Thread: code set up question

making a portable text based trivia game, whats the best way for the question and answer system set up. TXT files, DB., ECT. also the PC that will run this will not have access to any network connection (theatrically) and can be stored in side of the .jar file. any good source you know that will be good to look at please post them and your opinions also.

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A text file would be the simplest and could easily be included in a jar file.

What's the easiest to program and the easiest to make changes to? I'd say put it all in one file.

Could having separate files for each question be a maintenance problem?
How do you add more questions? How does the program find all the files it needs to read?
It can be done, but its more complicated than having it all in one file. Perhaps an index file that lists all the question files? Again a maintenance problem.

Read the file names in the questions folder.

Is that a bit harder in a jar file? No File class to do the work.

Separate files can be done, just a lot more work.

I've forgotten the coding used to read the contents of a folder in a jar file. For a disk folder, the File class's list() method does it.

Originally Posted by jps

Norm has a great idea and with good reasoning.
I come from the other side of the fence on this however.
I would suggest taking the object oriented approach, and maintain a separate file for each question.
Within that file I would probably place the question itself on the first line,
the correct answer on the second line,
a series of seemingly correct answers on the next several lines,
a delimiter on the next line,
and a series of comical, obviously wrong answers on the next few lines.

Then I would program it to select questions from the possible (available) files, be sure to include the correct answer, and on occasion a comical answer. (I assume there will be some choices anyway, not much said about what your game is)

Your approche sounds nice, also I'm making this for a compintition, and will latter realse this to teachers for their class room reviews as free were. How wood a jTable to create and manage all the files / edit the files work?

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Also this may make a sticky Becous it can benefit outher programers also.

Originally Posted by Norm

I've forgotten the coding used to read the contents of a folder in a jar file. For a disk folder, the File class's list() method does it.

here is a explanation i found for this.
java - How do I access the content of folders inside a jar file? - Stack Overflow

import java.util.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.jar.*;
class I18n {
    public static void main( String ... args ) {
        getLocaleListFromJar();
    }
    private static List<Locale> getLocaleListFromJar() {
        List<Locale> locales = new ArrayList<Locale>();
        try {
            URL packageUrl = I18n.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
            JarInputStream jar = new JarInputStream(packageUrl.openStream());
            while (true) {
                JarEntry entry = jar.getNextJarEntry();
                if (entry == null) {
                    System.out.println( "entry was null ");
                    break;
                }
                String name = entry.getName();
                System.out.println( "found : " +name );
                /*if (resourceBundlePattern.matcher(name).matches()) {
                    addLocaleFromResourceBundle(name, locales);
                }*/
           }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println(e);
            return null;
            //return getLocaleListFromFile(); // File based implementation in case resources are not in jar
        }
        return locales;
    }
}

that is the example code off link can i get some what of a explanation of whats happening?


here is another example witch youes different code.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3...rrent-jar-file

My point was that reading a single file from a jar file would be easier than reading the contents of a folder in a jar file. As jps says, the other design would be more OOP. Which way is better for a student is up to the student.

A JTable for what? I was talking about where to store the questions and answers so they would be easily read and updated.

JTables are used when the program executes. Not for storing data between executions.

can a jTable manage like text files, creation, deletion, moding of the files? and reference the variables, or have it saved in all one file so the jTable can lode up with the content of the file in to the jTable and thin dump it all in to that file for the rest of the program to youes it?

Extract File data into JTable


what if you have the jTable save by 5 text files each file by column and thin each line a cell, like excel.

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JTables are not connected to files. You would have to write the code to connect a JTable to a file.