Difficulty With System Output

Question

So I'm fairly new to Java and I am trying to run a program that will display a certain number of letters from a name and ask the user for a response. The user's response should determine one of two answers ("Correct" or "I'm sorry, that's incorrect"). The problem I'm encountering is that when I run the program and put in the answer that should lead to "Correct," which is 'Billy Joel,' I get the response of "I'm sorry, that's incorrect." I'm not actually sure what's going on, but here's a link to a picture of the CMD when I input what should lead the system to say "Correct" and instead it says "I'm sorry, that's incorrect":

enter image description here

And here is a copy of the relevant code:

System.out.println("\nLet's play Guess the Celebrity Name.");

String s6 = "Billy Joel";

System.out.println("\n" + s6.substring(2, 7));

Scanner kbReader3 = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out
        .print("\nPlease enter a guess for the name of the above celebrity: ");
String response = kbReader3.nextLine();

System.out.println("\nYou entered: \n" + response + "\n");

if ((response == "Billy Joel")) {
    // Execute the code here if Billy Joel is entered
    System.out.println("\nCorrect!");
} else {
    // Execute the code here if Billy Joel is not entered
    System.out.println("\nI'm sorry, that's incorrect. The right answer was Billy Joel.");
}

System.out.println("\nThank you for playing!");

There's more before this that the program also does, but I'm not having a problem with any of that and it's all correct. I took out the Billy Joel part and everything else ran exactly as it was supposed to. It's just the above code in relation to what it should put out and what it is putting out that's the problem. I'm wondering if maybe I'm missing something in my code or I put something in wrong, but whatever I did, help would be much appreciated.

Don't compare string values with the `==` operator, use `String`'s `equals` method to compare string values. — rgettman, Sep 23 '13 at 22:38
Your link is broken. In any case, you can, and should, post the image here. — , Sep 23 '13 at 22:41

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 23 '13 at 22:47

0

Your problem lies here. You are using wrong operator to compare strings

if ((response **==** "Billy Joel")) {
   System.out.println("\nCorrect!");
} else {  ...  }

the correct should be

if ((response.equals("Billy Joel")) {
   System.out.println("\nCorrect!");
} else {  ...  }

To compare strings in java you have to use .equals() operator. And to use '==' operator you need to have int, bool etc.

answered Sep 23 '13 at 22:47

Maciej Cygan

5,351
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2

"Billy Joel".equals(response) will reduce the risk of getting null pointer exceptions. – porfiriopartida Sep 23 '13 at 22:59
@porfiriopartida indeed thats true – Maciej Cygan Sep 23 '13 at 23:00

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 24 '13 at 00:52

0

    if (response!=null && response.length>0){
    //trim the input to make sure there are any spaces
    String trimmed=response.trim();
    if (response.equals(s6))
      System.out.println("\nCorrect!");
    } else {  ...  }

answered Sep 24 '13 at 00:52

tmr

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2
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Difficulty With System Output

2 Answers2