Compiler giving an "error: cannot find symbol" message. I think it has to do with the methods

Question

I'm trying to have the main method call the newGame method but it's giving me an error.

error: cannot find symbol
newGame(answer);
symbol: variable answer
location: class GuessingGame

import java.util.Random;

public class GuessingGame {
   
public static newGame(int answer){
 
 Random rand = new Random(int answer);
 answer = rand.nextInt(51); 
 }     

public static void main (String [] args ){
   newGame(answer);   
 }
}

Answer 1

Your posted code is missing a few things, and doesn't do much. I assume you want to return the new random value from newGame (and thus it should return an int). Also, it's better to pass the Random to your method (because creating a new Random involves seeding it, and if you do it quickly in a loop you can pick the same seed). So, that might look like

public static int newGame(Random rand) {
    return rand.nextInt(51);
}

Then you need to save the answer in main. And construct the Random. Like,

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Random rand = new Random();
    int answer = newGame(rand);
}