Thread: Unknown Character

Hey, I have a question where I just need like a brainstorming thing to happen.

I am writing a Fantasy Football Offline Draft Manager Program. I read in an Excel workbook that contains tables copied and pasted from ESPN's Fantasy Football Projections. In those tables, the Players are referenced by the following format:

FirstName LastName, Team Position

Now, the problem is with the Team. Teams are named via their 2 or 3 letter abbreviation. Immediately proceeding the Team is, what appears to be, a space. And for most of the Teams with 3 letter abbreviations, there is no problem. But for the Teams with 2 letter abbreviations, there seems to be a character before that space that I cannot recognize.

For example, when I read in Green Bay, I read in the initials GB. BUT, it reads in like this 'GB '. Notice the extra space after the abbreviation? I attempted to use the String.trim() method that gets rid of those pesky spaces, but it didnt do anything. I tried adjusting my hardcoded array of teams to include spaces for teams with 2 letter abbreviations, but the program cannot recognize the abbreviation. This tells me that there is a character that isnt a space that is there as a filler or something. I know it is not an indent because Excel would have reacted when I pasted in the table. Any clues as to how I can find out what the hell it is and/or how to deal with it?

To see what char is there, use the String charAt() method and then the Integer.toHexString() method to display the char in hex.

if(nflTeam.substring(0,2).equals("GB"))
    					System.out.println(Integer.toHexString(nflTeam.charAt(2)));

Based on what you said, I did that. It returns:

a0

What is that character in English terms?

What is that character in English terms?

Better question is: What is that character in ASCII terms?
Find a table of ASCII code values and look it up. The largest ASCII char you can type from a keyboard has a value of 7E: (~)
I don't know what they are above that exactly. Some are for European letters that aren't used in English.

ASCII Code - The extended ASCII table
says it is a "Non-breaking space". So, if it is in fact a space, then why isnt Java treating it so?

if it is in fact a space, then why isnt Java treating it so?

Can you explain: "treating it so"?

Non-breaking space is a common element in html (if you are copying and pasting from a website, I wouldn't be surprised you'd ended up finding some). Just replace the character if you want it gone...

is there anyway to do that programmatically? Because I've got 7 sheets ranging from 32 to 107 rows that will be changed by the user and I'd rather make it so the user has to do the least amount of data editing. As is, the user already has to copy from the table, paste into Excel, copy from Excel, paste into notepad, copy from notepad, and paste back into Excel. No idea why I have to go through that process (probably some more html elements), but it is the only way I can make it so the Excel sheet is readable.

Originally Posted by helloworld922

theString.replace((char)0xA0, ' '); // replace the non-breaking space with regular spaces

nflTeam.replace((char)0xA0, ' ');
    				nflTeam = nflTeam.trim();
    				if(nflTeam.substring(0,2).equals("GB"))
                        System.out.println(Integer.toHexString(nflTeam.charAt(2)));
    				System.out.println("'"+nflTeam+"'");

Still returns a0 as the character there, and still appears to be unable to trim or recognize the a0 as a space when "GB " is compared to "GB ". Thoughts?

What does the printlln show for the value of nflTeam?
Can you make a small complete program that compiles and executes to demonstrate what is happening?

Originally Posted by aussiemcgr

nflTeam.replace((char)0xA0, ' ');
    				nflTeam = nflTeam.trim();
    				if(nflTeam.substring(0,2).equals("GB"))
                        System.out.println(Integer.toHexString(nflTeam.charAt(2)));
    				System.out.println("'"+nflTeam+"'");

Still returns a0 as the character there, and still appears to be unable to trim or recognize the a0 as a space when "GB " is compared to "GB ". Thoughts?

Strings are immutable, and the replace function returns the resulting string rather than changing the calling object. So you must reassign the string value

nflTeam = nflTeam.replace((char)0xA0, ' ');

Well, its kind of hard to do that without providing you with the data, and its kind of hard to provide the data because you cant actually see the character. I could provide the Excel Sheet, but unless you can read the sheet in java, its useless.

I'll attempt to do this as a theoretical thing.
Lets say the inputs are the following:
"Hines Ward, Pit*WR"
"Dwayne Bowe, KC*WR"
"Donald Driver, GB*WR"
"Percy Harvin, Min*WR**P"

The format here is: "FirstName LastName (can be multiple words), Team (2 or 3 letter initial) Position Injury (if applicable)"

I trimmed as much fat as I could out of the code and explained the best I could.

