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Java Java Objects Creating the MVP Counting Scrabble Tiles

Juan Prieto
Juan Prieto
976 Points
Posted by Juan Prieto
Juan Prieto
976 Points

Im stuck in the second part. Help me!

I want to know how to solve this, but no with the answer . Could you help to find the logic to solve this? I was thinking to use "for" to loop in every single letter that matches tile.

ScrabblePlayer.java 
public class ScrabblePlayer {
  // A String representing all of the tiles that this player has
  private String tiles;

  public ScrabblePlayer() {
    tiles = "";
  }

  public String getTiles() {
    return tiles;
  }

  public void addTile(char tile) {
    tiles += tile;
  }

  public boolean hasTile(char tile) {
    return tiles.indexOf(tile) != -1;
  }
  public int getCountOfLetter ( char letter){
    getCountOfLetter =0;


  }
}
Example.java 
// This code is here for example purposes only
public class Example {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    ScrabblePlayer player1 = new ScrabblePlayer();
    player1.addTile('d');
    player1.addTile('d');
    player1.addTile('p');
    player1.addTile('e');
    player1.addTile('l');
    player1.addTile('u');

    ScrabblePlayer player2 = new ScrabblePlayer();
    player2.addTile('z');
    player2.addTile('z');
    player2.addTile('y');
    player2.addTile('f');
    player2.addTile('u');
    player2.addTile('z');

    int count = 0;
    // This would set count to 1 because player1 has 1 'p' tile in her collection of tiles
    count = player1.getCountOfLetter('p');
    // This would set count to 2 because player1 has 2 'd'' tiles in her collection of tiles
    count = player1.getCountOfLetter('d');
    // This would set 0, because there isn't an 'a' tile in player1's tiles
    count = player1.getCountOfLetter('a');

    // This will return 3 because player2 has 3 'z' tiles in his collection of tiles
    count = player2.getCountOfLetter('z');
    // This will return 1 because player2 has 1 'f' tiles in his collection of tiles
    count = player2.getCountOfLetter('f');
  }
}

1 Answer

Manish Giri
Manish Giri
16,266 Points
Manish Giri
Manish Giri
16,266 Points

You're on the right track. Use the for loop to go through the characters in tiles. For each character that matches letter, increment count by 1. Finally, return count at the end.

Juan Prieto
Juan Prieto
976 Points
Juan Prieto
Juan Prieto
976 Points

public int getCountOfLetter ( char letter){ getCountOfLetter = 0; for ( char tile : char letter){ if (char tile = char letter){ getCountOfLetter +=; }

return getCountOfLetter;

Am I wrong?

Manish Giri
Manish Giri
16,266 Points
Manish Giri
Manish Giri
16,266 Points

Yes, there are quite a few things you need to fix.

Method names and variable names

First, the name of the method is getCountOfLetter. But if you look in your code, you have - getCountOfLetter = 0;, and the last line - return getCountOfLetter;. This is like saying assign 0 to the method name, and return the method name itself from within the method. Instead of that, create an int variable in the method, to which you add the count. Then return this variable.

For Each Loop

Next, the way for-each loop works in Java is you first have an array (any collection) of things to begin with. Then you use a temporary variable to loop over the collection, one at a time. So, if array was your collection, you could create the loop like this -

for(String word: array) {
 // array is an array of strings, and word represents each element in the array
}

Now look at your for-each loop -

 char tile : char letter

Both these elements are just individual characters, there's no collection to iterate over.

Type Declaration

When you use variables in a method, you declare their types only once, the first time you create the variables. After that, you just use the variable name itself. For example, consider -char tile. If your code uses this variable in a hundred places, you wouldn't write char tile a hundred times. Instead, the first time you declare the variable tile, you write it's type as char, and then on, you just write tile.

Like in your code, you have - public int getCountOfLetter ( char letter){ This says that your method is expecting an argument called letter of type char. So from here on out, you just need to write letter, not char letter.

Fix these things, and give it a shot!