How can I have a String variable have more than once instance?

Question

public String foodstats (){
    String foodstats = "";
    for ( int i = 0; i < consumables.size(); i++){
         foodstats =  "Name: " + consumables.get(i).getName() + "\tNutrition: " + consumables.get(i).getNValue() + "\tStamina: " + consumables.get(i).getStamina() + "\n" ;
   }
    return foodstats;
}

So this returns: Name: Water Nutrition: 30 Stamina : 15

I realize why its doing this, the second time the for loop runs through it replaces the first item's stats and returns only the replaced stats.

Is there a way around this? I need to return all the item's stats based on the array list size.

It's a little hard to understand exactly what you're aiming for here, but it seems like you probably want to use += instead of =. (But my mind-reading skills are a little off today.) — apnorton
– apnorton, Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 2:31
Or you want to return a List<String> instead of a String. — Jon Skeet
– Jon Skeet, Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 2:32
Basically its replacing the first item stats with the second, the desired output would be: Stats of Soup item, then stats of water as above — Jack Student MHS
– Jack Student MHS, Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 3:02

Dici · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-08 02:33:09Z

1

I think what you are looking for is a StringBuilder, more efficient in that case than += concatenation :

public String foodstats (){
    StringBuilder foodstats = new StringBuilder();
    for ( int i = 0; i < consumables.size(); i++){
         foodstats.append("Name: " + consumables.get(i).getName() + "\tNutrition: " + consumables.get(i).getNValue() + "\tStamina: " + consumables.get(i).getStamina() + "\n");
   }
    return foodstats.toString();
}

answered Jan 8, 2015 at 2:33

Dici

26k7 gold badges45 silver badges86 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Jack Student MHS Over a year ago

This works perfectly. Although I'm curious what does .append do?

Dici Over a year ago

A StringBuffer holds an array of chars and expand its size when necessary. Basically, you can consider it as an arraylist of chars. Thus, append just tries to write the characters of the input string in the underlying array. If there is not enough space, a bigger array is allocated, the previous array is copied in it and finally the chars of the input string are written at the end

Sergey Kalinichenko · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-08 02:33:20Z

1

Make a StringBuilder and use append(...) in the loop. Once you are done, call toString() on the result, like this:

StringBuilder res = new StringBuilder();
for ( int i = 0; i < consumables.size(); i++){
     res.append("Name: " + consumables.get(i).getName() + "\tNutrition: " + consumables.get(i).getNValue() + "\tStamina: " + consumables.get(i).getStamina() + "\n");
}
return res.toString();

Note: you could use foodstats += ... syntax, too, but that would be inferior, because each iteration of the loop would create a throw-away temporary object.

answered Jan 8, 2015 at 2:33

Sergey Kalinichenko

729k85 gold badges1.2k silver badges1.6k bronze badges

Comments

newuser · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-08 02:34:48Z

1

public String foodstats()
    {
        StringBuilder foodstats = new StringBuilder();
        for (int i = 0; i < consumables.size(); i++)
        {
            foodstats.append("Name: "); 
            foodstats.append(consumables.get(i).getName());
            foodstats.append("\tNutrition: ");
            foodstats.append(consumables.get(i).getNValue());
            foodstats.append("\tStamina: ");
            foodstats.append(consumables.get(i).getStamina());
            foodstats.append("\n");
        }
        return foodstats.toString();
    }

answered Jan 8, 2015 at 2:34

newuser

8,4862 gold badges28 silver badges33 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How can I have a String variable have more than once instance?

3 Answers 3

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

2 Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related