Wages not calculating correctly

[Simfonika Island]

Hi

My program is not calculating the wages correctly. Can somebody please
tell me why???

/*
* PayCheck Program
* This program computes an employee's wages for the week
*/
import java.util.Scanner;
import static java.lang.System.in;
import static java.lang.System.out;

class mainPayCheckProg
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
// create an instance of the class or object
payCheckMethods aWage = new payCheckMethods();

Scanner prompt_user = new Scanner(in);

double payRate;
double hours;
double wages;
int empNum;

double max_hours = 40.0;
double overtime = 1.5;

out.print("Enter Employee Number: ");
empNum = prompt_user.nextInt();
out.print("Enter Pay Rate: ");
payRate = prompt_user.nextDouble();
out.print("Enter Hours Worked: ");
hours = prompt_user.nextDouble();

if (hours > max_hours)
{
wages = (max_hours * payRate) + (hours - max_hours) * payRate *
overtime;
}
else
{
wages = max_hours * payRate;
}

out.print("Employee Number: ");
out.println(empNum);
out.print("Pay rate: ");
out.println(payRate);
out.print("Hours worked: ");
out.println(hours);
out.print("Wages: ");
out.println(wages);
}
}

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

My program is not calculating the wages correctly. Can somebody please
tell me why???

Yes, but you need to figure it out. I have given a big clue.

[snip]

double overtime = 1.5;

^^^^^^^^
Bad name. It is an overtime *rate*.

[snip]

wages = max_hours * payRate;

^^^^^^^^^
Why are using this variable here?

[snip]

If you are not indenting your code, you should.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[Roedy Green]

My program is not calculating the wages correctly. Can somebody please
tell me why???

See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/ide.html

If you single step trace you program, the problem should quickly
reveal itself.

If for some reason that is not possible, try running the program on
paper calculating each line as written. Look for anomalous results.
Make sure you compute what the program SAYS not what you intended.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
When you were a child, if you did your own experiment
to see if it was better to put to cocoa into your cup first
or the hot milk first, then you likely have the programmer gene..

 

[Lew]

My program is not calculating the wages correctly. Can somebody please
tell me why???

/*
* PayCheck Program
* This program computes an employee's wages for the week
*/
import java.util.Scanner;
import static java.lang.System.in;

You don't need to specify the 'java.lang'.

import static java.lang.System.out;

class mainPayCheckProg
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
// create an instance of the class or object
payCheckMethods aWage = new payCheckMethods();

Scanner prompt_user = new Scanner(in);

double payRate;
double hours;
double wages;
int empNum;

double max_hours = 40.0;
double overtime = 1.5;

out.print("Enter Employee Number: ");
empNum = prompt_user.nextInt();
out.print("Enter Pay Rate: ");
payRate = prompt_user.nextDouble();
out.print("Enter Hours Worked: ");
hours = prompt_user.nextDouble();

if (hours > max_hours)
{
wages = (max_hours * payRate)
+ (hours - max_hours) * payRate * overtime;
}
else
{
wages = max_hours * payRate;
}

out.print("Employee Number: ");
out.println(empNum);
out.print("Pay rate: ");
out.println(payRate);
out.print("Hours worked: ");
out.println(hours);
out.print("Wages: ");
out.println(wages);
}
}

Others have highlighted nicely the areas you ought to investigate closely. The
example apparently is an academic exercise, and as such the key word is
"exercise", meaning you actually have to work it yourself, and that's why the
responses were somewhat indirect. They are helping you. Rest assured that if
you follow through on their hints you will see the source of the difficulty.

This is the universal phenomenon of computer programming, and a skill you will
be glad you've mastered - that of digging to the root cause of what you observe.

In this case you will come to an understanding of how variables convey
information, or more precisely, data, or more precisely still for Java in
particular, pointers to data and some primitives. Gene Wirchenko even gave you
a starting point.

Roedy's advice to paper-fake the program is a foundational practice.

There's also precision of how you report an anomaly. There are useful
debugging strategies that move you quickly to enlightenment and good software.
The first is to report all observations surrounding the anomaly.

For example, you observed that the "program is not calculating the wages
correctly". OK. That's not a lot of analysis yet. What exactly is the program
calculating (copy and paste actual output)? What did you expect?

This is the heart of program testing - at its simplest, a pairing-up ("map")
of preconditions and results (inputs and outputs). You type in "blahblah", the
program prints "bleepbleep". You expected "bloopbloop". That begins to be
specific.

At that point, you see from the code how that "bleepbleep" got calculated as
you trace how the variables transform their referenced structures. Or in your
case, primitive 'double's.

By the way, you should declare the class 'public'.

Lastly, there are coding conventions. They differ, even to being opposite,
between computer languages. They cover naming, spelling, indentation, all that
boring (not really) crap. For Java they start with (and for a lot of folks,
end with)
<http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconv-138413.html>

Some of the conventions, like declaring arrays with the brackets after the
type, or the variable, but not both, are in the Java Language Specification
(JLS) itself.
<http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/index.html>
<http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-10.html#jls-10.2>
'We do not recommend "mixed notation" in an array variable declaration, where
brackets appear on both the type and in declarators.'

Generally you see the brackets on the type in Java code.

 

[Roedy Green]

That's a terrible piece of advice to give to a beginning
programmer

I disagree for four reasons:

1. for a short piece of linear code, that is a very quick way to find
a bug.

2. It greatly helps a newbie to watch ANY program single stepping
away, to get a feel for how programs behave, where they spend their
time. You see thing that make you do a double take you would never
notice any other way. Resolving them, nearly always as benign
improves your intuition.

3. his problem is a logic error, not a coding error. Paper tracing
will uncover it, even if he is very weak in coding.

4. I think our student is just getting started. Throwing academic or
abstract concepts at him at this stage I think would be too
overwhelming.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
When you were a child, if you did your own experiment
to see if it was better to put to cocoa into your cup first
or the hot milk first, then you likely have the programmer gene..

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

I disagree for four reasons:

1. for a short piece of linear code, that is a very quick way to find
a bug.

Far faster to run through it himself.

2. It greatly helps a newbie to watch ANY program single stepping
away, to get a feel for how programs behave, where they spend their
time. You see thing that make you do a double take you would never
notice any other way. Resolving them, nearly always as benign
improves your intuition.

It greatly helps hand-executing them.

3. his problem is a logic error, not a coding error. Paper tracing
will uncover it, even if he is very weak in coding.
Yup.

4. I think our student is just getting started. Throwing academic or
abstract concepts at him at this stage I think would be too
overwhelming.

He already has problems. Adding learning a debugger adds to
that.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko