Question

I just started learning Java and I’m having trouble formatting string. In the problem I have a string a user inputted that is a name in the format: “First Middle Last”. I need to output the string in the format: “Last, First MI. ” (MI is middle initial).

Here is what I have so far, I have the first name working, but unsure how to go about getting the last and middle initial out of the string.

// Variable declarations
String name, first, last, middle;
Scanner scan = new Scanner (System.in);

// Get name from user in format "First Middle Last"
System.out.println("Enter the person's name: ");
name = scan.nextLine();

// Get first, middle initial, and last name from the string
first = name.substring(0, name.indexOf(" "));
middle =
last =


// Output formatted name as "Last, First MI."
System.out.println(last + ", " + first + " " + middle + ".");

so for example if the user entered: “John Robert Doe”, it would output as “Doe, John R.”

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use the split method of the String class

// Get first, middle initial, and last name from the string
String nameParts [] = name.split(" ");
// not sure if you need these variables, but I guess you get the picture
first = nameParts [0];
middle = nameParts [1];
last = nameParts [2];
middleInital = middle.charAt(0);

// Output formatted name as "Last, First MI."
System.out.println(last + ", " + first + " " + middleInital + ".");