Thread: reading a char with SCANNER

Hello lotus,

You can read a char with the Scanner class like this:

import java.util.Scanner;
 
public class lotus {
 
    /**
     * JavaProgrammingForums.com
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
        String input = sc.next();
 
        char[] myChar;
        myChar = input.toCharArray();
 
        System.out.println(myChar);
    }
 
}

The Scanner class doesn't have .nextChar(); unlike .nextDouble(); .nextInt(); etc.

Basically you use the Scanner class to read in the user input as String and then you need to convert the String to char.
A char is a single character, a String is ment to be a sequence of characters. String is an full-blown object, a char primitive data type is just two bytes in unicode.

I never use a char variable nowdays. Always just stick it in a String.

That's a problem, though if you want to read in the next char after... It's only going to return the first char of each word

To read in a single character, you can use the CharArrayReader class or the BufferedReader class. Actually, I think most of Reader's sub classes should be able to read in a single character.

Originally Posted by lotus

why do you use a char[]??? and not char myChar;

Take a read of this:

String (Java Platform SE 6)