Adding items to an array in an appropriate order

Question

I'm having trouble figuring out how to properly do this. So I have this array that can contain 6 items. I have this .txt file that contains a song on a line, and then on the next who the song is by, and then the next song, and then who that's by. So on and so forth for a few. In total there are 12 lines in my .txt file, but I can only put a total of 6 items in my array. So I'm wondering, how can I put both the title of the song + the artist into a single index on the array. Such that I can print it out later as the Title "by" Artist.

My code is decently short, so maybe viewing it might help.

/**This program creates a list of songs for a CD by reading from a file*/
import java.io.*;

public class CompactDisc
{
    public static void main(String [] args) throws IOException
    {
    FileReader file = new FileReader("Classics.txt");
    BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(file);
    String title;
    String artist;

    //Declare an array of songs, called cd, of size 6
    String[] cd = new String[6];

    for (int i = 0; i < cd.length; i++)
    {
        title = input.readLine();
        artist = input.readLine();  
        // fill the array by creating a new song with 
        // the title and artist and storing it in the 
        // appropriate position in the array
     cd.add(title + artist);
    }

    System.out.println("Contents of Classics:");
    for (int i = 0; i < cd.length; i++)
    {
        //print the contents of the array to the console
    }
  }
}

This is what's in the .txt file

Ode to Joy
Bach
The Sleeping Beauty
Tchaikovsky
Lullaby
Brahms
Canon
Bach
Symphony No. 5
Beethoven
The Blue Danube Waltz
Strauss

The final output is supposed to print as:

Contents of Classics
Ode to Joy by Bach
The Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky
Lullaby by Brahms
Canon by Bach
Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven
The Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss

You can concatenate the title and artist to a single string (String result = title + "||" + artist;) with a character or string you choose, place it into the array. And to split the string in the display loop, use String#split. Of course, this doesn't take into account any errors that could come from malformed files and such. — AntonH
– AntonH, Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 0:41

Florent Bayle · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-10 00:57:42Z

2

You can just replace:

cd.add(title + artist);

by:

cd[i] = title + " by " + artist;

And just print it with:

System.out.println(cd[i]);

edited Mar 10, 2014 at 0:57

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 0:49

Florent Bayle

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4 Comments

WillBro Over a year ago

I get: "error: cannot find symbol" pointing at the period in the line.

Florent Bayle Over a year ago

@WillBro Hmmm, yeah, I just took your code and assumed it would compile. I just edited the answer.

WillBro Over a year ago

Your edit worked. I'm going to have to look into why cd.add wouldn't work but cd[i] did. I guess that's something to do tomorrow. Thank you.

Florent Bayle Over a year ago

@WillBro cd.add() would work if you were using an ArrayList instead of an array.

Gavin · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-10 00:50:01Z

0

I would go with @dasblinkenlight's solution, however I would add a toString method to the Track class.

I would also go further and make it an immutable value type object, but then thats probably over the top for your needs.

The toString would allow you to do:

System.out.println("Track: " + track);

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 0:50

Gavin

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