Programming Assignment: Thing Class

Goal: To represent an object in Java

Problem Description

You will be writing programs to manage collections of "things" where you get to choose the "thing" in the collection. Since you will be reusing your $$Thing$$ class across more than one program, please choose something that interests you.

Thing Class

Create a Thing class. The Thing class will be Movie. Your Thing class must have the following characteristics:

$1.$Include at least $3$ private instance variables $($fields$)$ such that:

o the first instance variable must be of type String and this variable will be used as a search key

$-$ the second instance variable must be integer $($i$.$e$.,$ int$)$ and this variable will be used to find aggregate information about Things that are stored in a collection class as will be explained later

$-$ the third variable must be of type boolean

$2.$ Implement a three$-$arguments constructor for your Thing class. The arguments must be in the order $($String$,$ int, boolean$).$

$3.$ Implement getters and setters for all the attributes of your Thing.

$4.$Implement a toString$()$ method that returns a String representation of your Thing where all the instance variables are in one line and separated by tabs

$5.$Implement the equals$()$ method for your Thing where two Things are considered equal when they have the same search key. Note that, the equality of String attributes should be case insensitive. For example, $$MATH$,$math$$ and $$Math$$ match each other. In order to compare strings in Java use the String's equalsIgnoreCase$()$ method. For example, the following code should print true:

String str$1=$ "Hello";

String str$2=$ "hello";

System.out.println$($str$1.$equalsIgnoreCase$($str$2))$;

$6.$Implement the compareTo$()$ method for your Thing. compareTo$()$ returns

$-$ a negative number when the invoking object's search key is less than the parameter's search key

$-0$ when the two search keys are equal

$-$ a positive number when the invoking object's search key is greater than the parameter's search key

For example, "ant".compareTo$("$bat$")$ will return a negative number. Your compareTo$()$ method must compare two Things. Note that the comparison of String attributes should be case insensitive. For example, $$MATH$,$math$$ and $$Math$$ must match each other.