getTileCount challenge! I'm getting an output of 9 instead of 1 and I'm not sure why. Please help.

Question

ScrabblePlayer.java

public class ScrabblePlayer {
  private String mHand;

public int getTileCount(char letter){
  int count = 0;
 for(int i=0;i<=mHand.length();i++){
   if(mHand.indexOf(letter) >= 0){
     count++;
   }
 }
  return count;
}

  public ScrabblePlayer() {
    mHand = "";
  }

  public String getHand() {
   return mHand;
  }

  public void addTile(char tile) {
    // Adds the tile to the hand of the player
    mHand += tile;
  }

  public boolean hasTile(char tile) {
   return mHand.indexOf(tile) > -1;
  }
}

Answer 1 · 2016-02-17T19:59:38Z

February 17, 2016 7:59pm

When the hand is "sreclhak" the confition mHand.indexOf(letter) > = 0 will always be true when the letter is 'e' since there is an 'e' in "sreclhak"; therefore your code ends up incrementing count 9 times.

You can use the method toCharArray() to turn mHand into an array of characters. Then use a for each loop to loop through that array, comparing each character with the variable letter. If they are the same increment count. Here's the code:

public class ScrabblePlayer {
  private String mHand;

  public ScrabblePlayer() {
    mHand = "";
  }

  public String getHand() {
   return mHand;
  }

  public void addTile(char tile) {
    // Adds the tile to the hand of the player
    mHand += tile;
  }

  public boolean hasTile(char tile) {
   return mHand.indexOf(tile) > -1;
  }

  public int getTileCount(char letter){
    int count = 0;
    for(char character: mHand.toCharArray()) {
      if(character == letter) {
        count++;
      }
    }
    return count;
  }
}

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Shane May

Shane May

getTileCount challenge! I'm getting an output of 9 instead of 1 and I'm not sure why. Please help.

1 Answer

Kourosh Raeen

Kourosh Raeen

Shane May

Shane May