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Java Java Objects Delivering the MVP Applying a Discount Code

Stuck for some time now - advice needed please

Hello everyone,

I've been trying to solve the second part of this challenge for a while now, and have been stuck with my code - some advice would be much appreciated - thank you!

Henry

Order.java
public class Order {
  private String itemName;
  private int priceInCents;
  private String discountCode;
  private char letter;

  public Order(String itemName, int priceInCents) {
    this.itemName = itemName;
    this.priceInCents = priceInCents;
  }

  private String normalizeDiscountCode(String discountCode) {
    for (char letter : discountCode.toCharArray()) {
        if (letter != char || letter != '$')
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid discount code");
    }
    return discountCode.toUpperCase();
  }

  public String getItemName() {
    return itemName;
  }

  public int getPriceInCents() {
    return priceInCents;
  }

  public String getDiscountCode() {
    return discountCode;
  }

  public void applyDiscountCode(String discountCode) {
    this.discountCode = normalizeDiscountCode(discountCode);
  }
}
Example.java
public class Example {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // This is here just for example use cases.

    Order order = new Order(
            "Yoda PEZ Dispenser",
            600);

    // These are valid.  They are letters and the $ character only
    order.applyDiscountCode("abc");
    order.getDiscountCode(); // ABC

    order.applyDiscountCode("$ale");
    order.getDiscountCode(); // $ALE


    try {
      // This will throw an exception because it contains numbers
      order.applyDiscountCode("ABC123");
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException iae) {
      System.out.println(iae.getMessage());  // Prints "Invalid discount code"
    }
    try {
      // This will throw as well, because it contains a symbol.
      order.applyDiscountCode("w@w");
    }catch (IllegalArgumentException iae) {
      System.out.println(iae.getMessage());  // Prints "Invalid discount code"
    }

  }
}

1 Answer

Justin Horner
STAFF
Justin Horner
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Hello Henry,

You're very close on this one! There are two problems I see.

The first is the way the code is checking if the current character in the for loop is a letter. Instead of trying to compare the letter variable to the char type, I would use the static method isLetter on the Character class. Using this, you can check if the current character is not a letter this way:

!Character.isLetter(letter)

The second problem is the if statement using or || instead of and &&. This is an issue because as soon as the first condition is true, the second condition in an or statement will not be evaluated. So for example, if the first character of the string is a $, the first condition would determine that $ is not a letter, making it a true statement, which would throw the exception without evaluating the second part of the condition to see if the letter is not $.

So, with these changes your condition would look similar to this:

...
if (!Character.isLetter(letter) && letter != '$') {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid discount code"); 
}
...

I hope this helps.

Hello Justin,

Many thanks for your help - I'd not considered those approaches before, I'll have a look into implementing these now, thanks you!

Albert Tomasura
Albert Tomasura
11,041 Points

Small typo/error in the solution: Double quotes are used for $ ("$") indicating a String instead of single quotes ('$') indicating a char(acter).