How to prevent integer input in Java? - java

I am trying to get my code to prevent a user input from having a number in it.
Essentially I want the code to do as follows:
ask for input
receive input
test whether or not the input contains a number(ex: 5matt vs matt)
if contains a number I want to System.out.println("Error: please do not input a number");
Heres the kicker (and why it's not a duplicate question): I can't use loops or other statements we haven't learned yet. So far the only true statements we've learned are if/else/else if statements. That means I can not use for loops, like some of the answers are suggesting. While they're great answers, and work, I'll lose points for using them.
System.out.println("Please input the first name: ");
String name1 = in.next();
System.out.println("Please input the second name: ");
String name2 = in.next();
System.out.println("Please input the third name: ");
String name3 = in.next();
name1 = name1.substring(0,1).toUpperCase() + name1.substring(1).toLowerCase();
name2 = name2.substring(0,1).toUpperCase() + name2.substring(1).toLowerCase();
name3 = name3.substring(0,1).toUpperCase() + name3.substring(1).toLowerCase();
I have this already but I can't figure out how to test if the input only contains letters.

Okay, there are many ways to deal with this. A good thing would be to use Regex (text matching stuff). But it seems that you should only use very basic comparison methods.
So, let's do something very basic and easy to understand: We iterate over every character of the input and check whether it's a digit or not.
String input = ...
// Iterate over every character
for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
char c = s.charAt(i);
// Check whether c is a digit
if (Character.isDigit(c)) {
System.out.println("Do not use digits!");
}
}
This code is very straightforward. But it will continue checking even if a digit was found. You can prevent this using a helper-method and then returning from it:
public boolean containsDigit(String text) {
// Iterate over every character
for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
char c = s.charAt(i);
// Check whether c is a digit
if (Character.isDigit(c)) {
return true;
}
}
// Iterated through the text, no digit found
return false;
}
And in your main program you call it this way:
String input = ...
if (containsDigit(input)) {
System.out.println("Do not use digits!");
}

Use a regular expression to filter the input
Eg
str.matches(".*\\d.*")
See this link for more info

There are several ways you could do this, among others:
Iterate over all the chars in the string and check whether any of them is a digit.
Check whether the string contains the number 1, number 2, number 3, etc.
Use a regular expression to check if the string contains a digit.
(Java Regular Expressions)

If you're allowed to define functions, you can essentially use recursion to act as a loop. Probably not what your prof is going for, but you could be just inside the requirements depending on how they're worded.
public static boolean stringHasDigit(String s) {
if (s == null) return false; //null contains no chars
else return stringHasDigit(s, 0);
}
private static boolean stringHasDigit(String s, int index) {
if (index >= s.length()) return false; //reached end of string without finding digit
else if (Character.isDigit(s.charAt(index))) return true; //Found digit
else return stringHasDigit(s, index+1);
}
Only uses if/elseif/else, Character.isDigit, and String.charAt, but recursion might be off limits as well.

Related

How can I prevent the user from entering the same letter in Hangman JAVA?

I am writing a hangman program and one of the requirements to a hangman game is preventing the user from entering the same letter twice.
I have written the code for that, but the problem is every time I enter a letter it says it is already entered. I need to only say it when it is entered the second time. You guys have any suggestions? I've been trying to fix this for the past few hours, I figured I could ask on here to find some help. I already looked at another Stackoverflow question regarding something similar to this but all those solutions have the same result.
In Java, how can I determine if a char array contains a particular character?
I've tried something like this but it won't work either:
boolean contains = false;
for (char c : store) {
if (c == character) {
System.out.println("Already Entered");
contains = true;
break;
}
}
if (contains) {
// loop to top
continue;
}
SECOND CLASS-
public void hangman(String word, int life) {
KeyboardReader reader = new KeyboardReader();
char[] letter = new char[word.length()];
char[] store = new char[word.length()];
String guess;
int i = 0, tries = 0, incorrect = 0, count = 1, v = 0;
while (i < word.length()) {
letter[i] = '-';
I would just use the String.contains() method:
String aString = "abc";
char aChar = 'a';
return aString.contains(aChar + "");
To keep track of guessed letters you can use a StringBuffer, appending them using a StringBuffer.append() to append new letters (maintaining state) and use the StringBuffer.toString() method to get the String representation when you need to do the comparison above.
Since Java 1.5 the class String contains the method contains(). My idea is to collect all entered letters into a string variable and using above method:
// My code line
String letterAlreadyEntered = "";
// Your code line
char character = reader.readLine().charAt(0);
// My code line
if (letterAlreadyEntered.contains("" + character) == true) {
//Put code here what ever you want to do with existing letter
} else {
letterAlreadyEntered += character;
}
In my opinion, this is an easier way to check for occurrences than in arrays, where you have to write your own check method.

