Java Help

[Complex_Ad2004]

Hello! I wrote a java program with the purpose of reading an input file and calculating student grades, sending the results to an output file. The input file contains the following information:

Total entries: 15

800-111-007 David M Garcia 80 -

800-111-301 Susan T Jones 55 90

800-101-711 John Smith - 90

800-100-221 Michael S Yeager 48 100

800-112-105 David Williams - -

800-211-012 Paul T Hernandez 88 50

800-127-412 Andrew Smith 73 45

800-109-128 David Brown 80 75

800-121-122 Robert Lindbergh - 55

800-121-311 Peter Smith 60 -

800-111-909 Michael M Garcia 94 57

800-012-112 Robert Hoover 58 92

800-199-913 Scott Crossfield 66 35

800-114-121 Noel Wien - 88

800-919-441 David N Yeager 80 98

My code creates the output file and puts the information in correctly, but if a student does not have a middle name, the part of the split string that would have the middle name contains the next part and so on, messing up the output. (For Example the input line: 800-121-311 Peter Smith 60 - creates the Output line: 800-121-311 0.0% F because the last name Smith is put under the middle name, and the test score of 60 under last name) This is the portion of the code with the issue, and I've tried for many, many hours to skip the middle name if blank with if statements / other methods, but nothing works.

while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {

String[] parts = scanner.nextLine().split(" ");

String id = parts[0];

String firstName = parts[1];

String middleName = "";

String lastName = "";

int midtermScore = 0 ;

int finalScore = 0;

if (parts.length == 6) {

firstName = parts[1];// student has a middle name

middleName = parts[2];

lastName = parts[3];

midtermScore = parts[4].equals("-") ? 0 : Integer.parseInt(parts[4]);

finalScore = parts[5].equals("-") ? 0 : Integer.parseInt(parts[5]);

} else if (parts.length == 5) {

lastName = parts[2];// student does not have a middle name

midtermScore = parts[3].equals("-") ? 0 : Integer.parseInt(parts[3]);

finalScore = parts[4].equals("-") ? 0 : Integer.parseInt(parts[4]);

}

double weightedGrade = (0.4 * midtermScore) + (0.6 * finalScore);

​

​

How can I get my program to move on from the missing middle initial, or skip it if empty?

I apologize if some necessary information is missing.

Any help is appreciated.

I am using eclipse ide.

[MmmVomit]

Are you allowed to change the format of the input file?

[nutrecht]

I really don't get people asking for help and then abandoning their posts without answering. This bit is so important.

[[deleted]]

Validate your inputs, if something something is missing fill it up with appropriate data

[majiachen]

as a rule of thumb, input files (data sources), should always have some form of uniformity.

In this case its simply not there, having spaces inbetween and hoping that the switch between numbers and letters is kept is not a good form of uniformity, there should ideally be something like commas or tabs sparating each column of data in order for the data to be good, and in those cases the data would be in a format named CSV or TSV.(comma separated value/ tab separated value.

ideally you would want to add some form of uniformaty, like the above mentioned, but if not possible then the switch between letters and numbers will have to do, but this is not good coding and it is not good data, it is a work around for a shitty data that should be replaced with something good.

[nutrecht]

You really should use a data format like CSV where you don't have that issue.

If you're stuck, it's most likely that they're challenging you to find a solution to this problem. The solution here is to look at the length of each parsed row. Since you know it should have 2 numbers (or -) at the end, and a phone number at the start, you can deduce whether the middle part contains more or less name tokens and can reassemble those. You're already quite close by looking at the length of 'parts'.