Remove all non alphabetic characters from a String array in java - java

I'm trying to write a method that removes all non alphabetic characters from a Java String[] and then convert the String to an lower case string. I've tried using regular expression to replace the occurence of all non alphabetic characters by "" .However, the output that I am getting is not able to do so. Here is the code
static String[] inputValidator(String[] line) {
for(int i = 0; i < line.length; i++) {
line[i].replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]", "");
line[i].toLowerCase();
}
return line;
}
However if I try to supply an input that has non alphabets (say - or .) the output also consists of them, as they are not removed.
Example Input
A dog is an animal. Animals are not people.
Output that I'm getting
A
dog
is
an
animal.
Animals
are
not
people.
Output that is expected
a
dog
is
an
animal
animals
are
not
people

The problem is your changes are not being stored because Strings are immutable. Each of the method calls is returning a new String representing the change, with the current String staying the same. You just need to store the returned String back into the array.
line[i] = line[i].replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]", "");
line[i] = line[i].toLowerCase();
Because the each method is returning a String you can chain your method calls together. This will perform the second method call on the result of the first, allowing you to do both actions in one line.
line[i] = line[i].replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]", "").toLowerCase();

You need to assign the result of your regex back to lines[i].
for ( int i = 0; i < line.length; i++) {
line[i] = line[i].replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]", "").toLowerCase();
}

It doesn't work because strings are immutable, you need to set a value
e.g.
line[i] = line[i].toLowerCase();

You must reassign the result of toLowerCase() and replaceAll() back to line[i], since Java String is immutable (its internal value never changes, and the methods in String class will return a new String object instead of modifying the String object).

As it already answered , just thought of sharing one more way that was not mentioned here >
str = str.replaceAll("\\P{Alnum}", "").toLowerCase();

A cool (but slightly cumbersome, if you don't like casting) way of doing what you want to do is go through the entire string, index by index, casting each result from String.charAt(index) to (byte), and then checking to see if that byte is either a) in the numeric range of lower-case alphabetic characters (a = 97 to z = 122), in which case cast it back to char and add it to a String, array, or what-have-you, or b) in the numeric range of upper-case alphabetic characters (A = 65 to Z = 90), in which case add 32 (A + 22 = 65 + 32 = 97 = a) and cast that to char and add it in. If it is in neither of those ranges, simply discard it.

You can also use Arrays.setAll for this:
Arrays.setAll(array, i -> array[i].replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z]", "").toLowerCase());

Here is working method
String name = "Joy.78#,+~'{/>";
String[] stringArray = name.split("\\W+");
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < stringArray.length; i++) {
result.append(stringArray[i]);
}
String nameNew = result.toString();
nameNew.toLowerCase();

public static void solve(String line){
// trim to remove unwanted spaces
line= line.trim();
String[] split = line.split("\\W+");
// print using for-each
for (String s : split) {
System.out.println(s);
}

Related

I cannot print value of converted string

I want to reverse a string. I know there are some other methods to do it but I wanted to do in a different way. There is no error but no output when I run my code. I dont understand why "String.valueOf(word.charAt(i)" doesnt return a value? Am I missing something?
String word = "myword";
for (int i = word.length(); i <= 0; i--) {
System.out.print(String.valueOf(word.charAt(i)));
}
The first value of i is out of index. And I also fixed your code. Check below:
String word = "myword";
for(int i=word.length()-1;i>=0;i--){
System.out.print(String.valueOf(word.charAt(i)));}
Just for providing another slightly different solution:
You can use a StringBuilder to reverse a String using its method reverse().
If you have a String, you can use it to initialize the StringBuilder with it and directly reverse it.
This example additionally uses an enhanced for-loop, which always goes through all of the elements. Using that, you can get rid of checking the length of a String and you won't have to use an int i for iterating.
For your requirements, this is a suitable option because you want to reverse the whole String.
String word = "myword";
for (char c : new StringBuilder(word).reverse().toString().toCharArray()) {
System.out.println(c);
}
Note that you can use the reverse() method for printing the reversed word in one line just doing
System.out.println(new StringBuilder(word).reverse().toString());
Your code has 2 issues.
i should be initialized with word.length()-1. Other wise you will get StringIndexOutOfBoundsException
for loop condition should be >= 0.
Below is the corrected code.
String word = "myword";
for(int i=word.length()-1;i>=0;i--) {
System.out.print(word.charAt(i));
}

