Thread: Splitting up array's:

The file has a 1000 strings that look like this.

6S 8D KS 2D TH TD 9H JD TS 3S
KH JS 4H 5D 9D TC TD QC JD TS
QS QD AC AD 4C 6S 2D AS 3H KC
4C 7C 3C TD QS 9C KC AS 8D AD
KC 7H QC 6D 8H 6S 5S AH 7S 8C
3S AD 9H JC 6D JD AS KH 6S JH
AD 3D TS KS 7H JH 2D JS QD AC
9C JD 7C 6D TC 6H 6C JC 3D 3S
QC KC 3S JC KD 2C 8D AH QS TS
AS KD 3D JD 8H 7C 8C 5C QD 6C

Each represents a poker hand. The issue is each line has player one and player two. I am trying to split them up so I can figure out who won.

package pokerHandCalculator;
 
import java.io.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
 
public class PokerCalculator 
{
	ArrayList<String>pokerHands = new ArrayList<String>();
	void readFile()
	{
		String line;
		try
		{
		FileReader file = new FileReader("poker.txt");
		BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(file);
 
		while((line=buffer.readLine()) != null)
		{
			pokerHands.add(line);
		}
 
		buffer.close();
		}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			System.out.println("The file was not read or not found "+ ex);
		}
 
	}
 
	void print()
	{
		int count=0;
 
		for(String s: pokerHands)
		{
			System.out.println(s);
			count++;
		}
		System.out.println(count);
 
	}
 
 
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		PokerCalculator poker = new PokerCalculator();
 
		poker.readFile();
		poker.print();
 
	}
 
}

I have tried to handle it like this along with a few other unsuccessful ways:

void separateHand()
{
    //ArrayList<String> hands = (ArrayList<String>) pokerHands.subList(0,5);
    ArrayList<String>hands = new ArrayList<String>();
    int count=0;
    /*pokerHands has all the variables from the file in lines of ten
    strings reading like:
    QC KC 3S JC KD 2C 8D AH QS TS
    AS KD 3D JD 8H 7C 8C 5C QD 6C 
    Below should break them up into separate arrays of 5 cards
     * */
 
    for(String s : pokerHands)
    {
        count++;
        if(count % 5 == 0)
        {
            hands = new ArrayList<String>();
            hands.add(s);
        }
        else
        {
            hands.add(s);
        }
 
    }
 
    for(String list: hands)//Testing if it worked
    {
        System.out.println(list);
    }
}

Also posted at http://www.java-forums.org/new-java/...oker-game.html

What exactly is the question? What do you want to do? What is not working?

Each line has a ten strings. 5 cards each so I need to break them up into player 1 and player 2.

Couldn't you just create an array for each player, then iterate throught the main array, alternating between the player arrays and assigning them hands?

You can simply use the split method from the String class. You split them on every space character.
You will get a String array with each element being one card. So every 5 cards belong to a different player, you can use a simple for-each loop.

I tried that but it did not work.

They are already split up into 1000 different string each containing two characters all seperated by a space. Each line has ten cards:
QC KC 3S JC KD 2C 8D AH QS TS
AS KD 3D JD 8H 7C 8C 5C QD 6C
is an example of what the txt file look like. I am at work at the moment so I have not been able to try this out but I was think of reading until a new line char is read \n. At which point I would make a new array taking in the 10 strings from the next line. After that is complete I can use the substring method from the string class to spilt up player 1 and player 2 hands. What do you think?

I think I dont understand what your problem is. You said "it did not work" but what exactly about that approach does not work?

After that is complete I can use the substring method from the string class to spilt up player 1 and player 2 hands. What do you think?

I think that approach is much more difficult than using the split() method as suggested by Cornix in post #5:

If I were writing this, I would start my program with the following comments:

// read a line of the file as a String, pokerData

// assign each element of pokerData to a string array:

// split the String on a space into cards
String[] twoHands = pokerData.split( " " );

// the first five elements of twoHands are the first player's cards,

// the second five elments of twoHands are the second player's cards

// send each group of five elements to the constructor of Hand class

// compare the Hands to determine a winner

Thank you very much. I played around with this a little more and I think I got it. However I have an error, I will post the fill code below.

package pokerHandCalculator;
 
import java.io.*;
 
public class PokerCalculator 
{
	String[] pokerData = new String[1000];
	String[] playerOne = new String[1000];
	String[] playerTwo = new String[1000];
 
