Question

Problem:

I have to design an algorithm, which does the following for me:

Say that I have a line (e.g.)

alert tcp 192.168.1.1 (caret is currently here)

The algorithm should process this line, and return a value of 4.

I coded something for it, I know it’s sloppy, but it works, partly.

private int counter = 0;
    public void determineRuleActionRegion(String str, int index) {
        if (str.length() == 0 || str.indexOf(" ") == -1) {
            triggerSuggestionList(1);
            return;
        }

        //remove duplicate space, spaces in front and back before searching
        int num = str.trim().replaceAll(" +", " ").indexOf(" ", index);
        //Check for occurances of spaces, recursively
        if (num == -1) { //if there is no space
            //no need to check if it's 0 times it will assign to 1
            triggerSuggestionList(counter + 1);
            counter = 0;
            return; //set to rule action
        } else { //there is a space
            counter++;
            determineRuleActionRegion(str, num + 1);
        }

    } //end of determineactionRegion()

So basically I find for the space and determine the region (number of words typed). However, I want it to change upon the user pressing space bar <space character>.

How may I go around with the current code?

Or better yet, how would one suggest me to do it the correct way? I’m figuring out on BreakIterator for this case…

To add to that, I believe my algorithm won’t work for multi sentences. How should I address this problem as well.

—

The source of String str is acquired from textPane.getText(0, pos + 1);, the JTextPane.

Thanks in advance. Do let me know if my question is still not specific enough.

—

More examples:

alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> $HOME_NET 22 <caret>

return -1 (maximum of the typed text is 7 words)

alert tcp 192.168.1.1 any<caret> 

return 4 (as it is still at 2nd arg)

alert tcp<caret>

return 2 (as it is still at 2nd arg)

alert tcp <caret>

return 3

alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> <caret>

return 6

It is something like shell commands. As above. Though I think it does not differ much I believe, I just want to know how many arguments are typed. Thanks.

—

Pseudocode

Get whole paragraph from textpane
  if more than 1 line -> process the last line
      count how many arguments typed and return appropriate number
  else
    process current line
      count how many arguments typed and return appropriate number
End

Answer 1

The codes provided by polygenelubricants and helios work, to a certain extent. It addresses the aforementioned problem I’d stated, but not with multi-lines. helios’s code is more straightforward.

However both codes did not address the problem when you press enter in the JTextPane, it will still return back the old count instead of 1 as the split() returns it as one sentence instead of two.

E.g. alert tcp <enter is pressed>
By right it should return 1 since it is a new sentence. It returned 2 for both algorithms.
Also, if I highlight all and delete both algorithms will throw NullPointerException as there is no string to be split.

I added one line, and it solved the problems mentioned above:

public void determineRuleActionRegion(String str) {
    //remove repetitive spaces and concat $ for new line indicator
    str = str.trim().replaceAll(" +", " ") + "$";
    String[] lines = str.split("\r?\n|\r");
    String lastLine = lines[lines.length - 1];
    String[] tokens = lastLine.split("\\s+", -1);
    int pos = (tokens.length <= 7) ? tokens.length : -1;
    triggerSuggestionList(pos);
    System.out.println("Current pos: " + pos);
    return;
} //end of determineactionRegion()

With that, when split() parses the str, the "$" will create another line, which will be the last line regardless, and the count now will return to one. Also, there will not be NullPointerException as the "$" is always there.

However, without the help of polygenelubricants and helios, I don’t think I will be able to figure it out so soon. Thanks guys!

EDIT: Okay… apparently split("\r?\n|\r",-1) works the same. Question is should I accept polygenelubricants or my own? Hmm.

2nd EDIT: One thing bad about concatenating '%' to the end of the str, lastLine.endsWith(" ") == true will return false. So have to use split("\r?\n|\r",-1) and lastLine.endsWith(" ") == true for the complete solution.