integer value read from System.in is not the value typed

Question

I am a newbie to Java, and as an exercise wanted to WAP a simple program to print required no. of '*' characters according to the user. But somehow, the output of this code always remains similar:

package stars;

public class Stars {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        int no_stars=0;

        try {

            System.out.print("Enter the number of stars:");
            no_stars = (int)System.in.read();

        } catch ( Exception e)    {

            System.out.println("Error! Invalid argument!");
            System.out.println();

        } 

    printstars(no_stars);

    }
    public static void printstars(int n){
        int i;
        for(i=0;i<=n;i++)
        {    
             System.out.println('*');
        }

    }


}

If I replace '*' with i, I can see that it loops upto 50/52/54, even though i run the loop no_stars times.

What seems to be the problem here?

Answer 1

You need to parse the number received from System.in.read() or alternatively read it as an integer, currently you just cast it, so if you enter 5, it passes 0x35 times (which is the value of the character '5')

You can do, for example:

Scanner scan = new Scanner( System.in );
printstars( scan.nextInt() );