Calculate someone's pay, including overtime

Question

In this problem, you need to calculate someone's pay by multiplying their salary (double)by the hours (int) worked. If they worked for more than 8 hours, you pay them 1.5 times their salary for however many hours more they worked. Here is my solution.

public static double pay(double a, int b) {
if (b > 8) {
    return (a * 8) + ((b - 8)*(a * 1.5));
}
else {
    return (a * b);
}}

Wondering if there is any way to do it without if else statements since the course hasn't taught those yet.

Answer 1

In addition to the answer given by rolfl, you can also remove the if-else and do it like this:

public static double pay(double a, int b) {
    int regularHours = Math.min(8, b);
    int extraHours = b - regularHours;
    return (a * regularHours) + (extraHours * a * 1.5);
}

Answer 2

You should use better variable names, for a start.... consider:

public static double pay(double hourlyWage, int hours) {
    ...
}

Then, your code is not that bad (with some indentation fixes too):

public static double pay(double hourlyWage, int hours) {
    if (hours > 8) {
        return (hourlyWage * 8) + ((hours - 8)*(hourlyWage * 1.5));
    }
    else {
        return (hourlyWage * hours);
    }
}

There is no good way to handle the overtime rate other than with a conditional somewhere. Ternary conditions may help a bit.....

public static double pay(double hourlyWage, int hours) {
    int regular = hours > 8 ? 8 : hours;
    int overtime = hours - regular;
    return hourlyWage * (regular + (1.5 * overtime));
}