Java Reference
In-Depth Information
￿ The instance variables length and width of the class Rectangle are
accessible in the class Box through the public methods of the class
Rectangle . Therefore, when writing the definition of the method
toString of the class Box , you first call the method toString of the
class Rectangle to print the values of length and width . After printing
the values of length and width , you output the value of height .
As stated above, to call the method toString of Rectangle in the definition of the
method toString of Box , you must use the following statement:
super .toString ();
This statement ensures that you call the method toString of the superclass Rectangle ,
not of the class Box .
The definition of the method toString of the class Box is:
public String toString()
{
return super .toString() //retrieve length and width
+ "; Height = " + height;
}
Let's write the definitions of the remaining methods of the class Box :
public void setDimension( double l, double w, double h)
{
super .setDimension(l, w);
if (h >= 0)
height = h;
else
height = 0;
1
0
}
The class Box overloads the method setDimension of the class Rectangle .
Therefore, in the preceding definition of the method setDimension of the class Box ,
you can also specify a call to the method setDimension of the class Rectangle
without the reserved word super and the dot operator.
The definition of the method getHeight is:
public double getHeight()
{
return height;
}
The method area of the class Box determines the surface area of the box. To do so, we
need to access the length and width of the box, which are declared as private members
of the class Rectangle . Therefore, we use the methods getLength and getWidth of
the class Rectangle to retrieve the length and width, respectively. Because the class
 
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