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.
Why nextLine() method doesn't work? I mean, I can not enter any sentence after the second scan call because the program runs to the end and exits.
Input: era era food food correct correct sss sss exit
Should I use another Scanner object?
import java.util.*;
public class Today{
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
String str="";
String exit="exit";
System.out.println("Please enter some words : ");
while(true){
str=scan.next();
if(str.equalsIgnoreCase(exit)) break;
System.out.println(str);
}
System.out.println("Please enter a sentnce : ");
String sentence1 = scan.nextLine();
System.out.println("the word you entered is : " + sentence1);
}
}
What Scanner#nextLine does is to
Advance this scanner past the current line and returns the input that
was skipped. This method returns the rest of the current line,
excluding any line separator at the end.
Since your input is era era food food correct correct sss sss exit you read inside the while every word with Scanner#next, so when Scanner#nextLine is called it returns "" (empty string) because there is nothing left of that line. That's why you see the word you entered is : (at the begging of the text is the empty string).
If you would have used this input: era era food food correct correct sss sss exit lastWord you would have seen the word you entered is : lastWord
The only thing you need to do in order to fix this is to call scan.nextLine(); first to move to the next line for the new input the user is going to provide and then get the new word with Scanner#nextLine() like this:
Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
String str="";
String exit="exit";
System.out.println("Please enter some words : ");
while(true){
str=scan.next();
if(str.equalsIgnoreCase(exit)) break;
System.out.println(str);
}
scan.nextLine(); // consume rest of the string after exit word
System.out.println("Please enter a sentnce : ");
String sentence1 = scan.nextLine(); // get sentence
System.out.println("the word you entered is : " + sentence1);
Demo: https://ideone.com/GbwBds
Alright, I'm coding this program that will discard any characters that are not letters. And right now I am having trouble trying to have the program identify which is which. Here's some of the code I did.
System.out.println("Press enter every time, you type a new word, and press the period button to end it.");
Scanner question = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Press enter to continue, or tupe something random in");
String userInput = question.next();
while(!userInput.equals(".")){
String userInput2 = question.next();
System.out.println(userInput2);
if(userInput2.equals("Stop")){
break;
}
}
You can use a regular expression to remove all characters which are not either lowercase or uppercase letters:
String userInput2 = question.next();
userInput2 = userInput2.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]", "");
System.out.println(userInput2);
Go through the string and call Character.isLetter(char) for each char to test if it is a letter character.
I have the following Java code:
Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
try {
System.out.println("Enter your name>>");
String name = input.next();
System.out.println("Enter your year of birth>>");
int age = input.nextInt();
System.out.println("Name: " + name);
System.out.println("Year of Birth: " + age);
System.out.println("Age: " + (2012 - age));
} catch (InputMismatchException err) {
System.out.println("Not a number");
}
When I enter a name with a space (e.g. "James Peterson"), I get the next line output correctly (Enter your year of birth) and then an InputMismatchException immediately. The code works with a single name without spaces. Is there something I'm missing?
System.out.println("Enter your name>>");
String name = input.next();
System.out.println("Enter your year of birth>>");
int age = input.nextInt();
Scanner, breaks its input into tokens using a delimiter pattern, which by default matches whitespace.
When you enter "James Peterson", Scanner#next() takes "James" as a token and assigns it to String name and then you do a Scanner#nextInt() which takes "Peterson" as the next token, but it is not something which can be cast to int and hence the InputMismatchException asnextInt() will throw an InputMismatchException if the next token does not match the Integer regular expression, or is out of range.
Actually the problem in your code has been clearly pointed out. In your case, there are two typical ways to achieve that:
One
Using useDelimiter method to delimite the input and after each input, you need to hit the Enter.
Sets this scanner's delimiting pattern to a pattern constructed from the specified String.
In your case, you need to
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
sc.setDelimiter("\\n");
// hit the "Enter" after each input for the field;
Two
Also you can achieve the same result using readLine
Advances this scanner past the current line and returns the input that was skipped. This method returns the rest of the current line, excluding any line separator at the end. The position is set to the beginning of the next line.
In this way, you can do
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter your name>>");
String name = sc.nextLine();
...
System.out.println("Enter your year of birth>>");
int age = sc.nextInt();
P.S.
Actually you can achieve it in a more restrictive way, controlling the pattern using next(Pattern pattern), if you need it.
int age = sc.next(Pattern.compile("\\d+{1,3}"));
In this case, if the input DOES NOT match the pattern, it will throw InputMismatchException as you were trying to nextInt while the input is a string.
