Need help with these class helper methods

Question

Ok, so I'm trying to complete this class called CharArrayProject to produce the output shown:

newportharborhighschool 01234567890123456789012

The element at position 20 will be deleted. newportharborhighschol

0123456789012345678901

The element at position 14 will be deleted. newportharborhghschol

012345678901234567890

The element at position 9 will be deleted. newporthaborhghschol

01234567890123456789

The element at position 5 will be deleted. newpothaborhghschol 0123456789012345678

Here is what I have so far:

public class CharArrayProject
{
    // instance variables - replace the example below with your own
    private char[] array;
    private int[] anotherArray = new int[array.length - 1]; 
    public CharArrayProject(char[] arr)
    {
    // initialise instance variables
        array = arr;
        printCharInfo();
    }

    private String printDeletion(int index){
        return System.out.println("The element at position " + index + " will be deleted");
    }

    private String printCharInfo(){
        for (char value : array) 
        { 
            return System.out.print(value);
        }
        System.out.println();
    }
    /**
    * This method deletes the element at position pos.
    * When an element in the array is removed the
    * subsequent elements in the array shift down
    */
    public void deleteElementAtPosition(int pos)
    {
        // Print statement helper method
        printDeletion(pos);

        // Copy the elements except the index 
        // from original array to the other array 
        for (int i = 0, k = 0; i < array.length; i++) { 

            // if the index is 
            // the removal element index 
            if (i == pos) { 
                continue; 
            } 

            // if the index is not 
            // the removal element index 
            anotherArray[k++] = array[i]; 
        } 
    }
    public static void main( String args[] )
    {
        char a[] = { 'n','e','w','p','o','r','t','h','a',
        'r','b','o','r','h','i','g','h',
        's','c','h','o','o','l' };
        CharArrayProject hello = new CharArrayProject(a);
        System.out.print(hello);
        System.out.println();
        hello.deleteElementAtPosition(20);
        System.out.println();
        System.out.print(hello);
        System.out.print( "\n-------------------------" +
        "-----------------------" );
        hello.deleteElementAtPosition(14);
        System.out.println();
        System.out.print(hello);
        System.out.print( "\n-------------------------" +
        "-----------------------" );
        hello.deleteElementAtPosition(9);
        System.out.println();
        System.out.print( hello );
        System.out.print( "\n-------------------------" +
        "-----------------------" );
        hello.deleteElementAtPosition(5);
        System.out.println();
        System.out.print( hello );
    }
}

However, I'm getting two "incompatible types: void cannot be converted to String" errors. It says its because of the two private helper methods that I have there, but I dont know how to fix it. Also, I have to have private helper methods (according to the assessment), so I can't directly change the deleteElementAtPosition(int pos) method.

Answer 1 · 2020-02-20T20:00:32Z

February 20, 2020 8:00pm

So you are trying to return a statement in your methods. Calling System.out.println() will print it to the console. Returning that isn't the same as returning a string. It seems like you just want to print the deleted character. If that is the case, you don't need the return type to be a string. You can have the method print the variable and not return a value. In which case, you would declare the return type as void.

For example:

private void printDeletion(int index){
    System.out.println("The element at position " + index + " will be deleted");
}

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