How do I get a random word from a string?

Question

I want to create a hangman game in Java, but I'm unsure on how to set the whole thing up. I am working on a system that the more letters they have, they have a less chance of appearing on the hangman puzzle.

    import java.ultil.Scanner;
    public class Hangman {
      public static void main(string[]args); // Let's try a main?
      scr = newScanner(system.in); // used for keyboard input
      string words = "Hi:Bye:Hello:Cheese:Puppies";
      int length = words.length();
      }
    }

How can get a random word from the variable, "words", and calculate it's length?

Please keep in mind, I'm not the best at coding Java.

Answer 1

This answers the part with picking a random word and finding its length.

String words = "Hi:Bye:Hello:Cheese:Puppies";
String[] wordsAsArray = words.split(":");

int index = new Random().nextInt(wordsAsArray.length);

String randomWord = wordsAsArray[index];
System.out.println("Random word: '" + randomWord + "'. It is of length: " + randomWord.length());

Answer 2

If you want words with the highest counts to be used, then your question shouldn't be about a random word. It should be about sorting words by length, THEN picking a random word from the top N longest words

Create an array and add your words

    StringTokenizer tokenizer = new StringTokenizer("Boy:Chicken:mango", ":");

    String [] words = new String [tokenizer.countTokens()];
            int counter =0;
            while (tokenizer.hasMoreElements()) {
                String word = (String) tokenizer.nextElement();
                words[counter] = word;
                counter++;
            }

If you want to pick words with highest count, then sort the words here by highest count.

You could place in hashmap, then iterate picking the ones with highest

HashMap<String, Integer> count = new HashMap<String, Integer>();

    for (String word : words) {
        if (!count.containsKey(word)) {
            count.put(word, word.length());
        }
    }

Pick a random word

Random numGen= new Random();
String word = words [numGen.nextInt(words.size)];

For an actually efficient sort, you need to write your own comparator for the words (based on length, but for longer words first), then create a PriorityQueue, add the words in there and when you do remove() you'll get the word with highest length.

Answer 3

String words = "Hi:Bye:Hello:Cheese:Puppies";

String[] wordsSplit = words.split(":");

And then randomize the resultant array. But like others have pointed out, you might as well start with an array of words.

See the documentation: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/String.html#split%28java.lang.String%29

You've got syntax errors. Get an IDE.

Answer 4

To get the length of any given String just use:

string.length();

In order to get a random word (and each word have different chances of appearing depending on its length), first you need to add your words to some sort of list, like this:

ArrayList<String> words = new ArrayList<String>();
words.add("word");
words.add("word2");
words.add("etc");

The following method will return a random word from the list. The longer the word, the less chances it has of being selected:

String selectRandomWord(ArrayList<String> words){
int lengthOfLongestWord = 200;
List<Integer> wordsTimesLength = new ArrayList<Integer>();

for (int i = 0;i<words.size();i++){
  for (int e = 0;e<Math.pow(words.get(i).length,-1)*lengthOfLongestWord;e++){

  wordsTimesLength.add(i);
  }
}

int randomIndex = generator.nextInt(wordsTimesLength.size());

return words.get(wordsTimesLength.get(randomIndex));
}

Note you need to change lengthOfLongest to if you have a word with more than 200 characters (I don't think there is any but just in case). To use the method you can simply call it like this:

selectRandomWord(words);

Answer 5

Here's some code that should work for what you're trying to do:

public class Hangman {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner scr = new Scanner(System.in); //Used for keyboard input
        List<String> words = new ArrayList<String>(); {
            words.add("Hi");
            words.add("Bye");
            words.add("Hello");
            words.add("Cheese");
            words.add("Puppies");
        }

        Random numberGenerator = new Random(); //Creates Random object
        int randomNum = numberGenerator.nextInt(words.size()); //Return a num between 0 and words.size()-1

        System.out.println(randomNum); //Prints the random number outputted by the generator
        System.out.println(words.get(randomNum)); //Retrieves the String located at the index value 
        System.out.println(words.get(randomNum).length()); //Returns the size of the words
    }
}