Thread: checking for empty strings?

I'm trying to check for empty strings with a Scanner and I'm not sure how to loop it so that it asks for the correct input.

So I want to use

System.out.print("Enter your First Name: ");
String employeeFirstName = j.next(); //first name declared
System.out.print("Enter your Last Name: ");
String employeeLastName = j.next(); //last name declared

and I want to have it check so if the user enters a number or a blank that it asks for the input again. I tried using both if and while loops and it would still print "enter last name" after the first name and then also say it was invalid and crash the program.

That is probably proper, but shouldn't this work also...since you are using a boolean in yours anyway, why use the catch blocks?

boolean goodInput = false;

while(!goodInput) {
	goodInput = true;
        System.out.print("Enter first name: ");
	employeeFirstName = j.next();
//Nice for loop to ensure all chars are letters
	for(i=0;i<employeeFirstName.length();i++) {
                if(!((employeeFirstName.charAt(i)>= (int) 'A') && (employeeFirstName.charAt(i)<= (int)'z'))) {
		    goodInput = false;
		    System.out.println("Bad input, try again.");
                    continue;
                }
	}
}

And then another for last name, resetting goodInput to false of course.

This is a better code than mine. But mine would work too. Thanks for showing an aliter.