Pulling out a common superclass Barb Ericson Georgia Tech

Common Fields in Bug Classes BoxBug – Has fields sideLength and steps SpiralBug – Has fields sideLength and steps ZBug – Has fields sideLength and steps BoxBug int sideLength int steps SpiralBug int sideLength int steps ZBug int sideLength int steps

Problem Should add public accessor (getter) and modifiers (setter) methods for each of these fields – Needed in BoxBug – Needed in SpiralBug – Needed in Zbug This means adding the same code to 3 classes! BoxBug int sideLength int steps SpiralBug int sideLength int steps ZBug int sideLength int steps

A Better Way Pull out a common parent class with the common fields in it – This is called generalization PatternBug extends Bug – Has fields of sideLength and steps – Add the getter and setter methods to PatternBug – Change BoxBug, SpiralBug, and ZBug to inherit from PatternBug BoxBug SpiralBug ZBug PatternBug int sideLength int steps getSideLength getSteps setSteps setSideLength

PatternBug Inherits from Bug Has the private fields – steps and sideLength Has public accessors (getters) for the fields – getSteps and getSideLength Has public modifiers/mutators (setters) for the fields – setSteps and setSideLength

Changes to Bug Subclasses Subclass PatternBug instead of Bug Since fields are private we no longer have direct access to the inherited fields – Use getSteps instead of this.steps – Use getSideLength instead of this.sideLength – Use setSteps instead of this.steps = – Use setSideLength instead of this.sideLength =

Challenge Create the PatternBug class and modify the BoxBug, ZBug, and SpiralBug to inherit from that class instead Test that the modified classes still work Turn in the PatternBug class and the modified classes

Breakout Example If you want the ball to change color to the color of the brick that it hit – You can just add a public getColor method to the Brick class – And then set the ball color to the brick color and call updateImage to redraw the image with the new color Using the setColor method in Ball

Breakout Classes Ball inherits from Actor – Has a color – Has a setColor method Brick inherits from Actor – Has a color – Needs a getColor method Paddle inherits from Actor – Has a color

Problem Should add public accessor (getter) and modifiers (setter) methods for the color field to all the classes that have a color field This means adding the same code to 3 classes! Could copy the setColor method in Ball to the others – But copying code is tedious and can lead to more fixing if you find an error in the code Brick Color color Ball Color color Paddle Color color setColor

A Better Way Pull out a common parent class with the common fields in it – This is called generalization – Each of the actors is drawn as an image and has a color DrawnActor extends Actor – Has a color field – Add the getter and setter methods to DrawnActor – Change Brick, Ball, and Paddle to inherit from DrawnActor Brick Ball Paddle DrawnActor Color color getColor setColor updateImage

Another Problem setColor calls updateImage to redraw the image of the actor with the new color Each of Ball, Brick, and Paddle have an updateImage method – But they do something different public void updateImage() { GreenfootImage image = new GreenfootImage(width,width); image.setColor(color); image.fillOval(0,0,width,width); setImage(image); } public void updateImage() { GreenfootImage image = new GreenfootImage(width,height); image.setColor(this.color); image.fillRect(0,0,width,height); setImage(image); } From Ball From Brick

Use abstract! We can add an abstract method to DrawnActor – Abstract methods can't have any method body public abstract void updateImage(); This means the class DrawnActor must also be declared abstract public abstract class DrawnActor extends Actor

Abstract Classes You can not create an object of an abstract class – Can't say new DrawnActor() – Get an error You can create subclasses of abstract classes – This is what they are used for – The subclasses must provide the body for the methods that are declared abstract or else also be declared abstract Or you will get a compiler error if you try to compile the class

Challenge Create a subclass of Actor called DrawnActor – Make it an abstract class With an abstract method updateImage() – Put in the field color and the setColor and getColor methods In setColor call updateImage – Modify Brick, Ball, and Paddle to inherit from DrawnActor instead of Actor Must use setColor and getColor instead of this.color – Will need to cast ((DrawnActor) actor).getColor(); The compiler only knows that the intersecting actor (brick) is an actor not that it is a DrawnActor so we cast to tell it.