I am trying to implement a simulator that has certain commands the user can input.
One of these commands is "s" which when entered should step through one instruction of the assembly file. However there is another instruction with the format "s num" where the user can define just how many instructions they want to step through.
I check for this
if(input.equals("s"))
{
//check for num next
if(user.hasNextInt())
{
input = user.next();
step(Integer.parseInt(input), assembler);
}
else
{
step(1, assembler);
}
}
However the problem is if the user only enters "s" the scanner will wait for the next input rather than just calling step. My idea is if there is an int after the s was input then proceed with the num step, other wise just call step.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
I would split the input into two parts and then treat it. For example,
String input = user.nextLine();
String array[] = input.split(" ");
if(array.length<2){
//check for `s`
}else{
//check for `s num`
}
you could try this:
if(input.equals("s"))
{
step(1, assembler);
}
else if(input.startsWith("s") && input.length() > 2)
{
step(Integer.parseInt(input.substring(input.indexOf(" ")+1)), assembler);
}
If control were to go inside the else if block, the current solution assumes that there is always a number after the String s with a white space delimiter in between them, but you can go on further and do more validations if necessary.
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The following loop is not good practice. Is it due to a String being the main condition of the for loop rather than an int variable, meaning the for loop is infinite? Also, is it due to there being no instance to enter 'end' to stop the loop?
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
int i = 0;
for (String s = in.next(); !s.equals("end"); i++)
{
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered " + s);
}
How can I rewrite it, so that it conforms to accepted style?
(This is a question in a past exam paper.)
Well your string s is never changing, which can lead to an infinite loop. You probably wanted:
for (String s = in.next(); !s.equals("end"); s = in.next(), i++) {
...
}
Some (me included) might say that i++ shouldn't be in the increment section of this loop, since it's not directly relevant to the condition:
for (String s = in.next(); !s.equals("end"); s = in.next()) {
...
i++;
}
Is it due to a string being the main condition of the for loop rather than an int variable, meaning the for loop is infinite?
The original loop was indeed infinite (at least, after an initial input is entered and assuming "end" wasn't the first input). However, it's not for the reason you state. For-loops are most commonly written using integral loop control variables, but it's not always the case. For example, a common idiom for iterating through a linked list is:
for (Node node = list.head; node != null; node = node.next) {
...
}
The problem with your loop is that the string s is never changed, so it will never equal "end" unless that's the first input.
I would suggest separating the looping condition and the call to Scannner.next():
while (in.hasNext()) {
String s = in.next();
if (s.equals("end")) {
break;
}
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered " + s);
i++;
}
I think this is much easier to understand than trying to squeeze everything into a for expression.
There are multiple problems with this code:
s never changes after the initial assignment, so it's an infinite loop.
Calling .next() could throw NoSuchElementException or IllegalStateException. Rather than catching these exceptions, I consider it more polite to check .hasNext() beforehand, since running out of input is a foreseeable rather than an exceptional situation. However, the alternative ask-for-forgiveness style could also be acceptable.
The for-loop header does not form a coherent story — it initializes s and tests s, but updates i.
In my opinion, System.out.format() would be slightly more preferable to System.out.println() with concatenation.
I would write it as:
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
int i = 0;
String s;
while (in.hasNext() && !"end".equals(s = in.next())) {
System.out.format("The value of i is: %d and you entered %s\n", i++, s);
}
It might also be a nice user interface touch to tell the user that end is a magic word to terminate the loop (assuming it were modified to work as probably intended).
The common practice with for loops is that the counter variable is repeated in each term:
for(int i=...; i<... ; i++)
In the example above, the code mixes variables. Which is confusing to the reader and probably lead to the bug that the loop only terminates if you input end as the first value.
This loop is a bad idea, because you're taking setting s once from the user input and not in every iteration.
Thus, it will cause you to run infinite time in case s was filled with value different from "end".
You probably wanted something more like this:
for (String s; (s = in.nextLine()).equals("end"); i++)
{
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered " + s);
}
This isn't a good idea because the string s may never equal "end". You'll probably want to check if the scanner has another string. Also, you only initialize the string to in.next() but you need to set s to the next string after each iteration of the loop.
while(in.hasNext()) {
String s = in.next();
if (s.equals("end")) {
break;
}
// ..
}
This approach is too bad.
The Given Code :-
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
int i = 0;
for (String s = in.next(); !s.equals("end"); i++)
{
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered " + s);
}
The 1st part of for loop only execute once in life.
String s = in.next() //Execute only once in life
The 2nd part of this for loop never be true , because the input console will never allow to enter the 2nd input.
!s.equals("end")//2nd part
This program will never allow to enter 2nd input from console, because the in.next() will execute only once.And the exit token for this loop is "end" which is not possible to enter after first input.