return the first word in any string (Java)

I have to be able to input any two words as a string. Invoke a method that takes that string and returns the first word. Lastly display that word.
The method has to be a for loop method. I kind of know how to use substring, and I know how to return the first word by just using .substring(0,x) x being how long the first word is.
How can I make it so that no matter what phrase I use for the string, it will always return the first word? And please explain what you do, because this is my first year in a CS class. Thank you!
I have to be able to input any two words as a string
The zero, one, infinity design rule says there is no such thing as two. Lets design it to work with any number of words.
String words = "One two many lots"; // This will be our input
and then invoke and display the first word returned from the method,
So we need a method that takes a String and returns a String.
// Method that returns the first word
public static String firstWord(String input) {
return input.split(" ")[0]; // Create array of words and return the 0th word
}
static lets us call it from main without needing to create instances of anything. public lets us call it from another class if we want.
.split(" ") creates an array of Strings delimited at every space.
[0] indexes into that array and gives the first word since arrays in java are zero indexed (they start counting at 0).
and the method has to be a for loop method
Ah crap, then we have to do it the hard way.
// Method that returns the first word
public static String firstWord(String input) {
String result = ""; // Return empty string if no space found
for(int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++)
{
if(input.charAt(i) == ' ')
{
result = input.substring(0, i);
break; // because we're done
}
}
return result;
}
I kind of know how to use substring, and I know how to return the first word by just using .substring(0,x) x being how long the first word is.
There it is, using those methods you mentioned and the for loop. What more could you want?
But how can I make it so that no matter what phrase I use for the string, it will always return the first word?
Man you're picky :) OK fine:
// Method that returns the first word
public static String firstWord(String input) {
String result = input; // if no space found later, input is the first word
for(int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++)
{
if(input.charAt(i) == ' ')
{
result = input.substring(0, i);
break;
}
}
return result;
}
Put it all together it looks like this:
public class FirstWord {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
String words = "One two many lots"; // This will be our input
System.out.println(firstWord(words));
}
// Method that returns the first word
public static String firstWord(String input) {
for(int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++)
{
if(input.charAt(i) == ' ')
{
return input.substring(0, i);
}
}
return input;
}
}
And it prints this:
One
Hey wait, you changed the firstWord method there.
Yeah I did. This style avoids the need for a result string. Multiple returns are frowned on by old programmers that never got used to garbage collected languages or using finally. They want one place to clean up their resources but this is java so we don't care. Which style you should use depends on your instructor.
And please explain what you do, because this is my first year in a CS class. Thank you!
What do I do? I post awesome! :)
Hope it helps.
String line = "Hello my name is...";
int spaceIndex = line.indexOf(" ");
String firstWord = line.subString(0, spaceIndex);
So, you can think of line as an array of chars. Therefore, line.indexOf(" ") gets the index of the space in the line variable. Then, the substring part uses that information to get all of the characters leading up to spaceIndex. So, if space index is 5, it will the substring method will return the indexes of 0,1,2,3,4. This is therefore going to return your first word.
The first word is probably the substring that comes before the first space. So write:
int x = input.indexOf(" ");
But what if there is no space? x will be equal to -1, so you'll need to adjust it to the very end of the input:
if (x==-1) { x = input.length(); }
Then use that in your substring method, just as you were planning. Now you just have to handle the case where input is the blank string "", since there is no first word in that case.
Since you did not specify the order and what you consider as a word, I'll assume that you want to check in given sentence, until the first space.
Simply do
int indexOfSpace = sentence.indexOf(" ");
firstWord = indexOfSpace == -1 ? sentence : sentence.substring(0, indexOfSpace);
Note that this will give an IndexOutOfBoundException if there is no space in the sentence.
An alternative would be
String sentences[] = sentence.split(" ");
String firstWord = sentence[0];
Of if you really need a loop,
String firstWord = sentence;
for(int i = 0; i < sentence.length(); i++)
{
if(sentence.charAt(i) == ' ')
{
sentence = firstWord.substring(0, i);
break;
}
}
You may get the position of the 'space' character in the input string using String.indexOf(String str) which returns the index of the first occurrence of the string in passed to the method.
E.g.:
int spaceIndex = input.indexOf(" ");
String firstWord = input.substring(0, spaceIndex);
Maybe this can help you figure out the solution to your problem. Most users on this site don't like doing homework for students, before you ask a question, make sure to go over your ISC book examples. They're really helpful.
String Str = new String("Welcome to Stackoverflow");
System.out.print("Return Value :" );
System.out.println(Str.substring(5) );
System.out.print("Return Value :" );
System.out.println(Str.substring(5, 10) );

