How to let a function return a "Double" or an "Int"?

Question

I have been working on a project for school. Basically you have to make a script with a couple of scanners. So for instance:

Return the corresponding ASCII code from a integer, so from a scanner
Return the surface of a sphere by giving a double.

I now want to make a Scanner class for both functions. But 1 has to be an integer and the second has to be a double. How do I make sure wether the function returns a double or an integer.

I am using the follow code:

public static [Heres what goes wrong] vrager (String type, String tekst) {

Scanner vraag = new Scanner(System.in);

System.out.println(tekst);

type variable = vraag.next();

return variable;

So by calling the function would be like: seconden = (vrager("int", "How many seconds?:));

But if I would like to let the function work for also doubles it goes wrong cause the function is not expecting to return doubles.

How can I solve this issue?

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 03 '12 at 18:41

11

A double can represent every possible int value so return a double.

answered Nov 03 '12 at 18:41

Peter Lawrey

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score 3 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

You cannot have two functions with the same name, same parameters but different types. There are at least a couple of way to implement it, you can do it as:

public static Number vrager (String type, String tekst) {
    ...
    Double ret=....
    --- or ---
    Integer ret....
    return ret;
}

Look at the documentation for the class Number

Another way is to use generics: How do I make the method return type generic?

How to let a function return a "Double" or an "Int"?

2 Answers2