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How do I write a Java program that reads two words representing passwords from the keyboard and outputs the number of characters in the smaller one?

I am new to learning Java and I am currently writing a short program to take the input of two words from the keyboard and output the length of the smaller word.
I am unsure of how to do this, since I will not know what words the users will be typing into the keyboard ahead of time. So far, I have prompted the user to write two words and storing the two Strings in two separate variables. I have also created two other variables to store the length of both words but I am stuck on how to output the smaller word, if I do not know what either word is.
{
{
Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
// Password #1:
System.out.print("Write a word: ");
String passwordOne = keyboard.nextLine();
int passwordLengthOne = passwordOne.length();
// Password #2:
System.out.print("Write another word: ");
String passwordTwo = keyboard.nextLine();
int passwordLengthTwo = passwordTwo.length();
System.out.print("The number of characters in the shorter password is " +
(I have not completed this variable yet) + ".");
}
}

There are numerous of ways to do it. Here's the most simple one.
String shorter = "";
if(passwordLengthOne > passwordLengthTwo)
shorter = passwordTwo;
else if(passwordLengthOne < passwordLengthTwo)
shorter = passwordOne;
System.out.print("The shorter password is " + shorter + ".");
System.out.print("The number of characters in the shorter password is " + shorter.length() + ".");
Remember to take into account the case where both could have same length.

Getting multiple inputs from user with char and integers Java

I'm trying to allow the user to put in multiple inputs from the user that contain a char and integers.
Something like this as input: A 26 16 34 9
and output each int added to an array.
I was thinking I could have the first input as a character and then read the rest as a string which then I separate and put into an array.
I'm not new to coding but new to java. I've been doing c++ so the syntax is a bit different.
This is what I have so far, I haven't set up my array yet for the integers.
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Program0 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int firstNumber;
Scanner reader = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("'A' to enter a number. 'Q' to quit");
int n = reader.nextInt();
if (n=='A') {
//if array is full System.out.println("The list is full!");
//else
System.out.println("Integer " + " " + "has been added to the list");
}
else if (n=='Q') {
System.out.println("List of integers: ");
System.out.println("Average of all integers in the list: ");
}
else{
System.out.println("Invalid Action");
}
reader.close();
}
}

Could you specify better how should your input be given? From your question, if I understand well, the user simply type "A" followed by a list of numbers separated by a space. So I would simply read the next line, split it in words (separated by a space) and check if the first word is the letter "A". Here it goes:
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Program0 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner reader = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("'A' to enter a number. 'Q' to quit");
String line = reader.nextLine();
String[] words = line.split(" ");
if (words.length > 0 && words[0].equals("A")) {
//if array is full System.out.println("The list is full!");
// => I don't understand this part
//else
for(int i = 1; i<words.length; i++){
int integer = Integer.parseInt(words[i]);
System.out.println("Integer " + integer + " has been added to the list");
//do your stuff here
}
}
else if (words.length > 0 && words[0].equals("Q")) {
System.out.println("List of integers: ");
System.out.println("Average of all integers in the list: ");
}
else{
System.out.println("Invalid Action");
}
reader.close();
}
}
Note that in your solution, you read the next int from your scanner and then try to compare it with the character 'A'. This will not work because A is not an int. If you really want to get the first character from your scanner, you could do:
String line = reader.nextLine();
if(line.length() > 0){
char firstChar = line.charAt(0);
//do your stuff here
}

A character is not an int. You cannot read an int to expect something like 'A'. You can read a String and take its first character though. Scanner doesn't offer a convenient method to read the next String and expect it to be only one-character long. You'd need to handle that yourself.
But considering you don't know in advance how many numbers there will be to read, your solution to read the entire line and interpret it entirely, is the better one. That means you can't use nextInt() nor nextDouble() nor next() nor nextWhateverElse().
You need nextLine(), and it will give you the entire line as a String.
Then you can split() the result, and check if the first is one-char-long. Then you can parse all the others as int.