Java - See if a string contains any characters in it

The problem i'm having is when i check to see if the string contains any characters it only looks at the first character not the whole string. For instance I would like to be able to input "123abc" and the characters are recognized so it fails. I also need the string to be 11 characters long and since my program only works with 1 character it cannot go any further.
Here is my code so far:
public static int phoneNumber(int a)
{
while (invalidinput)
{
phoneNumber[a] = myScanner.nextLine();
if (phoneNumber[a].matches("[0-9+]") && phoneNumber[a].length() == 11 )
{
System.out.println("Continue");
invalidinput = false;
}
else
{
System.out.print("Please enter a valid phone number: ");
}
}
return 0;
}
For instance why if i take away the checking to see the phoneNumber.length() it still only registers 1 character so if i enter "12345" it still fails. I can only enter "1" for the program to continue.
If someone could explain how this works to me that would be great
Your regex and if condition is wrong. Use it like this:
if ( phoneNumber[a].matches("^[0-9]{11}$") ) {
System.out.println("Continue");
invalidinput = false;
}
This will only allow phoneNumber[a] to be a 11 character long comprising only digits 0-9
The + should be outside the set, or you could specifically try to match 11 digits like this: ^[0-9]{11}$ (the ^ and $ anchor the match to the start and end of the string).
You need to put the "+" after the "]" in your regex. So, you would change it to:
phoneNumber[a].matches("[0-9]+")
Why not try using a for loop to go through each character?
Like:
public static int phoneNumber(int a)
{
while (invalidinput)
{
int x = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < phoneNumber[a].length(); i++)
{
char c = phoneNumber[a].charAt(i);
if(c.matches("[0-9+]")){
x++;
}
}
if (x == phoneNumber[a].length){
System.out.println("Continue");
invalidinput = false;
}
else
{
System.out.print("Please enter a valid phone number: ");
}
}
return 0;
}
Are the legal characters in your phone numbers 0..9 and +? If so, then you should use the regular expression [0-9+]*, which matches zero or more legal characters. (If not, you probably meant [0-9]+.) Also, you can use [0-9+]{11} instead of your explicit check for a length of 11.
The reason that your current code fails, is that String#matches() does not check whether the regular expression matches part of the string, but whether it matches all of the string. You can see this in the JavaDoc, which points you to Matcher#matches(), which "Attempts to match the entire region against the pattern."