When I enter a name with a space (e.g. "James Peterson"), I get the next line output correctly (Enter your year of birth>>) and then an InputMismatchException immediately.
This question already has an answer here:
How to use java.util.Scanner to correctly read user input from System.in and act on it?
(1 answer)
Closed 5 years ago.
I'm taking user input from System.in using a java.util.Scanner. I need to validate the input for things like:
It must be a non-negative number
It must be an alphabetical letter
... etc
What's the best way to do this?
Overview of Scanner.hasNextXXX methods
java.util.Scanner has many hasNextXXX methods that can be used to validate input. Here's a brief overview of all of them:
hasNext() - does it have any token at all?
hasNextLine() - does it have another line of input?
For Java primitives
hasNextInt() - does it have a token that can be parsed into an int?
Also available are hasNextDouble(), hasNextFloat(), hasNextByte(), hasNextShort(), hasNextLong(), and hasNextBoolean()
As bonus, there's also hasNextBigInteger() and hasNextBigDecimal()
The integral types also has overloads to specify radix (for e.g. hexadecimal)
Regular expression-based
hasNext(String pattern)
hasNext(Pattern pattern) is the Pattern.compile overload
Scanner is capable of more, enabled by the fact that it's regex-based. One important feature is useDelimiter(String pattern), which lets you define what pattern separates your tokens. There are also find and skip methods that ignores delimiters.
The following discussion will keep the regex as simple as possible, so the focus remains on Scanner.
Example 1: Validating positive ints
Here's a simple example of using hasNextInt() to validate positive int from the input.
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
int number;
do {
System.out.println("Please enter a positive number!");
while (!sc.hasNextInt()) {
System.out.println("That's not a number!");
sc.next(); // this is important!
}
number = sc.nextInt();
} while (number <= 0);
System.out.println("Thank you! Got " + number);
Here's an example session:
Please enter a positive number!
five
That's not a number!
-3
Please enter a positive number!
5
Thank you! Got 5
Note how much easier Scanner.hasNextInt() is to use compared to the more verbose try/catch Integer.parseInt/NumberFormatException combo. By contract, a Scanner guarantees that if it hasNextInt(), then nextInt() will peacefully give you that int, and will not throw any NumberFormatException/InputMismatchException/NoSuchElementException.
Related questions
How to use Scanner to accept only valid int as input
How do I keep a scanner from throwing exceptions when the wrong type is entered? (java)
Example 2: Multiple hasNextXXX on the same token
Note that the snippet above contains a sc.next() statement to advance the Scanner until it hasNextInt(). It's important to realize that none of the hasNextXXX methods advance the Scanner past any input! You will find that if you omit this line from the snippet, then it'd go into an infinite loop on an invalid input!
This has two consequences:
If you need to skip the "garbage" input that fails your hasNextXXX test, then you need to advance the Scanner one way or another (e.g. next(), nextLine(), skip, etc).
If one hasNextXXX test fails, you can still test if it perhaps hasNextYYY!
Here's an example of performing multiple hasNextXXX tests.
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
while (!sc.hasNext("exit")) {
System.out.println(
sc.hasNextInt() ? "(int) " + sc.nextInt() :
sc.hasNextLong() ? "(long) " + sc.nextLong() :
sc.hasNextDouble() ? "(double) " + sc.nextDouble() :
sc.hasNextBoolean() ? "(boolean) " + sc.nextBoolean() :
"(String) " + sc.next()
);
}
Here's an example session:
5
(int) 5
false
(boolean) false
blah
(String) blah
1.1
(double) 1.1
100000000000
(long) 100000000000
exit
Note that the order of the tests matters. If a Scanner hasNextInt(), then it also hasNextLong(), but it's not necessarily true the other way around. More often than not you'd want to do the more specific test before the more general test.
Example 3 : Validating vowels
Scanner has many advanced features supported by regular expressions. Here's an example of using it to validate vowels.
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Please enter a vowel, lowercase!");
while (!sc.hasNext("[aeiou]")) {
System.out.println("That's not a vowel!");
sc.next();
}
String vowel = sc.next();
System.out.println("Thank you! Got " + vowel);
Here's an example session:
Please enter a vowel, lowercase!
5
That's not a vowel!
z
That's not a vowel!
e
Thank you! Got e
In regex, as a Java string literal, the pattern "[aeiou]" is what is called a "character class"; it matches any of the letters a, e, i, o, u. Note that it's trivial to make the above test case-insensitive: just provide such regex pattern to the Scanner.
