Question

What I am trying to do is sum up the impact values in Hazard Class

For example it will go through a list of occupants, find a hazard and get the impact amount from it. Then sum the total impact of all hazards and return that value to me.

Below I have the Cave class, Hazard class and Abstract Occupant class.

When adding a hazard to the cave, it becomes an occupant in the HashSet.
When trying to get the energy levels with the getImpact() method, the method cannot be accessed as it is in Hazard and not Occupant.

I have two other classes that also extend of Occupant. Player and Item.

I cannot find a way to keep the hazard as a Hazard class when adding to the HashSet so that getImpact() method can be used.

This also needs to cater for the other classes Player and Item when adding to the HashSet.

---

public class Cave {

HashSet<Occupant> occupants;
private double impact;

/**
 * Creat a new Cave instance with no occupants.
 */
public Cave() 
{
    occupants = new HashSet<Occupant>();
}

/**
 * Adds an occupant to a Cave if the occupant is not already there and
 * if cave currently has fewer than the maximum number of occupants.
 * @param occupant, the occupant to add
 * @return  true if successfully added
*/
public boolean addOccupant(Occupant occupant) {
    boolean validNewOccupant = occupant != null;
    boolean enoughRoom = occupants.size() < MAX_OCCUPANTS;
    if (validNewOccupant && enoughRoom) {
        validNewOccupant = occupants.add(occupant);
    }

    return validNewOccupant && enoughRoom;
}

/**
 * Gets the sum of the impact from all hazards in the cave
 * @returns hazardEnergyImpact
 */
public double getHazardEnergyImpacts(){
    double energyImpact = 0.0;
    for( Occupant occupant : occupants ){
        if(occupant.toString() == "!"){
            energyImpact += occupant.getImpact();
        }
    }
    return energyImpact;
}
}

---

public abstract class Occupant {

private Address address;
private String name;

/**
 * Construct an occupant for a known address & name.
 * @ param row, row of address  
 * @ param column, row of address.
 * @ param name, occupant's name
 */
public Occupant(Address address, String name) {
    this.address = address;
    this.name = name;
}

@Override
public String toString(){
    return "";
}
}

---

public class Hazard extends Occupant  {

private String longDescription;
private double impact;

/**
 * Construct a hazard with know attributes
 * @param row
 * @param column
 * @param name
 * @param longDescription
 * @param impact
 */
public Hazard(Address address, String name, String longDescription, double impact) {
    super(address, name);
    this.longDescription = longDescription;
    this.impact = impact;
}

@Override
public String toString(){
    return "!";
}

/**
 * gets impact amount
 * @returns impact
 */
public double getImpact(){
    return this.impact;
}
}

Answer 1

When iterating over your occupants you can check to see if each item is a Hazard like so:

for(Occupant occupant : occupants){
    if(occupant instanceof Hazard){
        Hazard hazard = (Hazard) occupant; // now it's safe to cast
        double impact = hazard.getImpact();
        // do what you want with impact
    }
}