replacing a word in a string - Java

Try this:

                String input = "I would like to cu next week xxx";
		
		HashMap<String, String> acronymMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
                acronymMap.put("cu", "see you");
	 	
		String[] words = input.split("\\s+");
		for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
			if(acronymMap.containsKey(words[i])){
				words[i] = acronymMap.get(words[i]);
			}
		}
		
		String output = String.join(" ", words);
		System.out.print(output);

bogwalrus wrote: »

I tried that also but it would not work. Maybe a problem with my loop? see code below?

for(int i=0; i<acroynms.length; i++){
			
			if(words[i].contains(acroynms[i])){
				
				words[i]=words[i].replaceAll(acroynms[i], translations[i]);
			}
			System.out.println(words[i]);
		}

I also get an NPE error when trying this. I imported all necessary bits but maybe I need to pass something else into the method to get this working?

You want to be using String.contains and String.replace on the entire string, not individual elements from the array. Using those methods negates the need for splitting your input string into an array in the first place.

In some basic pseudocode:

if(inputString.contains(txtSpk)){
    newString = inputString.replace(txtSpk, realWord)
}

To give you a little bit more info, adding to what others have said. Store the words you want to be replaced(key) and their replacements(value) in a map.

Loop through the keySet of the map using a for loop, and then use the above pseudocode to do your replacement. Hope this helps a bit.

OP here's a basic parallel arrays technique that will work.

import java.util.Scanner;

public class ReplaceWords
{
    public static void main(String [] args)
    {
        Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.print("Enter a sentence: ");
        String sentence = keyboard.nextLine();
        String[] acronyms = {"cu", "xxx", "lol", "omg"};
        String[] translations = {"see you", "kisses", "laughing out loud", "oh my god"};
        for(int i = 0; i < acronyms.length; i++)
        {
            if (sentence.contains(acronyms[i]))
            {
                sentence = sentence.replaceAll(acronyms[i], translations[i]);
            }
        }
        System.out.println("The translated sentence is: " + sentence);
    }
}

croo wrote: »

I guess you'd need to be including spaces in the acronyms otherwise you'd risk replacing the combinations within other words!

Indeed!