Newbie Q: Head First Into Java : 99 bottles of beer song Question

[Jimmy Semaj]

Ok so I am quite new to the java programming language (as well as programming in general) so i picked up the Java Head First book for JAVA 5. Going through the examples i am having problems correcting the "99 bottles of beer" problem on page 14 of the second edition of the book. The code compiles and works but there is a snippit below that says " there's still one little flow in our code. It runs, but it's output isn't 100% perfect. See if you can spot the flaw, and fix it.". I have been working on it for the better part of a half an hour and i cannot fix it. I believe the problem is at the 1 bottle of beer part of the output. Daniel Morrison mentioned in and earlier post:

Yes, and thanks. I also found the other flaw put there by the author:

code:

if (beerNum == 1) {
word = "bottle"; //single bottle of beer
}


should come after...

code:

beerNum = beerNum - 1;

I must be doing something wrong since it does not seem to work for me. The following code is before i started screwing it up. My last rendition actually froze up the compiler for a long while. I have been compiling in netbeans ide5.5 since the command line does not seem to want to always compile and the IDE can somewhat help me find my mistakes. Mistakes i have found have been normally spelling.

   
public class BeerSong {
public static void main (String[] args) {
int beerNum = 99;
String word = "bottles";
 
while (beerNum > 0) {

if (beerNum == 1) {
word = "bottle";  // singular, as in ONE bottle.
}
 
System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer on the wall");
System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer.");
System.out.println("Take one down.");
System.out.println("Pass it around.");
beerNum = beerNum - 1;
 
if (beerNum > 0) {
System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer on the wall");
} else {
System.out.println("No more bottles of beer on the wall");
}  // end else
} // end while loop
}  // end main method
}  // end class 

[ June 24, 2007: Message edited by: semaj semaj ]

[Jimmy Semaj]

I am not sure what I may have been missing but i started fresh and the code worked this time. Maybe this topic can be used for reference for people.

 
public class BeerSong {
public static void main (String[] args) {
int beerNum = 99;
String word = "bottles";
 
while (beerNum > 0) {

 

System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer on the wall");
System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer.");
System.out.println("Take one down.");
System.out.println("Pass it around.");
beerNum = beerNum - 1;
                        
if (beerNum == 1) {
word = "bottle";  // singular, as in ONE bottle.
}                        
 
if (beerNum > 0) {
System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer on the wall");
} else {
System.out.println("No more bottles of beer on the wall");
}  // end else
} // end while loop
}  // end main method
}  // end class
 
    

[Dhawal Mehta]

Hey Everybody.

Jimmy is right. we have to place the first If loop after statements ans the output got correct.

One thing more I noticed that when control enter while loop it first go to the If loop and print the statement under this loop first:

if (beerNum > 0) {
System.out.println(beerNum + " " + word + " of beer on the wall");
}

and the goes to the while loop statements. Am i correct?

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch Dhawal Mehta

[Dhawal Mehta]

Thanks a lot for your warm welcome Campbell..

May you please check my previous post and tell me if i am correct....

[Campbell Ritchie]

I presume you have run that code and verified that it is correct?

[Dhawal Mehta]

Yes .. I have run this code already...

but what i found is that when the control goes to 'while' loop.. it first executes the most inner 'if' loop and then execute the other instructions..

Is that correct?

[Campbell Ritchie]

Don't understand; when control enters the while loop, the first lines inside it are executed first, not the innermost if.

[Campbell Ritchie]

By the way: there doesn't appear to be an inner if nor an outer if in that example; the two ifs are adjacent, not nested.

[shafkat majeed]

public class BeerSong{
public static void main(String args[]){
int beerno=99;
String name="bottles";
while(beerno>1){
System.out.println();
System.out.print(beerno + " " + name + " " + "of bear on the wall,");
System.out.println(beerno + "" + name + " " +"of bear" );
System.out.print("take one down,pass it around,");
beerno--;
if(beerno>1)
System.out.println(beerno + " " + name + " " + "of bear on the wall");
else
{
name = "bottle";
System.out.println( beerno + " " + name + " " + "of bear on the wall");
}//end if
}//end loop
System.out.print(beerno + " " + name + " " + "of bear on the wall,");
System.out.println(beerno + " " + name + " " + "of bear" );
System.out.println("take one down,pass it around,");
System.out.print("no more bottles of bear on the wall");
}//end main
}//end class

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch
Any point in answering a three‑year‑old thread?