Finding Palindromes in a word list

I'm working on a program for Java on how to find a list of palindromes that are embedded in a word list file. I'm in an intro to Java class so any sort of help or guidance will be greatly appreciated!
Here is the code I have so far:
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.File;
class Palindromes {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
String pathname = "/users/abrick/resources/american-english-insane";
File dictionary = new File(pathname);
Scanner reader = new Scanner(dictionary);
while (reader.hasNext()) {
String word = reader.nextLine();
for (int i = 0; i > word.length(); i++) {
if (word.charAt(word.indexOf(i) == word.charAt(word.indexOf(i)) - 1) {
System.out.println(word);
}
}
}
}
}
There are 3 words that are 7 letters or longer in the list that I am importing.
You have a few ways to solve this problem.
A word is considered a palindrome if:
It can be read the same way backwards as forwards.
The first element is the same as the last element, up until we reach the middle.
Half of the word is the same as the other half, reversed.
A word of length 1 is trivially a palindrome.
Ultimately, your method isn't doing much of that. In fact, you're not doing any validation at all - you're only printing the word if the first and last character match.
Here's a proposal: Let's read each end of the String, and see if it's a palindrome. We have to take into account the case that it could potentially be empty, or be of length 1. We also want to get rid of any white space in the string, as that can cause errors on validation - we use replaceAll("\\s", "") to solve that.
public boolean isPalindrome(String theString) {
if(theString.length() == 0) {
throw new IllegalStateException("I wouldn't expect a word to be zero-length");
}
if(theString.length() == 1) {
return true;
} else {
char[] wordArr = theString.replaceAll("\\s", "").toLowerCase().toCharArray();
for(int i = 0, j = wordArr.length - 1; i < wordArr.length / 2; i++, j--) {
if(wordArr[i] != wordArr[j]) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
}
I'm assuming that you're reading in strings. Use string.toCharArray() to convert each string to a char[]. Iterate through the character array using a for loop as follows: on iteration 1, if the first character is equal to the last character, then proceed to the next iteration, else return false. On iteration 2, if the second character is equal to the second-to-last character then proceed to the next iteration, else return false. And so on, until you reach the middle of the string, at which point you return true. Be careful of off-by-one errors; some strings will have an even length, some will have an odd length.
If your palindrome checker is case insensitive, then use string.toLowerCase().toCharArray() to preprocess the character array.
You can use string.charAt(i) instead of string.toCharArray() in the for loop; in this case, if the palindrome checker is case insensitive then preprocess the string with string = string.toLowerCase()
Let's break the problem down: In the end, you are checking if the reverse of the word is equal to the word. I'm going to assume you have all of the words stored in an array called wordArray[].
I have some code for getting the reverse of the word (copied from here):
public String reverse(String str) {
if ((null == str) || (str.length() <= 1)) {
return str;
}
return new StringBuffer(str).reverse().toString();
}
So, now we just need to call that on every word. So:
for(int count = 0; count<wordArray.length;count++) {
String currentWord = wordArray[count];
if(currentWord.equals(reverse(currentWord)) {
//it's a palendrome, do something
}
}
Since this is homework, i'll not supply you with code.
When i code, the first thing i do is take a step back and ask myself,
"what am i trying to get the computer to do that i would do myself?"
Ok, so you've got this huuuuge string. Probably something like this: "lkasjdfkajsdf adda aksdjfkasdjf ghhg kajsdfkajsdf oopoo"
etc..
A string's length will either be odd or even. So, first, check that.
The odd/even will be used to figure out how many letters to read in.
If the word is odd, read in ((length-1)/2) characters.
if even (length/2) characters.
Then, compare those characters to the last characters. Notice that you'll need to skip the middle character for an odd-lengthed string.
Instead of what you have above, which checks the 1st and 2nd, then 2nd and 3rd, then 3rd and fourth characters, check from the front and back inwards, like so.
while (reader.hasNext()) {
String word = reader.nextLine();
boolean checker = true;
for (int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
if(word.length()<2){return;}
if (word.charAt(i) != word.charAt(word.length()-i) {
checker = false;
}
}
if(checker == true)
{System.out.println(word);}
}

