Question:

Suppose you are designing a program to store and manage a collection of student names using an ArrayList in Java. Write a method named addStudent that takes a student name as a parameter and adds it to the ArrayList named studentList. The ArrayList is already declared and initialized. Implement the addStudent method according to the following specifications:

• The method should add the student name to the end of the studentList.
• If the student name is already present in the studentList, it should not be added again.
• The method should return a boolean value indicating whether the addition was successful or not. Return true if the name was added, false otherwise.

Write the code for the addStudent method and provide a step-by-step explanation of how the method works.

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class StudentManager {
    private ArrayList<String> studentList;

    public StudentManager() {
        studentList = new ArrayList<>();
    }

    public boolean addStudent(String name) {
        // TODO: Implement the method according to the specifications
        
        // Step 1: Check if the student name is already present in the studentList
        if (studentList.contains(name)) {
            return false; // If yes, return false indicating the name was not added
        }
        
        // Step 2: If the student name is not already present, add it to the end of the studentList
        studentList.add(name);
        
        // Step 3: Return true indicating the addition was successful
        return true;
    }
}

Explanation:

The addStudent method takes a student name as a parameter and adds it to the studentList ArrayList. Here's a step-by-step explanation of how the method works:

1. The method begins by checking if the studentList already contains the given student name using the contains method of the ArrayList. If the student name is already present in the list, it means the name has already been added before, so the method returns false indicating the name was not added again and the method terminates.

2. If the student name is not already present in the studentList, the method proceeds to add it to the end of the list using the add method of the ArrayList. This ensures that the student name is appended to the existing names in the list.

3. Finally, the method returns true indicating that the addition was successful and the name was added to the studentList.

By following these steps, the addStudent method ensures that a new student name is added to the list only if it is not already present, and provides a boolean value indicating the success of the addition.