Thread: How to search through values of Array?

Hello everyone, I am java noob so please bear with me, I have two classes for a program thats supposed to search for books but I am currently stuck!. Where I am stuck is at the bottom of the BookSearch class, and I am trying to essentially only search my array for the price and title, but, in my book class I declared the attributes of the book to have 3 parameters (see below). So the little tiny thing that I can't figure out is that if I want to compare 2 values given to me by the user (a title and a price) then I only want to compare those 2 parameters, but I have no idea how to go about it since my Book class has 3 parameters, so essentially I am asking how do I check through an array with 3 parameters but only want to check 2 of them for the entire array. I tried if bkArr[i].equals(pric) && bkArr[i].equals(titl) ... but it didn't work and I know it wouldn't work, it just dosen't look good. I am completely baffled by this and have spent 3 hours just staring at my screen trying to figure something which I think should be very easy to do. If anyone dosen't understand what I am trying to do please ask and Il try to explain again, thanks in advance !

class Book {
	//Attributes of Book
 
	private String title;
	private long ISBN;
	private double price;
 
	//Constructor of Book
 
	public Book()
	{
		System.out.println("Creating Book.....");
		title = "abc";
		price = 25;
		ISBN = 1234;
	}
 
	public Book(String ti, long ib, double pr)
	{
		title = ti;
		price = pr;
		ISBN = ib;
	}
	//Methods of book
 
	public Book(Book bk)
	{ //Copy Constructor
		System.out.println("Creating object with copy constructor.....");
		title = bk.title;
		price = bk.price;
		ISBN = bk.ISBN;
	}
 
	public void setPrice(double pr)
	{//sets the price of the book
		price = pr;
	}
	public double getPrice()
	{//gets the price of the book
		return price;
	}
 
	public void setTitle(String ti)
	{//sets the title of the book
		title = ti;
	}
 
	public String getTitle()
	{//gets the title of the book
		return title;
	}
 
	public void setISBN(long num)
	{//sets the ISBN of the book
		ISBN = num;
	}
 
	public long getISBN()
	{//gets the ISBN of the book
		return ISBN;
	}
 
	public String toString()
	{//returns book values
		System.out.println("The book title is " + title + ", the ISBN number is " + ISBN + " and the price is " + price +"$.\n\n");
		return (title + " " + ISBN + " " + price);
	}
}

import java.util.Scanner;
public class BookSearch 
{
	public static void main (String[] args) 
	{
		String titl, yn;  
		int i, pric;
	//Create 10 books with the array
		Book[] bkArr = new Book[10];
 
	//Create 10 book objects with values
	    Book b1 = new Book ("hi",10, 1001);
	    Book b2 = new Book ("hi",45, 1002);
	    Book b3 = new Book ("hi",50, 1003);
	    Book b4 = new Book ("hi",100, 1004);
	    Book b5 = new Book ("hi",75, 1005);
	    Book b6 = new Book ("hi",65, 1006);
	    Book b7 = new Book ("hi",40, 1007);
	    Book b8 = new Book ("hi",10, 1008);
	    Book b9 = new Book ("hi",10, 1009);
	    Book b10 = new Book ("hi",100,1010);
 
	    bkArr[0] = b1;
	    bkArr[1] = b2;
	    bkArr[2] = b3;
	    bkArr[3] = b4;
	    bkArr[4] = b5;
	    bkArr[5] = b6;
	    bkArr[6] = b7;
	    bkArr[7] = b8;
	    bkArr[8] = b9;
	    bkArr[9] = b10;
 
	    Scanner kb = new Scanner(System.in);
	    System.out.println("Please enter a book title, a price and either 'Yes' or 'No' for a combined search");
 
	    titl = kb.next();
	    pric = kb.nextInt();
	    yn = kb.next();
 
	    if (yn.equals("yes"))
	    {
	    	for (i = 0; i < bkArr.length; i++)
	    	{
	    		if (bkArr[i].
	    	}
	    }
 
	    if (yn.equals("No"))
	    {
 
	    }
	}
}

Your construction of the array that contains Book objects can be improved:

Book[] books = new Book[10];

