java-exercism-exercises/bird-watcher

Bird Watcher

Welcome to Bird Watcher on Exercism's Java Track. If you need help running the tests or submitting your code, check out HELP.md. If you get stuck on the exercise, check out HINTS.md, but try and solve it without using those first :)

Introduction

In Java, data structures that can hold zero or more elements are known as collections. An array is a collection that has a fixed size/length and whose elements must all be of the same type. Elements can be assigned to an array or retrieved from it using an index. Java arrays are zero-based, meaning that the first element's index is always zero:

// Declare array with explicit size (size is 2)
int[] twoInts = new int[2];

// Assign second element by index
twoInts[1] = 8;

// Retrieve the second element by index and assign to the int element
int element = twoInts[1];

Arrays can also be defined using a shortcut notation that allows you to both create the array and set its value. As the compiler can now tell how many elements the array will have, the length can be omitted:

// Two equivalent ways to declare and initialize an array (size is 3)
int[] threeIntsV1 = new int[] { 4, 9, 7 };
int[] threeIntsV2 = { 4, 9, 7 };

Arrays can be manipulated by either calling an array instance's methods or properties, or by using the static methods defined in the Arrays class.

The fact that an array is also a collection means that, besides accessing values by index, you can iterate over all its values using a foreach loop:

char[] vowels = { 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' };

for(char vowel:vowels) {
    // Output the vowel
    System.out.print(vowel);
}

// => aeiou

If you want more control over which values to iterate over, a for loop can be used:

char[] vowels = { 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' };

for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
    // Output the vowel
    System.out.print(vowels[i]);
}

// => aei

Instructions

You're an avid bird watcher that keeps track of how many birds have visited your garden in the last seven days.

You have six tasks, all dealing with the numbers of birds that visited your garden.

1. Check what the counts were last week

For comparison purposes, you always keep a copy of last week's counts nearby, which were: 0, 2, 5, 3, 7, 8 and 4. Implement the BirdWatcher.getLastWeek() method that returns last week's counts:

BirdWatcher.getLastWeek();
// => [0, 2, 5, 3, 7, 8, 4]

2. Check how many birds visited today

Implement the BirdWatcher.getToday() method to return how many birds visited your garden today. The bird counts are ordered by day, with the first element being the count of the oldest day, and the last element being today's count.

int[] birdsPerDay = { 2, 5, 0, 7, 4, 1 };
BirdWatcher birdCount = new BirdWatcher(birdsPerDay);
birdCount.getToday();
// => 1

3. Increment today's count

Implement the BirdWatcher.incrementTodaysCount() method to increment today's count:

int[] birdsPerDay = { 2, 5, 0, 7, 4, 1 };
BirdWatcher birdCount = new BirdWatcher(birdsPerDay);
birdCount.incrementTodaysCount();
birdCount.getToday();
// => 2

4. Check if there was a day with no visiting birds

Implement the BirdWatcher.hasDayWithoutBirds() method that returns true if there was a day at which zero birds visited the garden; otherwise, return false:

int[] birdsPerDay = { 2, 5, 0, 7, 4, 1 };
BirdWatcher birdCount = new BirdWatcher(birdsPerDay);
birdCount.hasDayWithoutBirds();
// => true

5. Calculate the number of visiting birds for the first number of days

Implement the BirdWatcher.getCountForFirstDays() method that returns the number of birds that have visited your garden from the start of the week, but limit the count to the specified number of days from the start of the week.

int[] birdsPerDay = { 2, 5, 0, 7, 4, 1 };
BirdWatcher birdCount = new BirdWatcher(birdsPerDay);
birdCount.getCountForFirstDays(4);
// => 14

6. Calculate the number of busy days

Some days are busier that others. A busy day is one where five or more birds have visited your garden. Implement the BirdWatcher.getBusyDays() method to return the number of busy days:

int[] birdsPerDay = { 2, 5, 0, 7, 4, 1 };
BirdWatcher birdCount = new BirdWatcher(birdsPerDay);
birdCount.getBusyDays();
// => 2

Source

Created by

• @samuelteixeiras
• @ystromm