Personal program

Question

SO one of my end goals is to code a little utility for my job.

Our product has two unique numbers associated with each product.

A SKU number and a stock number.

In production they use the stock number , in billing they use the SKU number.

Anytime production talks to billing , everyone is confused.

I want to write a program that the user inputs one or the other number , returning the other number.

So if one person enters the SKU number it returns the stock number, and vice versa.

I could do this now with if statements, but it would take forever because there are many products , and I know that an easy way exists.

I can't fully wrap my head around how an array would do this.

Can this be solved by some type of database linkage ?

Can Java read from an excel sheet ?

Am I going to have to learn SQL as well to complete my goal ?

Any and all input is appreciated , when I'm not working on chapters here I would like to start developing this program and eventually port it to Android as well.

Thanks !

Answer 1 · 2015-02-03T04:44:23Z

February 3, 2015 4:44am

Erin;

If you don't want to build a full blown database, a HashMap may be useful.

It would allow you to do something like:

import java.util.HashMap;

public class skuConverterHashMap {

    public static void main(String []){
        HashMap<String, String> skuConverter = new HashMap<String, String>();
        //add key-value pair to hashmap
        skuConverter.put("sku1", "stockNumber1");
        skuConverter.put("sku2", "stockNumber2");
        skuConverter.put("sku3", "stockNumber3");
        System.out.println(skuConverter);
        //getting value for the given key from hashmap
        System.out.println("Value of second: "+skuConverter.get("sku2"));
        System.out.println("Is HashMap empty? "+skuConverter.isEmpty());
        skuConverter.remove("sku3");
        System.out.println(skuConverter);
        System.out.println("Size of the HashMap: "+skuConverter.size());
    }
}

Output:

{sku2=stockNumber2, sku3=stockNumber3, sku1=stockNumber1}

Value of second: stockNumber2

Is HashMap empty? false

{sku2=stockNumber2 sku1=stockNumber1}

Size of the HashMap: 2

Depending on the size and number of SKUs you have, it may be better suited for a database, but this might be an option for you. There is a new Java course scheduled to come out in a couple of weeks that will be covering Java Data Structures in further detail.

Hope it helps,

Ken

Answer 2 · 2015-02-03T22:09:36Z

February 3, 2015 10:09pm

Hi Ken ,

Thank you so much for your reply !

I will experiment with this when I get home from work to let you know how it works.

Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Looking to learn something new?

Erin Leathers

Erin Leathers

Personal program

2 Answers

Ken Alger

Ken Alger

Erin Leathers

Erin Leathers