CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javastring
JavaNewbie
JavaNewbie

Reputation: 21

Unsure what I am doing wrong, simple middle substring

Here's the link to what I'm doing, simple practice:
http://codingbat.com/prob/p162477

However, its telling me that when it makes front = false,

        public String theEnd(String str, boolean front) {
            String stringPart;
            if (front = true) {
                stringPart = str.substring(0, 1);
            } else {
                stringPart = str.substring(str.length()-1,str.length());
            }

            return stringPart;
         }

returns it as it would when true anyway. I don't wanna learn bad habits :(

EX: Elephant returns E, when it should return t. I'll check back later, i need a LOONNNNG rest. Probably making stupid mistakes

Upvotes: 0

Views: 253

Answers (3)

Zan Lynx
Zan Lynx

Reputation: 54325

You wrote (front = true) in your if statement. This does not compare front to true. This sets front equal to true.

I am shocked that your compiler did not yell at you for this statement. You should have gotten a warning. If you can, please make sure that you compile with all warning options turned on, then pay attention to each warning.

Upvotes: 0

talnicolas
talnicolas

Reputation: 14053

You need to check the equality with

if (front == true)

Upvotes: 0

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1500903

This is the problem:

if (front = true)

You meant:

if (front == true)

Currently it's assigning front a new value of true, then evaluating that result and finding it's true - so it will always take the first character.

There are three ways of fixing this. One is as above, and just be more careful. One is to use:

if (true == front)

which will prevent you from making the typo, because you can't assign to the constant true.

However, I'd prefer to get rid of the literal entirely:

if (front)

However, you can also make this whole method simpler with the conditional operator:

public String theEnd(String str, boolean front) {
    int start = front ? 0 : str.length() - 1;
    return str.substring(start, start + 1);
}

Upvotes: 6

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