Question

What I am trying to do is get the UserID to generate random values based on the type of class it is the userID should be generated from person.cs.
For example the student class generates a student id and a random number the staff class is supposed to generate a staff id and a random number, the issue I am having is getting any userID sample data to show up at all in the console output, I don’t get any data to show up for the userID can anyone help me.

Here’s the links requested to view the code

Person.cs

PersonTest.cs

Student.cs

Staff.cs

Faculty.cs

Person.cs

public class Person
{
    static string title;
    protected string firstName;
    protected string lastName;
    protected string address;
    protected string gender;
    protected string dateOfBirth;
    protected string userID;
    protected Random rnd = new Random();
    // constructors
    public Person()
    {

    }//end default constructor

    public Person(string aTitle, string aFirstName, string aLastName, string aAddress,
        string aGender, string aDateOfBirth)
    {
        title = aTitle;
        firstName = aFirstName;
        lastName = aLastName;
        address = aAddress;
        gender = aGender;
        dateOfBirth = aDateOfBirth;
        Console.WriteLine( this.DisplayInfo() );

        //create userID


        Console.WriteLine(userID);

        this.DisplayInfo();
    }//end 6-parameter constructor

Just Added

public string DisplayInfo()
    {
        return " You have created the person " + firstName + lastName +"\n whose address is" + address + "\n" + " whos is a " + gender + " and was born on " + dateOfBirth;
    }//end method DisplayInfo

Staff.cs student.cs has the same data for now

  public class Staff : Person
    {
        public Staff(string aTitle, string aFirstName, string aLastName, string aAddress,
           string aGender, string aDateOfBirth)
            : base(aTitle, aFirstName, aLastName, aAddress,
                    aGender, aDateOfBirth)
        {

           this.userID = firstName.Substring(0, 1) + lastName.Substring(0, 5);

           this.userID = this.userID + this.rnd.Next(1000, 9999);


        }

PersonTest.cs

  public class PersonTest
    {
       static void Main(string[] args) 
      { 
            Person testPerson = new Student("Mr.", "Merry ", "Lanes", " 493 Bluebane RD", "Male", " 8-06-1953 ");


            Person studentPerson = new Person("Mr.", "Jerry ", "Panes", " 493 Bluebane RD", "Male", " 8-06-1953 "); 

            // THIS DATA SHOWS UP BUT NOT THE USERID



            Console.ReadLine();
        }//end main

Answer 1

OK, this turns out to be a question about the sequence of constructors.

The base-class constructor(s) are always called first. You can somehow see that in the syntax of a derived class, the call to the base ctor happens between the parameter list and the derived body.

we have:

public class Person(....)
{
    protected string userID;

    public Person(....)
    {
      //create userID   //no, print it
      Console.WriteLine(userID);
    }
}

public class Staff : Person
{
    public Staff(...)
      : base(....)         // now it is printed
    {
       this.userID = ...;  // and now it is filled
    } 
}

Btw, using a random number for ID is questionable. Use a (static ounter) to generate 0,1,2,3 and you have zero chance of a collision. Regardless of the prefix.