Trying to add a constructor, IDE thinks its a method!

Question

I have checked and rechecked how to make a constructor in java and this should be the way.

public ClassName() {
 //Here you set variables you want to set when initializing. 
}

But trehouse-IDE is complaining about that it is missing a return type. Like it thinks its a method/function.

Does anyone see why it reacts that way?

Simon

Spaceship.java

public class Spaceship {
    public String shipType;

    public SpaceShip(){
      this.shipType = "SHUTTLE";
    }

    public String getShipType() {
      return shipType;
    }

    public void setShipType(String shipType) {
      this.shipType = shipType;
    }


}

Answer 1 · 2017-11-21T13:11:32Z

November 21, 2017 1:11pm

Treehouse is giving you an error here because your class is called Spaceship, but your constructor is called SpaceShip (notice the capital "S" in "Ship"). Java is case-sensitive, so it interprets these as 2 unrelated names. You need to make these names match for Java to understand that you mean it to be a constructor for the Spaceship class.

However, you also have a bit of a conceptual error. Constructors are methods, but they're special methods whose return type is inferred and can only be called once to construct a new object. They're still full-fledged methods, though, and you can execute whatever code you want within them

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Simon Riemertzon

Simon Riemertzon

Trying to add a constructor, IDE thinks its a method!

1 Answer

Michael Hulet

Michael Hulet

Simon Riemertzon

Simon Riemertzon