Pls need some help! the Boss constructor underfind... why?

Question

public class Boss extends Employee {

    public static final String DEFAULT_DEP_NAME = "NONE_PROVIDED ";

    private String depName;
    //no arg constructor

    public Boss(){
        this(DEFAULT_DEP_NAME);
    }
    public Boss(String depName){
        this(depName,DEFAULT_FIRST_NAME,DEFAULT_SURNAME,DEFAULT_AGE,new Address());
    }
    public Boss(String firstName,
            String surname, int age, Address address,String depName){
        super(firstName, surname, age, address);
        this.depName=depName;

    }
    public String getDepName() {
        return depName;
    }
    public void setDepName(String depName) {
        this.depName = depName;
    }
    public String toString() {
        return super.toString() + "[" + "Departament Name:" + this.depName +

                "]";
    }

    public String describeRole() {
        return "Boss ";
    }
}

Vulpes · Answer

This is an example of 'constructor chaining' in Java. If the user calls Boss's parameterless constructor, then this calls the constructor (using the 'this' keyword) which takes a String argument passing it the constant, DEFAULT_DEP_NAME. This constructor in turn calls the constructor which takes 5 arguments passing it depName (i.e. DEFAULT_DEP_NAME), DEFAULT_FIRST_NAME,DEFAULT_SURNAME,DEFAULT_AGE and a new Address object. Incidentally, this constructor chain won't work as it stands because DEFAULT_FIRST_NAME, DEFAULT_SURNAME and DEFAULT_AGE don't appear to be defined anywhere (though they may be defined in the Employee class) and the arguments are not being passed in the correct order. However, ignoring that for now, you'll see that it's the constructor which takes 5 arguments which does the actual work. First of all, it calls the base class constructor (using the 'super' keyword) with 4 arguments. Secondly, it sets the depName field of the Boss class to the value of the 'depName' argument.

Alex · Answer

Thanx very much! All clear and my mistakes fixed.