Then to populate the array with Book objects, use a for loop:

for ( int i = 0 ; i < books.length ; i++ )
{
    // create an argument for the constructor from the b1 - b10 code above
    books[i] = new Book( bookArgument );
}

Then to search the array:

for ( Book book : books )
{
    if ( book.getAttribute() == whatever )
    {
        // the item is found
    }
}

Hi there greg, I can't use the for loop because I have to declare my 10 books to be uniquely different from another ( i simply just put hi for the values of name for now), essentially 10 different books. And for your second piece of code I am not quite sure I understand what you are doing or trying to say. Are you trying to say make a method that getPriceandTitle from user, and then if it equals the book value etc. But I dont know how to do the == whatever part, sure I can make the method but where I am stuck is equating the method to make it equal to only 2 out of the 3 parameters of the book. Sorry if I am annoying, just greatly confused.

what I am trying to do:

if (yn.equals("yes")) //if the user enters yes, search for title and price
	    {
	    	for (i = 0; i < bkArr.length; i++)
	    	{
	    		//if  the values of bkArr[i] match only the price and title that the user has given, then display that title and book price.
	    	}
	    }

I can't use the for loop because I have to declare my 10 books to be uniquely different from another

Of course you can do that using a for loop (or some kind of loop). You just need to be a bit more clever. Store the data that defines each book and apply it to an appropriate constructor to create each book during each pass through the loop.

I dont know how to do the == whatever

Do what you can or what you think you need to do to accomplish your task and post that, errors and all, so that we can see what you mean.

You're not annoying.

Explain what "equating the method to make it equal to only 2 out of the 3 parameters" means or is supposed to do. Give an example of a book, the user's search, and possible results from the desired method.

Using a for loop to create the 10 books. Here's one way:

import java.util.Scanner;
 
public class BookSearch 
{
        //Create 10 book objects with values
    private static String[] bookData =
                        { ( "hi  10 1001" ),
                          ( "hi  45 1002" ),
                          ( "hi  50 1003" ),
                          ( "hi 100 1004" ),
                          ( "hi  75 1005" ),
                          ( "hi  65 1006" ),
                          ( "hi  40 1007" ),
                          ( "hi  10 1008" ),
                          ( "hi  10 1009" ),
                          ( "hi 100 1010" ) };
 
    public static void main (String[] args) 
    {
        String titl, yn;  
        int i, pric;
        Book[] bkArr = new Book[10];
 
        // Create 10 books with the String[] bookData
        // (should be a separate method)
        for ( int j = 0 ; j < bookData.length ; j++ )
        {
            Scanner scan = new Scanner( bookData[j] );
            String title = scan.next();
            double price = scan.nextDouble();
            long isbn = scan.nextLong();
 
            bkArr[j] = new Book( title, isbn, price );
 
            // show the results after each book is created
            System.out.print( "Book " + j + " = " + bkArr[j] );
        }
 
        // etc . . . .

And a similar way can be done with a single bookData String and a single scan object. I'm not sure which I prefer. And there are certainly other ways possible for those even more clever . . .

Returning to your original question, (roughly) "How to search an array for two out of 3 attributes or class properties?"

Keep in mind that the Book class has methods (getters or accessor methods) that return the attributes for the current book object, so the method that compares the results from different Book objects will reside outside the Book class. Also, more than one result is possible, so there must be a way to return multiple results. One way to accomplish the task would be with a method that looks something like:

private boolean[] findBookMatches( Book[] books, String title, double price )
{
    // create a boolean array to store the results
 
    // test each book in the books[] array to determine if it has
    // the title 'title' AND the price 'price'. set the corresponding
    // element in the boolean array true for each match found,
    // false for each book that doesn't match.
 
    // return the resulting boolean array
 
} // end method findBookMatches()

Hope this helps.

