Question

This is driving me insane! Here’s the code:

public static void main(String[] strings) {
    int input;
    String source;
    TextIO.putln("Please enter the shift value (between -25..-1 and 1..25)");
    input=TextIO.getInt();
    while ((input < 1 || input > 25) && (input <-25 || input >-1) && (input != 999 && input !=-999))
    {
        TextIO.putln(input + " is not a valid shift value.");
        TextIO.putln("Please enter the shift value (between -25..-1 and 1..25)");
        input=TextIO.getInt();
    }
    TextIO.putln("Please enter the source text (empty line to quit)");
    //TextIO.putln(source);
    source = TextIO.getln();
    TextIO.putln("Source    :" + source);?");
}

}

However, its telling me that ‘source’ is never read! It’s not allowing me to get input! Can anyone see what the problem may be?

Answer 1

The compiler is correct; the variable source is never read. You’re assigning a value to it (source = TextIO.getln();), but you’re never reading that value back out.

To do so, you could do something like:

TextIO.putln(source);

You seem to be having trouble reading text from the console with the TextIO class. Here’s a more standard approach, introduced in Java 5:

   String source;
   Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
   source = in.nextLine();

What exactly do you wish to do with the variable source? As it stands, you’re asking the user to enter a string, but you’re not doing anything with that string.