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How to write an implementation class for a Bag (or Multiset) ADT?

I have an assignment in which I need to write an implementation class for a Bag (or Multiset) ADT. Problem is, the assignment is worded in a way that's hard to follow and I'm not sure what exactly I need to do.
Here is the assignment description and here is the interface I was provided. This is my implementation class so far. I haven't written any of my methods yet because I'm not sure where to go from here, especially in regards to the 3 different constructors.
package Bags;
import java.io.*;
public class ConBag implements Bag, Serializable {
private String[] items; // The items in the bag
private int itemCount; // The number of items
private int size; // The size of the bag
// This constructor creates a new empty bag able to hold 100 items.
public ConBag ( ) {
this(100);
}; // Constructor
// This constructor creates a new bag with a specified capacity.
public ConBag ( int size ) {
items = new String[size];
}; // Constructor
// This constructor takes an array of Strings and copies them into a bag of 100 or fewer items.
public ConBag ( String[] items ) {
}; // Constructor
public void add ( String item ) {
try{
if(!contains(item) && (!(size == items.length))){
items[itemCount] = item;
itemCount++;
}
}catch (NoSpaceException exception) {
System.out.println("Bag is full.");
}
}; // Add
public void remove ( String item ) {
for (int i=0; i<size; i++) {
if (contains(item)) {
items[i] = items[itemCount-1];
}else {
NoItemException exception;
System.out.println("Item not in bag.");
}
}
};
public int cardinality ( ) {
return itemCount;
};
public boolean contains ( String item ) {
for (int i=0; i<itemCount; i++) {
if(items[i].equals(item))
return true;
}
return false;
};
public int count ( String item ) {
int count;
return count;
};
public String draw ( ) {
};
}
I feel like I'm missing something important, but I don't know what. I already have NoItemException and NoSpaceException, but I don't think I need to include them in this post as they're pretty basic. Any help or a nudge in the right direction would be great. Thanks!

You need to allow duplication, therefore using String array as a data structure makes things difficult. It's better to use a map where the key is a String and the value is an Integer.
It's unclear what is the limit of the room, so, for now you can define a private member called room, which will be int and whenever you intend to add a String, check cardinality against room. If it's smaller, then increment the value of the map entry if exists. If it did not, then just create it with a value of 1.
remove should check for contains. If the Map you have does not contain the item, throw an exception. Otherwise decrement the value of the map entry if it's higher than 1. If it is 1, then just remove it from the map.
To calculate cardinality traverse the map and calculate the sum of the values.
contains should be simple, you will just have to call a method of your map. count should be simple as well.
draw is interesting. First, calculate cardinality, use it as the unreachable upper bound of your randomization and initialize a sum and start traversing the map. On each iteration increase sum (which is 0 before the loop) with the value of the map entry. If the randomized number is smaller than sum, then call remove passing the key of the item and exit the loop.
EDIT
If you need to do this with an array of String items, then you can do so, but you will also need to store an integer for each String, that would be another array and the easiest representation would be to ensure that every item in the String array would be associated to the int value in the int array at the same index. Not too elegant, but can be used. Now, in this case you could not use Map methods, but will need to implement stuff yourself.

Why does .contains method on ArrayList of custom instances work?

I've been developing a small application for work, and I've come across something I can't figure out.
In the following code, I have an ArrayList of a Custom Class called 'Product' that contains data of type 'String'. I use the .contains method on this ArrayList to ensure it doesn't contain a certain String.
My IDE gives me the warning of 'Suspicious call to java.util.Collections.contains: Given object cannot contain instances of String (expected Product)'.
I completely understand the above message, because I'm comparing two different Types, so how can it ever evaluate correctly? I'm thinking it must be because the 'Product' class contains the data I want to compare, it is defaulting to using the toString method on the Product class (I override this in the Class) and comparing it with the String I want to compare it against.
It seems like JVM black magic to me.
private void createOrderListing(List<String[]> orderList)
{
//For each line of the order list file
for(String[] s : orderList)
{
if(s.length >= 28) //OrderLine should be of this length
{
if (!s[0].equalsIgnoreCase("ProductCode") && !s[0].isEmpty()) //Makes sure we're not including headers
{
//How does this bit work?
if(!productListing.contains(s[0]))
{
OrderLine order = new OrderLine();
//References product code of Product against Order Line, if match, then pack sizes and other basic fields ammended as appropriate
boolean productFound = false;
for (Product p : productListing)
{
if (s[0].contentEquals(p.getProductCode()))
{
order.initialAmendOrderLine(p.getProductCode(), p.getProductName(), p.getPackSize(), p.getProductType());
productFound = true;
}
}
if(productFound)
{
order.setOrderValues(s);
orderListing.add(order);
}
}
//System.out.println("\nOrder Product is: " + order.getProductName()+ "\nOrder Pack Size is: " + order.getInternalPackSize());
}
}
}
}
UPDATE
The reason this works as pointed out in the comments is that the block is always true (the .contains method is always false, the ! inverses this, hence true). Sorry for the confusion and pointing out my carelessness.

