Need help with a java loop and word program

Question

do you know any way to get a Scanner object to select a random string in a text file?
ok pretty much I have a text file that isa list of 5 letter words. I need to select one at random.
the only way I could think was to scan the file, get the entire nu of words, have Math.random choose a random nu then loop scanner.next() and have the loop condition run the Math.random amount of times
but... when I do that I CANT ACCESS THE WORD OUTSIDE THE STUPID LOOP grrr...
i'm annoyed lol
this is the loop code that selects the random word
int random = (int) Math.random() * numberOfWordsInFile + 1;
int chooseLoopCount = 0;
while (random >= chooseLoopCount)
String theWord = scan.next();
theWord = theWord.toLowerCase();
chooseLoopCount += 1;
see it's assigned properly to be the output of the scanner in all lower case letters, but outside the loop, the variable doesn't even exist
anyway any suggestions would be awesome. thx

Answer 1

String theWord = null;
while (...)
  // set theWord in the loop
// access to theWord is now available here, as it is in scope.
// bear in mind if your loop didn't get executed, theWord is still null