Thread: Help with substring

I'm supposed to convert Hypertext for ex. :

<li><a href=”(insert url)”>Url Name</a></li>

into a string:

Url: (Insert Url)

but I don't know what's wrong with my code. Can't even get a word. This is what the console says: java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -1

public void start()
    {
        String hyperLink = null;
        int position1;
        int position2;
 
        do
        {
            System.out.print("Hyperlink: ");
            hyperLink = input.next();
            hyperLink = hyperLink.replace(" ", "");
 
 
            position1 = hyperLink.indexOf("/\">");
            position2 = hyperLink.indexOf("</a");
 
            String name = hyperLink.substring(position1, position2);
 
            System.out.println(name + ":    ");
        } while (continue());

What am I doing wrong?

java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -1

The -1 looks like what is returned when the indexOf method fails to find a match. The code needs to test for that value and handle it as an unexpected value instead of using it in a substring method call.

Which String is not being found?
Check the String being searched for is part of the String being searched.

Please edit your post and wrap your code with code tags:

[code]
**YOUR CODE GOES HERE**
[/code]

to get highlighting and preserve formatting.

Do some debugging to see what the code is doing.
Print out the value of hyperlink so you can see what the computer sees when the indexOf method statements are executed.
Also print out the values of the Strings that are being searched for with the indexOf method.
For example:

   String searchFor = "something";
   int loc = stringToSearch.indexOf(searchFor);
   System.out.println("seachFor="+searchFor + ", stringToSearch="+stringToSearch);
   System.out.println("loc="+loc);