plusOut java challenge

@CEHJ: very nice. Short and easy to understand.

Basically you avoided the problem "you cannot negate a whole word in regex" by using NUL instead of the search string.

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
  word="(\\Q"+word.replaceAll("\\+","\\E.\\Q")+"\\E)";
  return str.replaceAll(word+"|.", "+$1").replaceAll("\\+"+word,"$1");
}

Does anyone have an explanation for the result produced by this:

for (int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replace(str.charAt(y),'+'); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
              
  }
  return str;

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str.replace(str.charAt(y),'+'); may replace more than one character

Ah yes - I always forget about that behaviour of the method for some reason. My bad, thanks.

You can get the effect you wanted (with actually more efficiency) by doing this sort of thing:

    public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(str);
        int y = 0;

        while (y < sb.length()) {
            if (!(sb.indexOf(word, y) == y)) {
                sb.setCharAt(y, '+');
                y++;
            } else {
                y += word.length();
            }
        }

        return sb.toString();
    }

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O gosh, yes, thanks CEHJ - I should have gone that route.

Think I've gone bats under the sheer weight of challenges.

 ;)

Moving the call to length() at line 10 and replacing it with a variable would of course be better

I was (incorrectly) mutating String, but, in any event, what I was aiming at was:

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
  
  for ( int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
	  
		 char[] ch = str.toCharArray();
		 ch[y]='+';
		 str = new String(ch); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
    
  }
  return str;
}

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(which I can only defend in a sense by the fact that being iterative rather than esoterically RE etc., may be more digestible for the OP) ;)

Again, you wouldn't call toCharArray() in a loop

Can I ask you for more detail / background on that pls?

Well it's just a case of efficiency and not creating unnecessary allocations. Your code is creating a str.length() number of String instances, plus a str.length() number of char[] (toCharArray does not return the actual array that backs the String, it creates a copy)

Right. Important then, particularly if dealing with a larger number of Strings I guess. Would it make a lot of impact at this scale?

No ;)

Thanks. Edifying and concise. ;)

(And seeing as the Q is marked 'abandoned', guess one may as well put the bandwidth to 'best use')

;)

public class PlusOutEx {

	/**
	 * @param args
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		System.out.println("value is"+plusOut("12xy34", "xy")); //→ "++xy++"

	}
	
	public static String plusOut(String str, String word) {
		int x=str.indexOf(word);
		System.out.println("x is--->"+x);
		System.out.println("--->"+str.substring(x,x+2));
		return str.replaceAll(str.substring(x,x+2),"++");
		  
		}

}

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i wrote as above but that needs to be refined to get opposite effect

can i tweak my above approach to pass all tests?

please advise

trying to see easiest approach

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
  String out="";
  String w="";
  for( String p:str.split("\\Q"+word,-1) ){
     out += w;
     out += p.replaceAll(".","+");
     w = word;
  }
  return out;
}

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 for( String p:str.split("\\Q"+word,-1) ){

what is meaning of above line?

\\Q means what?
please advise

     if (!(str.indexOf(str.charAt(i)) == idx)) {

what is meaning of above line in below solution

so idx is 2 which makes sense .

so we are checking 2 is equal to charAt(0) and then indexOf not equal?

public class PlusOutEx {

	/**
	 * @param args
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		System.out.println("value is"+plusOut("12xy34", "xy")); //→ "++xy++"

	}
	
	public static String plusOut(String str, String word) {
		StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
		int len = word.length();
		for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
			int idx = str.indexOf(word);
			if (!(str.indexOf(str.charAt(i)) == idx)) {
				sb.append("+");
			} else {
			sb.append(word);
			i+= (len - 1);
			}
		}
	        return sb.toString();
	}

}

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charAt 0 is 1
so str.indexOf 1 is 0 which on comparing with idx 2
0==2 is false
so there is ! so false becomes true as
!false is true
then we are appening + to sb as below

sb.append("+");


else why are we doing as below ie appending word to sb

else {
                  sb.append(word);

as attached i see we are doing + for all other characters apart from word and appending word for else condition

why are we doing below assignment or addition

i+= (len - 1);

falseValue.png

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
	for (int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replace(str.charAt(y),'+'); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
              
