Thread: String manipulation help

Hi,

I have a problem with some code im working on, which I'll explain now:

I have an ArrayList<String> which holds multiple strings.

Each string consists of 64 characters, randomly being a "0" or a "1".

For example:

11010111111001001001001100010011111000100001000001 00110100010010

I want to be able to loop through my ArrayList and go to each character in every string and then calculate the following:

With a probability of 1 in a 100 chance - if its a "1" change to a "0" and vice-versa.

This is the way I tried to do it:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
 
        for (int i = 0; i < populationArray.size(); i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < individualSize; j++)
            {
                if (new Random().nextInt(100) == 1)
                {
                    //TODO
 
               }
            }
        }

populationArray is the ArrayList
and individualSize is equal to 64

Thanks.

OK so how did you actually try to change it? I mean I think that logic is right but have you actually tried changing the characters yet? I would say you should declare a temporary string and reset it each time you loop through(the outer loop) and then add to it each loop through using populationArray[i].charAt(j). Then if the random thing kicks in use the same method to check if it is 0 or 1 and just add the other value to the string. Did any of that make sense? I'm pretty tired here so sorry if I didn't really explain very well.


Take a look at this as well

Manipulating Characters in a String (The Java™ Tutorials > Learning the Java Language > Numbers and Strings)

Ive tried this. is this what you meant?
Im getting an error at
if (populationArray.get .charAt(j) = "0")

ERROR: unexpected type. required variable. found value

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
 
        for (int i = 0; i < populationArray.size(); i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < individualSize; j++)
            {
                //sb.append(populationArray.get .charAt(j));
 
                if (populationArray.get .charAt(j) = "0")
                {
                    if (new Random().nextInt(100) == 1)
 
{
                        sb.append(populationArray.set(i, "1"));
 
                        System.out.println(sb);
                    }
                }
            }
            //sb.delete(0, sb.length());
        }

Thanks

Thanks for the great help!

Ive tried this:

for (int i = 0; i < populationArray.size(); i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < individualSize; j++)
            {
                if (new Random().nextInt(100) == 1)
                {
                    if (populationArray.get .charAt(j) == '0')
                    {
                        populationArray.set(i, "1");
                    }
                    else
                   {
                        populationArray.set(i, "0");
                    }
                }
            }
        }

but isnt this going to work?
should when I use set, do it differently?
Thanks

The problem there is you are replacing the whole string with 1 character I believe.

I don't think theres any way to just replace 1 character in a string. What you want to do is declare a temporary string which at the start of each outer loop is set to "" and then if the random generator doesn't kick in add the currect character, other wise add the other.

So
psuedo

If Random = 1 then if character = 0 set append 1 to string if it is 1 append 0.
Else if random != 1 then find character and append to string

to append just use

tempString += populationArray.get(i).charAt(j)

And don't forget to put the tempString into the array afterwards.

Also I think you weren't telling the array which string you wanted originally.

However I may be misunderstanding the String.replace() function so check that out as well.

Originally Posted by helloworld922

@duff
your code is almost right. Instead of setting the String at i to just a single 1 or 0, you have to get the i'th string and then set a specific character to 1 or 0. Here's a version that will work, I bolded the parts that were changed.

for (int i = 0; i < populationArray.size(); i++)
        {
            for (int j = 0; j < [b]populationArray.get(i).length()[/b]; j++)
            {
                if (new Random().nextInt(100) == 1)
                {
                    if (populationArray.get[b](i)[/b].charAt(j) == '0')
                    {
                       [b] populationArray.get(i).setCharAt(j, '1');[/b]
                    }
                    else
                   {
                        [b]populationArray.get(i).setCharAt(j, '0');[/b]
                    }
                }
            }
        }

Ah my bad I didn't notice(or know about) the StringBuilder seems like a handy little class alright. I would go with helloworld on this one seems simple and elegant and probably along the lines you were thinking.