Space Replacement for Float/Int/Double

I am working on a class assignment this morning and I want to try and solve a problem I have noticed in all of my team mates programs so far; the fact that spaces in an int/float/double cause Java to freak out.
To solve this issue I had a very crazy idea but it does work under certain circumstances. However the problem is that is does not always work and I cannot figure out why. Here is my "main" method:
import java.util.Scanner; //needed for scanner class
public class Test2
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
BugChecking bc = new BugChecking();
String i;
double i2 = 0;
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Please enter a positive integer");
while (i2 <= 0.0)
{
i = in.nextLine();
i = bc.deleteSpaces(i);
//cast back to float
i2 = Double.parseDouble(i);
if (i2 <= 0.0)
{
System.out.println("Please enter a number greater than 0.");
}
}
in.close();
System.out.println(i2);
}
}
So here is the class, note that I am working with floats but I made it so that it can be used for any type so long as it can be cast to a string:
public class BugChecking
{
BugChecking()
{
}
public String deleteSpaces(String s)
{
//convert string into a char array
char[] cArray = s.toCharArray();
//now use for loop to find and remove spaces
for (i3 = 0; i3 < cArray.length; i3++)
{
if ((Character.isWhitespace(cArray[i3])) && (i3 != cArray.length)) //If current element contains a space remove it via overwrite
{
for (i4 = i3; i4 < cArray.length-1;i4++)
{
//move array elements over by one element
storage1 = cArray[i4+1];
cArray[i4] = storage1;
}
}
}
s = new String(cArray);
return s;
}
int i3; //for iteration
int i4; //for iteration
char storage1; //for storage
}
Now, the goal is to remove spaces from the array in order to fix the problem stated at the beginning of the post and from what I can tell this code should achieve that and it does, but only when the first character of an input is the space.
For example, if I input " 2.0332" the output is "2.0332".
However if I input "2.03 445 " the output is "2.03" and the rest gets lost somewhere.
This second example is what I am trying to figure out how to fix.
EDIT:
David's suggestion below was able to fix the problem. Bypassed sending an int. Send it directly as a string then convert (I always heard this described as casting) to desired variable type. Corrected code put in place above in the Main method.
A little side note, if you plan on using this even though replace is much easier, be sure to add an && check to the if statement in deleteSpaces to make sure that the if statement only executes if you are not on the final array element of cArray. If you pass the last element value via i3 to the next for loop which sets i4 to the value of i3 it will trigger an OutOfBounds error I think since it will only check up to the last element - 1.
If you'd like to get rid of all white spaces inbetween a String use replaceAll(String regex,String replacement) or replace(char oldChar, char newChar):
String sBefore = "2.03 445 ";
String sAfter = sBefore.replaceAll("\\s+", "");//replace white space and tabs
//String sAfter = sBefore.replace(' ', '');//replace white space only
double i = 0;
try {
i = Double.parseDouble(sAfter);//parse to integer
} catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
nfe.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println(i);//2.03445
UPDATE:
Looking at your code snippet the problem might be that you read it directly as a float/int/double (thus entering a whitespace stops the nextFloat()) rather read the input as a String using nextLine(), delete the white spaces then attempt to convert it to the appropriate format.
This seems to work fine for me:
public static void main(String[] args) {
//bugChecking bc = new bugChecking();
float i = 0.0f;
String tmp = "";
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Please enter a positive integer");
while (true) {
tmp = in.nextLine();//read line
tmp = tmp.replaceAll("\\s+", "");//get rid of spaces
if (tmp.isEmpty()) {//wrong input
System.err.println("Please enter a number greater than 0.");
} else {//correct input
try{//attempt to convert sring to float
i = new Float(tmp);
}catch(NumberFormatException nfe) {
System.err.println(nfe.getMessage());
}
System.out.println(i);
break;//got correct input halt loop
}
}
in.close();
}
EDIT:
as a side note please start all class names with a capital letter i.e bugChecking class should be BugChecking the same applies for test2 class it should be Test2
String objects have methods on them that allow you to do this kind of thing. The one you want in particular is String.replace. This pretty much does what you're trying to do for you.
String input = " 2.03 445 ";
input = input.replace(" ", ""); // "2.03445"
You could also use regular expressions to replace more than just spaces. For example, to get rid of everything that isn't a digit or a period:
String input = "123,232 . 03 445 ";
input = input.replaceAll("[^\\d.]", ""); // "123232.03445"
This will replace any non-digit, non-period character so that you're left with only those characters in the input. See the javadocs for Pattern to learn a bit about regular expressions, or search for one of the many tutorials available online.
Edit: One other remark, String.trim will remove all whitespace from the beginning and end of your string to turn " 2.0332" into "2.0332":
String input = " 2.0332 ";
input = input.trim(); // "2.0332"
Edit 2: With your update, I see the problem now. Scanner.nextFloat is what's breaking on the space. If you change your code to use Scanner.nextLine like so:
while (i <= 0) {
String input = in.nextLine();
input = input.replaceAll("[^\\d.]", "");
float i = Float.parseFloat(input);
if (i <= 0.0f) {
System.out.println("Please enter a number greater than 0.");
}
System.out.println(i);
}
That code will properly accept you entering things like "123,232 . 03 445". Use any of the solutions in place of my replaceAll and it will work.
Scanner.nextFloat will split your input automatically based on whitespace. Scanner can take a delimiter when you construct it (for example, new Scanner(System.in, ",./ ") will delimit on ,, ., /, and )" The default constructor, new Scanner(System.in), automatically delimits based on whitespace.
I guess you're using the first argument from you main method. If you main method looks somehow like this:
public static void main(String[] args){
System.out.println(deleteSpaces(args[0]);
}
Your problem is, that spaces separate the arguments that get handed to your main method. So running you class like this:
java MyNumberConverter 22.2 33
The first argument arg[0] is "22.2" and the second arg[1] "33"
But like other have suggested, String.replace is a better way of doing this anyway.

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