Thread: word game (problem how to check that the word is in the dictionary)

import java.io.*;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;
 
public class WordGame
{
 
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
    {
        final int RANDOM_LETTERS_COUNT = 10;
        final int TRIALS = 10;
        int score = 0;
        boolean invalidLetter;
 
        char[] letterPool = new char[RANDOM_LETTERS_COUNT];
        String[] userEntries = new String[TRIALS];
 
        // Initialise dictionary.
        System.out.print("\n\nLoading dictionary... ");
        Dictionary dictionary = new Dictionary("brit-a-z.txt");
        System.out.println("done\nDictionary contains " + dictionary.words.length + " words.");
 
        String alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
        int index = (int)Math.floor(Math.random() * 26.0);
 
        String name;
        String word;
 
        InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(System.in);
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
        // Read all the words from the dictionary (brit-a-z.txt) into an array
        BufferedReader fr = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("brit-a-z.txt"));
 
        Random r = new Random();
 
 
 
        char[] letters = new char[10];
        int[] points = new int[10];
 
        for(int j = 0; j < 10; j++){
            //System.out.print(alphabet.charAt(r.nextInt(alphabet.length())));
            letters[j] = alphabet.charAt(r.nextInt(alphabet.length()));
            System.out.print("\b");
 
        }
 
        for(int trial = 0; trial < TRIALS; trial++)
        {
            System.out.println("\nTrial " + (trial + 1) + " of " + TRIALS + ": ");
            System.out.println(letters);
            String[] wordsUsed = new String[10];
            System.out.print("Enter word: ");
            name = br.readLine();
            word = name.toUpperCase();
 
            for(int k=trial; k < TRIALS; k++)
            {
                wordsUsed[k] = word;
                if (wordsUsed[k].indexOf(word) !=-1){
                    //if the word is present
                    System.out.println(word + " not in dictionary ");
                    trial = k;
                    break;
                } else if (wordsUsed[k].indexOf(word) ==-1){
                    //word is not in array
                    /*String[] search = readWords("brit-a-z.txt");*/
                    System.out.println(word + " was entered earlier");
                    trial = k;
                    break;
                }
                /*letters[k] = 
                if (letters[k].indexOf(word) !=-1){
                    System.out.println(word + "is an invalid word");
                }*/
            }
            /*for(int i=0; i<word.length(); i++) 
            {
                word[i] = word[i].trim();
            }*/
 
            //search array in word
            //if statement - if word is already used, - let user try new word + not increase trials
            //is word is not used then continue
 
            WordGame.validWord(word, letters, score);
 
            points[trial] = word.length();
            score += word.length();
 
        }
        // Report total score at the end of the game.
        System.out.println("\nTotal score: " + score);
    }
 
    // Returns a random letter from the alphabet.
    static char getRandomLetter()
    {
        String alphabet = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
        int index = (int)Math.floor(Math.random() * 26.0);
 
        return alphabet.charAt(index);
 
    }
 
    // Checks is a word can be formed from a set of letters.
    static boolean validWord(String word, char[] letters, int score)
    {
        boolean invalidLetter;
 
        char[] copyOfLetters = letters.clone();
 
        for(int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
            invalidLetter = true;
            for(int j = 0; j < copyOfLetters.length; j++) {
                if(word.charAt(i) == copyOfLetters[j]) {
                    invalidLetter = false;
                    copyOfLetters[j] = '*';
                    break;
                }
            }
            if(invalidLetter) {
                return false;
            }
            //number of points
 
        }
        int points = word.length();
        System.out.println(points + " points for " + word);
 
        return true;
 
    }
}

Please edit your post and wrap your code with code tags:
[code=java]
YOUR CODE HERE
[/code]
to get highlighting and preserve formatting.

Can you explain what problems you are having?

Please edit the post and wrap the code in code tags.

If you can not edit the current post, create a new post.
See post#2 for what the code tags look like.
Put the first one before the code
and the second one after the code.

Is what OK? Look at your post and see how it's displayed.

You missed this:
and the second one after the code.

Look at some of the other threads on this forum. 99% of them wrap their code in code tags.
I'm sure you can figure out how to do it.

Is there output from the program that shows the problem?
Post the output and add some comments to it that says what is wrong and show what the output should be.

test that the word is in the dictionary

Would that be done by the Dictionary class? There isn't a definition for that class posted.

Does that class have a method that will say if a word is in the dictionary?

Where is the code to search the dictionary for a word?

Ok. First Define what the method needs to do and then list the steps the code needs to take to do it.
When that design is done, work on writing the code to do it.

i have to submit this in 45 mins but i think i can't complete this

Probably not.