inner class or new class or new method?

[joyita raksit]

hey ho,

i'm trying to write a bit that basically takes in a random sentace (going to expand it to take input later, for now, defined a string) and returns a random word.

my problem is that, i'm unsure how to get the countTokens variable in so i can multiply the math.random method by it to get my random word index.

here is the code;

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.lang.Math.*;
 
/** Demonstrates word picking using a string tokenizer */
class kword2
{
static String rec = "The red brown fox jumps over the fence" ;
static int ac = st.countTokens;
static int num = (int) (Math.random() * ac);
 
/** Splits the sentence into an array of tokens. */
public String[] tokenizeToArray(String sentence)
{
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(sentence) ;
String[] returnarray = new String[st.countTokens()] ;
int i = 0 ;

while(st.hasMoreTokens())
{
returnarray[i++] = st.nextToken() ;
}
return returnarray;
}

/** Retrieves a specific token from the array split from the sentence. */
public String getWord(String aString, int wordIndex)
{
String[] array = tokenizeToArray( aString );
return array[wordIndex] ;
}
 
public static void main(String[] args)
{
kword2 picker = new kword2();
String randomWord = picker.getWord(rec,num);
System.out.println(randomWord) ;
}
} 

so do i need to create a new class? an inner class? or a new method? i understand why it's going wrong because my variable ac has not yet been defined. i cannot make them unstatic, as my main static method refers to them & cannot refernce non static...
aaaargh, i think i'm seeing the problem okay, i just cant find my way to the solution!

cheers very much for any advice x

[joyita raksit]

oh yeah, and if anyone could give me pointers on how to do this stuff with regex, i think it's the preferred way? using string.split? or am i making that up?

[joyita raksit]

okay, given the regex version a go, but i keep getting missing return statement for line 22, then i chuck in a return items and it cpompiles but when i run it i get a series of blanks or an arrayindexoutofbounds exception?? what am i doing wrong??? oh yeah, and the previous question regarding getting the length remains unresolved, i just wandered off & found myself a new one...

anyway, the code, please please help...

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.lang.Math.*;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 
/** Demonstrates word picking using a string tokenizer */
class kword
{
static String rec = "The red brown fox jumps over the fence" ;
static String sp = " ";
static int num = (int) (Math.random() * 8);
 
/** Splits the sentence into an array of tokens. */
public String[] tokenizeToArray(String sentence)
{
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(rec);
String[] items = p.split(sp);
for (int i = 0; i < items.length; i++){
return items;
}
}

/** Retrieves a specific token from the array split from the sentence. */
public String getWord(String aString, int wordIndex)
{
String[] array = tokenizeToArray( aString );
return array[wordIndex] ;
}
 
public static void main(String[] args)
{
kword picker = new kword();
String randomWord = picker.getWord(rec,num);
System.out.println(randomWord) ;
}
}

[Henry Wong]

  /** Splits the sentence into an array of tokens. */
  public String[] tokenizeToArray(String sentence)
  {
    Pattern p = Pattern.compile(rec);
    String[] items = p.split(sp);
    for (int i = 0; i < items.length; i++){
      return items;
    }
  }

First, you used the wrong values. The regex gets compiled, and the string gets split. You compiled the string and split the regex.

Second, what is the purpose of the "for" loop?

Henry

[joyita raksit]

ahhh, you beauty! so here's the new & improved. still got the problem of getting the token length in order to generate the random word index (cos the string will be user input in the end) any pointers?

& here's the new code for reference

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.lang.Math.*;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
 
class kword
{
static String rec = "The red brown fox jumps over the fence" ;
static String sp = " ";
static int num = (int) (Math.random() * 8);
 
public String[] tokenizeToArray(String sentence)
{
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(sp);
String[] items = p.split(rec);
{
return items;
}
}

 
public String getWord(String aString, int wordIndex)
{
String[] array = tokenizeToArray( aString );
return array[wordIndex] ;
}
 
public static void main(String[] args)
{
kword picker = new kword();
String randomWord = picker.getWord(rec,num);
System.out.println(randomWord) ;
}
}

[Garrett Rowe]

oh yeah, and the previous question regarding getting the length remains unresolved, i just wandered off & found myself a new one...

Don't pass the index to the getWord() method. Let the getWord() method pick the random index.

        public String getRandomWord(String aString)//Changed method name to express new intent.
{
String[] array = tokenizeToArray( aString );
                int wordIndex = (int) (Math.random() * array.length);
return array[wordIndex] ;
}

[ November 26, 2006: Message edited by: Garrett Rowe ]
[ November 26, 2006: Message edited by: Garrett Rowe ]

[joyita raksit]

cheers garrett, thats helped brilliantly, really enjoying this & cant wait till i've some knowledge to share back