[crossfusion]

Ok so I've figured out the whole coding thing so the program itself works, but what I need to do is put a while loop outside of the 'for' loop to make the program continue after it's been initialized, and for a prompt on the print statement to say 'type quit to quit' for the program to quit when the user types in the word 'quit'. I didn't understand what my teacher was saying, and she said to make the 'quit' a variable? I don't know I'm confused, but all I'm trying to do is make the while loop work so the program will continue.

// **********************************************************
// Count.java
//
// This program reads in strings (phrases) and counts the
// number of blank characters and certain other letters
// in the phrase.
// **********************************************************

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Count
{
public static void main (String[] args)
{
String phrase; // a string of characters
int countBlank, countA, countE, countS, countT; // the number of blanks (spaces) in the phrase
int length, value; // the length of the phrase
char ch; // an individual character in the string

Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);

// Print a program header
System.out.println ();
System.out.println ("Character Counter");
System.out.println ();

// Read in a string and find its length
System.out.print ("Enter a sentence or phrase (quit to quit): ");
phrase = scan.nextLine();
length = phrase.length();

// Initialize counts
countBlank = 0;
countA = 0;
countE = 0;
countS = 0;
countT = 0;

// a for loop to go through the string character by character
// and count the blank spaces


while (value != quit)
{
	for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)
	{
	ch = phrase.charAt(i);

		switch (ch)
		{

		case 'a':
		case 'A': countA++;
		break;
		case 'e':
		case 'E': countE++;
		break;
		case 's':
		case 'S': countS++;
		break;
		case 't':
		case 'T': countT++;
		break;
		case ' ': countBlank++;
		break;
		}
	}
length += value;
	
System.out.print ("Enter a sentence or phrase (quit to quit): " );
value = scan.nextInt();
}



// Print the results
System.out.println ();
System.out.println ("Number of blank spaces: " + countBlank);
System.out.println ("Number of A's in sentence: " + countA);
System.out.println ("Number of E's in sentence: " + countE);
System.out.println ("Number of S's in sentence: " + countS);
System.out.println ("Number of T's in sentence: " + countT);

}
} 

[n8wxs]

It's pretty simple.

Just change your loop variable to a string:

package assign2;

import java.util.*;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String phrase; // a string of characters
        int countBlank, countA, countE, countS, countT; // the number of blanks (spaces) in the phrase
        int length, value = 0; // the length of the phrase
        char ch; // an individual character in the string

// initialize for while() loop
        String answer = "";

        Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);

// Print a program header
        System.out.println();
        System.out.println("Character Counter");
        System.out.println();

// Read in a string and find its length
        System.out.print("Enter a sentence or phrase (quit to quit): ");
        phrase = scan.nextLine();
        length = phrase.length();

// Initialize counts
        countBlank = 0;
        countA = 0;
        countE = 0;
        countS = 0;
        countT = 0;

// a for loop to go through the string character by character
// and count the blank spaces

        while (!answer.equalsIgnoreCase("quit")) {
            for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
                ch = phrase.charAt(i);

                switch (Character.toUpperCase(ch)) {
                    case 'A':
                        countA++;
                        break;
                    case 'E':
                        countE++;
                        break;
                    case 'S':
                        countS++;
                        break;
                    case 'T':
                        countT++;
                        break;
                    case ' ':
                        countBlank++;
                        break;
                }
            }

            length += value;

            System.out.print("Enter a sentence or phrase (quit to quit): ");
            answer = scan.nextLine();
        }
// Print the results
        System.out.println();
        System.out.println("Number of blank spaces: " + countBlank);
        System.out.println("Number of A's in sentence: " + countA);
        System.out.println("Number of E's in sentence: " + countE);
        System.out.println("Number of S's in sentence: " + countS);
        System.out.println("Number of T's in sentence: " + countT);
    }
}

produces this output:

Character Counter

Enter a sentence or phrase (quit to quit): This is a test!
Enter a sentence or phrase (quit to quit): quit

Number of blank spaces: 3
Number of A's in sentence: 1
Number of E's in sentence: 1
Number of S's in sentence: 3
Number of T's in sentence: 3
BUILD SUCCESSFUL (total time: 10 seconds)

This post has been edited by n8wxs: 21 March 2010 - 10:02 PM