Here is an implementation of contains method in ArrayList that I have in OpenJDK:
public boolean contains(Object o) {
return indexOf(o) >= 0;
}
public int indexOf(Object o) {
if (o == null) {
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
if (elementData[i]==null)
return i;
} else {
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
if (o.equals(elementData[i]))
return i;
}
return -1;
}
Basically, there is nothing complex in it. It iterates through the all elements of your ArrayList and checks whether your given object is equal to the current one. If the condition is true then element exists in the list.
So let's imagine that you are passing String "SomeValue" to this method. Elements of ArrayList are iterated and following action is executed: "SomeValue".equals(elementData[i]) where elementData[i] is a product.
Since equals method of String class cannot compare String with a Product it returns false and as a result, you get false from contains method.
To fix this situation you can iterate over ArrayList manually and compare some Product's field with your string. E.g. you can implement following contains method:
public boolean contains(List<Product> products, String yourStringValue) {
for (Product p : products) {
if(p.getProductCode().equals(yourStringValue)){
return true;
}
}
return false;
}

productListing is a list of Product objects. Yet you are asking the list if it contains a specific String object -- which shouldn't ever happen.
What you should do is check if your Product#getProductCode is equal to your specific String. This can be acheived by using streams:
if(!productListing.contains(s[0])) // replace this
// with this
if (!productListing.stream().filter(o -> o.getProductCode().equals(s[0])).findFirst().isPresent())
What does this code do? It checks all your Product elements to find one whose myStringData attribute is equal to the String you're comparing.

since contains relays on equals implementation, when you do
if(!productListing.contains(s[0]))
you are asking the list OF ARRAYS OF STRINGS if its contains a String.
that will return always false because the type are different, so is not that is working at all, is that your condition will always return false

Fundamental misunderstanding of objects and attributes in Java

I'm sitting on an assignment for university and I'm at a point, where I fear I haven't really understood something fundamental in the concecpt of Java or OOP altogether. I'll try to make it as short as possible (maybe it's sufficient to just look at the 3rd code segment, but I just wanted to make sure, I included enough detail). I am to write a little employee management. One class within this project is the employeeManagement itself and this class should possess a method for sorting employees by first letter via bubblesort.
I have written 3 classes for this: The first one is "Employee", which contains a name and an ID (a running number) , getter and setter methods and one method for checking whether the first letter of one employee is smaller (lower in the alphabet) than the other. It looks like this:
static boolean isSmaller(Employee source, Employee target) {
char[] sourceArray = new char[source.name.length()];
char[] targetArray = new char[target.name.length()];
sourceArray = source.name.toCharArray();
targetArray = target.name.toCharArray();
if(sourceArray[0] < targetArray[0])
return true;
else
return false;
}
I tested it and it seems to work for my case. Now there's another class called EmployeeList and it manages the employees via an array of employees ("Employee" objects). The size of this array is determined via constructor. My code looks like this:
public class EmployeeList {
/*attributes*/
private int size;
private Employee[] employeeArray;
/* constructor */
public EmployeeList(int size) {
this.employeeArray = new Employee[size];
}
/* methods */
public int getSize() {
return size;
}
public void setSize(int size) {
this.size = size;
}
/* adds employee to end of the list. Returns false, if list is too small */
boolean add(Employee m) {
int id = m.getID();
if (id > employeeArray.length) {
return false;
} else {
employeeArray[id] = m;
return true;
}
}
/* returns employee at certain position */
Employee get(int index) {
return employeeArray[index];
}
/* Sets employee at certain position. Returns null, if position doesn't exist. Else returns old value. */
Employee set(int index, Employee m) {
if (employeeArray[index] == null) {
return null;
} else {
Employee before = employeeArray[index];
employeeArray[index] = m;
return before;
}
}
Now comes my real problem: In a third class called "employeeManagement" I am supposed to implement the sorting algorithm. The class looks like this:
public class EmployeeManagement {
private EmployeeList ml = new EmployeeList(3);
public boolean addEmployee(Employee e) {
return ml.add(e);
}
public void sortEmployee() {
System.out.println(ml.getSize()); // I wrote this for debugging, exactly here lies my problem
for (int n = ml.getSize(); n > 1; n--) {
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
if (Employee.isSmaller(ml.get(i), ml.get(i + 1)) == false) {
Employee old = ml.set(i, ml.get(i + 1));
ml.set(i+1, old);
}
}
}
}
The "println" before my comment returns "0" in console... I am expecting "3" as this is the size I gave the "EmployeeList" as parameter of the constructor within my "EmployeeManagement" class. Where is my mistake ? And how can I access the size of the object I created in the "EmployeeManagement" class (the "3") ? I'm really looking forward to your answers!
Thanks,
Phreneticus

