Trying to write Event or Action Listener

Question

I believe what I am trying to write is an Event Listener (it may be the case that I want to be writing an entirely different type of class), but I don't seem to be having any success.
I currently have two classes that I want to establish a Listener (whether it be Action or Event, I don't know) relationship between.
One of the classes (class Container) has a container (let's say a Vector for simplicity) and throughout the program's lifetime I add elements to the container. Therefore, I have a generic addElement method in class Container. And lets say I have another class (class ContainerListener). I want class ContainerListener to know whenever class Container's method addElement is called.
So I thought I could make them ActionListeners or something and class ContainerListener could be informed whenever class Container add's an element to its container.
This is where I got with the Container class:
package com.timCassidy.misc;
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class Container implements ActionListener{
private Vector m_vectorOfElements;
/** Creates new Container */
public Container() {
m_vectorOfElements = new Vector();
public void addElement (String _text){
m_vectorOfElements.addElement (_text);
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println ("this shouldn't be getting called as I haven't registered this object with any other object as a listener");
public static void main (String [] args){
And this is where I got with the ContainerListener class:
package com.timCassidy.misc;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class ContainerListener implements ActionListener{
/** Creates new ContainerListener */
public ContainerListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println ("an element has been added to the container");
public static void main (String [] args){
ContainerListener containerListener = new ContainerListener();
com.timCassidy.misc.Container container = new com.timCassidy.misc.Container();
container.addActionListener (containerListener);
container.addElement ("tim");
This is the compiler error I get:
com/timCassidy/misc/ContainerListener.java [21:1] cannot resolve symbol
symbol : method addActionListener (com.timCassidy.misc.ContainerListener)
location: class com.timCassidy.misc.Container
container.addActionListener (containerListener);
^
I assume this problem stems from the fact that my Container class doesn't implement/extend some class that has the method ActionPerformed in it???
Can someone tell me how to fix these classes or just the Container class if that is all that is necessary.
Thanks,
Tim

Answer 1

This seems to work, what do you think:
package com.timCassidy.misc;
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class Container implements ActionListener{
private Vector m_vectorOfElements;
private Vector m_registeredListeners;
/** Creates new Container */
public Container() {
m_vectorOfElements = new Vector();
m_registeredListeners = new Vector();
public void addElement (String _text){
m_vectorOfElements.addElement (_text);
for (int i = 0;i < m_registeredListeners.size();i++){
ActionListener listener = (ActionListener)m_registeredListeners.elementAt(i);
listener.actionPerformed(new ActionEvent(this,0,"blah"));
public void addActionListener(Object _class) {
if (_class instanceof ContainerListener){
m_registeredListeners.addElement(_class);
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println ("this shouldn't be getting called as I haven't registered this object with any other object as a listener");
public static void main (String [] args){