Using "boolean status" to prohibit a function from being performed!?

Question

Hey guys,
Hope you can help me with this, shouldn't be so hard but I just can't find a way to do it. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong but what?
(Bear in mind that I pretty much just started JAVA)
What I'm trying to do is the following:
1.The end-user presses a button in a Window. (doesn't matter in which.)
2. When the button is pressed, the boolean variable "status" should become "false", preventing the function ACTION from being performed. (Disables the whole function so that it simply doesn't happening.)
This is how I have attempted to solve the problem. (This is a simplified example, of course)
boolean status = false; // globally defined variable that will disable a function to be performed
if(ABUTTON) // if this button is pressed
status = false; // if the button is pressed, the boolean status is supposed to become false, hindering an "ACTION" to perform (see below.)
return status; // return the new status (false) to the globally defined boolean. (im not sure if I can do this!?)
Function ACTION // this is the function that should be dependent of the boolean value of the status.
if (status == true) // perform the task ONLY if status is true, hence: if the end-user has NOT pressed the "BUTTON."
Do this... // if status = true, do this crap
else
do nothing. // else, don't do it.
The error i get when doing this is: "Cannot return a value from method whose result type is void"
Any idea how to solve this?
Thanks!

Answer 1

mik3l wrote:
What I'm trying to do is the following:
1.The end-user presses a button in a Window. (doesn't matter in which.)
2. When the button is pressed, the boolean variable "status" should become "false", preventing the function ACTION from being performed. (Disables the whole function so that it simply doesn't happening.)
The error i get when doing this is: "Cannot return a value from method whose result type is void"It looks like you are focusing on the wrong problem. The error has little or nothing to do with the logic of your program.
Let's say I have a method declared like this
private void takeAction() When you declare a method using void it means that the method does not return any value. So if you have a statement inside the method that returns a value, the compiler says that's a no-no. So, you either need to change the method declaration to the type of return value, or you need to remove the line(s) that return a value.