I don't immediately recall how to write this in Java – it's been a bit of a while – but what I'd do is to first separate the string by spaces, then attempt to do ParseInt on each piece.
If the string isn't a valid integer, this method will throw an exception, which you can catch. So:
If you make it to the next statement, an exception didn't happen, so the value is an integer.
If, instead, you find yourself in the exception-handler (having caught [only ...] the expected kind of exception, the value is a string.
Of course, don't "catch" any exception-type other than the NumberFormatException that you're expecting.
By the way, it is perfectly routine to use exceptions in this way. Let Java's runtime engine be the authority as to whether it's an integer or not.

How to Deal with Skipping Input for 1-Dimensional Array in Java

In this program, this user will have the opportunity to generate their own word search. In the beginning of the program, the user will be shown a menu of instructions in which they can choose between these options:
1. Create a word search
2. Print the word search
3. View solutions to the word search
4. Exit the program
When choosing to create a word search, the user will be asked to enter words of their choice, line by line. These words will be stored in a 1-D array. The user will have to enter a minimum of 20 words, maximum at 260. At every batch of 20 words, the user will be asked if they want to add more words. If they don`t, the program will jump right into converting the 1-D array to an Array List, and then create the word search. If the user chooses to add more words, the program will prompt him/her to enter more words until they have reached the max number of words. Options 2 and 3 will just involve some loops and using a few methods to display an organized output to the user.
The program is not letting me input words into the words array. When running the program, user enters "1" to create word search, then the program instructs user to input words line by line, but it is not letting the user input anything. The console screen reads "Word Search created" and right under this, it says "Invalid input, try again." I created the array list right after introducing the program: List<String> words = new ArrayList<>();
I tried to figure out where I was going wrong here, and I even tried searching up about this, but nothing really solved my problem.
do {
WordArray wordArr = new WordArray();
showOptions();
choice = input.nextInt(); // Get choice input
if (choice == 1) {
System.out.println("Enter words of your choice line-by-line. You can enter a maximum of 260 words (i.e., 10 words per letter)");
System.out.println("");
// This for loop will loop around with it`s body the user decides they have added enough words and wish to proceed
for (int i = 0; i < words.size(); i++) {
words.add(input.nextLine());
if ((i + 1) % 20 == 0 && i != 0) {
// For every batch of 20 words entered, the program will ask the user this...
System.out.print("Do you want to keep adding words? Enter Y/N: ");
String answer = input.next().toUpperCase();
if (answer.equals("Y")) {
words.add(input.nextLine());
} if (answer.equals("N")) {
break;
}//end of inner if
}//end of outer if
}//end of for loop
createWordSearch(words);

from the discussion on this chat, the error was in the for-loop
for (int i = 0; i < words.size(); i++)
were words.size() was 0, so to fix that you should use
for (int i = 0; i <= 260; i++)
changing words.size() to 260, where 260 is the max amount of words that the user can enter.

Trying to create an Acronym out of user input

Hello I am working on an assignment and I'm running into issues I was hoping for a little direction...
The purpose is to have user input a phrase and create an acronym out of that phrase. Anything over three words will be ignored.
I'm having issues with the acronym part, I am able to get the first character and figured that I would loop through the user input and grab the character after a space, but that is not working. All I am getting is the first character, which is obvious because I grab that first, but I can't figure out how to "save" the other two characters. Any help is greatly appreciated.
*********UPDATE************************
So thanks to an answer below I have made progress with using the StringBuilder. But, now if I enter "Your Three Words" the Output is: YYYYYTYYYYYWYYYY
Which is progress but I can't understand why it's repeating those first characters so many times??
I edited the code too.
*********UPDATE*****************************
public class ThreeLetterAcronym {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String threeWords;
StringBuilder acronym = new StringBuilder();
Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter your three words: ");
threeWords = scan.nextLine();
for(int count = 0; count < threeWords.length(); count++) {
acronym.append(threeWords.charAt(0));
if(threeWords.charAt(count) == ' ') {
++count;
acronym.append(threeWords.charAt(count));
}
}
System.out.println("The acronym of the three words you entered is: " + acronym);
}
}

You can't save the other characters because char is supposed to store only one character.
You can use a StringBuilder in this case
StringBuilder acronym = new StringBuilder();
Then in your loop simply replace it with
String[] threeWordsArray = threeWords.split(" ");
for(String word : threeWordsArray) {
acronym.append( word.substring(0, 1) );
}
**updated

You store the character at the current index in space:
char space = threeWords.charAt(count);
Then you compare the value of space with the integer value 3:
if(space < 3)
This will almost certainly never be true. You are asking for the numeric value of a character. Assuming it is a letter it will be at least 65. I suspect that your intention is to store something different in the variable space.

