Help reading a file to decode or encode

Hello I've ran into hopefully a small problem. A few weeks ago we were given an assignment to decode or encode a phrase given by a user. This week we have to change our code so it users a file and not user input. This is the original working code. **this is not entire code just the part I need help with**

Code Java:

---

public static void main(String[] args) {
		alpha = new char[26];
		loadData();
		input = new Scanner(System.in);
		while (true) {
			displayMenu();
			int choice = input.nextInt();
			input.nextLine();
			if (choice == 1) {
				String phrase = getPhrase("Please enter a phrase to decode");
				decodeMessage(phrase);
			} else if (choice == 2) {
				String phrase = getPhrase("Please enter a phrase to encode");
				encodeMessage(phrase);
			} else if (choice == 3) {
				displayAlphabet();
			} else if (choice == 4) {
				System.out.println("Goodbye!");
				break;
			}
		}
	}
 
private static String getPhrase(String message) {
		System.out.println(message);
		String phrase = input.nextLine();
		return phrase;
	}

---

I have spent hours trying different senerios without success. I'm not sure where I am making my mystake. This is my latest version.

Code Java:

---

private static String getPhrase() {
 
		Scanner file = new Scanner(new File("C:\\Users\\me\\file.txt"));
		String[] phrase=new String[5];
		int i=0;
		while (file.hasNext())
		{
		    phrase[i]=file.nextLine();
		    i++;
		  }
		return phrase;
	}
public static void main(String[] args) {
		alpha = new char[26];
		loadData();
		input = new Scanner(System.in);
		while (true) {
			displayMenu();
			int choice = input.nextInt();
			input.nextLine();
			if (choice == 1) {
				decodeMessage(phrase);
			} else if (choice == 2) {
				encodeMessage(phrase);
			} else if (choice == 3) {
				displayAlphabet();
			} else if (choice == 4) {
				System.out.println("Goodbye!");
				break;
			}
		}
	}

---

My newest error is on my return phrase; in getPhrase. It says incompatible types- found java.lang.String[] but expected java.lang.String. I know this is because I'm mixing an array with a String... I just know how to fix it...:-/

Just as a thought, maybe you can invoke the Array toString() method?

like:

String str= Arrays.toString(phrase)

and then instead of returning phrase, just return str

That worked! thanks!

no problem :)