Java: Finding the shortest word in a string and printing it out

Question

I\'m a novice with Java. I took a class in C, so I\'m trying to get myself out of that mode of thinking. The program I\'m writing has a section in which the user enters an i

Answer 1

You're almost there, but your comparison to detect the shortest word is reversed. It should be:

if (words[i].length() < shortestword.length()) {

That is, if your current word's length is less than the length of your previous shortest word, overwrite it.

Also, instead of starting with an empty String, start with the first word, i.e., words[0]. Otherwise, the empty string will always be shorter than any string in your array:

String[] words = sentence.split(" ");
String shortestword = words[0];
for (int i = 1; i < numwords; i++) { // start with 1, because you already have words[0]

Answer 2

Java 8 has made it simpler. Convert your String array to a list and use sorted() to compare and sort your list in ascending order. Finally, use findFirst() to get the first value of your list (which is shortest after sorting).

have a look,

String[] words = new String[]{"Hello", "name", "is", "Bob"};
String shortest = Arrays.asList(words).stream()
      .sorted((e2, e1) -> e1.length() > e2.length() ? -1 : 1)
      .findFirst().get();

System.out.println(shortest);

Answer 3

Your if statement is wrong. This should work.

int numwords = scan.nextInt();
    String sentence = scan.nextLine();
    String shortestword = new String();
    String[] words = sentence.split(" ");
    for (int i = 0; i < numwords; i++){
        if (shortestword.length() > words[i].length()){
            shortestword = words[i];

        }
    }
    System.out.printf(shortestword);

Answer 4

Here's a version that makes use of Java 8's Stream API:

String sentence = "PROGRAMMING IS FUN";
List<String> words = Arrays.asList(sentence.split(" "));

String shortestWord = words.stream().min(
                                     Comparator.comparing(
                                     word -> word.length()))
                                    .get();

System.out.println(shortestWord);

You can also sort more complex objects by any of their attribute: If you have a couple of Persons and you wanted to sort them by their lastName, shortest first, the code becomes:

Person personWithShortestName = persons.stream().min(
                                                 Comparator.comparing(
                                                 person -> person.lastName.length()))
                                                .get();