I'm having trouble checking for the '$' symbol in a string

Question

I can figure out how to check for letters, and then throw an exception, but i dont know how to check for the '$' symbol in the string.

Order.java

public class Order {
  private String itemName;
  private int priceInCents;
  private String discountCode;

  public Order(String itemName, int priceInCents) {
    this.itemName = itemName;
    this.priceInCents = priceInCents;
  }

  private String normalizeDiscountCode(String discountCode){
     discountCode=discountCode.toUpperCase();
    char symbol='$';
    for(int i=0;i<discountCode.length();i++){
      if(!Character.isLetter(discountCode.charAt(i))||discountCode.indexOf(i)!=symbol){
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("a letter, or a $ symbol, is required");
      }
    }


    return discountCode;
  }

  public void applyDiscountCode(String discountCode) {
    this.discountCode = normalizeDiscountCode(discountCode);
  }
}

Answer 1 · 2017-07-03T20:49:10Z

July 3, 2017 8:49pm

I figured it out, my logic was incorrect. It should have been checking for both letters and the symbol, not either or.

Answer 2 · 2017-07-04T09:57:55Z

July 4, 2017 9:57am

Hi Zack,

Glad you got that sorted; sorry not to get back to you last night.

Did you figure out a cleaner way of managing the loop? You've gone down the local counter variable route but a for:in loop is a little cleaner.

That would look like:

for(char letter : discountCode.toCharArray()){

}

This does the same as your loop; it iterates over `discountCode one char at a time, storing each char in turn within the letter variable. But it doesn't require a counter variable or any incrementing. Once you've got that set up you can do the tests:

  for(char letter : discountCode.toCharArray()){
    if(! Character.isLetter(letter) && letter != '$'){
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Informative error message");
    }
  }

Putting all that together gives you the whole method:

private String normalizeDiscountCode(String discountCode){
  for(char letter : discountCode.toCharArray()){
    if(! Character.isLetter(letter) && letter != '$'){
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Informative error message");
    }
  }
  return discountCode.toUpperCase();
}

I hope that helps,

Steve.

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Zack Massingill

Zack Massingill

I'm having trouble checking for the '$' symbol in a string

2 Answers

Zack Massingill

Zack Massingill

Steve Hunter

Steve Hunter