Error compiling this code

Question

Could you tell me what i'm doing wrong with this code? I posted earlier for inputting char into a variable, but the post just got too long.
I've tried below with code, but I can't get it right. Can you help me..?
import java.io.*;
public class Goals {
public static void main (String args[]) {
System.out.println("Enter time and tide:");
InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader (System.in);
char ch = reader.read(char); // trying to read character from keyboard
System.out.println("the character" +ch);
This is my error here:
Goals.java:13: '.class' expec
char ch = reader.read(char);
^
Goals.java:13: ')' expected
char ch = reader.read(char);
^
thank you...
yash

Answer 1

The read method that you want to use does not accept any argument, so the syntax you want is char ch = reader.read();
The first error is caused because the compiler is not expecting to see the reserved word "char" at that point. It knows that the only way the code would be valid is that char was followed by .class, so it suggests it. The second error seems to be a ripple effect of the first one and gets fixed when you fix the first one.
Once you fix that error you get another, warning you about loss of precision. This is because the read() method returns an int and you are trying to assign an int in a char, while it's well known that there are plenty of integer values that don't fit in a char. Why does Reader.read() return an int instead of char? Because it needs a way to signal the end of the stream. In a normal case the read method returns the character that was read, but -1 if the end of the stream has been reached.
One way to fix this would be casting the int value to char, which erroneously interpretes the end of the stream as a char too:
char ch = (char) reader.read();