Payroll Program Part 3 (confused)

Question

Okay, I'm sure you guys are sick of me by now. :-)
This is the last part of an assignment that's supposed to calculate an employee's weekly pay, these are the requirements for this phase:
Payroll Program Part 3:
Modify the Payroll Program so that it uses a class to store and retrieve the employee's
name, the hourly rate, and the number of hours worked. Use a constructor to initialize the
employee information, and a method within that class to calculate the weekly pay. Once
stop is entered as the employee name, the application should terminate.
So I wrote the separate class:
// Employee class stores and retrieves employee information
import java.util.Scanner; // program uses class scanner
public class Employee1
   // instance fields
   private double rate;
   private double hours;
   private String employeeName;
   // class constructor
   public Employee1()
      rate = 0.0;
      hours = 0.0;
      employeeName = "";
   } // end class Employee1 constructor
   // set rate
   public void setrate(double rate)
      rate = rate;
   } // end method setrate
   // get rate
   public double getrate()
      return rate;
   } // end method getrate
   // set hours
   public void sethours(double hours)
      hours = hours;
   } // end method sethours
   // get hours
   public double gethours()
      return hours;
   } // end method gethours
   // set employee name
   public void setemployeeName(String employeeName)
      employeeName = employeeName;
   } // end method setemployeeName
   // get employee name
   public String getemployeeName()
      return employeeName;
   } // end method getemployeeName
   // calculate and return weekly pay
   public double calculateWeeklyPay()
      return rate * hours; // display multiplied value of rate and hours
   } // end method calculateWeeklyPay
} // end class Employee1...and modified the original program:
// Payroll Program Part 3
// Employee1 object used in an application
import java.util.Scanner; // program uses class Scanner
public class Payroll3
   // main method begins execution of Java application
   public static void main( String args[] )
      // create and initialize an Employee1 object     
      Employee1 employee = new Employee1(); // invokes Employee1 constructor
      employee.setrate();
      employee.sethours();
      Double weeklyPay = employee.calculateWeeklyPay();
      // create Scanner to obtain input from command window
      Scanner input = new Scanner( System.in );
      String employeeName = ""; // employee name to display
      Double rate; // first number to multiply
      Double hours; // second number to multiply
      Double weeklyPay; // product of rate and hours
      // loop until 'stop' read from user
      while( employeeName.equals("stop") )
         System.out.print( "Enter employee name or 'stop' to quit: "); // prompt
         employeeName = input.next (); // read employee name from user
         System.out.print( "Enter hourly rate: " ); // prompt
         rate = input.nextDouble(); // read first number from user
         // check if hourly rate is positive number
         if( rate <= 0 )
            System.out.print( "Enter a positive amount" );
            System.out.print( "Enter hourly rate: " ); // prompt
            rate = input.nextDouble(); // read first number from user
         } // end if
         System.out.print( "Enter hours worked: " ); // prompt
         hours = input.nextDouble(); // read second number from user
         // check if hours worked is positive number
         if( hours <= 0 )
            System.out.print( "Enter a positive amount" );
            System.out.print( "Enter hours worked: " ); // prompt
            hours = input.nextDouble(); // read second number from user
         } // end if
         weeklyPay = rate * hours; // multiply numbers
         System.out.printf( "Employee \n", employeeName); // display employee name
         System.out.printf( "Weekly pay is $%d\n", weeklyPay ); // display weekly pay
      } // end while
   } // end method main
} // end class Payroll3I managed to compile the separate class just fine, but when I tried to compile Payroll3 I got these [three error messages|http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/3919/commandpromptrl9.jpg].
I think I have an idea of what I did wrong, but I'm not sure what to change. I tried to emulate the code from some examples in my chapters and online but I'm a little in the dark about how these to files are actually supposed to work together.
Also, the requirements say the program should end when 'stop' is entered as the employee name, I don't know if that applies to what I already have in Payroll3 or if I should use a sentinel controlled loop again in Employee1. I tried that and I got a whole host of error messages (probably did it wrong) so I just removed it.
I'm going to play around with this a little more, I'm reluctant to change anything in my separate class since I managed to compile it, so I'm going to try some different things with Payroll3.
If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it, I'm a total newbie here so don't hesitate to state the obvious, it might not be so obvious to me (sorry for the lengthy post).
Edited by: Melchior727 on Apr 22, 2008 11:21 AM
Edited by: Melchior727 on Apr 22, 2008 11:23 AM

Answer 1

employee.setrate();
employee.sethours();First of all, your Employee1 class' setrate() and sethours() method both requires a parameter of type double.
// loop until 'stop' read from user
while( employeeName.equals("stop") )
System.out.print( "Enter employee name or 'stop' to quit: "); // prompt
employeeName = input.next (); // read employee name from userIf you want the while loop to stop when "stop" is entered, then change the condition to:
while (!(employeeName.equals("stop))){code}
This way the loop will perform whatever you tell it to do when it's NOT "stop".
Also, take the prompt statements and paste them once outside the while loop, and a second time at the end of the loop:
<example>
== prompt for reply
== while()
== {
== ....
== prompt again
== }
<example>
Fix those problems first and see how it goes