working within strings

[Mario Bonassin]

Ok I've spent the last couple of days trying to figure this one out. Heres what I'm trying to do:
I have a string 'boothzan'.
I have a set of rules to apply to this string 'z only appears at the beginning or end of a word'
How do I have it go through the word and take out the letter 'z' creating the word 'boothan'?
The rules are being read in from a text file. Heres what I have
char space = '*';
for (a = 0; a < dropAll.size(); ++a) {
String drop = dropAll.get(a).toString();
for (b = 0; b< word.length(); ++b) {
if (drop.charAt(0) == word.charAt(b)) {
word.replace(word.charAt(b), space);
}
}
}
This doesn't work and I'm at a lose as to why. I also don't want to put the '*' in but I can't figure out how to remove anything. Also there are times when the character to be replace is something like 'th' or 'eks'. Using the /drop.charAt(0)/ won't work for that. As well this way doesn't allow for the letter to exist in a specific positions.
The words are all different so it needs to be flexible.
If you could at least point me in the right direction that would be great.
Thanks

[Stan James]

Take a look at the methods on String. A few like indexOf(), substring() and length() ought to help. To remove a target character or string from a bigger string you'll have to take the chunk before the target and the chunk after it and concatenate them together. Oooh, if you're on a new enough JVM, look up replaceAll() instead of all that.

[Mario Bonassin]

I tried those and they didn't do the job either. Substring() just gives back part of the word not a specific character. IndexOf() returns a int not a String so it can't be matched. At least I don't know how to do it.
As to replaceAll() I looked at that and I don't want every instance of the letter to be replaced. I want to pick and choose which will be replaced. Thats why I tried the replace(), but it uses char instead of strings.

[Scott Solomko]

The combination of indexOf and substring should be able to accomplish this. Something like the followin:

String originalWord = new String("boothzan");
int locationOfZ = originalWord.indexOf("z");
String firstHalf = originalWord.substring(0, locationOfZ - 1);
String secondHalf = originalWord.substring(locationOfZ + 1, originalWord.length() - 1);
String newWord = firstHalf + secondHalf;

[Mario Bonassin]

Thanks that got me on the right track. But why does it go through the first loop twice?
Here the code:

    /*
     * drops all medial consonants but leaves begining and ending.
     */
    private static String allDrop(String word, List dropAll) {
        String firstHalf = "";
        String secondHalf = "";
        String newWord = "";
        String originalWord = new String(word);
        boolean firLet = false;
        boolean lasLet = false;
        int locationOfZ=-1;
        int loop;
        for (int a = 0; a < dropAll.size(); ++a) {
            System.out.println(dropAll.toString() + " " + dropAll.size() + " " + a);
            String drop = dropAll.get(a).toString();
            out:
                for (loop = 0; loop < word.length(); ++loop) {
                    locationOfZ = originalWord.indexOf(drop);
                    if (locationOfZ == 0) {
                        firLet = true;
                    }
                    if (locationOfZ == originalWord.length()-1) {
                        lasLet = true;
                    }
                    if (locationOfZ == -1)
                        break out;
                    firstHalf = originalWord.substring(0, locationOfZ);
                    secondHalf = originalWord.substring(locationOfZ + 1, originalWord.length());
                    newWord = firstHalf + secondHalf;
                    originalWord = newWord;
                    System.out.println(originalWord + "  " +newWord + "  " + loop +" "+firLet +" "+lasLet);
                }
                if (firLet) {
                    originalWord = drop + originalWord;
                    firLet = false;
                }
                if (lasLet) {
                    originalWord = originalWord + drop;
                    lasLet = false;
                }
                originalWord = originalWord;
        }
        word = originalWord;
        return word;
    }

if the word /dhazaaz/ is passed, and the two letter to remove are /d/ and /z/ the println give the following
[z, d] 2 0
dhazaaz dhazaaz 0 false false
dhaaaz dhaaaz 1 false false
dhaaa dhaaa 2 false true
[z, d] 2 1
haaaz haaaz 0 true false
[z, d] 2 0
dhaaa dhaaa 0 false true
[z, d] 2 1
haaaz haaaz 0 true false
dhaaaz final fix

It gives the correct word but it goes through the process twice, why?
Thanks
Mario
ps if anyone has a better way of doing this let me know thanks.