Get user to input integers

I want to make a program which keeps prompting the user to input integers(from CUI) until it receives a 'X' or 'x' from the user.
The program then prints out the maximum number, minimum number and average value of the input numbers.
I did manage to get the user to input numbers until someone types 'X', but I can't seem to get it to stop if someone types 'x' and the second bit.
This is the code that I have managed to work out:
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter a number")
while(!in.hasNext("X") && !in.hasNext("x"))
s = in.next().charAt(0);
System.out.println("This is the end of the numbers");
Any hints on how I proceed further?

You will need to do something like this:
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter a number")
while(!(in.hasNext("X") || in.hasNext("x")))
s = in.next().charAt(0);
System.out.println("This is the end of the numbers");
Whenever you use while loop you have to use the {} in case the arguments in the while block are more than 1 line, but if they are just of a line then you can just go on without using the {}.
But the problem, you had I suppose is the use of && instead of ||. What the && (AND) operator does is execute if both the statements are true but a || (OR) Operator works if any of the conditions are true.
If you say while(!in.hasNext("X") && !in.hasNext("x")) it makes no sense as the user input is not both at the same time, but instead if you usewhile(!in.hasNext("X") || !in.hasNext("x"))` it makes sense. Understood?
And about sorry, im really new at this. but ive added the code No problem, you need not say sorry but there are a few things to keep in mind before asking a question. You must read this https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask and yeah one more thing, you should use proper English Grammar while framing your question.
Last of all, about how to calculate the average..., for that what you need to do is store all the input variables into an array and then take out the mean of that or alternatively you could think about it and code something up yourself. Like to take out mean, you could make a variable sum and then keep adding the integers the user enters and also keep a variable count which will keep the count of the number of integers entered and then at last you could divide both of them to have your answer
Update: For checking the minimum and the maximum, what you can do is make 2 new variables like int min=0, max=0; and when the user enters a new variable you can check
//Note you have to change the "userinput" to the actual user input
if(min>userinput){
min=userinput;
}
and
if(max<userinput){
max=userinput;
}
Note: At stackoverflow we are there to help you out with the problems you are facing BUT you cannot exploit this. You cannot just post your homework here. But if you are trying to code something up and are stuck at it and cannot find a answer at google/stackoverflow then you can ask a new question and in that you need to tell what all you have already tried. Welcome to SO! :D Hope you have a nice time here

This would fit your needs:
public void readNumbers() {
// The list of numbers that we read
List<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<>();
// The scanner for the systems standard input stream
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
// As long as there a tokens...
while (scanner.hasNext()) {
if (scanner.hasNextInt()) { // ...check if the next token is an integer
// Get the token converted to an integer and store it in the list
numbers.add(scanner.nextInt());
} else if (scanner.hasNext("X") || scanner.hasNext("x")) { // ...check if 'X' or 'x' has been entered
break; // Leave the loop
}
}
// Close the scanner to avoid resource leaks
scanner.close();
// If the list has no elements we can return
if (numbers.isEmpty()) {
System.out.println("No numbers were entered.");
return;
}
// The following is only executed if the list is not empty/
// Sort the list ascending
Collections.sort(numbers);
// Calculate the average
double average = 0;
for (int num : numbers) {
average += num;
}
average /= numbers.size();
// Print the first number
System.out.println("Minimum number: " + numbers.get(0));
// Print the last number
System.out.println("Maximum number: " + numbers.get(numbers.size() - 1));
// Print the average
System.out.println("Average: " + average);
}