Need help - how to run this particular method in the main method?

Question

Hi all,
I have a problem with methods that involves objects such as:
public static Animal get(String choice) { ... } How do we return the "Animal" type object? I understand codes that return an int or a String but when it comes to objects, I'm totally lost.
For example this code:
import java.util.Scanner;
interface Animal {
    void soundOff();
class Elephant implements Animal {
    public void soundOff() {
        System.out.println("Trumpet");
class Lion implements Animal {
    public void soundOff() {
        System.out.println("Roar");
class TestAnimal {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        TestAnimal ta = new TestAnimal();
        ta.get(); // error
        // doing Animal a = new Animal() is horrible... :(                   
    public static Animal get(String choice) {
        Scanner myScanner = new Scanner(System.in);
        choice = myScanner.nextLine();
        if (choice.equalsIgnoreCase("meat eater")) {
            return new Lion();
        } else {
            return new Elephant();
}Out of desperation, I tried "Animal a = new Animal() ", and it was disastrous because an interface cannot be instantiated. :-S And I have no idea what else to put in my main method to get the code running. Need some help please.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Hi paulcw,
Thank you. I've modified my code but it still doesn't print "roar" or "trumpet". When it returns a Lion or an Elephant, wouldn't the soundOff() method get printed too?
refactored:
import java.util.Scanner;
interface Animal {
    void soundOff();
class Elephant implements Animal {
    public void soundOff() {
        System.out.println("Trumpet");
class Lion implements Animal {
    public void soundOff() {
        System.out.println("Roar");
class TestAnimal {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Animal a = get();
    public static Animal get() {
        Scanner myScanner = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("Meat eater or not?");
        String choice = myScanner.nextLine();
        if (choice.equalsIgnoreCase("meat eater")) {
            return new Lion();
        } else {
            return new Elephant();
}The soundOff() method should override the soundOff(); method in the interface, right? So I'm thinking, it should print either "roar" or "trumpet" but it doesn't. hmm..