Input Validation Help

[Peter Kolozvary]

I'm having a problem asking the user to validate their entry if they enter something other than a number.

I know I'm close.
Here is what I came up with so far...

// Validate the salary entered
while (salaries.length < 0)
{
System.out.print("Please enter a number greater than 0. ");
salaries = keyboard.nextInt();
}

Here is the full code:

      public class Salaries
{
public static void main(String[] args)

{
// Create a Scanner object to read input.
Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);


String name;
String input;
double salary;
String inputEmployees;
double number;
int EMPLOYEES;

// Determine the total number of employees
System.out.print("How many employees do you have?");
EMPLOYEES = keyboard.nextInt();

// Create an array to hold employee names.
String[] names = new String[EMPLOYEES];

// Create an array to hold employee salaries.
int[] salaries = new int[EMPLOYEES];

// Get each employee's name.
for (int index = 0; index < names.length; index++)
{
System.out.print("What is the employee name for employee number " + (index + 1) + ": ");
names[index] = keyboard.next();
}


// Get each employee's salary.
for (int index = 0; index < salaries.length; index++)
{
System.out.print("What is the employee salary for employee number " + (index + 1) + ": ");
salaries[index] = keyboard.nextInt();
}

// Validate the salary entered
while (salaries.length < 0)
{
System.out.print("Please enter a number greater than 0. ");
salaries = keyboard.nextInt();
}



// Display the average
double total = 0;  // initialize accumulator
double average;// Will hold the average
for (int index = 0; index < salaries.length; index++)
total += salaries[index];
average = total / salaries.length;
System.out.println("The average is :" + average);


// Calculate and display the highest salary
int highest = salaries[0];
for (int index = 1; index < salaries.length; index++)
{
if (salaries[index] > highest)
highest = salaries[index];
}
System.out.println("The highest salary is :" + highest);
  

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Peter Kolozvary:
...salaries = keyboard.nextInt();
...

Scanner's nextInt() method will throw an exception if the next token cannot be parsed as an int, so you will need to validate before calling that.

Hint: Check Scanner's other methods in the API to see if there's a method that will check to see if the next token is an int.

Also, how much validation do you want/need to do here? For example, what if the user enters a dollar sign? Or misplaced commas? Or a decimal point? Or extra spaces? In those cases, you might be better off reading the input as a String, and then removing any character that is not a digit. (For that approach, see the Character class.)
[ October 21, 2008: Message edited by: marc weber ]

[Muhammad Saifuddin]

as Character class has isLetter and isDigit methods.
[ October 21, 2008: Message edited by: Muhammad Saifuddin ]