Hey thanks for your help and patience, but unfortunately I still do not understand what you doing. It seems like your first piece of code is trying to just go through the book list and display the content of each and every book.I simply want to check the books- I think maybe perhaps I need to make a method like checkIfBooksAreEven(), but once again, I am baffled of about how to go about this, I would like to give you more examples of my attempts but I am kind of giving up since I have other things to attend to! But hey I am still trying to do this, so maybe in the method it can do something like a nested for loop checking the price and title and then if its matched it will return true, and on my book search class I can do something like if checkIfBooksAreEven = true then display book[i] etc.

for your code Il put some comments to maybe show what I mean

 
 
 public static void main (String[] args) 
    {
        String titl, yn;  
        int i, pric;
        Book[] bkArr = new Book[10];
 
        // Create 10 books with the String[] bookData
        // (should be a separate method)
        for ( int j = 0 ; j < bookData.length ; j++ )
        {
            Scanner scan = new Scanner( bookData[j] );
            String title = scan.next();
            double price = scan.nextDouble();
            //long isbn = scan.nextLong(); dont need ISBN just price and title (because the user dosent know The isbn numbers and I am not asking for them
 
            bkArr[j] = new Book( title, isbn, price );
 
            // show the results after each book is created 
           // I dont want to display all the books, just the matching ones     ...  System.out.print( "Book " + j + " = " + bkArr[j] );
        }

//in the book search class
 
public Book compareBooks() // dont know how to go about writing this not sure if its right?
 
If book[i] = book[scanner info that the user inputted]
 
return true
else false
 
if true display the information

Your question:

Now in my booksearch.java im trying to do a loop that will check only title and price not ISBN as well. So in a for loop i will have an if statement going through each book checking to see if both the title and price match.

Focusing on your question, the desired method would look something like:

private boolean[] findBookMatches( Book[] books, String title, double price )
{
    // create a boolean array to store the results
 
    // test each book in the books[] array to determine if it has
    // the title 'title' AND the price 'price'. set the corresponding
    // element in the boolean array true for each match found,
    // false for each book that doesn't match.
    for ( int i = 0 ; i < books.length ; i++ )
    {
        if ( books[i].getTitle().equals( title ) && book[i].getPrice == price )
        {
            // a match has been found, so set the corresponding boolean array
            // element to true
            bookMatchArray[i] = true;
        }
    }
    // return the resulting boolean array
 
} // end method findBookMatches()

It's really helpful - almost necessary - to post executable code or error messages when you want help with code that "doesn't work." For example, here's runnable code using your own code that shows what you posted DOES work. Why it doesn't work for you is a mystery, BECAUSE you don't post a runnable example with a sample run.

import java.util.Scanner;
 
public class BookSearch3
{
    //Create 10 book objects with values
    private static String[] bookData =
      { ( "hi0  10 1001" ),
        ( "hi1  45 1002" ),
        ( "hi2  50 1003" ),
        ( "hi3 100 1004" ),
        ( "hi4  75 1005" ),
        ( "hi5  65 1006" ),
        ( "hi6  40 1007" ),
        ( "hi7  10 1008" ),
        ( "hi8  10 1009" ),
        ( "hi9 100 1010" ) };
 
    public static void main (String[] args) 
    {
        String titl, yn;  
        int i;
        double pric;
 
        Book[] bkArr = new Book[10];
 
        // a Scanner object for user input
        Scanner kb = new Scanner(System.in);
 
        // Create 10 books with the String[] bookData
        // (should be a separate method)
        for ( int j = 0 ; j < bookData.length ; j++ )
        {
            Scanner scan = new Scanner( bookData[j] );
            String title = scan.next();
            double price = scan.nextDouble();
            long isbn = scan.nextLong();
 
            bkArr[j] = new Book( title, isbn, price );
 
            // show the results after each book is created
            System.out.print( "Book " + j + " = " + bkArr[j] );
        }
 
        System.out.println("Please enter a book title");
        titl = kb.next();
 
        System.out.println("Please enter a book price");
        pric = kb.nextDouble();
 
        System.out.println("Please enter yes or no for a combined search");
        yn = kb.next();
 
        if (yn.equals("yes"))
        {
            for (i = 0; i < bkArr.length; i++)
            {
                if (bkArr[i].getTitle().equals(titl) && bkArr[i].getPrice() == pric)
                {
                    System.out.println("Title Matched For:"+ titl);
                    System.out.printf("Price Matched For"+ pric);
                    System.out.println( "At index: " + i );
                }
            }
        }
 
    } // end method main()
 
}// end class BookSearch