Using Scanner.next() to get text input

Question

I am trying to get text input from the keyboard in Java 6. I am new to the language and whenever i run the following code, I get this error:

package test1;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
    boolean quit = false;
    while (!quit){
        Scanner keyIn;
        String c = "x";
        while (c != "y" && c != "n") {
            keyIn = new Scanner(System.in);
            c = keyIn.next();
            keyIn.close();
        }
        if (c == "n")
            quit = true;
    }
 }
}


Exception in thread "main" java.util.NoSuchElementException
at java.util.Scanner.throwFor(Scanner.java:838)
at java.util.Scanner.next(Scanner.java:1347)
at test1.Test.main(Test.java:11)

Am I mis-using the next() method? I thought it would wait for user input but it looks like it isn't and throwing the exception saying that there is nothing left in the scanner.

Answer 1

The reason for the exception is that you are calling keyIn.close() after you use the scanner once, which not only closes the Scanner but also System.in. The very next iteration you create a new Scanner which promptly blows up because System.in is now closed. To fix that, what you should do is only create a scanner once before you enter the while loop, and skip the close() call entirely since you don't want to close System.in.

After fixing that the program still won't work because of the == and != string comparisons you do. When comparing strings in Java you must use equals() to compare the string contents. When you use == and != you are comparing the object references, so these comparisons will always return false in your code. Always use equals() to compare strings.

while (!quit){
    Scanner keyIn = new Scanner(System.in);
    String c = "x";
    while (!c.equals("y") && !c.equals("n")) {
        c = keyIn.next();
    }
    if (c.equals("n"))
        quit = true;
}