Paint( ) - is passing of object correct?

Question

Thanks (in advance) for looking at this, as always,
your input is valued & appreciated.
I did get my program to work. But i dont know if i understood the question correctly... specifically the part about "squareOfStars...this method should be called from the applet's paint method & shold be passed the Graphics object from paint". Have i performed this correctly? It seems kinda redundant to me to be passing around a "Graphics g" parameter.
//Ex6_18 Write a method squareOfStars that displays a solid square
//of stars whose side is specified in integer parameter side. 
//Eg:  if side = 4, display 4 rows containing 4 stars each. 
//Incorporate this method into an applet that reads an integer value
//for side from the user.  Note that squareOfStars should be called
//from the applet�s paint method and should be passed the Graphics
//object from paint
import java.awt.Graphics;   // import class Graphics
import javax.swing.*;       // import package javax.swing
public class Ex6_18b extends JApplet {
   double number1;       // number of stars to print, row & col
   public void init()
      String firstNumber;   // first string entered by user
      // read in first number from user
      firstNumber = JOptionPane.showInputDialog(
                   "Enter size of rectangle" );
      // convert numbers from type String to type double
      number1 = Double.parseDouble( firstNumber );
   }//end of init
   public void paint( Graphics g ){ 
      squareOfStars( g );
   }//end of paint
   public void squareOfStars( Graphics g ){
      int x = 25, y = 25;
      for (int row = 1; row <= number1; row++){    //for each row
                                                   //print out one line
         for( int col = 1; col <= number1; col++){
            g.drawString( "* ", x = x + 7, y );
         y = y + 7;               // move down to next line for display
         x = 25;                  //reset x, so that next line starts at col 25+7
      }//end of outter for
   }//end of squareOfStars
}//end of applet

Answer 1

That's because it ISN'T double buffering.Yes you're right, it isn't double buffering. But it could be, I didn't show what was inside paint.
I didn't
know about the update method - is that as effective at
killing flicker as my method? I'll try it.Well that's the standard(?) way of doing it. When you call repaint(), it actually calls update. So instead of overriding repaint, I suggest overriding update(Graphics g).
While we're on the subject, I usually use
BufferedImage for double buffering in apps, but I
couldn't make that work in applets, probably because
of VM versions. What is a good way to achieve
double buffering in applets?Use a normal Image.
Image dblBuf = createImage(width, height);
Graphics dblGfx = dblBuf.getGraphics();Then just do all the drawing to dblGfx (anywhere in the code) and in paint just draw dblBuf on screen. Eliminates flicker nicely.