I've replaced a string so that all the letters appear as **'s however when I ask the user for input of a char, I can't seem to get the letters to revert back from *'s into strings. I will show you below what I have done in my code:
System.out.println(randomPirateWord.replaceAll("\\S", "*"));
System.out.println("guess a letter");
char letterGuesed = input.findInLine(".").charAt(0);
System.out.println(randomPirateWord.replaceAll("\\S"+letterGuesed,"*"));
Method replaceAll works in the opposite direction. First is a regular expression, and next the replacement for match, so you replace guessed letters with '*' and that's propably opposite to what you want to achieve.
I would use a String that holds your hiddenWord, and in a different function just display the length of the string in *s, then compare the letterGuessed to hiddenWord and change the *s back to the hiddenWord that way.
Maybe not with replace all, but this seems to work:
import java.util.Scanner;
class hola{
public static void main(String args[]){
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
String randomPirateWord = "HelloWorld";
System.out.println("");
boolean notComplete = true;
char words[] = new char[randomPirateWord.length()];
char words2[] = new char[randomPirateWord.length()];
for(int i = 0; i < randomPirateWord.length(); i++){
words[i] = randomPirateWord.charAt(i);
words2[i] = '*';
}
while(notComplete){
System.out.print("Type a letter: ");
char letter = sc.next().charAt(0);
notComplete = false;
for(int i = 0; i < randomPirateWord.length(); i++){
if(words[i] == letter){
words2[i] = letter;
}
}
for(int i = 0; i < randomPirateWord.length(); i++){
System.out.print(words2[i]);
}
for(int k = 0; k < randomPirateWord.length(); k++){
if(words2[k] == '*'){
notComplete = true;
break;
}
}
System.out.println("");
}
}
}
letter from user input as I said