	String[] playerOneCard = new String[500];
	String[] playerTwoCard = new String[500];
 
	void readFile()
	{
		int index=0;
		String line;
		try
		{
		FileReader file = new FileReader("poker.txt");
		BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(file);
 
		while((line=buffer.readLine()) != null)
		{
			pokerData[index++]=line;
 
		}
 
		buffer.close();
		}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			System.out.println("The file was not read or not found "+ ex);
		}
 
	}
 
 
	void separateHands()
	{
 
		for(int i=0; i<pokerData.length;i++)
		{
			playerOne[i] = pokerData[i].substring(0, 14);
			playerTwo[i] = pokerData[i].substring(15,29);
 
			playerOneCard[i]=playerOne[i].split(" ");
			playerTwoCard[i]=playerTwo[i].split(" ");
		}
 
 
	}
 
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		PokerCalculator poker = new PokerCalculator();
 
		poker.readFile();
		poker.separateHands();
 
	}
 
}

Error on line 48 and 49 saying cannot convert String[] to String. But they are both array's, this confuses me.

arr[] refers to an array.

arr[i] refers to the element at index i in arr[],
so if arr[] were a String array, arr[i] would be referring to a String

I get what you are saying, I will try to comment the code the best I can so you can see where my head is at.

void separateHands()
	{
 
		for(int i=0; i<pokerData.length;i++)
		{
			playerOne[i] = pokerData[i].substring(0, 14);//makes a string of 5 cards
			playerTwo[i] = pokerData[i].substring(15,29);//makes another string of 5 cards
 
			playerOneCard[i]=playerOne[i].split(" ");//for every space assign that string (card) to playerOneCard[i]
			playerTwoCard[i]=playerTwo[i].split(" ");//for every space assign that string (card) to playerTwoCard[i]
 
		}
 
	}

I took the [] from playerOneCard and it worked. I was able to get the first card from the last line on the file. So basically it is over writing itself which is why I wanted to make an array of strings.
Therefore since I knew my way was not working I decided to make a ArrayList and just add playerOneCard to it and get it later. Well that didn't work either and I am confused because both sides are strings. The index of playerOneCard[i] is AH for example and the index of playerOne[i] = AH BH 7H AS 7C. Using something like below in my mind should break it up. Where am I being a dummy here because it is obvious I am.

playerOneCard[i]=playerOne[i].split(" ");

Everything I am doing is failing. Are you referring to a double or two separate for loops? This fun program is becoming very un-fun.

I tried substring, split, loops, transferring betweens different arrays.

substring worked great and I tried to use charAt(i) to break up that array string and assign each index into a different array but that gave me issues to.

Here, look at this little example:

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		String input = "a1 a2 a3 b1 b2 b3";
		String[] cards = input.split(" ");
 
		String[] playerOneCards = new String[3];
		String[] playerTwoCards = new String[3];
		for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
			playerOneCards[i] = cards[i];
		}
		for (int i = 3; i < 6; i++) {
			playerTwoCards[i - 3] = cards[i];
		}
		System.out.println("The hand of player 1 is:");
		for (String s : playerOneCards) {
			System.out.print(s);
			System.out.print(", ");
		}
		System.out.println();
		System.out.println("The hand of player 2 is:");
		for (String s : playerTwoCards) {
			System.out.print(s);
			System.out.print(", ");
		}
	}

Maybe this will help you understand what I was talking about in my previous post.

We first split our original input after every blank. This will give us a String-array with 6 elements (in this example).
We want to have the first 3 elements as the hand of player 1 and the next 3 elements as the hand of player 2.
To represent the hands of both players we use additional arrays. We fill those arrays in the for-loops. Be careful with the indices, it is easy to get an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if you use bad values for the beginning and end of the iteration.

Feeling really dumb right now...

void separateHands()
	{
 
		String[] cards=pokerData[0].split(" ");
		int index =0;
 
			for(int i=0;i<5;i++)
			{
				playerOne[i]= cards[i];
			}
			for(int j=5;j<10;j++)
			{
				playerTwo[j-5]= cards[j];
			}
 
 
		for(int i=0;i<5;i++)
		{
			System.out.println(playerOne[i]);	//testing the output 
		}
 
	  }

I did it but I can only get the first line. This method is similar to the subString method that I was using. I even tried for use a loop like

for(int i=0;i<5;i++,index++)
{
        cards=pokerData[index].split(" ");
//array variables here
}

