Pennies for pay

The problem

Write a program that calculates the amount a person would earn over a period of time if his or her salary is one penny the first day, two pennies the second day, and continues to double each day. The program should display a table showing the salary for each day, and then show the total pay at the end of the period. The output should be displayed in a dollar amount, not the number of pennies.

Input Validation: Do not accept a number less than 1 for the number of days worked

Breaking it down

public static void main(String[] args) {

    int maxDays; // number of days

    // Create a Scanner object for keyboard input.
    Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);

    // Get the number of days.
    System.out.print("Days of work? ");
    maxDays = keyboard.nextInt();

    // Validate the input.
    while (maxDays < 1) {
        System.out.print("The number of days must be greater than 0.\n"
                + "Re-enter the number of days: ");
        maxDays = keyboard.nextInt();
    }
    // close scanner
    keyboard.close();

    // Display the report header.
    System.out.println("Day\t\tPennies Earned");

    // call getPay to calculate total amount of pay
    // passing in a start penny of 1 and
    // max days entered by user
    List<Double> pay = getPay(maxDays, 1);
    for (int x = 0; x < pay.size(); x++) {
        System.out.println((x + 1) + "\t\t" + pay.get(x));
    }

    // Create a DecimalFormat object to format output.
    DecimalFormat dollar = new DecimalFormat("#,##0.00");

    // calculate totalPay with java 8
    double totalPay = pay.stream().mapToDouble(Double::doubleValue).sum();
    System.out.println("Total pay: $" + dollar.format(totalPay / 100.0));
}

/**
 * The method will calculate the pay period based on parameters passed.
 *
 * @param numberOfDays
 * @param pennies
 * @return list of pay period
 */
public static List<Double> getPay(int totalNumberOfDays, int pennies) {

    List<Double> pay = new ArrayList<>();

    // add first day
    pay.add(new Double(1));

    int day = 1;
    while (day < totalNumberOfDays) {
        pay.add(new Double(pennies *= 2));
        day++;
    }

    return pay;
}

Unit tests

@Test
public void getPay_test() {

    List<Double> days = PenniesForPay.getPay(5, 1);

    assertThat(
            days,
            contains(new Double(1.0), new Double(2.0), new Double(4.0),
                    new Double(8.0), new Double(16.0)));
}

Output

Days of work? 10
Day     Pennies Earned
1       1.0
2       2.0
3       4.0
4       8.0
5       16.0
6       32.0
7       64.0
8       128.0
9       256.0
10      512.0
Total pay: $10.23

Level Up

  • What happens if the number of days provided is greater than the size that the data type can hold? Meaning, double data type is a double-precision 64-bit IEEE 754 floating point, what other data type could you use?