Accessing class constants

Question

Hi
I'm trying to construct a class called Continent
public Continent{
     String continentName;
     //  some other variables etc etc
     public Continent (String conName){
            this.continentName = conName;
     //  Class CONSTANT declaration
     public static final Continent
            ASIA = new Continent ("Asia"),
            EUROPE = new Continent ("Europe"),
            AMERICA = new Continent ("America")
            // etc etc
}then I construct a class called Country
public Country {
      String countryName;
      Continent continent;
      //  some other variable
     public Country (String name, Continent c){
          this.countryName = name;
          this.continent = c;
     public static void main(String[] Args){
          Country c = new Country ("Wales", Continent.EUROPE);
          System.out.println (c.countryName + " exists in "
                                    + c.continent);
}What I expected to be output was something like:
Wales exists in Europe
but what actually was output was
Wales exists in Asia
?!!?? What's this all about please. Why doesn't my code work properly
TIA

Answer 1

Well, it looks as though you might have overlooked something between your compiling, editing and running because I copied your code and it worked fine after I made several changes to it.
First, in the code as it is posted, you're missing the class declarations for both Continent and Country. That will result in compilation errors.
Second, by printing out c.continent in the Country source, you will see the object identification of the continent instance and not the String name for it. I added a getName( ) method in Continent to take care of that. Your code with the modifications is pasted below.
public class Continent {
     // Class CONSTANT declaration
     public static final Continent ASIA = new Continent ("Asia"),EUROPE = new Continent ("Europe"), AMERICA = new Continent ("America");
     String continentName;
     public Continent (String conName) {
          this.continentName = conName;
     /** Returns the String name associated
              *   with a Continent instance.
     public String getName() {
          return continentName;
public class Country {
     String countryName;
     Continent continent;
     public Country (String name, Continent c) {
          this.countryName = name;
          this.continent = c;
             public static void main(String[] Args) {
          //Country c = new Country ("Wales", Continent.EUROPE);
          //Country c = new Country ("Wales", Continent.ASIA);
                         Country c = new Country ("Wales", Continent.AMERICA);
          System.out.println (c.countryName + " exists in " + c.continent.getName());
}As shown here, you will see "Wales exists in America" for your output.
Jeff