Java. Implicit super constructor Employee() is undefined. Must explicitly invoke another constructor

Question

Hello I'm new to Java, I'm getting this error in my production worker class. My Production worker constructor says explicitly invoke another constructor. I don't know what to do?.

import java.util.Date;

public class Employee
{
      private String name, number;
      private Date date;

      public Employee(String name, String number, Date date)
      {
            setName(name);
            setNumber(number);
            setDate(date);
      }

      public void setName(String n)
      {
            name = n;
      }
      public void setNumber(String n)
      {
            number = n;
            // you can check the format here for correctness
      }
      public void setDate(Date d)
      {
            date = d;
      }

      public String getName()
      {
            return name;
      }
      public String getNumber()
      {
            return number;
      }
      public Date getDate()
      {
            return date;
      }
}



public class ProductionWorker extends Employee
{
      private int shift;
      private double hourlyrate;
       // error is here (Implicit super constructor Employee() is undefined. Must explicitly invoke another constructor).
      public ProductionWorker(int shift, double hourlyrate)
      {
            setShift(shift);
            setHourlyPayRate(hourlyrate);
      }

      public void setShift(int s)
      {
            shift = s;
      }
      public void setHourlyPayRate(double rate)
      {
            hourlyrate = rate;
      }

      public int getShift()
      {
            return shift;
      }
      public double getHourlyPayRate()
      {
            return hourlyrate;
      }
}

Answer 1

Any constructor for any class as you know creates an object. So, the constructor should contain proper initialization code for its class. But if you have some class which extends another one (lets call it "parent") then constructor for the class cannot contain all the code needed for the initialization by definition (for example, you cannot define private fields of the parent). That's why constructor of the class has to call constructor of its parent. If you do not call it explicitly then the default parent constructor is called (which is without any parameter).

So, in your case, you can either implement default constructor in parent or directly call any constructor in the class.

Answer 2

As others have already mentioned you are required to provide a default constructor public Employee(){} in your Employee class.

What happens is that the compiler automatically provides a no-argument, default constructor for any class without constructors. If your class has no explicit superclass, then it has an implicit superclass of Object, which does have a no-argument constructor. In this case you are declaring a constructor in your class Employee therefore you must provide also the no-argument constructor.

Having said that Employee class should look like this:

Your class Employee

import java.util.Date;

public class Employee
{
      private String name, number;
      private Date date;

      public Employee(){} // No-argument Constructor

      public Employee(String name, String number, Date date)
      {
            setName(name);
            setNumber(number);
            setDate(date);
      }

      public void setName(String n)
      {
            name = n;
      }
      public void setNumber(String n)
      {
            number = n;
            // you can check the format here for correctness
      }
      public void setDate(Date d)
      {
            date = d;
      }

      public String getName()
      {
            return name;
      }
      public String getNumber()
      {
            return number;
      }
      public Date getDate()
      {
            return date;
      }
}

Here is the Java Oracle tutorial - Providing Constructors for Your Classes chapter. Go through it and you will have a clearer idea of what is going on.

Answer 3

ProductionWorker extends Employee, thus it is said that it has all the capabilities of an Employee. In order to accomplish that, Java automatically puts a super(); call in each constructor's first line, you can put it manually but usually it is not necessary. In your case, it is necessary because the call to super(); cannot be placed automatically due to the fact that Employee's constructor has parameters.

You either need to define a default constructor in your Employee class, or call super('Erkan', 21, new Date()); in the first line of the constructor in ProductionWorker.

Answer 4

An explicit call to a parent class constructor is required any time the parent class lacks a no-argument constructor. You can either add a no-argument constructor to the parent class or explicitly call the parent class constructor in your child class.

Answer 5

This problem can also come up when you don't have your constructor immediately call super.

So this will work:

  public Employee(String name, String number, Date date)
  {
    super(....)
  }

But this won't:

  public Employee(String name, String number, Date date)
  {
    // an example of *any* code running before you call super.
    if (number < 5)
    {
       number++;
    }

    super(....)
  }

The reason the 2nd example fails is because java is trying to implicitely call

super(name,number,date)

as the first line in your constructor.... So java doesn't see that you've got a call to super going on later in the constructor. It essentially tries to do this:

  public Employee(String name, String number, Date date)
  {
    super(name, number, date);

    if (number < 5)
    {
       number++;
    }

    super(....)
  }

So the solution is pretty easy... Just don't put code before your super call ;-) If you need to initialize something before the call to super, do it in another constructor, and then call the old constructor... Like in this example pulled from this StackOverflow post:

public class Foo
{
    private int x;

    public Foo()
    {
        this(1);
    }

    public Foo(int x)
    {
        this.x = x;
    }
}

Answer 6

Had this problem recently in my comp lab. It's simple and Erkan answered it correctly. Just put super("the name of your subclass") So in relation to your problem --> super("ProductionWorker); as the first line of your subclass' constructor.