Loops, Arrays and Programming

CS160 Spring 2012

Savitch Section 7.1

Arrays
• An array is a set of variables of the same type
accessed by their index

int[] day = new int[4];

31 28 31 30

day[0] day[2]
day[1] day[3]
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 Arrays (II)
• The previous example creates 4 integers.
– They are just accessed by their position
• E,g, day[0], day[1], …
– Each integer has its own value
• Arrays can be of any type
– int, double, char, boolean, String…
– Every element of an array has the same type
• Arrays are created using the new keyword
– type[] name = new type[size];
– The new command allocates a block of memory
• The length field of an array tells you how many elements it
has
– E.g., day.length == 4.
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Loops + arrays: challenge problem

• Task: read words from input until the word
‘quit’ appears. Then print out how many times
each lowercase letter appeared.

• Question: where do you start? How do you

approach this problem?

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 Step 1: Decomposition
• What has to be done?
• Initialize counters! – another loop
– Read strings from terminal
– For each string, Nested
• For each character, loops
– Increment counter for that character

– Print out counts per character Another

loop

Steps 2-4:
• Tackle each step individually
– Initialize counters
• Declare the counters first
• But there are 26 of them…
• … so use an array!

int[] alpha_counter = new int[26];

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 Step 2 (continued)
– Still initializing counters…
• The counters count how often each letter appears
• So we need to initialize them to zero… all 26 of
them!
• So we use a loop… a for loop (26 iterations)

for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {

alpha_counter[i] = 0;
}

Step 2 (yet again)

• So putting it together, we need to declare and
initialize a counter for every letter in the alphabet:

int[] alpha_counter = new int[26];

for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
alpha_counter[i] = 0;
}

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 Step 2 (one more time!)
• Actually, hard-coding ’26’ is a bad idea
– What if we want to include capitals later?
– What if we want to re-use this code?
• We want to initialize the whole array, and nothing more:

int[] alpha_counter = new int[26];

for(int i=0;
i < alpha_counter.length;
i++) {
alpha_counter[i] = 0;
}

Does it work?
• Did we declare and initialize the counters correctly?
– Never assume something is correct
– Test each step before moving on
• How?
– Method #1: Use the debugger
• Run the code (so far) step-by-step (F6)
• Check that the array has 26 elements
• Check that each is set to zero
– Method #2: Write the code to print counters
• Test it before you start counting letters

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 Printing the Counters

• So printing the counters is another loop:

– Why the trailing println()?

for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {

System.out.print(alpha_counter[i]+” ”);
}
System.out.println();

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Your First Test Code

• What should this print?
// Declare & Initialize Counters
int[] alpha_counter = new int[26];
for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
alpha_counter[i] = 0;
}

// Print Counters
for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
System.out.print(alpha_counter[i]+” ”);
}
System.out.println();
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 Running Your First Test
Class Letters {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Declare and initialize counters
int[] alpha_counter = new int[26];
for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
alpha_counter[i] = 0;
}

// Print Counters
for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
System.out.print(alpha_counter[i]+” ”);
}
System.out.println();
}
}

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Reading Strings & Counting Letters

• The next step has two parts:
– Read strings (until “quit”)
– Increment letter counters

• Decompose the (sub)problem

– Either read strings…
• Assuming you can count letters once you have them
– Or count letter instances
• Given a string (assume you can get strings somehow)

Don’t try to do two things at once!

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 One approach…
• We’ve already written a loop to read until “quit”
– Remember the Echo program?
• So let us start with that:

Scanner in_str = new Scanner(System.in);

String user_string = in_str.next();
while (!user_string.equals("quit")) {
System.out.println(user_string);
Put new code to count letters here!
user_string = in_str.next();
}

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Wait! Stop! Test this First!

• How?
– Use a print statement to make sure you are
getting the right strings, or…
– Use the debugger!

Scanner in_str = new Scanner(System.in);

String user_string = in_str.next();
while (!user_string.equals("quit")) {
System.out.println(user_string);
user_string = in_str.next();
}
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 Counting Letters
• Given a string, we need to increment a counter
for every letter.
– Nested loop inside the get string loop

for(int i=0; i < user_string.length(); i++)

{
char letter = user_string.charAt(i);
OK, increment letter count here…
}

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Counting Letters (II)

• Now increment the appropriate counter

for(int i=0; i < user_string.length(); i++)

{
char letter = user_string.charAt(i);
switch(letter) {
case ‘a’: alpha_counter[0]++; break;
case ‘b’: alpha_counter[1]++; break;
case ‘c’: alpha_counter[2]++; break;
// 23 more cases…
}

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 Counting Letters (alt)
• The previous code is clean but long.
• Java supports ASCII char subtraction
char first_char = ‘a’;
char second_char = ‘b’;
// z == 1
int z = second_char – first_char;

for(int i=0; i < user_string.length(); i++)

{
char letter = user_string.charAt(i);
int offset = letter – ‘a’;
if ((offset >= 0) && (offset < 26)) {
alpha_counter[offset]++;
}
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}

Put it all together

Class Letters {
public static void main(String[] args) {

// Declare and initialize counters

int[] alpha_counter = new int[26];
for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
alpha_counter[i] = 0;
}

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 All together (II)
// count letters
Scanner in_str = new Scanner(System.in);
String user_string = in_str.next();
while (!user_string.equals("quit")) {
for(int i=0; i < user_string.length(); i++) {
char letter = user_string.charAt(i);
int offset = letter – ‘a’;
if ((offset >= 0) && (offset < 26)) {
alpha_counter[offset]++;
}
}
user_string = in_str.next();
}

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All Together (III)

// Print Counters
for(int i=0; i < 26; i++) {
System.out.print(alpha_counter[i]+” ”);
}
System.out.println();
}
}

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 Done Yet? No!
• Test your program:
– Make up some input
– Count the letters by hand
– Double check your program’s results
• Make Hard Tests
– Include characters that aren’t letters
– Test the case where the first input is ‘quit’
– Test really long inputs
– ….
• Hint: it can be good to think of test cases first.

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Methodology Review

1. Get a problem definition

– Designing hard test cases can help refine the
problem statements
2. Break the problem into pieces
– Attack each piece separately
– If a piece is big, break it up again
3. Test each piece before moving on
– This may require temporary code
– The debugger can help

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