This type of loops should be implemented by while loop .
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
while(in.hasNext()){
String yourdata=in.next();
if(yourdata.equals("end")){
//Stop the loop
}
//Do you code here
}
It bad practice because it's terminated only if next obtained token is "end". It does'n not consider situation like. e.g. end of input stream.
So when then stream ends and nowhere along "end" appeared you'l get s=null and NullPointerException at s.equals("end").
You can correct it e.g. by changing condition to in.hasNext() && !"end".equals(s).
Also s is never changing after it was initialized.
If the question is "why rewrite it" the answer is basically as others have pointed out, that it's currently an infinite loop, and also that it's not very readable as it stands. Personally I'd rewrite it as a while loop, which several others have already pointed out how to do, as it makes your intentions a little more clear than a for loop with a counter that's counting up to infinity. Someone unfamiliar with how the code is supposed to work could easily confuse an infinite increment to be an oversight by the programmer who wrote it.
The string s is never modified. The loop never ends. What about this :
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
String s = "";
for (int i = 0 ; !s.equals("end"); i++) {
s = in.next();
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered "
+ s);
}
Others have mentioned that the loop does not end because you are not changing the value of s, so the loop never ends. This may be what your professor intended, and it may not be. Bad code is bad practice, as a rule, but there are other reasons why this is bad practice.
What jumped out to me as being bad practice here, and what the professor could have intended, is the use of a for loop here. As my professor told me, "For loops are for when you know when you want the code to end, while loops are for when you don't know when you want the code to end." So if you have an iterable i such as this code:
for(i = 0; i<100; i++)
{
...
}
In this code, you know that you want to iterate i from 0 to 100. A while loop is what you would want to use in the situation your professor is discussing.
int counter;
while(*(str+counter))
counter++;
You have no idea when the loop is going to end, because you don't know how long the str is, but you know that sometime it will get to the null pointer, and the loop will terminate. This generally what is best practice.
So for the code your professor posted, you may want it to look like this:
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
int i = 0;
while(!s.equals("end"))
{
i++;
String s = in.next();
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered " + s);
}
It is not in good practice because of two things:
for loops are meant to iterate over a collection of data
a for loop consists of iterator initial state, loop condition and an iterating function that are related
The for statement just intermixes two different information (the stream and the counter). Even if it does work, it isn't good practice to do it.
I think this is bad practice, because there isn't any need for a for loop. In this case, I believe it's useless. It could be just this:
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
String s = in.next();
if (!s.equals("end"))
{
System.out.println("You have enetered" + s);
}
See, there isn't any need for a loop. The loop you had was making things more complicated than they had to be. I was always think that things should be kept as simple as they can be unless they require complexity. For loops are only to be used when you have more than one action that you want the code to do. In the case above, only one thing is happening: the println statement, so there's no need for a loop. It's unnecesary...
Also, the loop never ends. So there's that too, but that's just faulty code. That's not why it's bad practice. It's bad practice because of the unnecesary use of a for loop. It's also faulty, because the code is wrong. So there are two different things going on with this code.
I would have just left a comment, but I don't have the rep yet.
What I haven't seen explained is WHY your s value is not changing.
In a typical for loop:
for(a=1; a<=10; a+=1) {body}
the initial phrase, 'a=1', is ONLY performed once as an initialization.
the third phrase, 'a+=1', is performed once at the end of every cycle, until…
the second phrase, 'a>=10', evaluates false.
so a for loop would be represented in 'psuedo-code' something like this:
a=1 // first phrase
:LoopLabel
{body}
a+=1 // third phrase
if (a<=10) // second phrase (boolean evaluation)
then goto LoopLabel
Likewise, your example, in similar pseudo-code might look like this:
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
int i = 0;
String s = in.next()
:LoopLabel
{
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i + " and you entered " + s);
}
++i
if (!s.equals("end"))
goto LoopLabel
So the reason your program was an infinite loop was the value of 's' was only set on entry to your loop and never changed during each loop execution, as most likely desired.
for (int i = 0; in.hasNext(); i++) {
String s = in.next();
if (s.equals("end")) {
break;
}
...
Endless loop, or no loop (when s is initially "end").
A number of responses above are correct to say that what you've written is an infinite loop. But I wanted to clarify why this is an infinite loop. The for loop you're using differs from the other form you may be thinking of:
String[] stringArray = { "1", "2", "3" };
for (String s : stringArray) {
System.out.println(s);
}
In that case, the variable s is initialized with the next value from your collection or array on each iteration. But that form of for loop works with collections and arrays and can't be used with iterators like the Scanner class.
The form of for loop you're using differs in that the initialization clause (where you have String s = in.next()) is called ONLY the first time through the loop. s is set that first time, then never changed.
