String.contains(otherString) gives "unexpected type"

Question

String doubleSpace = "  ";
String news = "The cat jumped.  The dog did not.";

while (news.contains(doubleSpace) = true)
{
    news=news.replaceAll("  ", " ");
}

The above will not compile, giving the error "unexpected type. required:variable, found:value" I do not understand why, as String.contains() should return a boolean value.

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 06:15

3

while (news.contains(doubleSpace) = true)

should be

while (news.contains(doubleSpace) == true)

= is for assignment

== is for checking condition.

answered Mar 05 '13 at 06:15

Achintya Jha

12,735
2
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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 06:15

your while loop is wrong,do like as below.You are assigning by using assignment value so you are getting that error.And also no need to compare with true because the contains(...) function itself will return true or false as you needed.

while (news.contains(doubleSpace))
{
    news=news.replaceAll("  ", " ");
}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 06:16

0

There is a compilation error

while (news.contains(doubleSpace) = true)

should be

while (news.contains(doubleSpace) == true)

answered Mar 05 '13 at 06:16

Abi

1,335
2
15
28

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 06:20

the method .contains() on string already returns boolean so you should not apply comparison

anyways if you do apply apply boolean operator '==' not '='

so your code can be while (news.contains(doubleSpace) == true)

{
    news=news.replaceAll("  ", " ");
}

or more precisely

while (news.contains(doubleSpace))
{
    news=news.replaceAll("  ", " ");
}

String.contains(otherString) gives "unexpected type"

4 Answers4