Cannot make a non-static reference

Question

A user enters a guess, which is originally a string, and now I'm trying to convert that string into an array of integers, the error is saying that I cannot make a non-static reference. I don't want to make the 'userGuess' variable static, so any other option?

Player Class

import java.util.Scanner;
public class Player 
{
    public int fastestWin, gamesCompleted=1;
    public String name, setName;
    public String userGuess;

    Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);

    public String getName()
    {
        System.out.print("Enter the player's name: ");
        return name = keyboard.nextLine();
    }

    public void setName()
    {
        getName();
        setName = name;
    }

    public String askForGuess()
    {
        System.out.print("Enter your guess: ");
        return  userGuess = keyboard.nextLine();
    }

    public void gamesCount()
    {
        gamesCompleted++;
    }
}

Engine Class

import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Engine 
{
    public int numDigits, numDigitsSet;
    public int i;
    public int[] secretNumber, userGuessArray;
    public Random randomNumberGenerator;
    public String guessConvert = Player.userGuess;  //Made new variable 'guessConvert'                   
                                                    //getting error here for static reference
    Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);

    public void setNumDigits()
    {
        numDigitsSet = numDigits;
    }

    public int getNumDigits()
    {
        System.out.print("Enter the number of digits to use: ");
        return numDigits = sc.nextInt();
    }

    public void generateNewSecret()
    {
        Random rand = new Random();{
            for (int i=0; i<numDigitsSet; i++)
            {
                secretNumber[i]= rand.nextInt(10);
                System.out.println("" + secretNumber[i]);

            }
        }
    }

    public int[] getSecretNumber()
    {
        for (int j=0; j<secretNumber.length; j++)
        {
            System.out.println("" + secretNumber[j]);
        }
        return secretNumber;
    }


    public void convertNumtoDigitArray(String guessConvert)  //Trying to convert guessConvert into an array
    {

        String[] userGuessSplit = guessConvert.split(",");
        int[] userGuessArray = new int[userGuessSplit.length];
        for (int j=0; j<userGuessSplit.length; j++)
        {
            userGuessArray[j] = Integer.parseInt(userGuessSplit[j]);
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Just make another member variable, like the others

public String guessConvert;

and set that variable in a constructor.

public Engine(Player player) {

    guessConvert = player.userGuess;

}

or in a Setter Method:

public void SetGuessConvert(Player player)
{
    guessConvert = player.userGuess;
}

You might want to hold a reference to that Player object as a member variable, if you need to refer to it elsewhere in your code.

Answer 2

The Engine object should have a reference to a Player object
and should call getUserGuess() on the Player object it points to.

Answer 3

It appears you have a class Player, which has a field userGuess that you say you don't want to make static. If you don't want to make it static, that means that userGuess is a field that belongs to each Player object; therefore, to access the field, you have to have a Player object to access the field. Player.userGuess will not work. It has to be p.userGuess where p is some Player object.

However, I can't help any further without knowing just where you want that Player object created, and how Engine is going to find out what that object is.

Answer 4

You could remove the userGuess String entirely; it doesn't seem necessary. You would then create a Player object and do guessConvert = pObject.askForGuess();