How can I call boolean return value into other method?

Question

class DirectMappedCache extends Cache {

    private int logLineSize;    //log_2 of the number of bytes per cache line
    private int logNumLines;    //log_2 of the number of cache lines
    private TreeMap<String, CacheSlot> tmap; 



    public DirectMappedCache(int logLineSize, int logNumLines) {
    //constructor that takes lengths of different fields
        this.logLineSize = logLineSize;
        this.logNumLines = logNumLines;
        tmap = new TreeMap<String, CacheSlot>(); 
    }





public boolean read(String addr) {

    System.out.println("Read from address " + addr + ": ");
    String tag = addr.substring(0,9); 
    String slotnumber = addr.substring(9,13);
    String offset = addr.substring(13,16); 


    if(tmap.containsKey(slotnumber)){
        CacheSlot temp = tmap.get(slotnumber); 
        if(temp.valid){
            if(tag.equals(temp.tag)){ 
                return true; 

            }

        }

    } 
        CacheSlot put = new CacheSlot(); 
        put.valid = true; 
        put.tag = tag; 
        tmap.put(slotnumber, put); 



    return false;
    }




 public int numHits(){

        int HitCounter = 0; 
            if(read(addr)){ 
            return HitCounter++; 

        }


        return 0; 
    }
}

I am making a Cache Simulator but I don't think my numHits() is working because the way I'm calling the value is wrong.

Answer 1

The problem is not the way you call the read() method. Your numHits() method always returns 0 because you return the value of a local variable, which is always initialized to 0.

numHits() would only make sense if HitCounter becomes an instance variable :

private int HitCounter = 0;
public int numHits(){
    if(read(addr)){ // you should replace addr with some variable that you actually declare
        return ++HitCounter; 
    }
    return 0; 
}

I also changed return HitCounter++ to return ++HitCounter , since post increment operator ( return HitCounter++ ) will return the old value of HitCounter instead of the incremented value.

EDIT : Another issue is that you pass to read a variable that isn't declared anywhere. You should decide what you want to pass to that method.