Question

I’m making a Hangman game in Java for university coursework and I’m having problems with my code. I’ve got it to run and open but when I enter a letter into the text box to make a guess, I get this error:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0
at hangman.HangmanFrame.guessButtonActionPerformed(HangmanFrame.java:164)
at hangman.HangmanFrame.access$000(HangmanFrame.java:14)
at hangman.HangmanFrame$1.actionPerformed(HangmanFrame.java:75)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:1995)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2318)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(DefaultButtonModel.java:387)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.setPressed(DefaultButtonModel.java:242)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicButtonListener.mouseReleased(BasicButtonListener.java:236)
at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Component.java:6290)
at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(JComponent.java:3267)
at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Component.java:6055)
at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Container.java:2039)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4653)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2097)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4481)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Container.java:4575)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Container.java:4236)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Container.java:4166)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2083)
at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Window.java:2482)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4481)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:648)
at java.awt.EventQueue.access$000(EventQueue.java:84)
at java.awt.EventQueue$1.run(EventQueue.java:607)
at java.awt.EventQueue$1.run(EventQueue.java:605)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(AccessControlContext.java:87)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(AccessControlContext.java:98)
at java.awt.EventQueue$2.run(EventQueue.java:621)
at java.awt.EventQueue$2.run(EventQueue.java:619)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.AccessControlContext$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(AccessControlContext.java:87)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:618)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:269)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:184)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:174)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:169)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:161)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:122)

Based on the first error in the list, I suspect it has something to do with this section of code:

    do
    {
        if (playerGuess.equals(arrayToGuess[c]))
        {
            correct = true;
            lettersToGet[c] = playerGuess;
        }

        c++;
    }
    while (c < 6);

    c = 0;

More specifically:

if (playerGuess.equals(arrayToGuess[c]))

I don’t have a clue what is wrong with this as it’s my first time working with String arrays and comparing the characters in each part of the array with what the user has entered. Hope someone can help. If you require any more information, let me know and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. I’ve also created a short-term Pastebin so the entire code can be viewed to help with spotting the problem: Pastebin Link

Thanks

Answer 1

Your problem is with split method – it splits String with reqexp and dot has special meaning, you have to set

    String breaker = "[.]";

or

    String breaker = "\\.";

btw: if you need to get i-th character of the String, you can use s.charAt( i ) and you don’t need split 😉