I am still really trying over here. I sent in a string as a parameter and tried to use the split method again. The output will be posted below. I put in a test println statement to see what was going on:

package pokerHandCalculator;
 
import java.io.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
 
public class PokerCalculator 
{
	String[] pokerData = new String[1000];
	String[] playerOne = new String[1000];
	String[] playerTwo = new String[1000];
 
	ArrayList<String>p1 = new ArrayList<String>();
	ArrayList<String>p2 = new ArrayList<String>();
 
	void readFile()
	{
		int index=0;
		String line;
		try
		{
		FileReader file = new FileReader("poker.txt");
		BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(file);
 
		while((line=buffer.readLine()) != null)
		{
			pokerData[index++]=line;
			separateHands(line);
		}
 
		buffer.close();
		}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			System.out.println("The file was not read or not found "+ ex);
		}	
	}
 
	void separateHands(String cards)
	{
		String[] parts = cards.split(" ");
 
		System.out.println(cards +" printing cards");
 
			for(int i=0;i<5;i++)
			{	
				playerOne[i]= parts[i];
			}
			for(int j=5;j<10;j++)
			{
				playerTwo[j-5]= parts[j];
			}
 
			System.out.println(playerOne[1]);
 
	  }
 
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		PokerCalculator poker = new PokerCalculator();
 
		poker.readFile();
 
	}
 
}

AD 3D TS KS 7H JH 2D JS QD AC printing cards
3D
9C JD 7C 6D TC 6H 6C JC 3D 3S printing cards
JD
QC KC 3S JC KD 2C 8D AH QS TS printing cards
KC
AS KD 3D JD 8H 7C 8C 5C QD 6C printing cards
KD


These cards are at the bottom of the text file but they are index 1.

Now looking even further at was is going on I did the following:

void separateHands(String cards)
	{
		String[] parts = cards.split(" ");
 
		//System.out.println(cards +" printing cards");
 
		System.out.println("Player one");
			for(int i=0;i<5;i++)
			{	
				playerOne[i]= parts[i];
				System.out.println(playerOne[i]);
			}
			System.out.println("Player Two");
			for(int j=5;j<10;j++)
			{
				playerTwo[j-5]= parts[j];
				System.out.println(playerOne[j]);
			}
 
			System.out.println(playerOne[1]);
 
	  }

To get the following output:

Player one
8C
TS
KC
9H
4S
Player Two
null
null
null
null
null
TS
Player one
5C
AD
5D
AC
9C
Player Two
null
null
null
null
null
AD
Player one
3H
7H
6S
KC
JS
Player Two
null
null
null
null
null
7H

Ok so I think I solved the issue. I figured a simple ArrayList would be the most simple way to handle this. However now I keep getting an error saying the file could not be opened which is produced by my catch statement.

How the heck is me using a different method inside my while loop stopping it from opening the file.

import java.io.*;
import java.lang.reflect.Array;
import java.util.*;
 
 
public class CountWinnerPoker 
{
	ArrayList<String> pokerHands = new ArrayList<String>();
	ArrayList<String> player1 = new ArrayList<String>();
	ArrayList<String> player2 = new ArrayList<String>();
	String[] playerData = new String[1000];
 
	String line;
	String array[];
 
	void readFile()
	{
		int index = 0;
		try{
		FileReader file = new FileReader("poker.txt");
		BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(file);
 
		while((line=buffer.readLine()) != null)
		{
			splitArray(line);
 
			//playerData[index++] = line;	
		}
		buffer.close();
 
		}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			System.out.println("Could not open the file");
		}
 
	}
 
	void splitArray(String card)
	{
		String[] data = card.split(" ");
 
		for(int i=0;i<card.length() / 2;i++)
		{
			player1.set(i,data[i]);
		}
		for(int j=card.length() / 2; j<card.length(); j++)
		{
			player2.set(j,data[j]);
		}
	}
 
	void getPlayers()
	{
		for(int i=0;i<player1.size();i++)
		{
			System.out.println(player2.get(i));
		}
 
	}
 
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		CountWinnerPoker game = new CountWinnerPoker();
 
		game.readFile();
		game.getPlayers();
	}
 
}

You are catching any exception in your code. Perhaps the exception has nothing to do with the file-handling but rather you made some other mistake somewhere down the line.
Instead of just ignoring the exception completely you should print the error message in order to know what is happening:

		try{
 			// stuff...
		}
		catch(Exception ex)
		{
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}

Try again with this code and tell us the error message you are getting.

Could not open the file java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0