Replacing a character in a string from another string with the same char index

I'm trying to search and reveal unknown characters in a string. Both strings are of length 12.
Example:
String s1 = "1x11222xx333";
String s2 = "111122223333"
The program should check for all unknowns in s1 represented by x|X and get the relevant chars in s2 and replace the x|X by the relevant char.
So far my code has replaced only the first x|X with the relevant char from s2 but printed duplicates for the rest of the unknowns with the char for the first x|X.
Here is my code:
String VoucherNumber = "1111x22xx333";
String VoucherRecord = "111122223333";
String testVoucher = null;
char x = 'x'|'X';
System.out.println(VoucherNumber); // including unknowns
//find x|X in the string VoucherNumber
for(int i = 0; i < VoucherNumber.length(); i++){
if (VoucherNumber.charAt(i) == x){
testVoucher = VoucherNumber.replace(VoucherNumber.charAt(i), VoucherRecord.charAt(i));
}
}
System.out.println(testVoucher); //after replacing unknowns
}
}
I am always a fan of using StringBuilders, so here's a solution using that:
private static String replaceUnknownChars(String strWithUnknownChars, String fullStr) {
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(strWithUnknownChars);
while ((int index = Math.max(sb.toString().indexOf('x'), sb.toString().indexOf('X'))) != -1) {
sb.setCharAt(index, fullStr.charAt(index));
}
return sb.toString();
}
It's quite straightforward. You create a new string builder. While a x or X can still be found in the string builder (indexOf('X') != -1), get the index and setCharAt.
Your are using String.replace(char, char) the wrong way, the doc says
Returns a new string resulting from replacing all occurrences of oldChar in this string with newChar.
So you if you have more than one character, this will replace every one with the same value.
You need to "change" only the character at a specific spot, for this, the easiest is to use the char array that you can get with String.toCharArray, from this, this is you can use the same logic.
Of course, you can use String.indexOf to find the index of a specific character
Note : char c = 'x'|'X'; will not give you the expected result. This will do a binary operation giving a value that is not the one you want.
The OR will return 1 if one of the bit is 1.
0111 1000 (x)
0101 1000 (X)
OR
0111 1000 (x)
But the result will be an integer (every numeric operation return at minimum an integer, you can find more information about that)
You have two solution here, you either use two variable (or an array) or if you can, you use String.toLowerCase an use only char c = 'x'

Change lowercase and uppercase of characters in java

If I want to create a dictionary where the user can create a custom alphabet (that still uses unicode) Is there a way to change lowercase and uppercase mapping of the characters?
Let's say I want the lowercase of 'I' to be 'ı' instead of 'i' or upperCase of 'b' to be 'P' instead of 'B' so that System.out.println("PAI".toLowerCase()); would write baı to the console.
I suppose I can create a method toLowerCase(String s) that first replaces "P" with "b"s then converts to lowercase but wouldn't that be slower when searching through a dictionary of hundreds of thousands of words?
The toLowerCase(String s) uses the locale to decide how to convert the characters, you should have to define your own locale and then, for example, load it as the default locale via Locale.setDefault(Locale) before executing the toLowerCase(String s)
No, it would not be slower because you are simply traversing through the array and not modifying the position of any object which would result in O(n). Performance wouldn't be affected, and any system should be able to handle a single conversion and then toLowerCase call easily.
You could also override the toLowerCase(String s) function to accommodate your needs. Even simpler!
This should do the trick:
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
class MyString {
String string;
static final Map<Character, Character> toLowerCaseMap, toUpperCaseMap;
static {
toLowerCaseMap = new HashMap<>();
toLowerCaseMap.put('I', '|');
toUpperCaseMap = new HashMap<>();
toUpperCaseMap.put('b', 'P');
}
MyString(String string) {
this.string = string;
}
String toLowerCase() {
char[] chars = string.toCharArray();
for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
char c = chars[i];
chars[i] = toLowerCaseMap.containsKey(c) ? toLowerCaseMap.get(c) : Character.toLowerCase(c);
}
return new String(chars);
}
String toUpperCase() {
char[] chars = string.toCharArray();
for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
char c = chars[i];
chars[i] = toUpperCaseMap.containsKey(c) ? toUpperCaseMap.get(c) : Character.toUpperCase(c);
}
return new String(chars);
}
}
Check this Answer you cannot inherits from String Class because its final, but you could create your class with your toLowerCase Method, I suggest you called diferents for maintenance.
And for the dictionary of hundreds of thousands of words....
Maybe you use a Map or HashMap with the key will be the string enter by the user and in the object you maybe save automatically the value in lowerCase, it depends of what you need.
But for get better performance I could recommend save the value in Database
Regards.

