Question

I am writing a hashing table and have narrowed down where the issue is coming from.

void put(String word, int line)
{
  boolean flag = true;
  int val = getValue(word);
  val = val%10;

  System.out.println(val);

  while ( flag )
  {
    if( total >= words.length )
    {
      System.out.println("2");

      if( words[val] == null )
      {
        System.out.println("3");
        total++;
        words[val] = new Word(word);
        words[val].addLine(line);
        System.out.println(word);
        flag = false;
      }
      else if ( words[val].equals(word) )
      {
        System.out.println("4");
        words[val].addOne();
        words[val].addLine(line);
        flag = false;
      }
      val++;
      if ( val == words.length )
        val=0;

      System.out.println("5");
    }
  }
  System.out.println("2");
}

It will only print out val, then continue to give me a loading sign. Is there something wrong with the loop perhaps? But if so why wouldn’t it atleast print out 2-5? Any advice would really be appreciated.

Answer 1

You don’t show us the complete code but from what I can see the only explanation is that you are inside the loop but the outmost if-condition total >= words.length is never fulfilled.

while(flag) {
  if (...) {  // condition never fulfilled
    ...       // code never reached
  }
}

Thus your code is running in an infinite loop without doing anything usefull at all.