Java Pointing to a random variable

Question

I may be missing something obvious here, however using Labels in libgdx which take a string for the text to display I'm having trouble pointing a a random String.

String Movie1 ="The Shawshank Redemption (1994)";
String Movie2="The Godfather (1972)";
String Movie3="The Godfather: Part II (1974)";
String Movie4="The Dark Knight (2008)";
String Movie5="Pulp Fiction (1994)";

randomNumber = random.nextInt(5) + 1;

MovieName= new Label(String,style)

What would I put in for string to point to correspond the randomNumber to the appropriate movie. I can't put in "Movie" + randomNumber because it would just say "Movie5" not the string

Alex Kleiman · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-26 00:43:28Z

4

Are you trying to do something like: String s = Movie + randomNumber to get a variable name Movie1, Movie2, etc.? This is not possible unless the variables are all attributes of a particular class. Regardless, you should not attempt to do this. Instead, you should use an array or a List<String> to hold the variables. You could do something like this:

String[] movies = {"The Shawshank Redemption (1994)",
    "The Godfather (1972)",
    "The Godfather: Part II (1974)",
    "The Dark Knight (2008)",
    "Pulp Fiction (1994)"}

int randomNumber = random.nextInt(movies.length);

String myMovie = movies[randomNumber];

edited Aug 26, 2014 at 0:43

answered Aug 26, 2014 at 0:28

Alex Kleiman

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5 Comments

Leo Over a year ago

actually it's possible, just not wise :-)

Leo Over a year ago

@HovercraftFullOfEels if they're class attributes via reflection?

Alex Kleiman Over a year ago

@Leo In the original question, they were not class attributes. I'm editing my answer to reflect this (no pun intented).

Hovercraft Full Of Eels Over a year ago

@Leo: I respectfully retract.

Leo Over a year ago

@HovercraftFullOfEels no, I am who respect you and your long contribution to this community :-)

Hovercraft Full Of Eels · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-26 00:25:55Z

3

First you should put your Strings into an array of String or a collection such as an ArrayList<String>, and only then can you select a random one via a random index number.

e.g.,

Random random = new Random();
String[] movies = {"The Shawshank Redemption (1994)",
   "The Godfather (1972)",
   "The Godfather: Part II (1974)",
   "The Dark Knight (2008)",
   "Pulp Fiction (1994)"};


// later somewhere else in a method or constructor...
int randomNumber = random.nextInt(movies.length);
String randomMovieTitle = movies[randomNumber];

answered Aug 26, 2014 at 0:25

Hovercraft Full Of Eels

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Comments

Le Green · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-26 00:39:04Z

0

You could use a switch statement for example:

var result;
randomNumber = random.nextInt(5) + 1;

switch(randomNumber) {
    case 1:
        result = Movie1;
        break;
    case 2:
        result = Movie2;
        break;
    case 3:
        result = Movie3;
        break;
}

answered Aug 26, 2014 at 0:39

Le Green

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