//ArrayList that contains all players
public static ArrayList<Player> players;
//ArrayList that contains players split up by their positions. This is used when filtering players in the GUI.
public static ArrayList<ArrayList<Player>> playersBP;
//ArrayList of all positions that are created by the user
public static ArrayList<Position> positions;
 
public static void main(String args[])
{
	readPlayerDatabase();
}
/*Method to Read in Names.
 *For the given example case, this method will go through each item in the case
 *and organize the players in their correct ArrayLists of Player Objects.
 */
public static void readPlayerDatabase()
{
	//Initialize players list whenever reading from the database
	players = new ArrayList<Player>();
	//Initialize playersBP list whenever reading from the database
    	playersBP = new ArrayList<ArrayList<Player>>();
	//Create an ArrayList for each position and insert into playersBP
    	for(int i=0;i<positions.size();i++)
    	{
    		playersBP.add(new ArrayList<Player>());
    	}
	//Start IO Stuff for SmartXLS
    	WorkBook workBook = new WorkBook();
    	try{
    		workBook.readXLSX("PlayerDatabase.xlsx");
		//End IO Stuff for SmartXLS
		//Go through each sheet in the WorkBook
    		for(int i=0;i<workBook.getNumSheets();i++)
    		{
			//Set the active Sheet
    			workBook.setSheet(i);
			//Set the row value
    			int r=1;
			//Set the column value
    			int c=1;
			//Read text at cell reference Row:1 Column:1 (Cell B2)
    			String text = workBook.getText(r,c);	
			//Recurse through rows until empty row
    			while(!text.equals(""))
    			{	
				//Seperate player's Name from other information
    				String[] sep = text.split(", ");
				//Player's First Name is up to first space
    				String fName = sep[0].substring(0,sep[0].indexOf(" "));
				//Player's Last Name is the rest of text (can be multiple words)
    				String lName = sep[0].substring(sep[0].indexOf(" ")+1);
				//Player's NFL team is the first 3 letters of sep[1]
    				String nflTeam = sep[1].substring(0,3).trim();
 
				//Attempt to replace html space with regular space for 2 letter abbreviations
    				nflTeam.replace((char)0xA0, ' ');
				//Attempt to trim extra space for 2 letter abbreviations
    				nflTeam = nflTeam.trim();
				//Print out to console results
    				if(nflTeam.substring(0,2).equals("GB"))
                        		System.out.println(Integer.toHexString(nflTeam.charAt(2)));
    				System.out.println("'"+nflTeam+"'");
 
				//Assign Player's Position, which the name of the sheet
    				Position pos = new Position(workBook.getSheetName(i));
				//Assign Player's Points, which are found in the 13th column (12th column index) of each row
    				int points = (int)workBook.getNumber(r,12);
				//Create Player Object
    				Player tPlayer = new Player(fName,lName,nflTeam,pos,points);
				//Call Add Player Method to add to each ArrayList
    				addPlayer(tPlayer);
				//Increment Row
    				r++;
				//Read new text value
    				text = workBook.getText(r,c);
    			}
    		}
 
 	//Catch errors that may have occured   		
    	}catch(Exception ex){System.out.println("Error in ReadPlayerDatabase: "+ex);	}
}
 
/*Method to add Players to each ArrayList
 *This method will always be implemented after ArrayLists have been initialized
 */
public void addPlayer(Player play)
{
	//Get Player's Position Object 
   	Position pos = play.position;
	//Set Default Index to -1 to error check
    	int index = -1;
	//Find index in positions that are assigned the Player's Position
    	for(int i=0;i<positions.size();i++)
    	{
    		if(positions.get(i).Name.equals(pos.Name))
    		{
    			index = i;
    			break;
    		}
    	}
	//Get the ArrayList that cooresponds to Player's Position
    	ArrayList<Player> tList = playersBP.get(index);
	//Add Player to their Position ArrayList in order of Points
    	for(int i=0;i<tList.size();i++)
    	{
    		if(tList.get(i).Points<=play.Points || i==tList.size()-1)
    		{
    			tList.add(i,play);
    			break;
    		}
    	}
	//Add Player to the ArrayList of all Player in order of Points
    	for(int i=0;i<players.size();i++)
    	{
    		if(players.get(i).Points<=play.Points || i==players.size()-1)
    		{
    			players.add(i,play);
    			break;
    		}
    	}
	//Add Player if Size of ArrayLists are empty
    	if(tList.size()==0)
    		tList.add(play);
    	if(players.size()==0)
    		players.add(play);
}

nflTeam.replace((char)0xA0, ' ');

You missed copeg's post. The replace method RETURNs a modified String.

Originally Posted by Norm

You missed copeg's post. The replace method RETURNs a modified String.

Oh, the miracle of subtle changes. Thanks, worked like a charm.

Actually it all comes with reading the API doc when a method doesn't do what you expect.

In my defense, I was at college during the day and the internet is so ungodly slow that loading a page is a 10 minute endeavor.

Also I find that searching the local doc will find better references that doing the search on the doc's web site.