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What is the difference between void and return even though I can get same output on both?

i made a small program for summing two numbers
if i used a void type method it will be like this
import java.util.Scanner;
public class NewClass {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner input = new Scanner (System.in);
System.out.println("enter x");
int x = input.nextInt();
System.out.println("enter y");
int y = input.nextInt();
getSum(x,y);
}
public static void getSum(int x, int y)
{
int sum = x + y;
System.out.println("sum = " + sum);
} }
here if i used a method that returns a value i will get same output!
import java.util.Scanner;
public class NewClass {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Scanner input = new Scanner (System.in);
System.out.println("enter x");
int x = input.nextInt();
System.out.println("enter y");
int y = input.nextInt();
int r = getSum(x,y);
System.out.println("sum = " + r);
}
public static int getSum(int x, int y)
{
int sum = x + y;
return sum;
}}
so i'm confused what is the benefit of returning a value if i can finish my program with a void type method?

The point is not to get the result but the way we get the result
consider
public static void getSum(int x, int y)
{
int sum = x + y;
System.out.println("sum = " + sum);
}
will print the output to the screen after calculation
but when we use return
as you have done it later
public static int getSum(int x, int y)
{
int sum = x + y;
return sum;
}
this function will respond back the sum. that sum can be stored in a variable
can be used afterwards
like in recursion

In small programs, you won't get the difference but while writing the big programs you have to make several functions which are being called several times and you may need the output of one function into other.
In that case, you will require return so that the output of one function can be used into other.
Hope this helps!!

I think the answer is that, if you're calling getSum() method with a return type in any other class.. you would get a returned value which can be used for further processing. .
Where as in void that's not possible... Hope this helps... Reply if any doubts..

I can understand why you have this question.
First of all, you should know that in real development, we do not use console logs.
System.out.Println();
This is used only for debugging and that too in very rare cases.
The whole point of a function is to take some input and convert to something else.
So,
public static int getSum(int x, int y) {
return x+y;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.Println(getSum(5,10));
}
This is the better solution.
Best Regards,
Rakesh

When you use the keyword void it means that method doesn't return anything at all. If you declare a return type different to void at the method statement instead, that method must return obligatorily a valid value to the declared return type using the keyword return followed by a variable/value to send back to the class that called the method.
Defining methods here you have the java documentation for a method declaration
Answering your question, in small programs that work with primitive values it doesn't really matter but in complex program when you usually need to return specifics object types, i.e an ArrayList or actually an instance of a class you created you can't simply put it into a System.out.println and send it to the console, mostly you'll want to get something from a method and that something usually can be a more complex object than an integer or a string, the way to get that something is through the return type defined by the method's statement.
A common use of return types is when your method is static and it can't interact with the non-static instance variables of the class, this type of static methods usually get values from their arguments, do a certain kind of progress and then return a result that the method's caller can use.

Returning a value enables you to use that value in whichever way you want, including printing it or assigning it to variable for further processing. If on the other hand you print the value in the method and not return anything, i.e. making the method of type void, then that's all you can do with that method.

Java objects with getter and setter methods

Hi can someone please help me,I am a novice programmer and I don't understand the following code.
How does one.bark() automatically returns the statement under the first if condition. How does the compiler know which if statement to display (because we are not passing the size while calling bark())? I know the object calls the function setSize and passes the argument 70 to it. Does that mean that the value 70 becomes an attribute of the object one?
Code:
class GoodDog {
private int size;
public void setSize(int s) {
size = s;
}
public int getSize()
{
return size;
}
void bark()
{
if (size > 60)
{
System.out.println("Wooof! Wooof!");
}
else if (size > 14)
{
System.out.println("Ruff! Ruff!");
}
else
{
System.out.println("Yip! Yip!");
}
}
}
class GoodDogTestDrive
{
public static void main (String[] args)
{
GoodDog one = new GoodDog();
one.setSize(70);
GoodDog two = new GoodDog();
two.setSize(8);
System.out.println("Dog one: " + one.getSize());
System.out.println("Dog two: " + two.getSize());
one.bark();
two.bark();
}
}

Yes. When you call one.setSize(70), the size variable is saved as 70 in the one object. When you call one.bark(), size is still 70

When creating an object of a class , the object receives a copy of all non-static members of the class.
GoodDog one = new GoodDog();
object one contains a special copy of size. Like wise object two will have its own copy of member variable size.
When you set the size using setSize() function , the one object's size variable is modified and will contain the same value until another value is assigned.
When you call the bark function using one function , it's own copy of size variable is taken and used inside the bark function.

Actually, 70 is not a new attribute, but the size attribute takes the value 70.
And since you have two distinct instances (Dog one and Dog two) of GoodDog, each one has it's own attribute size, which has it's own value (in this case 70 and 8).
From there, when you call the bark method, each instance (one /two) will check the if/else statement according to it's own attribute's value (respectively 70 / 8).

