Errors in Recursive multiplication

[villalandron]

Hello! I am trying to finish this Recursive multiplication program and I am stuck. What I need to do is write a recursive function that accepts two arguments into the parameters x and y. The function should return the value of x times y. I used this program from the book as an example:

import javax.swing.JOptionPane;

/**
	This program will demonstrate the recursive
	factorial method
*/

public class FactorialDemo
{
	public static void main(String[]args)
	{
		String input;				// To hold user input
		int number;					// To hold a number
		
		// Get a number from the user.
		input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Enter a " + "nonnegative integer:");
		
		number = Integer.parseInt(input);
		
		// display the factorial of the number.
		JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Result is " + factorial(number));
		
		System.exit(0);
	}
	
	/**
		The factorial method uses recursion to calculate
		the factorial of its argument, which is assumed 
		to be a nonnegative number.
		@param n the number to use in the calculation.
		@return the factorial of n.
	*/
	
	private static int factorial(int a)
	{
		 if (a == 0)
           {
               return 1;
           }
			  
           else
           {
               return a * factorial(a - 1);
           }
	}
}

I then, modified it to the assignment but now I get this error message:

RecursiveMultiplication.java:25: multiplication(int,int) in RecursiveMultiplication cannot be applied to (int)
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Result is " + multiplication(number));

What am I doing wrong?

Here's my program:

import javax.swing.JOptionPane;

/**
	This program will demonstrate the recursive
	factorial method
*/

public class RecursiveMultiplication
{
	public static void main(String[]args)
	{
		String input;				// To hold user input
		int number;					// To hold a number
		
		// Get a number from the user.
		input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Enter a " + "nonnegative integer:");
		
		number = Integer.parseInt(input);
		
		input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Enter a " + "nonnegative integer: to multiply against the first one:");
		
		number = Integer.parseInt(input);
		
		// display the factorial of the number.
		JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Result is " + multiplication(number));
		
		System.exit(0);
	}
	
	/**
		The factorial method uses recursion to calculate
		the factorial of its argument, which is assumed 
		to be a nonnegative number.
		@param n the number to use in the calculation.
		@return the factorial of n.
	*/
	
	private static int multiplication(int a, int b)
	{
		 if (a == 0)
           {
               return 0;
           }
			  
           else
           {
               if (b == 0)
						{
							return 0;
						}
						else
						{
							 return a + multiplication(a, b - 1);
						}
           }
	}
}

[JamesCherrill]

your "multiplication" method takes two ints as parameters, but throughout the main method you have just one number, so in line 25 you call multiplication with just one int.
Using a program from a book can be a useful way to start, but just copy/pasting code always leads to problems like this, where you haven't fully understood what the code does, so you haven't adapted it fully to your needs. Read/ learn from other poeple's code, then write your own; don't copy/paste.

[jon.kiparsky]

You can see from the factorial program that your recursive process works by calling itself on a simpler case, moving towards a trivial base case. For factorial, that base case is: when n = 0, factorial(n) = 1. For any positive integer, you reduce towards that case by decrementing.

For multiplication, then, what is the base case, and how do you simplify?

To make it concrete, how do you simplify 3*4, and what is the target of the simplification?