java tells me it cannot find symbol that is supposed to be defined by scanner

Question

I have searched high and low through your website but cannot find the answer I am looking for. Apologies if this has been asked before, I am a total noob to java and programming in general so don't really know where to look any way I am having a problem with the following code. I compile the following code

and it tells me that it cannot find the symbol "a"

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Trees {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("Please enter the grade:");
        String grade = in.nextLine();

        if (grade == a) {
            System.out.println("range for a");
        }
    }
}

and this is the error message that I am getting.....

C:\Users\cawle\Desktop\itbyr1\fundamentals of programming\lab 05\Trees.java:15: error: cannot find symbol
if(grade == a)
            ^
  symbol:   variable a
  location: class Trees
1 error

I have been stuck on this for hours, any help would be greatly appreciated.thanks in advance.

Yes even I can't find symbol `a` . did you mean `"a".equalsIgnoreCase(grade)` instead ? — jmj, Oct 25 '17 at 22:14
And also check [how to compare strings in java](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/513832/how-do-i-compare-strings-in-java). — Juan Carlos Mendoza, Oct 25 '17 at 22:15

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 25 '17 at 22:16

You have not defined any variable named 'a' in your code. I suppose you just want to compare the 'grade' value entered by user to the literal 'a'. In that case you should change your 'if' statement to following:

if(grade.equalsIgnoreCase("a")

java tells me it cannot find symbol that is supposed to be defined by scanner

1 Answers1