Java ArrayList Shopping Cart Challenge

Introduction

Welcome to JavaMart, the most advanced e-commerce platform in the programming world! As a newly hired junior developer, your first task is to help implement a crucial feature for the online store: a dynamic shopping cart system.

The lead developer has already set up the basic structure of the shopping cart using an ArrayList. Your mission is to complete the implementation by adding the functionality to remove items from the cart. This feature is essential for providing a smooth shopping experience for JavaMart's customers.

Are you ready to take on this challenge and help JavaMart revolutionize online shopping? Let's start coding!

Skills Graph

Complete the Shopping Cart Implementation

This exercise will immerse you in a common real-world programming scenario: managing a digital shopping cart. You'll be working on a crucial feature of e-commerce platforms, honing your skills in data structure manipulation and error handling. By completing this task, you'll gain practical experience in creating robust and user-friendly software components. Let's dive in and make our virtual shopping experience smoother!

Tasks

• Open the pre-created file ShoppingCart.java in the ~/project directory.
• Find the TODO comment in the code.
• Implement the removeItem method to remove an item from the shopping cart.

Requirements

• The file ShoppingCart.java should already exist in the ~/project directory.
• Complete the removeItem method:
  • It should remove the item at the specified index from the items ArrayList.
  • If the index is invalid (less than 0 or greater than or equal to the size of the list), it should print "Invalid index" and not modify the list.
• Do not modify any other parts of the code.

Example

When completed correctly, running the main method should produce output similar to this:

cd ~/project
javac ShoppingCart.java
java ShoppingCart

Sample Output:

Items in cart: [Laptop, Mouse, Keyboard]
Removing item at index 1
Items in cart after removal: [Laptop, Keyboard]
Removing item at invalid index
Invalid index
Items in cart after invalid removal: [Laptop, Keyboard]

Summary

In this challenge, you've implemented a crucial feature of a shopping cart system using an ArrayList in Java. This exercise reinforced key concepts from your Java Arrays and ArrayLists lab:

1. Working with ArrayLists: You used the remove method of ArrayList to delete an item at a specific index.
2. Input validation: You checked whether the given index is valid before attempting to remove an item.
3. Conditional statements: You used an if-else statement to handle different scenarios (valid vs. invalid index).

By completing this challenge, you've not only practiced these fundamental Java skills but also created a practical feature that's common in many real-world applications. Shopping carts are a core component of e-commerce platforms, and the ability to add and remove items is essential for a good user experience.

Remember, ArrayLists are very versatile and offer many useful methods beyond add and remove. As you continue your journey at JavaMart, you might enhance this shopping cart with features like:

• Finding items by name instead of index
• Keeping track of item quantities
• Calculating the total cost of items in the cart

Keep practicing and experimenting with your code. The more you work with ArrayLists and other Java collections, the more comfortable you'll become with manipulating data in your programs. Welcome to the world of e-commerce development at JavaMart!