Why there is need of return statement

I have very silly doubt that why we use return statement in method . Without using return statement in method we can also get required value
as example
package testing;
public class ReturnMethod {
static int a = 10;
static int b = 5;
static int c;
static int d;
public static void add() {
c = a + b;
}
public static int returnAddValue() {
d = a + b;
return d;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
add();
System.out.println("c: " + c);
int value = returnAddValue();
System.out.println("value: " + value);
}
}
In above example in both the cases i am getting output
c: 15
value: 15
So i am having doubt when to use return statement and why is neccessary

With return statement, the return value is not necessary to be saved in any global, external or member variable.
However, without return statement you have to prepare kind of outer variable value to track that.

If you assign the result of a method to a static variable (and, indeed, pass in the "parameters" of the method by setting static variables), you have problems when that method is called by two threads concurrently, since the variables are shared for all invocations of the method:
Thread t1 = new Thread(() -> {a = 1; b = 2; add(); }); t1.start();
Thread t2 = new Thread(() -> {a = 3; b = 4; add(); }); t2.start();
t1.join(); t2.join();
You don't know which of these threads run first, or even if they run at the same time; so you don't know what the value of a or b is when you call add(), and nor do you know whether the value in c afterwards is the result of the invocation in the first or second thread (or a mixture of the two).
The value stored in c afterwards could be any of 3, 5 or 7 (or any other value, if there is another thread which is also invoking add() concurrently outside this code.
This problem of thread interference just completely goes away if you keep values localized to the stack, by passing a and b as method parameters, and receiving the result as a return value.
Even if your code is single-threaded, it's simply ugly to have to write:
a = 1;
b = 2;
add();
int result = c;
rather than
int result = add(1, 2);

You should use a return statement, when you need the method to return a value.
In your case, both methods work.
But you can, and should use returning methods, when you don't want a field of your class to be changed by another class.
For example, you want money to be only seen, and not changed, when you are making a bank-account related software. So, you make money private, and make a method which returns the money. In this way, other classes can only see money, but not change it.

First, your functions are different, as you see
public static **void** add()
public static **int** returnAddValue()
First one does not return anything, because it has void as return type and the second one has int as return type.
First one works, because c is a global variable.

You typically would use return when you don't store the result in a (static) variable of your class.
public class ReturnMethod {
static int a = 10;
static int b = 5;
public static void add() {
int c = a + b;
}
public static int returnAddValue() {
int d = a + b;
return d;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
add();
//not possible to access c here
//System.out.println("c: " + c);
int value = returnAddValue();
System.out.println("value: " + value);
}
}
In that modified example, there would be no way for you to access the result of the add() method.
You should probably read about Scopes in Java.

You have a class variable c & d. These variables are associated with the class and stored in heap. If you assign a value back to it and you can access it without a explicit return statement. But if you have declared d inside the method then return statement is required to give the value back to the caller.

The reason that you are able to access the value of class variable c is that it has been initialized as static. Had this not been the case the information in the c variable would be lost as soon as the add method ends. The reason methods have return value is that they user can get the updated value , if there are any manipulation in the object data. In this case there is a very small, what if there is series of manipulation with the data. In that case the final value has to be returned to the calling object which without return statement is not possible.

Its totally depends upon our requirement whether to return a value from our method or update instance variable. Some time we just want to process a value and get back the result in and result will be used in different manner, in this case we need to return value from method.
For example
java.lang.Math.sqrt(double a) method return a value and we use returned value as per our need OR requirement. Can you think if this method does not returned any value then what it should update, I think this method useless if it does not returned any value.

The variable C in your code snippet is accessed in the class throughout, and will stay until the object of the class exists. So you can print the value of Variable C outside the method.
However, if you had declared a local variable in the method add(), then print statement System.out.println("c: " + c); will print the default value for variable c. That is zero in this case.

General questions + How: object that can copy another object's values?

