Hangman display found letter

Question

I am currently coding a hangman console game in java and have had no problems so far.

I have now come across a problem I can not seem to solve.

I have arrays of different words easy, medium and hard and get a word from them randomly depending on the difficulty chosen. I then convert that word into *'s so that the player can't see the characters.

The user is then asked for letters and the program informs the user if they are right or wrong. But the issue is that I can not seem to change the * to the letter if it is in the word. So for example if the word was "bee" and the player picked b I'd want * to change to b.

Could anyone help point me in the right direction?

Hangman class:

/*
 * To change this template, choose Tools | Templates
 * and open the template in the editor.
 */
package hangman;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;

/**
 *
 * @author Adam2_000
 */
public class Hangman {

    /**
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {


        String player = "";
        String selection;
        int turn = 12;
        List<String> wordBox = new ArrayList<String>();
        boolean hangman = false;
        Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);

        //New instances of class and arrays
        words words = new words();
        String easyWords1[] = words.easyWords;
        String mediumWords1[] = words.mediumWords;
        String hardWords1[] = words.hardWords;
        Random random = new Random();


        System.out.println("Welcome to Hangman version 1");
        System.out.println("Please choose a difficulty");
        System.out.println("A: Easy");
        System.out.println("B: Medium");
        System.out.println("C: Hard");

        System.out.println(" _________     ");
        System.out.println("|         |    ");
        System.out.println("|         0    ");
        System.out.println("|        /|\\  ");
        System.out.println("|        / \\  ");
        System.out.println("|              ");
        System.out.println("|              ");


        char iChoice;

        do {
            selection = scan.nextLine().toUpperCase();
        } while (selection.isEmpty());
        iChoice = selection.charAt(0);
        if (iChoice != 'X') {
            switch (iChoice) {

                case 'A':
                    System.out.println("You have choosen easy:");
                    //Get and print random string from easyWords                   
                    int selectA = random.nextInt(easyWords1.length);
                    String replaceAllEasy = easyWords1[selectA].replaceAll("\\S", "*");
                    // Print the randomly selected word and its length
                    System.out.println("Random String selected: " + replaceAllEasy);
                    System.out.println("This word contains " + easyWords1[selectA].length() + " letters");

                    //while hangman == false continue to ask player for letters
                    while (hangman == false) {
                        System.out.println("Turns remaining: " + turn);
                        System.out.println("Please choose a letter A-Z :");
                        String easyChosenLetter = scan.next();

                        if (wordBox.contains(easyChosenLetter)) {
                            System.out.println("Letter alreay choosen please choose another letter");
                        } else {
                            wordBox.add(easyChosenLetter);
                        }

                        if (easyWords1[selectA].contains(easyChosenLetter)) {

                            System.out.println("Wordbox letters are: " + wordBox);
                            System.out.println("Yes!");
                            turn--;
                        } else {
                            System.out.println("Wordbox letters are: " + wordBox);
                            System.out.println("No!");
                            turn--;
                        }

                        if (turn == 0) {
                            hangman = true;
                        }

                        while (hangman == true) {
                            System.out.println("You lose!");
                            System.exit(0);
                        }

                    }
                    break;

                case 'B':
                    System.out.println("You have choosen Medium");
                    //Get and print random string from mediumWords
                    int selectB = random.nextInt(mediumWords1.length);
                    String replaceAllMedium = mediumWords1[selectB].replaceAll("\\S", "*");
                    // Print the randomly selected word and its length
                    System.out.println("Random String selected: " + replaceAllMedium);
                    System.out.println("This word contains " + mediumWords1[selectB].length() + " letters");

                    //while hangman == false continue to ask player for letters
                    while (hangman == false) {
                        System.out.println("Turns remaining: " + turn);
                        System.out.println("Please choose a letter A-Z :");
                        String mediumChosenLetter = scan.next();

                        if (wordBox.contains(mediumChosenLetter)) {
                            System.out.println("Letter alreay choosen please choose another letter");
                        } else {
                            wordBox.add(mediumChosenLetter);
                        }

