Creating hangman game without arrays [closed]

Answer 1

Here is my take on it, a playable Hangman game without arrays:

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Hangman {
    private static Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);    
    private static String word;
    private static String availableChoices = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
    private static String hiddenWord;
    private static boolean winner = false;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.print("Enter a word to guess: ");

        word = scanner.nextLine();
        hiddenWord = wordToQuestionMarks(word);

        System.out.println("Hangman Word Set: " + word + "\n\n");

        while (!winner) {
            guessLetter();
        }

        System.out.println("Congrats! You Win!");
    }

    private static String wordToQuestionMarks(String word) {
        return word.replaceAll(".", "?");
    }

    private static void guessLetter() {
        System.out.println("Hidden Word: " + hiddenWord);
        System.out.println("Characters to choose from: " + availableChoices);
        System.out.print("Guess a letter: ");
        String letterChoice = scanner.nextLine();

        int found = 0;

        if (hasLetter(letterChoice)) {
            found = updateGameState(letterChoice);
        }

        updateAvailableChoices(letterChoice);

        System.out.println("You found " + found + " " + letterChoice + "\n");
        gameOver();
    }

    private static int updateGameState(String letter) {
        int found = 0;

        for(int i=0; i< word.length(); i++) {
            if (word.charAt(i) == letter.charAt(0)) {
                String prev = hiddenWord.substring(0,i).concat(letter);
                hiddenWord = prev.concat(hiddenWord.substring(i+1));
                found++;
            }
        }

        return found;
    }

    private static void updateAvailableChoices(String removeLetter) {
        availableChoices = availableChoices.replace(removeLetter, " ");
    }

    private static void gameOver() {
        if (!hiddenWord.contains("?")) {
            winner = true;
        }
    }

    private static boolean hasLetter(String letter) {
        if (word.contains(letter)) {
            return true;
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }
    }

}

Example Output

Enter a word to guess: stack
Hangman Word Set: stack


Hidden Word: ?????
Characters to choose from: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Guess a letter: a
You found 1 a

Hidden Word: ??a??
Characters to choose from:  bcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Guess a letter: z
You found 0 z

Hidden Word: ??a??
Characters to choose from:  bcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy 
Guess a letter: s
You found 1 s

Hidden Word: s?a??
Characters to choose from:  bcdefghijklmnopqr tuvwxy 
Guess a letter: t
You found 1 t

Hidden Word: sta??
Characters to choose from:  bcdefghijklmnopqr  uvwxy 
Guess a letter: k
You found 1 k

Hidden Word: sta?k
Characters to choose from:  bcdefghij lmnopqr  uvwxy 
Guess a letter: c
You found 1 c

Congrats! You Win!

Like others have said here, this is not the ideal way of doing this. Arrays would make this much cleaner.

Answer 2

EDIT2: cut all this, but basically, when you learn arrays, this will be so much easier.

EDIT: unrelated to the problem, but don't the conditions in your else block need to occur regardless of whether the guess was successful or not? You increment the count in both instances, and you'll need to blank out the guessed character whether it existed or not, correct?

PSUEDOCODE for inside the "successful guess":

String temporaryGuess = "";
for-loop for each character in originalString {
    if (character at current index = guess) 
        append guess to temporaryGuess;
    else
        append a ? to temporaryGuess;
}
set the previous guessed String to the temporaryGuess String

Answer 3

A few things that I noticed from a cursory glance:

• .replace() returns a String, it will not modify option unless you do:

  option = option.replace(guess, "_");

• Also, since you don't want to use Arrays, I highly suggest that you use StringBuilder

EDIT 1 (based off of comment from duplicate thread):
You can use a StringBuilder to have a String that's initialized to all -. Then when someone guess a correct letter, you can replace the - with the guess.

StringBuilder sb_word = new StringBuilder(lengthOfOriginalString); 

for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)
     sb_word.append('-'); //add hyphens to StringBuilder, StringBuffer would also work

You should really use something like:

final char blank = '-';

Then, after someone makes a guess, if you've determined that the character at position i should be replaced by guess, you could do:

 sb_word.setCharAt(i, guess.charAt(0));

EDIT 2:

while (bodyparts > 0 && !win) //play game while you have bodyparts and haven't won
{       
     System.out.printf("Word to guess: %s\nEnter a letter or word guess: " , sb_word);
     guess = keyboard.next();

     if (guess.length() == 1)
     {
         for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) //loop to see if guess is in originalString
             if (Character.toLowerCase(word.charAt(i)) == 
                 Character.toLowerCase(guess.charAt(0)))
             {  //it is, so set boolean contains to be true and replace blank with guess
                sb_word.setCharAt(i, guess.charAt(0));
                contains = true;
             }

        if (!contains)
        {
            bodyparts--;
            System.out.printf("Incorrect, you have %d bodyparts left.\n", bodyparts);
        } 
        else if (sb_word.indexOf(String.valueOf(blank)) == -1)
        { //all the letters have been uncovered, you win
            win = true;
            System.out.println(word);
        }
        else
        {
           contains = false;
           System.out.println("Good guess.");
        }
    }

    else
    {
        if (guess.equals(word))
            win = true;
        else
       {
            bodyparts = 0;
            System.out.printf("Incorrect, you have %d bodyparts left.\n" , bodyparts);
       }
    }
}