c# confused.. bigginer

shadowcodes · November 20th, 2006, 02:55 PM

hi guys i was using wrox professional c# ebook to learn c#.. and i came across the following code in the ebook

Code:

public class Nevermore60Customer : GenericCustomer
   {
      private uint highCostMinutesUsed;
      public override void RecordCall(TypeOfCall callType, uint nMinutes)
      {
         switch (callType)
         {
            case TypeOfCall.CallToLandline:
               balance += (0.02M * nMinutes);
               break;
            case TypeOfCall.CallToCellPhone:
         uint highCostMinutes, lowCostMinutes;
         uint highCostMinutesToGo = 
            (highCostMinutesUsed < 60) ? 60 - highCostMinutesUsed : 0;
         if (nMinutes > highCostMinutesToGo)
         {
            highCostMinutes = highCostMinutesToGo;
            lowCostMinutes = nMinutes - highCostMinutes;
         }
         else
         {
            highCostMinutes = nMinutes;
            lowCostMinutes = 0;
         }
         highCostMinutesUsed += highCostMinutes;
         balance += (0.50M * highCostMinutes + 0.20M * 
            lowCostMinutes);
         break;
            default:
               break;

and i want to knw what is the use of

private uint highCostMinutesUsed;

i mean how do we set the initial value for that n calculation please explain the logic of the use of the above field

(highCostMinutesUsed < 60) ? 60 - highCostMinutesUsed : 0;

what is the use of above code also???

woodyz · November 21st, 2006, 11:40 AM

1 - by the name, it appears that highCostMinutesUsed contains the number of high cost minutes that have been used by a caller over a number of calls. Other than that, I am sure the book must explain the purpose of this code.

2 - In the code, each time RecordCall is invoked with a call type of CallToCellPhone the highCostMinutesUsed variable increased by the number of minutes calculated for the purpose in the conditional block starting with "If (nMinutes > highCostMinutesToGo)"

3 - The initial value for highCostMinutesUsed is 0 when the class is instantiated.

4 - The line "(highCostMinutesUsed < 60) ? 60 - highCostMinutesUsed : 0;" uses a construct called a Conditional Operator, which is the question mark character: "?". It returns one of two values depending on the value of a Boolean expression. The Boolean expression is what comed before the question mark - and must resolve to true or false, the two values follow the question mark and are separated by the colon. If the boolean expression resolves to true, the first value is returned by the operator, and if it resolves to false, the second value is returned.expression of the following

5 - I don't know the purpose of the code beyond what the code is named: It changes some internal varialbs and returns a uint value as an operation named "RecordCall".

Woody Z http://www.learntoprogramnow.com

shadowcodes · November 21st, 2006, 03:36 PM

but for each instance of the class

uint highCostMinutesToGo =
(highCostMinutesUsed < 60) ? 60 - highCostMinutesUsed : 0;

dis would be alwayz true right??? coz its alwayz 0 when its initializing

woodyz · November 21st, 2006, 06:33 PM

Yes and no. Yes that for each instance the highCostMinutesUsed will be initialized to zero, but as you make multiple calls to the RecordCall on that instance, the result will eventually by greater than 60 - so no, it won't always be true. It will only always be true if you always make only a single call to the RecordCall method for each instance of the object that you create.

We know that this is just sample code, and the use in the sample application isn't typical of how you might use this sort of thing in a real application. As far as the code goes, they probably intend that you would instantiate the class and then make some calls on this method to see how it works. In a production app you would be persisting the data to a data store, such as a database table, and retrieving it the next time you work with the customer.

Woody Z http://www.learntoprogramnow.com