You could re-write like this:
int i = 0;
for (String s = in.next(); !s.equals("end"); s = in.next()) {
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i++ + " and you entered " + s);
}
But another bad thing in here is that there's no null or end check. It's conceivable if not likely that you would run out of strings before you found one that equaled "end". If that happened, then the for test clause (the middle one) would give you a NullPointerException when it tried to the call to the equals() method. THAT is definitely bad practice. I would probably re-write this like this:
int i = 0;
while (in.hasNext()) {
String s = in.next();
if (s.equals("end")) {
break;
}
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i++ + " and you entered " + s);
}
If you really want a for loop instead of a while, it would be better to do this:
int i = 0;
for (Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in); in.hasNext();) {
String s = in.next();
if (s.equals("end")) {
break;
}
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i++ + " and you entered " + s);
}
One last variation that preserves the test against the string in the test clause would look like this:
int i = 0;
String s = "";
for (Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
in.hasNext() && !s.equals("end");
s = in.next()) {
System.out.println("The value of i is: " + i++ + " and you entered " + s);
}
You could also add a null check in there before the s.equals("end") for total safety.
It is not a good practice maybe because you are comparing the String s with a String but you are not comparing the value, you are comparing the memory position of the s value.
I am making an inefficient calculator type of program that takes values from user defined arrays and plugs them into an equation that the user also defines. To do this I needed to make my program change my string to a char array, the problem? I have it so that users must use A1-10 to reference the definded index and I cannot find a way to make the program search the next array for the number to specify what array the program is accessing.
out.println("Please input a string of commands in a format similar to this: ");
out.println("([A1]-[A2]=) or ([A8]+[A6]=) or ([A1]-[A4]+[A7]*[A10]/[A3]=)");
out.println("Use only the numbers 1-10 when referencing an array. \n You may always type in 'Help' if you need help. ");
String eString = scn.nextLine();
if ("help".equals(eString)) {
out.println("Figure it our yourself...");
} else {
for (char c: eString.toCharArray()) {
if (c == 'A') {
}
}
the code got a little jumbled up while changing code and I haven't taken the time to make it look nice and pearly again.
If you need the index you should just use a normal for loop instead of an enhanced for loop.
char[] input = eString.toCharArray();
for(int i = 0; i < input.length; i++) {
if(input[i] == 'A'){
// You know the index of A here.
}
}
You should also use "help".equalsIgnoreCase(eString) when comparing with help so that they can enter either "Help" or "help" (link to doc)
Does a do-while loop check a value before or after it has been incremented? I can't seem to make this do-while loop escape, and can't determine if that is the mistake I am making. The point of this loop is to take input from the user and when they hit 'X', I want the loop to end. Am I using the wrong type of loop, or perhaps an incorrect statement?
int i = 0,
inputCount = 0;
char letter = 'a';
String[] coefficient = new String[MAX_LENGTH];
do{
System.out.print("What is " + letter +"? ");
coefficient[i] = keyboard.nextLine();
i++;
letter++;
inputCount++;
}while(coefficient[i] != "X");
Don't compare Strings using ==. Use the equals(...) or the equalsIgnoreCase(...) method instead. Understand that == checks if the two objects are the same which is not what you're interested in. The methods on the other hand check if the two Strings have the same characters in the same order, and that's what matters here. So instead of
if (fu == "bar") {
// do something
}
do,
if ("bar".equals(fu)) {
// do something
}
or,
if ("bar".equalsIgnoreCase(fu)) {
// do something
}
Specifically in your case, I'd change
} while(coefficient[i] != "X");
to something like:
} while(!"X".equalsIgnoreCase(coefficient[i]));
And you've got another problem in your code in that you want to test the user input which you place into coefficient[i], but then you promptly increment the i variable such that coefficient[i] no longer refers to the input.
So perhaps the test should instead be:
} while(!"X".equalsIgnoreCase(coefficient[i - 1]));
You're incrementing i between coefficient[i] = keyboard.nextLine(); and while(coefficient[i] != "X");, so in the while check coefficient[i] is null, also use .equals to compare strings.
int i = 0,
inputCount = 0;
char letter = 'a';
String[] coefficient = new String[MAX_LENGTH];
do{
System.out.print("What is " + letter +"? ");
coefficient[i] = keyboard.nextLine();
i++;
letter++;
inputCount++;
}while(!coefficient[i-1].equals("X"));
There is two problems here. First you shouldn't compare Strings using logical operators. Use .equals instead.
For example:
coefficient[i].equals("X");
Secondly you are incrementing your array index counter before you check the while condition. So you actually need to subtract one from it to check if the most recently entered String was X.
See if using this will get it working:
coefficient[i-1].equals("X");