  }
  return str;

}

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above failing below two test cases. How to fix those two failing test cases

Expected      Run            
plusOut("12xy34", "xy") → "++xy++"      "++xy++"      OK         
plusOut("12xy34", "1") → "1+++++"      "1+++++"      OK         
plusOut("12xy34xyabcxy", "xy") → "++xy++xy+++xy"      "++xy++xy+++xy"      OK         
plusOut("abXYabcXYZ", "ab") → "ab++ab++++"      "ab++ab++++"      OK         
plusOut("abXYabcXYZ", "abc") → "++++abc+++"      "++++++++++"      X         
plusOut("abXYabcXYZ", "XY") → "++XY+++XY+"      "++XY+++XY+"      OK         
plusOut("abXYxyzXYZ", "XYZ") → "+++++++XYZ"      "++++++++++"      X         
plusOut("--++ab", "++") → "++++++"      "++++++"      OK         
plusOut("aaxxxxbb", "xx") → "++xxxx++"      "++xxxx++"      OK         
plusOut("123123", "3") → "++3++3"      "++3++3"      OK         
other tests
OK      

if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){

what is meaning of above line. Please advise
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_string_indexof.htm

so we are checking indexOf xy starting at y index is same as y which is 0 for first iteration?
falseValue2.png

so after y=2 we are jumping to y=4 as attached to skip xy right?
falseValue3.png

str.replace(str.charAt(y),'+'); may replace more than one character

str.replace(str.charAt(y),'+'); may replace more than one character

so due to above reason it is failing those two tests?
how to fix below solution then.

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
	for (int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replace(str.charAt(y),'+'); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
              
  }
  return str;

}

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please advise

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
  for (int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replaceFirst("\\Q"+str.charAt(y),"+"); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
              
  }
  return str;
}

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But that would still fail if one of the tests was plusOut("xyx", "xy")

public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
  for (int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replaceFirst("(.{"+y+"}).","$1+"); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
              
  }
  return str;
}

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public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
  for (int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
      
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replaceFirst("(.{"+y+"}).","$1+"); 
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
              
  }
  return str;
}

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above passed all tests

what is meaning of below 3 lines . please advise

 
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
         str=str.replaceFirst("(.{"+y+"}).","$1+");
     
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}

not sure why code comments and quotes are missing in experts exchange now.

Any way i like below solution after debugging more after refrreing indexOf, replace, charAt functions as below
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_string_replace.htm
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_string_charat.htm
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_string_indexof.htm


public class PlusOutEx {

      /**
       * @param args
       */
      public static void main(String[] args) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub
            System.out.println("value is" + plusOut("12xy34", "xy")); // → "++xy++"

      }

      public static String plusOut(String str, String word) {
            for (int y = 0; y < str.length(); y++) {

                  if (!(str.indexOf(word, y) == y)) {
                        str = str.replace(str.charAt(y), '+');
                  } else {
                        y += (word.length() - 1);
                        System.out.println("hi");
                  }

            }
            return str;

      }

}


But how you remember all above methods and what arguments they take on top of the head all the time?

so we are basically checking if 1st occurence of word does nto match the y position we are safely making that character as +
else we are jumping to position of end of that word occurence within str.

But i wonder why this approach is not good has more allocations etc ? Not clear why it created too many strings etc. How many strings it creates in total?



Well it's just a case of efficiency and not creating unnecessary allocations. Your code is creating a str.length() number of String instances, plus a str.length() number of char[] (toCharArray does not return the actual array that backs the String, it creates a copy)




public String plusOut(String str, String word) {
 
  for ( int y=0;y<str.length();y++){
     
      if(!(str.indexOf(word,y)==y)){
        
             char[] ch = str.toCharArray();
             ch[y]='+';
             str = new String(ch);
      }
      else{y+= (word.length()-1);}
   
  }
  return str;
}

i forgot attachment
debugMore.png

how you remember all above method

I don't.
I look them up on publicly accessible on-line documentation.
And when I'm not sure where the documentation is, I use a search engine.