Referencing a variable

Question

A bit of a stupid question i guess but if i have a variable declared in one class,how do i reference it in another class.
Example - I have created a text area in one class and i want another class to be able to reference this text area,thanks

Answer 1

A bit of a stupid question i guess but if i have a
variable declared in one class,how do i reference it
in another class.
Example - I have created a text area in one
class and i want another class to be able to
reference this text area,thanksYou pass this other class a reference to your text area. Where or how you pass it is up to you; it could be as a method or a constructor argument of the other class.
<pseudo>
class OneClass {
    private JTextField myTextField;
    public JTextField getThatTextField() {
        return myTextField;
class OtherClass {
    public OtherClass(JTextField text) {
        myText = text;
    public void someMethod() {
        myText.setText("Look here! I did this!");
OneClass one = new OneClass();
OtherClass other = new OtherClass(one.getThatTextField());
other.someMethod();Many variations are possible; you could construct your OtherClass with a OneClass and inside use the getter to get to the text field...
I suggest you give it a go, perhaps try some variantions to see which suits best in your concrete situation. If you run into a concrete problem, feel free to post the code you have (in [ code ] tags) along with a specific and complete description of the issue.
Additionally, it would probably do you good to read some tutorials indeed; google will help you. Search for "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel (free download); it's one of the best beginner's texts IMHO.