You are not storing size in your constructor. Something like,
public EmployeeList(int size) {
this.employeeArray = new Employee[size];
this.size = size; // <-- add this.
}
Also, setSize isn't going to automatically copy (and grow) the array. You will need to copy the array, because Java arrays have a fixed length. Finally, you don't really need size here since employeeArray has a length.

The size variable you are calling is the class field. If you take a quick look at your code, the getter is getting the field (which is initialized as zero when created). The size you are using it. The good way of doing it would be to get the size of the array in the getter like this:
public int getSize() {
return employeeArray.length;
}
This would return the size of the array in the object.

Suspicious call to Collection.contains method in ArrayList

I am getting a warning that watchStore.contains(s) is a suspicious call to java.util.Collection#contains. How can I fix it? I want to use contains() to find a particular object with the matching serial number.
public Watch findWatchBySerialNumber(long srch) {
long s = srch;
Watch watch = null;
for(int i = 0; i < watchStore.size(); i++) {
watch = watchStore.get(i);
if(watchStore.contains(s)) {
System.out.print("item found");
return watch;
}
}
System.out.print("item not found");
return null; // watch is not found.
}

Presuming that Watch is the class, watchStore is a List<Watch>, and that a field serialNo exists on Watch...
public Optional<Watch> findWatchBySerialNumber(long serial) {
return watchStore.stream()
.filter(w -> w.getSerialNo() == serial)
.findFirst();
}
If you're not using Java 8, the code is close, but a bit more dangerous since you have the chance to return null. If you can use Guava's Optional, that'd be a better choice here.
public Watch findWatchBySerialNumber(long serial) {
for(Watch w : watchStore) {
if(w.getSerialNo() == serial) {
return w;
}
}
return null;
}
Your contains isn't going to work since your list doesn't contain Longs, it contains Watchs. This is also why the compiler sees it as dubious; contains accepts an Object but it will return false if what you're looking for doesn't have a comparable equals for what's in your list.
You have to iterate over the entirety of your collection to find it in this scenario, especially since you're looking for a specific property on those objects as opposed to a specific, easy-to-provide value.

please how can I fix that. I want to use the contain() to find a
particular object with the matching serial number.
In that case override Watch's equals() to use serialNumber field for comparison.
Then add constructor that accepts serialNumber.
public class Watch {
private final long serialNumber;
public Watch(long serialNumber) {
this.serialNumber = serialNumber;
}
#Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
return obj == this ||
(obj instanceof Watch && ((Watch)obj).serialNumber == serialNumber);
}
#Override
public int hashCode() {
return (int)serialNumber;
}
}
Replace if(watchStore.contains(s)){ with if(watchStore.contains(watchToFind)){ where Watch watchToFind = new Watch(s);

you can use contains method from org.apache.commons.lang.ArrayUtils package.
Checks if the value is in the given array.
The method returns false if a null array is passed in.
Parameters:
array the array to search through
valueToFind the value to find
Returns:
true if the array contains the object
long [] imageHashes= {12l,13l,14l,15l};
System.out.println(ArrayUtils.contains(imageHashes, 13l));

