty spaces)

Not cool :slight_smile:

2 Likes
5

My method for calculating interest is

 private double calculateNextMonthInterest(){
    double interest = balance * interestRate;
    return interest;
  }

Unfortunately, even though the method returns the right answer, Codecademy doesn’t accept it, preventing me from moving forward. Consider fixing it

1 Like
6

It’s still broken. I had to write:

    return this.balance * this.interestRate;```
7

Instructions say:

Call the calculateNextMonthInterest() method on the accountOne instance.

It doesn’t say in which class I should make the method call, so I’m trying both:

public static void main(String[] args) {
      accountOne.calculateNextMonthInterest();
    }
  • If I write this in the CheckingAccount class, I get this error:
CheckingAccount.java:29: error: cannot find symbol
      accountOne.calculateNextMonthInterest();
      ^
  symbol:   variable accountOne
  location: class CheckingAccount

Alright, so the CheckingAccount class doesn’t have access to objects created in Bank.

  • If I make my method call inside of Bank, I get this error:
Bank.java:5: error: calculateNextMonthInterest() has private access in CheckingAccount
    accountOne.calculateNextMonthInterest();
              ^

Yeah, of course - we made that method private on purpose.

So how is this supposed to work? Running accountOne.calculateNextMonthInterest() inside the CheckingAccount class does give me the check mark so I can continue, but I want to understand what’s going on:

  • Is it a bug?
  • If not, how do Java classes generally have knowledge of each other? Is it enough for the files to be located in the same directory?
  • And what about objects? Can they be created with an access modifier different from the one in their class definition?
  • If not, do they automatically inherit it from the class?
  • If they do inherit it, accountOne - created in Bank - should be accessible from inside the CheckingAccount class, since Bank is public.