Question

How would I return my x and y variable into main in order to perform the addition?
Thanks in advance for the help!

import java.util.Scanner;

public class calling {

    public static int x;
    public static int y;

    public static void num1() {
        Scanner scanner = new Scanner (System.in);
        System.out.println("Please enter a number: ");
        x=scanner.nextInt();    
    }

    public static void num2() {
        Scanner scanner = new Scanner (System.in);
        System.out.println("Please enter a second number: ");
        y=scanner.nextInt();    
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){     **//place to return variables.**

        num1();
        num2();
        System.out.print("The sum of the two numbers is: " + (x+y));
    }
}

Answer 1

You shouldn’t be using static data members or methods – those should only be used when the member of method applies to all instances of a class.

In this case the only static method should be main and that should only create a single instance of the current class. main should almost never do any real work – although in this trivial example I suppose an exception could be made.

You should ideally also only create a single Scanner object – the Scanner class is perfectly capable of reading a continuous stream of numbers without you needing to create a new one over and over for each number to be read.

In the code below I just create one and use it twice directly.

import java.util.Scanner;

public class calling {

    public calling() {
        Scanner scanner = new Scanner (System.in);

        System.out.print("Please enter a number: ");
        int x = scanner.nextInt();

        System.out.print("Please enter a second number: ");
        int y = scanner.nextInt();

        System.out.println("The sum of the two numbers is: " + (x + y));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new calling();
    }
}

Alternatively the scanner object could have been stored as a member variable, as in this example:

import java.util.Scanner;

public class calling {

    private Scanner scanner = null;

    private int getInt(String prompt) {
        System.out.print(prompt);
        return scanner.nextInt();
    }

    public calling() {
        scanner = new Scanner(System.in)
        int x = getInt("Please enter a number: ");
        int y = getInt("Please enter a second number: ");
        System.out.println("The sum of the two numbers is: " + (x + y));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new calling();
    }
}