Question

First off, sorry the code is kinda messy. It didn’t format very well. My assignment is to randomly generate a password consisting of uppercase and lowercase letters, with the length being specified by the user. So far, my code is unfinished but that’s because I’ve run into a problem.

My password will display lowercase and uppercase letters, but it won’t be long enough.

For example, if the person wants a password with a length of 14, I’ll only get a password that’s less than that. It’s never the length that it’s supposed to be.

import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.Random;

public class Password{
    public static void main(String [] args){
        Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
        int passwordLength = 0;
        Random randNum = new Random();
        int randNumAscii = 0;
        String generatedPassword = "";

        System.out.print("Password Length (1-14): ");
        passwordLength = in.nextInt();
        for(int count = 0; count < passwordLength; count++){ 
            randNumAscii = randNum.nextInt(123);
            if(randNumAscii >= 65 && randNumAscii <= 90 || randNumAscii >= 97 && randNumAscii <= 122)
                generatedPassword += (char)randNumAscii;
            else
                randNumAscii = randNum.nextInt(123); 
        }
        System.out.println(generatedPassword);
    }
}

Answer 1

It’s because you only add a character to the generated password if it’s in your selected range. If a character is randomized outside of randNumAscii >= 65 && randNumAscii <= 90 || randNumAscii >= 97 && randNumAscii <= 122 you never append it to the string.

What you can do is either have a while loop inside the for loop that continues until that condition is met, or continue the for loop but decrease the count variable with one so a new character is generated “with that index” so to speak.