Thread: Help string not storing in Variable

hi i'm new to java programming and i have a problem with using the scanner, here is an extract of the code , i need help with storing a value into a, it is initialized with null first but when i enter a string from the terminal and print out the output it is still null. what is wrong with the code? as you can see from the code i have not used the scanner but i have modified the code to 'a=Input.next();' but still no luck

 
 public String processInput(String theInput) {
 
		String theOutput = null;
		String a=null;
		Scanner Input = new Scanner(System.in);
 
   if (state == WAIT) {
		       theOutput="type enter"
		   if (theInput.equalsIgnoreCase("enter")) {
			theOutput =question1[Question];
	                theInput=a;
                        theOutput = "" a "";
	                                   }
 
			  else {
            theOutput = "Wrong password " ;
                   }
		                               }

this is a protocol file of a server theInput is what is entered into the terminal, and theOutput is what is sent back from the server to the client so i am not getting the value of 'a' sent back to me im still getting null

The program has no errors it compiles and runs but its not storing what i enter into 'a' and stays as null
-' theOutput =question1[Question];' server sends the question and waits for input from client(which is the input i want to store in a)
- i then type input, for example '1'
- 'theInput=a;' theInput is equal to 1 and stored in a (this is where i think the problem is maybe wrong line of code)
-'theOutput = "" a "";' server sends back what i put into theInput and stored in a to the terminal but i still get null instead of 1

yes,sorry about that because i kept playing around with that line of code 'theInput=a;' it was previously 'a=theInput'. i changed the line to various other code such as 'a=Input.next();', 'a=Input.next(theInput);', it compiled and run but the connection between the server and client froze.