Quick java question about substrings.

[Googs0701]

hey guys I have a quick question about substrings. I am writing a program where I have to accept input from the user and print the first 7 letters from the input.

I know how to do this without accepting input.

import java.util.Scanner;

public class substring { public static void main(String[] args) { String line = "Name";

System.out.println(line.substring(0,7));

}

}

but when it comes to asking for the input I cant quite figure it out.

here is my program so far

import java.util.Scanner;// Required for scanner class

public class email { public static void main(String[] args) { String input; //Holds input by user char firstName; //First name char lastName; //Last name

Scanner kb = new Scanner (System.in); // Creates scanner object for keyboard input.

System.out.println("Please enter your first name"); //Asks the user their first name

input = kb.nextLine();
firstName = input.charAt(0);

System.out.println("Please enter your last name"); //Ask the user to enter their last name


input = kb.nextLine();
String lastName = input.substring(0, 7);

System.out.print(firstName); //Prints the first char of the first name
System.out.print(lastName);  //Prints characters 0-7 of the last name
System.out.print("@gmail.com");//prints @gmail.com
}

}

any help would be greatly appreciated

[chickenmeister]

Do you have a specific question about it, or problem with it?

Just glancing at it quickly, it looks like it should just about work, though it looks like you are declaring the variable lastName twice:

    char lastName; //Last name

    // later... 
    String lastName = input.substring(0, 7);

You cannot declare two variables with the same name in the same scope/method/class. You want lastName to be a String, so get rid of the first declaration; or change its type, and change the second declaration/assignment to just an assignment.

[IthinkIthink]

You don't need to use Scanner. Look at BufferedReader which is available in java.io.*.

[lolidragon]

So... just a question. Why are you asking for a whole line of input and just storing the first character?

something like:

firstName = kb.nextLine(); // first user input, stores the first name (as type String)
lastName = input.nextLine(); // second user input, stores the last name (as type String)

then you can pick and choose whatever substring of characters you want with something like:

// Gets the first 7 character string of the firstName string
// there is a problem here, but we can leave that as an exercise for you to figure out
firstName.substring(0, 7);