Inheritance exercises

1. A Bank

   Look at the Account class Account.java and write a main method in a different class to briefly experiment with some instances of the Account class.
   
   
   • Using the Account class as a base class, write two derived classes called SavingsAccount and CurrentAccount. A SavingsAccount object, in addition to the attributes of an Account object, should have an interest variable and a method which adds interest to the account. A CurrentAccount object, in addition to the attributes of an Account object, should have an overdraft limit variable. Ensure that you have overridden methods of the Account class as necessary in both derived classes.
   • Now create a Bank class, an object of which contains an array of Account objects. Accounts in the array could be instances of the Account class, the SavingsAccount class, or the CurrentAccount class. Create some test accounts (some of each type).
   • Write an update method in the bank class. It iterates through each account, updating it in the following ways: Savings accounts get interest added (via the method you already wrote); CurrentAccounts get a letter sent if they are in overdraft.
   • The Bank class requires methods for opening and closing accounts, and for paying a dividend into each account.

   Hints:

   • Note that the balance of an account may only be modified through the deposit(double) and withdraw(double) methods.
   • The Account class should not need to be modified at all.
   • Be sure to test what you have done after each step.
     
     
     

2. Employees

   Create a class called Employee whose objects are records for an employee. This class will be a derived class of the class Person which you will have to copy into a file of your own and compile. An employee record has an employee's name (inherited from the class Person), an annual salary represented as a single value of type double, a year the employee started work as a single value of type int and a national insurance number, which is a value of type String.
   
   Your class should have a reasonable number of constructors and accessor methods, as well as an equals method. Write another class containing a main method to fully test your class definition.

© 2001 Mark Ryan and Alan Sexton