title: how to call on a method outside of the main method in java
body: <p>I have a method outside of the main method that averages. At the end of the main I am calling on that averaging method. I am not understaning the propper way to 
  1. use variables I declare with other methods in this program. for example the sum which is defined in the calculate_average method. 
  or 
  The sum which is defined in the main method. </p>
  
  <p>Please show me </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>how to interchange variables in and out of the main method. interchangeably between methods that are not in main. </p></li>
  <li><p>call on a method outside of main in main to calculate the average. </p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Here is my current code. </p>
  
  <pre><code>import java.util.ArrayList;
  import java.util.Scanner;
  
  class programTwo
  {
  
      private static Double calculate_average( ArrayList&lt;Double&gt; myArr )
      {
          Double Sum = 0.0;
          for (Double number: myArr)
          {
              Sum += number;
          }
  
      }
  
      public static void main( String[] args )
      {
          Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
          ArrayList&lt;Double&gt; myArr = new ArrayList&lt;Double&gt;();
          double Sum = 0;
          int count = 0;
          System.out.println("Enter a number to be averaged, repeat up to 20 times:");
          String inputs = scan.nextLine();
  
      while (!inputs.matches("[qQ]") )
      {
  
          if (count == 20)
          {
              System.out.println("You entered more than 20 numbers, you suck!");
              break;
          }
  
          Scanner scan2 = new Scanner(inputs); // create a new scanner out of our single line of input
          myArr.add(scan2.nextDouble());
          count += 1;
          System.out.println("Please enter another number or press Q for your average");
  
          inputs = scan.nextLine();
      }
      Double average = calculate_average(myArr);
      System.out.println("Your average is: " + average);
  
      return Sum / myArr.size();
  
  }}
  </code></pre>