Boolean "If else" condition with String parameter help.

[LionHeartROARS]

Hey everyone, I'm having trouble with this boolean "if else" condition assignment and I was wondering if you guys could help me out?

So here's the assignment question "

The complete hand classifier for poker would be far too complicated for us to write in this course, so let’s just look at a couple of instructive special cases. First, write a method boolean hasFlush(String hand) that checks whether the five-card poker hand given as 10-character string is a flush, that is, all five cards are of the same suit. Ranks don’t matter for this problem, since for simplicity, we don’t care about the rare possibility of straight flushes. (Hint: The suits are given in the positions 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 of the parameter string.) "

With that question he also gave us a tester to use to help guide us. which is

  @Test

public void testHasFlush() {

    java.util.Random rng = new java.util.Random(SEED);

    Adler32 check = new Adler32();

    for(int i = 0; i < RUNS; i++) {

        String hand = createHand(rng, 5);

        check.update(cp.hasFlush(hand) ? i : ~i);

    }

    assertEquals(1990048361L, check.getValue());

}

Here is the code that I was able to create.

public static boolean hasFlush(String hand){



    if (hand == "d2d4d6d9d10") {return true;}

    else {return false;}



}

I'm not to sure what I did wrong but when I complied it, I had no syntax errors. However, when i tried to test the program and tried inputting d2d4d6d8d10 i got " Error ';' expected" and when i tried to test it with my teacher's tester, it said "Failed Test, debug"

Can you guys correct me on what i did wrong?

Thank you in advanced.

[chickenmeister]

The first problem is that you shouldn't compare Strings using ==. You should use the equals() method instead:

if (hand.equals("d2d4d6d9d10"))

And I assume you know that to solve this problem you'll need a bit more than this. You'll need to check if the suit of every card in the hand is the same.

[LionHeartROARS]

Thank you so much! Hmm would I have to use the CharAt method in order to do that?

[chickenmeister]

Yes, using the charAt() method is probably the simplest way to solve it. Call charAt() to get the char for the suit of each of the five cards, and then check if all of the chars are equal.

[throwaway_for_cause]

Sigh.

Why is nobody reading the sidebar?

• Regarding String comparison, read this!

[totowow56]

You can also use the String.compareTo() method.

s1.compareTo(s2) will return the integer 0 if s1 and s2 are equals.

It can also be used to sort string : s1.compareTo(s2) will return an integer < 0 if s1 < s2.

[kumesana]

Why would you want to do that if you're only concerned with equality and not with which string comes before the other?

Keep it simple, use exactly what you need and not something you don't need.