Clarification of earlier post

Question

Original post: I am trying to make a fairly simple program that will keep track of dealers at a car dealership. When I use in.read() and get to a point to where I hit Enter, it interperets that as 2-3 keystrokes of Enter. In my switch menu, it gives me the default "hit key on menu" message I set up. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.
The main problem is when I call in.read() to read an input from the user, it will act as if I hit the Enter key twice, then stop to allow me to enter something. An example is in the code below. When it reaches the in.read() indicated in the code the program will show me the menu twice with the default message displayed, apparently "thinking" I have hit Enter twice.
public static void menu() throws IOException
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( System.in ) );
System.out.println( "CAR DEALERSHIP DEALER MANAGEMENT TOOL\n" );
System.out.println( "This program was designed to allow a manager of an automobile" );
System.out.println( "dealership to manage the dealers employed by the dealership.\n" );
System.out.println( "Please enter the number of dealers at your dealership -> " );
char max_dealers = (char) in.read(); <--- here is one
     System.out.println( max_dealers );
Dealer [] list;
list = new Dealer [ max_dealers ];
int count = 0;
boolean exit = true;
while ( exit )
System.out.println( "\nThe following menu will allow for the inputs given at the" );
System.out.println( "beginning of each line. \n" );
System.out.println( "1 - Input new dealer" );
     System.out.println( "2 - Display current dealers" );
System.out.println( "3 - Dealer: Show car" );
System.out.println( "4 - Pay dealer" );
System.out.println( "5 - Quit program\n" );
System.out.println( "Enter menu choice -> ");
int choice = in.read(); <-- here is another
     switch( choice )
case '1': count = new_dealer( count, max_dealers, list ); break;
case '2': display_list( list, max_dealers ); break;
case '3': show_car( list ); break;
case '4': //pay_dealer( list ); break;
case '5': exit = false; break;
default: System.out.println( "Incorrect choice. Please enter one of the displayed choices.\n" );
break;

Answer 1

Hello guy,
You can make the code work by doing this modifications:
public static void menu() throws IOException
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( System.in ) );
System.out.println( "CAR DEALERSHIP DEALER MANAGEMENT TOOL\n" );
System.out.println( "This program was designed to allow a manager of an automobile" );
System.out.println( "dealership to manage the dealers employed by the dealership.\n" );
System.out.println( "Please enter the number of dealers at your dealership -> " );
String strTemp = in.readLine();
strTemp = strTemp.trim();
char max_dealers = strTemp.chatAt(0);<--- here is one
System.out.println( max_dealers );
Dealer [] list;
list = new Dealer [ max_dealers ];
int count = 0;
boolean exit = true;
while ( exit )
System.out.println( "\nThe following menu will allow for the inputs given at the" );
System.out.println( "beginning of each line. \n" );
System.out.println( "1 - Input new dealer" );
System.out.println( "2 - Display current dealers" );
System.out.println( "3 - Dealer: Show car" );
System.out.println( "4 - Pay dealer" );
System.out.println( "5 - Quit program\n" );
System.out.println( "Enter menu choice -> ");
strTemp = in.readLine().trim();
int choice = Integer.parseInt(strTemp) <-- here is another
switch( choice )
case '1': count = new_dealer( count, max_dealers, list ); break;
case '2': display_list( list, max_dealers ); break;
case '3': show_car( list ); break;
case '4': //pay_dealer( list ); break;
case '5': exit = false; break;
default: System.out.println( "Incorrect choice. Please enter one of the displayed choices.\n" );
break;
Bye,
S.M.Reddy