My "Enter the secret code" method is printing out the wrong output

Question

I currently have a game where the user needs to type in the secret code correctly to play the game. However, each time I type in "game" as the user code, it prints out Goodbye!, rather than play the game. Can someone explain why?

   public static void secretCode() {
      System.out.println("Enter your secret code to play: ");
      Scanner passwordInput = new Scanner(System.in);
      String userCode = passwordInput.nextLine();
      String gameCode = "game";

    if (userCode == gameCode) {
        System.out.println("Let's begin! Each game costs $50 to play.");
        playGame();
        System.out.println("Thanks for playing. Goodbye!");
    }
    if (userCode != gameCode) {
        System.out.println("Goodbye!");
    }

}

try using userCode.equals(gameCode) and !(userCode.equals(gameCode)) for your if statements — beefoak, Dec 11 '18 at 15:58

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 11 '18 at 15:58

2

You should always compare your Strings with the equals method:

if(userCode.equals(gameCode){
    ...
}

Otherwise it will compare the references of the two Strings and they are different. But with equals() it compares the content of the strings.

answered Dec 11 '18 at 15:58

MuffinMICHI

480
5
13

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '18 at 15:59

you should use equals() to comparate Objects like Strings. Then you have:

    System.out.println("Enter your secret code to play: ");
    Scanner passwordInput = new Scanner(System.in);
    String userCode = passwordInput.nextLine();
    String gameCode = "game";
    // compare with equals
    if (userCode.equals(gameCode)) {
        System.out.println("Let's begin! Each game costs $50 to play.");
        playGame();
        System.out.println("Thanks for playing. Goodbye!");
    }
    // compare with eaquals
    if (!userCode.equals(gameCode)) {
        System.out.println("Goodbye!");
    }

My "Enter the secret code" method is printing out the wrong output

2 Answers2