Thread: Niggling Issue in code

I get no errors though don't get right answer to problem.
In the problem I'm searching through an array of strings in each string if a letter corresponds point to point with the letter in a certain separate string and is the same letter then that string will have a match of one etc. I need to return the index of the string in dictionary which has the highest matches. Should there be multiple strings with same no. of matches then need to choose lowest index. In my program it somehow chooses the highest index when there is a tie instead of lowest index of the two. "matched.get(i) > max)" This is my code where I specific that higher index needs to have a match to be maximum not equality. I get no error by the way.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
 
public class grafixCorrupt {
 
 
	public static void main(String[] args){
 
		String[] dictionary = {"cat", "cab", "lab"};
		String candidate = "dab";
 
		System.out.println(selectWord(dictionary, candidate));
 
	}
 
 
	public static int selectWord(String[] dictionary, String candidate){
		int max = 0;
		Map<Integer, Integer>matched = new HashMap<Integer, Integer>();
 
		for(int i = 0;i<dictionary.length;i++){
			matched.put(i, 0);
		}
 
		for(int  i = 0;i<dictionary.length;i++){
			int index = 0;
			for(int j = 0;j<candidate.length();j++){
				if(dictionary[i].substring(j,j+1).equals(candidate.substring(j,j+1))){
					index++;
				}
			}
			matched.put(i, matched.get(i)+index);
		}
 
 
		for(int i = 0;i<matched.size();i++){
		  if(matched.get(i) > max){
			  max = i;
		   }
		     i++;	
		}
		if(max == 0){
			return -1;
		}
		return max;
	}
}

It's really tedious reading uncommented code with no clue what the author is thinking or doing. Why don't you comment your code?

You're not comparing apples to apples. max does not contain the max number of occurrences, it contains the last index that contained the max value. When you compare the last index that contained the max value (max) to the number of occurrences of an item, matched.get(i), the number of occurrences in this example is always greater, causing the variable max to be set to the current index when it shouldn't be. And I'm not sure what the i++ statement after the if statement is for. That is done by the for() loop.

Sorry for not commenting, definitely something I need to work on. Thanks anyway, I finally got it.

--- Update ---

My code for anyone interested.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
 
public class grafixCorrupt {
 
 
/*public static void main(String[] args){
 
		String[] kj = {"double", "bobble", "bubble", "rubble", "hubble", "supple"};
		String lag  = "dimple";
		System.out.println(selectWord(kj, lag));
	}
	*/
	public static int selectWord(String[] dictionary, String candidate){
		int max = 0;
		boolean condition = false;
		Map<Integer, Integer>matched = new HashMap<Integer, Integer>();
 
		for(int i = 0;i<dictionary.length;i++){
			matched.put(i, 0);
		}
 
		for(int  i = 0;i<dictionary.length;i++){
			int index = 0;
			for(int j = 0;j<candidate.length();j++){
				if(dictionary[i].substring(j,j+1).equals(candidate.substring(j,j+1))){
					index++;
				}
			}
			matched.put(i, matched.get(i)+index);
		}
 
 
		for(int i = 0;i<matched.size();i++){
		if(i==0){
			if(matched.get(i)>= matched.get(max)&& matched.get(i)>0){
				max = i;
				condition = true;
			}
 
		}else if(matched.get(i) > matched.get(max)){
			  max = i;
			  condition = true;
		   }
		}
		//System.out.println(matched);
		//System.out.println(condition +":" + max);
		if(max == 0 && condition==false){
			return -1;
		}else if(max==0 && condition==true){
			return 0;
		}
		return max;
	}
}

I think I overcomplicated this problem.