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Java Java Objects Creating the MVP Counting Scrabble Tiles

Schwartz Prince
PLUS
Schwartz Prince
Courses Plus Student 2,132 Points

Need help

I tried this piece of code and I couldn't get the answer. It shows me a bummer.. Can someone please help me in sorting this out.

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 int getCountOfLetter(char letter)
  {
    int count = 0;
    for(char tile: tiles.toCharArray())
    {
      if(letter.equals(tile))
      {
        count += 1;
      } else{
        count = 0;
      }
    }
    return count;
  }

  public boolean hasTile(char tile) {
    return tiles.indexOf(tile) != -1;
  }
}
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');
  }
}
Ross Logan
Ross Logan
8,131 Points

There are two problems with your code, one is a syntax problem and the other is a logic problem.

This line here is incorrect: if(letter.equals(tile))

letter is of type 'char' which is a primitive type in Java and so there is no method ".equals" like there is for string. What you need to do instead is either convert the "letter" to a string and use ".equals" or use "letter==tile".

The second issue is this logic block here:

  if(letter.equals(tile))
  {
    count += 1;
  } else{
    count = 0;
  }

Let's use an example to explain this one:

if the tiles you have are "abcdefg" and the letter you are checking is "a", the if condition will match on the first pass when comparing a against the first letter in "abcdefg". The problem comes that when the next time round the loop we then check "a" against "b" it will find there is no match but more importantly will now reset your count to zero when it was initially 1 from the last check.

So all you need to do to fix this, is remove the else block.

Schwartz Prince
Schwartz Prince
Courses Plus Student 2,132 Points

Hi Ross,

Thank you for your help in correcting my code. It worked at last!

1 Answer

james south
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
james south
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 33,271 Points

ok you are really close, just a few things to change. the first is that you don't need to use the equals method here, just check with == that letter and tile are the same. second, your logic is a bit off - when the letters match, count plus 1, great, but if they don't, count is reset to 0. it should just not be incremented, since you aren't losing previously matched letters. the third issue is minor but they want you to use the double plus operator to increment the count variable instead of using plus equals.