API links
hasNext(String pattern) - Returns true if the next token matches the pattern constructed from the specified string.
java.util.regex.Pattern
Related questions
Reading a single char in Java
References
Java Tutorials/Essential Classes/Regular Expressions
regular-expressions.info/Character Classes
Example 4: Using two Scanner at once
Sometimes you need to scan line-by-line, with multiple tokens on a line. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use two Scanner, where the second Scanner takes the nextLine() from the first Scanner as input. Here's an example:
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Give me a bunch of numbers in a line (or 'exit')");
while (!sc.hasNext("exit")) {
Scanner lineSc = new Scanner(sc.nextLine());
int sum = 0;
while (lineSc.hasNextInt()) {
sum += lineSc.nextInt();
}
System.out.println("Sum is " + sum);
}
Here's an example session:
Give me a bunch of numbers in a line (or 'exit')
3 4 5
Sum is 12
10 100 a million dollar
Sum is 110
wait what?
Sum is 0
exit
In addition to Scanner(String) constructor, there's also Scanner(java.io.File) among others.
Summary
Scanner provides a rich set of features, such as hasNextXXX methods for validation.
Proper usage of hasNextXXX/nextXXX in combination means that a Scanner will NEVER throw an InputMismatchException/NoSuchElementException.
Always remember that hasNextXXX does not advance the Scanner past any input.
Don't be shy to create multiple Scanner if necessary. Two simple Scanner is often better than one overly complex Scanner.
Finally, even if you don't have any plans to use the advanced regex features, do keep in mind which methods are regex-based and which aren't. Any Scanner method that takes a String pattern argument is regex-based.
Tip: an easy way to turn any String into a literal pattern is to Pattern.quote it.
Here's a minimalist way to do it.
System.out.print("Please enter an integer: ");
while(!scan.hasNextInt()) scan.next();
int demoInt = scan.nextInt();
For checking Strings for letters you can use regular expressions for example:
someString.matches("[A-F]");
For checking numbers and stopping the program crashing, I have a quite simple class you can find below where you can define the range of values you want.
Here
public int readInt(String prompt, int min, int max)
{
Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
int number = 0;
//Run once and loop until the input is within the specified range.
do
{
//Print users message.
System.out.printf("\n%s > ", prompt);
//Prevent string input crashing the program.
while (!scan.hasNextInt())
{
System.out.printf("Input doesn't match specifications. Try again.");
System.out.printf("\n%s > ", prompt);
scan.next();
}
//Set the number.
number = scan.nextInt();
//If the number is outside range print an error message.
if (number < min || number > max)
System.out.printf("Input doesn't match specifications. Try again.");
} while (number < min || number > max);
return number;
}
One idea:
try {
int i = Integer.parseInt(myString);
if (i < 0) {
// Error, negative input
}
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
// Error, not a number.
}
There is also, in commons-lang library the CharUtils class that provides the methods isAsciiNumeric() to check that a character is a number, and isAsciiAlpha() to check that the character is a letter...
If you are parsing string data from the console or similar, the best way is to use regular expressions. Read more on that here:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/releases/1.4regex/
Otherwise, to parse an int from a string, try
Integer.parseInt(string). If the string is not a number, you will get an exception. Otherise you can then perform your checks on that value to make sure it is not negative.
String input;
int number;
try
{
number = Integer.parseInt(input);
if(number > 0)
{
System.out.println("You positive number is " + number);
}
} catch (NumberFormatException ex)
{
System.out.println("That is not a positive number!");
}
To get a character-only string, you would probably be better of looping over each character checking for digits, using for instance Character.isLetter(char).
String input
for(int i = 0; i<input.length(); i++)
{
if(!Character.isLetter(input.charAt(i)))
{
System.out.println("This string does not contain only letters!");
break;
}
}
Good luck!
what i have tried is that first i took the integer input and checked that whether its is negative or not if its negative then again take the input
Scanner s=new Scanner(System.in);
int a=s.nextInt();
while(a<0)
{
System.out.println("please provide non negative integer input ");
a=s.nextInt();
}
System.out.println("the non negative integer input is "+a);
Here, you need to take the character input first and check whether user gave character or not if not than again take the character input
char ch = s.findInLine(".").charAt(0);
while(!Charcter.isLetter(ch))
{
System.out.println("please provide a character input ");
ch=s.findInLine(".").charAt(0);
}
System.out.println("the character input is "+ch);