non-static method cannot be referenced from a static context

Question

I would like to understand this once and for all.

With this please excuse the mass of code pasted below, but I do not want to leave out any details.

The only

Answer 1

If a method is not static, then it must be called "on" an object. When calling a method from a non-static method, that object is implied -- it's the object the first method was called on. But when calling it from a static method, there is no implied object, so to call the method, you must supply an object:

GarageComm gc = new GarageComm();
hashPos= gc.readPositions("holdingsBU.txt");

Since GarageComm has no state of its own, there's no reason to create a GarageComm object, so it's just as well you mark the method static, so no object is required to call it.