Determining if a given string of words has words greater than 5 letters long

So, I'm in need of help on my homework assignment. Here's the question:
Write a static method, getBigWords, that gets a String parameter and returns an array whose elements are the words in the parameter that contain more than 5 letters. (A word is defined as a contiguous sequence of letters.) So, given a String like "There are 87,000,000 people in Canada", getBigWords would return an array of two elements, "people" and "Canada".
What I have so far:
public static getBigWords(String sentence)
{
String[] a = new String;
String[] split = sentence.split("\\s");
for(int i = 0; i < split.length; i++)
{
if(split[i].length => 5)
{
a.add(split[i]);
}
}
return a;
}
I don't want an answer, just a means to guide me in the right direction. I'm a novice at programming, so it's difficult for me to figure out what exactly I'm doing wrong.
EDIT:
I've now modified my method to:
public static String[] getBigWords(String sentence)
{
ArrayList<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
String[] split = sentence.split("\\s+");
for(int i = 0; i < split.length; i++)
{
if(split[i].length() > 5)
{
if(split[i].matches("[a-zA-Z]+"))
{
result.add(split[i]);
}
}
}
return result.toArray(new String[0]);
}
It prints out the results I want, but the online software I use to turn in the assignment, still says I'm doing something wrong. More specifically, it states:
Edith de Stance states:
⇒     You might want to use: +=
⇒     You might want to use: ==
⇒     You might want to use: +
not really sure what that means....
The main problem is that you can't have an array that makes itself bigger as you add elements.
You have 2 options:
ArrayList (basically a variable-length array).
Make an array guaranteed to be bigger.
Also, some notes:
The definition of an array needs to look like:
int size = ...; // V- note the square brackets here
String[] a = new String[size];
Arrays don't have an add method, you need to keep track of the index yourself.
You're currently only splitting on spaces, so 87,000,000 will also match. You could validate the string manually to ensure it consists of only letters.
It's >=, not =>.
I believe the function needs to return an array:
public static String[] getBigWords(String sentence)
It actually needs to return something:
return result.toArray(new String[0]);
rather than
return null;
The "You might want to use" suggestions points to that you might have to process the array character by character.
First, try and print out all the elements in your split array. Remember, you do only want you look at words. So, examine if this is the case by printing out each element of the split array inside your for loop. (I'm suspecting you will get a false positive at the moment)
Also, you need to revisit your books on arrays in Java. You can not dynamically add elements to an array. So, you will need a different data structure to be able to use an add() method. An ArrayList of Strings would help you here.
split your string on bases of white space, it will return an array. You can check the length of each word by iterating on that array.
you can split string though this way myString.split("\\s+");
Try this...
public static String[] getBigWords(String sentence)
{
java.util.ArrayList<String> result = new java.util.ArrayList<String>();
String[] split = sentence.split("\\s+");
for(int i = 0; i < split.length; i++)
{
if(split[i].length() > 5)
{
if(split[i].matches("[a-zA-Z]+"))
{
result.add(split[i]);
}
if (split[i].matches("[a-zA-Z]+,"))
{
String temp = "";
for(int j = 0; j < split[i].length(); j++)
{
if((split[i].charAt(j))!=((char)','))
{
temp += split[i].charAt(j);
//System.out.print(split[i].charAt(j) + "|");
}
}
result.add(temp);
}
}
}
return result.toArray(new String[0]);
}
Whet you have done is correct but you can't you add method in array. You should set like a[position]= spilt[i]; if you want to ignore number then check by Float.isNumber() method.
Your logic is valid, but you have some syntax issues. If you are not using an IDE like Eclipse that shows you syntax errors, try commenting out lines to pinpoint which ones are syntactically incorrect. I want to also tell you that once an array is created its length cannot change. Hopefully that sets you off in the right directions.
Apart from syntax errors at String array declaration should be like new String[n]
and add method will not be there in Array hence you should use like
a[i] = split[i];
You need to add another condition along with length condition to check that the given word have all letters this can be done in 2 ways
first way is to use Character.isLetter() method and second way is create regular expression
to check string have only letter. google it for regular expression and use matcher to match like the below
Pattern pattern=Pattern.compile();
Matcher matcher=pattern.matcher();
Final point is use another counter (let say j=0) to store output values and increment this counter as and when you store string in the array.
a[j++] = split[i];
I would use a string tokenizer (string tokenizer class in java)
Iterate through each entry and if the string length is more than 4 (or whatever you need) add to the array you are returning.
You said no code, so... (This is like 5 lines of code)

