USER-DEFINED CLASSES AND ADTS - Java Programming: From Problem Analysis to Program Design - page 516

Consider the following method main :
public class CascadedMethodCalls
{

public static void main(String[] args)
{

Person student1 =
new Person("Angela", "Smith");

//Line 1

Person student2 = new Person(); //Line 2

Person student3 = new Person(); //Line 3

System.out.println("Line 4 -- Student 1: "
+ student1); //Line 4

student2.setFirstName("Shelly").
setLastName("Malik");

//Line 5

System.out.println("Line 6 -- Student 2: "
+ student2); //Line 6

student3.setFirstName("Chelsea"); //Line 7

System.out.println("Line 8 -- Student 3: "
+ student3);

//Line 8

student3.setLastName("Tomek"); //Line 9

System.out.println("Line 10 -- Student 3: "
+ student3);

//Line 10

}

}

Sample Run:

Line 4 -- Student 1: Angela Smith
Line 6 -- Student 2: Shelly Malik
Line 8 -- Student 3: Chelsea
Line 10 -- Student 3: Chelsea Tomek

The statements in Lines 1, 2, and 3 declare the variables student1 , student2 , and
student3 and also instantiate the objects. The instance variables of the objects student2
and student3 are initialized to empty strings. The statement in Line 4 outputs the value
of student1 . The statement in Line 5 works as follows. In the statement:

student2.setFirstName("Shelly").setLastName("Malik");

first the expression:

student2.setFirstName("Shelly")