Comparing an Item in a List to...

Question

Hello. I'm new to these forums, and this is my first post here. I'm working on a hangman game just for fun, and I've run into a snag. When it checks to see if the key pressed is equal to (or the same as) the letter in position x. Every time, even if the letter is in the word, it returns false and does nothing. I hope this is clear. Below is my entire code (just to give you an idea of how this works) of my main class. There is another class that contains methods, but it does not affect this problem.
Also note that I am fairly new to Java, but have been programming in Python for about half a year now (taking a programming class at my High School). I also so PHP, but even with a good programming background, I still seem to run into snags while programming in Java.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Hangman extends JFrame implements ActionListener, KeyListener {
    // Initiate some global variables
    int num_guesses;
    String word;
    String end_round = "yes";
    String[] blanks;
    String[] letters;
    // Get the word list
    String location = "C:/Documents and Settings/AMT/My Documents/My Programs/Java/Hangman/build/classes/hangman_words.txt";
    Vector words = hmFunctions.getWords(location);
    Vector backUpWords = words;
    // Create the main buttons
    JButton hint = new JButton("Hint");
    JButton giveup = new JButton("I Give Up");
    JButton help = new JButton("Help");
    JButton about = new JButton("About");
    JButton quit = new JButton("Quit");
    // Create the main window and add componants
    public Hangman() {
        super("Hangman v1.0");
        setSize(631, 510);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        // Create the main pane
        Container hm_pane = getContentPane();
        hm_pane.setLayout(null);
        hm_pane.setFocusable(true);
        hm_pane.addKeyListener(this);
        // Set the button properties
        hint.setBounds(new Rectangle(2, 444, 100, 30));
        hint.addActionListener(this);
        giveup.setBounds(new Rectangle(130, 444, 100, 30));
        giveup.addActionListener(this);
        help.setBounds(new Rectangle(260, 444, 100, 30));
        help.addActionListener(this);
        about.setBounds(new Rectangle(390, 444, 100, 30));
        about.addActionListener(this);
        quit.setBounds(new Rectangle(520, 444, 100, 30));
        quit.addActionListener(this);
        // Add Componants to interface pane
        hm_pane.add(hint);
        hm_pane.add(giveup);
        hm_pane.add(help);
        hm_pane.add(about);
        hm_pane.add(quit);
        setContentPane(hm_pane);
        setVisible(true);
    // Check to see if they clicked anything
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
        Object source = event.getSource();
        if (source == hint) {
        } else if (source == giveup) {
        } else if (source == help) {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "JHangman v1.0 Help...");
        } else if (source == about) {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "JHangman v1.0\nProgrammed by...");
        } else if (source == quit) {
            System.exit(0);
    // Check if user pressed any keys
    public void keyTyped(KeyEvent key_event) {
        if (end_round == "yes") {
            mainGame("start");        
        } else if (end_round == "no") {
            Character key = key_event.getKeyChar();
            String let = key.toString();
            System.out.println("Letter Pressed: " + let);
            mainGame(let);
    public void keyPressed(KeyEvent key_event) {  
    public void keyReleased(KeyEvent key_event) {
    // The check letter method
    public void mainGame(String funct) {
        if (funct == "start") {
            num_guesses = 0;
            // Check if words empty
            if (words.size() == 0) {
                words = backUpWords;
            // Get word needed for the game and back up
            word = hmFunctions.getRndWord(words);
            words.remove(word);
            // Create the blanks and letters vector
            letters = new String[word.length()];
            blanks = new String[word.length()];
            // Make the blanks and letters and draw interface
            for (int a = 0; a < word.length(); a++) {
                blanks[a] = "_";
                letters[a] = word.substring(a, a + 1);
            System.out.println("Game Started!");
            System.out.println("Blanks and letters added successfuly!");
            end_round = "no";
        // If no other instruction given, then check to see if key pressed is in the word
        } else {
            for (int x = 0; x < word.length(); x++) {
                if (funct == letters[x]) {
                    blanks[x] = funct;
                System.out.println(blanks[x] + " ");
            num_guesses += 1;
            if (num_guesses == 8) {
                end_round = "yes";
    // Main Program
    public static void main(String[] arguments) {
        hmFunctions hm_fct = new hmFunctions();
        // Draw the main interface
        Hangman HM_Window = new Hangman();
}Any help would be greatly appriciated!

Answer 1

Of course, looking more closely, you do seem to be assigning the literal reference into the String object reference. In String s = "a string literal";
if ( s == "a string literal" )
  // process
} you may actually get into the if block. I would have to test to be sure. However, in general practice, if you want to check to see if two String objects have the same contents, use equals(). If you want to see if two object references point to the same location in memory, use ==. Primitives, of course, are compared with ==.
Your keyTyped() method checks for two values of end_round. Have you checked for neither the if nor the else conditions being true?
Do you know if you are getting into your mainGame() method? Try putting a println() in as soon as you enter, so you know you got there and you know the actual parameter value.
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