How can I extract the numbers from a string only using charAt(), length() and/or toCharArray() in Java

I have to do this for an assignment in my java class. I have been searching for a while now, but only find solutions with regex etc.
For my assignment however I may only use charAt(), length() and/or toCharArray(). I need to get from a string like gu578si300 for example just the numbers so it will become: 578300.
i know numbers are 48 - 57 in ASCII but i can't figure out how to do this in java. You guys any ideas?
i was thinking about a for loop that checks whether the (int) char is between 48-57 en if so puts the value into a seperate array. Howeevr i dont know how to programm that last thing.
I now have this;
public static String filterGetallenreeks(String reeks){
String temp = "";
for (char c : reeks.toCharArray()) {
if ((int) c > 47 && (int) c < 58)
temp += c;
}
return temp;
however it is not working, it just outputs the same as goes in.
is it something in my mainm which looks like this. If i'm right the return temp; will return the temp string into the reeks string in the main right? why is my input still the same a sthe output?
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Voer een zin, woord of cijferreeks in:");
String reeks = sc.nextLine();
if (isGetallenreeks(reeks)){
System.out.println("is getallenreeks");
filterGetallenreeks(reeks);
System.out.println(reeks);
}
Since this is homework I will not be providing the complete solution, however, this is how you should go about it:
Do a for loop that iterates for the total amount of characters within the string (.length). Check if the character is a digit using the charAt and isDigit methods.
You could do a loop that checks a character in the string, and if it's a number, append it to another string:
//I haven't tested this, so you know.
String test = "gu578si300 ";
String numbers = "";
for(int i=0; i<test.length(); i++){
if("0123456789".indexOf(test.charAt(i)) // if the character at position i is a number,
numbers = numbers + test.charAt(i); // Add it to the end of "numbers".
}
int final = Integer.parseInt(numbers); // If you need to do something with those numbers,
// Parse it.
Let me know if that works for you.
It seems like a reasonable approach, but I'd make a couple of changes from what you suggested:
If you need to result as a string then use a StringBuilder instead of an array.
Use character literals like '0' and '9' instead of ASCII codes to make your code more readable.
Update
The specific problem with your code is this line:
temp = temp + (int)c;
This converts the character to its ASCII value and then converts that to a decimal string containing the ASCII value. That's not what you want. Use this instead:
temp += c;

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