Overloads

I want to be able to create a new Student in my TeacherGradebook program. My Student class has lots of fields like .FirstName, .MiddleName, .LastName, .HomePhone, .WorkPhone, .Grade(Quarter,GradeIndex).Value, etc.

I'm thinking about using a collection of students (rather than a static-sized array)

When I create a new Student, I'd like to do something like this....
dim s as new Student = {"Joe","Bob","Jones",,,,,} 'or whatever the correct syntax is

Do I need to do Overloads in a New sub within my Student Class or what?

You just put parameters into the New method and then set those parameters equal to the values.

So, say your student has properties called FirstName, LastName and Grade and you want to populate those when you create the object.

The syntax would be like:

vb Code:

Public Class Student
 
    private _firstName as String
    private _lastName as String
    private _grade as Integer
 
    Public Sub New(pFName as String, pLName as String, pGrade as String)
 
        _firstName = pFName
        _lastName = pLName
        _grade = pGrade
    End Sub
 
    Public Property FirstName as String
        Get
            Return _firstName
        End Get
        Set (value as String)
            _firstName = value
        End Set
    End Property
 
    Public Property LastName as String
        Get
            Return _lastName
        End Get
        Set (value as String)
            _lastName = value
        End Set
    End Property
 
    Public Property Grade as Integer
        Get
            Return _grade
        End Get
        Set (value as Integer)
            _grade= value
        End Set
    End Property
 
End Class

Then to create it, you'd do:

vb Code:

Dim s as New Student("Bob", "Jones", 75)

What version of .NET is your program written in?

One of the cool new features in .NET 3.5 is object initilizers, which means you don't need to overload the constructor just to create a class with specific values from the start.

This can be BETTER than created an overloaded constructor, because you can specify any number of public properties in the class to set.

In VB9 (2008) this statement is valid, and creates a new student object, with the first and last name values set..

Code:

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Dim myStudent As New Student With {.firstName = "Bob", .lastName = "Smith"}

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You can write a function that take an array of student names and returns a collection of Student objects. Pretty simple. Something like this:

Code:

---

Public Shared CreateStudentList(ByVal studentNames() As String) As List(Of Student)
    Dim studentList As New List(Of Student)
    For Each name As String in studentNames
        studentList.Add(New Student(name))
    Next
    Return studentList
End Function

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