Why can't I pass an argument into a toString() method and why does it give a null?

Question

In the parent class, I have this:

public String toString(String employeetype) {
    return super.toString() + "\n" + employeetype + employeeno + " Hired on: "
    + DateFormat.getDateInstance().format(datehired) + " ";
}

and in the child classes, I have these two:

public String toString() {
    return super.toString("SalariedEmployee") + "[salary= " + this.pay() + "]";
}
public String toString() {
    return super.toString("HourlyEmployee") + "[salary= " + this.pay() + "]";
}

When I call them, they print out:

Person [name=John Doe, ssno=012345678, gender=Male]
SalariedEmployeenull Hired on: Feb 25, 2014 [salary= $0.0 Per Week]
Person [name=John Doe, ssno=012345678, gender=Male]
HourlyEmployeenull Hired on: Feb 25, 2014 [salary= $0.0 Per Hour from ]

So why does say SalariedEmployeenull and HourlyEmployeeNull instead of SalariedEmployee and HourlyEmployee? Is there a way to fix this while keeping the code in this format? If not, why can't I pass as an argument? I'd like to know how it works. Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

So why does say SalariedEmployeenull and HourlyEmployeeNull instead of SalariedEmployee and HourlyEmployee?

Because employeeno is null . And to make your output clearer, there should be a space between it and employeetype .

Why is employeeno null? We can't know until you give us some more information.