Comparing strings seems to be not working properly

Question

I'm currently working on my CharRoom project in Java 8. I'm trying to solve a bug, which appears when two clients connect with the same nickname. The simplest and also sufficient solution I've come up is to add " (1)" when a new client has the same nickname as one of the other clients.

            for(int i = 0; i < newClientNum; i++) // loop not considering new client 
            {
                System.out.println("Client " + i + " nickname: " + clients[i].nickname);
                if(clients[newClientNum].nickname.equals(clients[i].nickname));
                {
                    clients[newClientNum].nickname += " (1)";
                    System.out.println("New clients new nickname: " + clients[newClientNum].nickname);
                    i = -1;
                }
            }

Which seems to be incorrect. Here is an output when there are two users connected with same nickname "user".

Client 0 nickname: user
New clients new nickname: user (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) ... 
Client 0 nickname: user
New clients new nickname: user (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) (1) ... 
...

it becomes i=0 in the next iteration so it checks again if there is someone with nickname "user (1)" and change new client's nickname to "user (1) (1)" — foxale, Jul 10 '16 at 09:45
such manipulation of loop index is really BAD programming ..... — Sharon Ben Asher, Jul 10 '16 at 09:47
@foxale you could go through all of the `clients` up to `newClientNum`, adding their nicknames to a `Set`; then just do `while (!set.add(clients[newClientNum].nickname)) { clients[newClientNum].nickname += " (1)"; }`. — Andy Turner, Jul 10 '16 at 09:54

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 10 '16 at 09:45

You have a trailing ; at the end of the if that doesn't belong there:

  if(clients[newClientNum].nickname.equals(clients[i].nickname));
        {
            clients[newClientNum].nickname += " (1)";
            System.out.println("New clients new nickname: " + clients[newClientNum].nickname);
            i = -1;
        }

This is equivalent to this code, which is not what you want:

if (clients[newClientNum].nickname.equals(clients[i].nickname)) {
    // do nothing
}

clients[newClientNum].nickname += " (1)";
System.out.println("New clients new nickname: " + clients[newClientNum].nickname);
i = -1;

Delete the ; at the end of the if statement.

... and another 2 hours spent on a single semicolon missplacement Thank you! — foxale, Jul 10 '16 at 09:47

Comparing strings seems to be not working properly

1 Answers1