Adding elements to array in alphebetical order

I'm writing a program which adds telephone entries into a staff phone directory, I want to add the elements to the array in alphabetical order (using surnames) rather than adding the elements then calling Arrays.sort every time a new entry is added, as that would be less efficient. Here is some code I have so far, I'm not sure how to compare each element in the array with the following one and so forth.
public class ArrayDirectory implements Directory {
Entry [] directory = new Entry [50];
#Override
public void addEntry(String initials, String surname, int extension) {
//Entries are added here in alphabetical order
}
Here is my Entry class -
public class Entry {
private String initals,surname;
private int extention;
public Entry(String initals, String surname, int extention){
this.initals = initals;
this.surname = surname;
this.extention = extention;
}
public String getInitals(){
return initals;
}
public String getSurname(){
return surname;
}
public int getExtention(){
return extention;
}
}
Any suggestions, do I override compareTo? Thanks
edit - should have noted I have been asked to use an array. Sorry for the confusion.
Edit 2: updated my addEntry method and overriden compareTo in Entry -
public void addEntry(String initials, String surname, int extension) {
for (int i = 0; i < directory.length; i++) {
if (directory[i] != null) {
int y = directory[i].getSurname().compareTo(surname);
if (y == 1) {
int position = i;
break;
}
} else if (directory[i] == null) {
int position = i;
break;
}
}
}
And my compareTo method -
public int compareTo(Entry other) {
return this.surname.compareTo(other.getSurname());
}
I'm not sure how to shift the elements in the array to the right after I have found the correct position? Thank you for all of you help.

If you dont have to use an array then your using the wrong data structure.
No matter what path you need to implement Comparable:
public class Entry implements Comparable<Entry>{
..
#Override
public int compareTo(Entry other) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
return this.surname.compareTo(other.getSurname());
}
..
Consider using a SortedSet:
Set<Entry> map = new TreeSet<Entry>();
map.add(new Entry("JEH", "Hamlet", 123));
map.add(new Entry("AAC", "Adams", 123));
map.add(new Entry("FAM", "Monti", 321));
That will print in the desired order. If you must use an Array then you need to sort it upon insert.

You could make Entry comparable and implement the compareTo in it. But you don't really have to in this case because String is already comparable.
Since this is a homework, I think it will be best to just give you some suggestions on how to proceed, instead of handing you the code -
In your method you do not need to sort the array, you just need to insert it at the correct location in the array.
loop through the array starting at the first index
as you pass through each element in the array, you will have to check following two conditions
is the element null
is the surname of current element greater than surname-argument to the method
as soon as you find the element that satisfies any of the above conditions, record the index and break the loop
then, starting at that index shift the rest of elements to the right
and finally create a new instance of Entry for the provided arguments and set it at that index
Note: This doesn't take care of the situation where you are out of the space in the array.
Update:
I think you mixed up my answer and #David Wallace's answer. It wasn't my suggestion to implement compareTo. Also, it's great that you at least gave it a try and came back.
int position = -1; //declare the position outside (if declared inside, it's not visible outside the loop)
for (int i = 0; i < directory.length; i++) {
// position = i; just assign value of i inside the loop
}
//use the position after the loop
int j = position; // start at position
Entry temp = null; // temp will temporarily hold the entry at the next index
while(true) {
temp = directory[j + 1]; // since we need move entry at j to j+1, first we need save the entry at j+1
directory[j + 1] = directory[j]; // entry at j to j+1
if(temp == null) { // if the next entry is null, don't really need to move no more, so break
break;
}
}
// finally place new entry at index position
directory[position] = //the new Entry

Make Entry implement Comparable<Entry> and write the appropriate compareTo method in your Entry class. Then, in your insert method, you want to
Use Arrays.binarySearch to find the right place in the array to insert your the entry.
Use System.arraycopy to shift everything in the array that's after the appropriate location one place to the right.
Set the appropriate entry.
You'll want to check out the Javadoc for Arrays.binarySearch and System.arraycopy.

Firstly, never use arrays unless you absolutely have to. Use Collecctions instead - they are far easier to deal with and have support for lots of operations you commonly want to perform on groups of things.
In your case, a TreeSet would be a good choice. If you want to sort the entries by surname only in this usage (and not generally), you can pass a customer Comparator to the constructor:
Set<Entry> directory = new TreeSet<>(new Comparator<Entry>() {
#Override
public int compare(Entry o1, Entry o2) {
return o1.getSurname().compareTo(o2.getSurname());
}
});
If your always want to sort Entry objects using surname, have your Entry class implement Comparable<Entry> and move the code into the compareTo() method of the Entry class.