Problem with adding objects to a collection

Question

Hi
Been using this forum for a couple of years now to help me with my code, but it's the first time that I've had a problem which I couldn't find the answer for!
I'm trying to create two classes one called Reminder and one called Engagement. The Reminder class needs to hold a list of Engagement objects, but whenever I add a new Engagement object to the ArrayList I have created in Reminder and try to retreive it I get a null value.
If anyone can give me an idea of where I have gone wrong that would be most helpful,
Thank you in advance,
Steve
Code:
package reminder;
import java.util.*;
public class Reminder{
    private GregorianCalendar date       = null;
    private String            reason     = null;
    private Engagement        engagement = null;
    private List<Engagement>  appointments;
    private int year = 0;
    private int month = 0;
    private int day = 0;
    public Reminder() { //the constructor
        appointments = new ArrayList<Engagement>();
    } //end constructor
    public void add(int d, int m, int y, String r){ //this method takes an engagement object and adds it to the list
    //public void add(Engagement engagement){
        day   = d;
        month = m;
        year  = y;
        reason = r;
        appointments.add(new Engagement (new GregorianCalendar(y,m,d), reason));
        System.out.println(day + "-" + month + "-" + year);//(new Engagement (date, reason));
        appointments.add(new Engagement(new GregorianCalendar(2008,4,2), "My first appointment"));
        System.out.println("\nThere are this number of items in the list: " + appointments.size()); //this was to check the item was added
    public void getAppointments(){
        //private int arrayPosition = 0;
        //Iterator it = appointments.iterator();
        for (Iterator it = appointments.iterator(); it.hasNext();){
            System.out.println(it.next());//.appointments.toString());
            //it.next();
package reminder;
import java.util.*;
import reminder.*;
public class Engagement{
    private GregorianCalendar date = null;
    private String reason = null;
    /** Creates a new instance of Engagement */
    public Engagement(GregorianCalendar d, String r) {
        date   = d;
        reason = r;
    public String getReason() {
        System.out.println(reason);
        return null;
public class Main { //main class to test the other classes
    /** Creates a new instance of Main */
     * @param args the command line arguments
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Reminder reminderList = new Reminder(); //create an instance of Reminder
        reminderList.add(2,4,2008, "My first appointment");
        reminderList.add(6,10,2009, "My second appointment");
        reminderList.add(2,4,2007, "My third appointment");
        reminderList.getAppointments();
}

Answer 1

Hi Guys
Just wanted to let you know that I have realised where I went wrong, if you look in the Engagement class there is a method called toString(); which just has a return value of null, that is why I was getting the null values!
Sorry for wasting your time, it took me three hours to realise why it wasn't working before I contacted you and about an hour after I posted I realised what the problem was.
One other thing... why is reminderList bad naming? I was going to call the instance reminder but because the class holds a list of objects I thought I'd call it reminderList..
Thanks
Steve