                        wordBox.add(mediumChosenLetter);
                        if (easyWords1[selectB].contains(mediumChosenLetter)) {
                            System.out.println("Wordbox letters are: " + wordBox);
                            System.out.print("Yes!");
                            turn--;

                        } else {
                            System.out.println("Wordbox letters are: " + wordBox);
                            System.out.println("No!");
                            turn--;
                        }

                        if (turn == 0) {
                            hangman = true;
                        }

                        while (hangman == true) {
                            System.out.println("You lose!");
                            System.exit(0);
                        }

                    }
                    break;

                case 'C':
                    System.out.println("You have choosen Hard");
                    //Get and print random string from hardWords
                    int selectC = random.nextInt(hardWords1.length);
                    String replaceAllHard = hardWords1[selectC].replaceAll("\\S", "*");
                    // Print the randomly selected word and its length  
                    System.out.println("Random String selected: " + replaceAllHard);
                    System.out.println("This word contains " + hardWords1[selectC].length() + " letters");

                    //while hangman == false continue to ask player for letters
                    while (hangman == false) {
                        System.out.println("Turns remaining: " + turn);
                        System.out.println("Please choose a letter A-Z :");
                        String hardChosenLetter = scan.next();

                        if (wordBox.contains(hardChosenLetter)) {
                            System.out.println("Letter alreay choosen please choose another letter");
                        } else {
                            wordBox.add(hardChosenLetter);
                        }

                        wordBox.add(hardChosenLetter);
                        if (easyWords1[selectC].contains(hardChosenLetter)) {
                            System.out.println("Wordbox letters are: " + wordBox);
                            System.out.print("Yes!");
                            turn--;

                        } else {
                            System.out.println("Wordbox letters are: " + wordBox);
                            System.out.println("No!");
                            turn--;
                        }

                        if (turn == 0) {
                            hangman = true;
                        }

                        while (hangman == true) {
                            System.out.println("You lose!");
                            System.exit(0);
                        }


                    }
                    break;



            }

        }
    }
}

words class:

/*
 * To change this template, choose Tools | Templates
 * and open the template in the editor.
 */
package hangman;

import java.lang.reflect.Array;
import java.util.Random;

/**
 *
 * @author Adam2_000
 */
public class words extends Hangman {

    String[] easyWords = {"Bee", "Car", "Fish", "Shed"};
    String[] mediumWords = {"House", "Sheep", "Castle", "Phone"};
    String[] hardWords = {"Octagon", "Crocodile", "Chocolate", "Motorbike"};

    public String[] getEasyWords() {
        return easyWords;
    }

    public void setEasyWords(String[] easyWords) {
        this.easyWords = easyWords;
    }

    public String[] getMediumWords() {
        return mediumWords;
    }

    public void setMediumWords(String[] mediumWords) {
        this.mediumWords = mediumWords;
    }

    public String[] getHardWords() {
        return hardWords;
    }

    public void setHardWords(String[] hardWords) {
        this.hardWords = hardWords;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "words{" + "easyWords=" + easyWords + ", mediumWords=" + mediumWords + ", hardWords=" + hardWords + '}';
    }
}

Answer 1

You're going to have to replace the string "***" with "B**" rather than change the first character of the string. Strings are immutable in Java.

String oldstr = "***";
String newstr = 'B'+oldstr.substring(1,2);

Maybe Strings aren't the correct data structure for this task. Maybe you want to use something like an array of characters and write your own printfunction.

Even a Word class that contains these character arrays would be a good idea, since each object could have its own index that tells you how many *'sare left to guess, etc.

---

Semi-pseudo for Wordclass. This actually uses Strings. Untested.

public class Word{

  private String name;

  private String guessedSoFar;

  public String getGuessedSoFar(){
    return guessedSoFar;
  }

  public void changeIndexWith(String achar, int index){
     String temp = name.substring(0,index) + achar + name.substring(index+1, name.length();
  guessedSoFar = temp;
  }

  public void setName(String n){
    name = n;
  }

  public String getName(){
    return name;
  }
}