General part first:
This is for my Java 1 final: I need to make an NFL playoff simulator. So, I would make a "Team" object that holds values for "Offense" and whatnot. I would need a method that holds an algorithm to calculate who wins each matchup. However, I don't know how to go about applying the method to the appropriate teams..
I was going to make another object called "Matchup" which would hold 2 "Team" objects, then comparing the 2 teams' values with the algorithm method. But, I don't think you can use objects inside another object, to my knowledge... Therefore, I've just been trying to hard-code everything in an ugly way.
Would anyone point me in the right direction of forming such a program?
Anyway, on to my immediate issue:
Here is my small bit of code thus far..
public class Final_Larrabee {
static Team pit = new Team("Steelers", "AFC", 3, 75, 70);
static Team bal = new Team("Ravens", "AFC", 6, 70, 80);
static String teamA1 = "bal";
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(+teamA1.seed);
}
}
And my other class:
package final_larrabee;
public class Team {
String name;
String conference;
int seed;
int offense;
int defense;
boolean wcWin;
boolean divWin;
boolean conWin;
boolean alive;
public Team(String n, String c, int s, int o, int d) {
name = n;
conference = c;
seed = s;
offense = o;
defense = d;
wcWin = false; // these wins will be used in the betting part
divWin = false;
conWin = false;
alive = true; // determines if team is out of playoffs or not
}
public String getName(){
return this.name;
}
public void setName(String n){
name = n;
}
public int getConference(){
return this.seed;
}
public void setConference(String c){
conference = c;
}
public int getSeed(){
return this.seed;
}
public void setSeed(int s){
seed = s;
}
public int getOffense(){
return this.offense;
}
public void setOffense(int o){
offense = o;
}
public int getDefense(){
return this.defense;
}
public void setDefense(int d){
defense = d;
}
}
I realize this won't work, because it is trying to access teanA1's seed value (which doesn't exist of course). But, what I wanted was to simply call the bal.seed value. I wanted to do it this way so that later, I can use teamA1 and teamA2 variables for the 2 teams in a given matchup. Is there a way to do it this way?
If not, perhaps ideally, it would be best to create a Team object called teamA1 which holds the values of whatever team I need at the time. It would need to change like a variable instead of make a million objects every time I need it (ideally..) I found the method 'clone' but I'm not sure this is what I want?
Any help, be it to my immediate question, or the general layout of my program, would be much appreciated. Thanks!

make team implements comparable this will give you the ability to write compareTo method and then you can put you win condition based

Just as your class Final_Larrabee holds 2 team objects in your code, your matchup class can also hold other objects.
Yes, you're on the right track with the idea of creating a matchup class which holds instances of team objects.
Inside your main class you can initialize 2 team objects. I would then create a matchup object, which gets passed the 2 team objects you have previously created and do some functionality.
Inside your team class you could implement a method, which returns a score based on the teams stats. For example it could calculate the offense * defence * seed or something like and return it that and then inside your match class, you can then implement a method such as playGame() which calls the getScore() method of each object and compares the values and then returns the winner (or prints them out for simplicity).
As regards your code, you're using the keyword static. Static is a keyword which changes a variable/object/method to a class variable/object/method. This means that every instance of the class shares this variable. I would not use it for creating the teams. An example of where to use static (a very basic example), would be if for some reason you needed to keep track of the amount of team objects you created. You could implement a static COUNT variable inside the team object and increase it by one every time the constructor is called. This could also be used for assigning IDs to the teams.
static int TEAM_COUNT = 0;
public Team()
{
this.id = ++TEAM_COUNT;
}
This would make the TEAM_COUNT be a value which shared by all instances of the class team. If you were to call
teamA.setTeamCount(0);
Then every other instance of Team would also be reset to 0.
Edit: With regards to your playoffs
public static void main(String args[])
{
Team team1 = new Team("parameters required here");
Team team2 = new Team("parameters required here");
Playoff p = new Playoff();
p.add(team1);
p.add(team2);
p.startPlayoffs();
}
If you create all of the objects inside the main class, then they are available to that method as they are local. When you call p.add(), you can add them to an array or collection, which is inside the Playoff class. Your startPlayoffs() method can then process the array of objects already stored inside the class.

Initialize size of array base from input in Java

So I'm having a problem with passing values to another class in java.
I have an application which accepts an equation from the user, after the button gets clicked, it finds out the number of variables the equation has and I'm putting the variables in two lists. Now, I need to pass these variables to another class.
here's the snippet of code where I need to use the variables:
beeColony.java
public class beeColony {
int D;
double Foods[][]=new double[FoodNumber][D];
public void getDimension(int D)
{
this.D = D;
}
}
based from here, I need to initialize the variable Foods into having a size depending on the FoodNumber and D. There's no problem w/ regards to the FoodNumber since it is a static one.
in my main application there is an event handler
private void getvalueMouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) {
bee.getDimension(dim);
}
when I output the variable D in one of my methods, it is equal to the value that I assigned it to. My problem is that the size of array Foods. I get an IndexOutOfBounds Exception. I think that when I initialize the array Foods, it is unable to get the value of D.
Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Why are you using getDimension() to set a value?
The reason this is happening is because you must have created a new class of beeColony and while doing that you used the default value of D (set to zero). It would then use this value of D to create the Foods array. This would create a Foods array of size FoodNumber x 0
I would change it as follows:
public class beeColony {
int D;
double Foods[][]=null;
public void getDimension(int D)
{
this.D = D;
this.Foods = new double[FoodNumber][D];
}
}
}