Question

I’d like to start off by saying that I’m a complete beginner when it comes to Java. What I know so far is what I’ve learn from my software development class at university. I’ve been messing about with it on my own and I managed to create an app which takes two doubles as inputs and calculates the BMI (body mass index) of the user.

This program works fine and does exactly what I want it to do however, if the user doesn’t enter anything and presses enter, then an exception is thrown. If the user enters anything but a number, an exception is thrown. When an exception is thrown the program is stopped. I would like to stop these exceptions from stopping the program completely and instead, return the user to the input stage and present an error message.

I have an idea of how it’s done. Some people have suggested using the try {..} catch (..) {..} construct and I have tried but I’ve always managed to break the program.

Anyone have any ideas?

So, here’s the code I have so far, sorry if there’s anything wrong, I’ve tried to add comments to make it easier.

import java.io.*;

public class bmi {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        /**
         * User input of weight and height.
         */

        BufferedReader in;
        in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));

        System.out.println("Please enter how much you weigh in KG.");
        double weight = Double.parseDouble(in.readLine()); //take weight input as double

        System.out.println("Please enter how tall you are in meters.");
        double height = Double.parseDouble(in.readLine()); //take height input as double

        /**
         * BMI calculation
         */

        double bmi = weight / Math.pow(height,2); // weight divided by height squared

        /**
         * if else statements to find if person is underweight, at a healthy weight or overweight.
         */

        if (bmi<18.5) { //if BMI is smaller than 18.5
            System.out.println("Your BMI is " + bmi + ", you are underweight.");
        }

        else if (bmi>=18.5 && bmi<=25) { //if BMI is bigger than or equal to 18.5 and smaller than or equal to 25
            System.out.println("Your BMI is " + bmi + ", you are at a healthy weight.");
        }

        else if (bmi>25) { //if bmi is bigger than 25
            System.out.println("Your BMI is " + bmi + ", you are overweight");
        }

    }

}

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use Scanner for that. Scanner provides various methods to check appropriate types so you can use them. And there is no need to catch exceptions like NumberFormatException

    Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
    double weight = 0;
    double height = 0;
    System.out.println("Please enter how much you weigh in KG.");
    while (scanner.hasNext()) {
        if (scanner.hasNextDouble()) {
            // correct value
            weight = scanner.nextDouble();
        } else {
            System.out.println("Please enter correct value.");
            scanner.next();
            continue;
        }
        System.out.println("Please enter how tall you are in meters.");
        if (scanner.hasNextDouble()) {
            // correct value
            height = scanner.nextDouble();
        } else {
            System.out.println("Please enter correct value.");
            scanner.next();
            continue;
        }
        break;
    }
    double bmi = weight / Math.pow(height, 2);
    System.out.println("Your BMI :"+bmi);
    //Rest of the code remains the same