Chat Bot, last part

Question

Just one last part remaining in the ChatBot. I need to figure out a way to modify the chatbot class so that it occasionally (say, 30% of the time) returns a randomly-­‐generated standard reply to user input one of at least five possible replies, like “LOL”, “OMG”, “You don’t say”, “Really?”, or “I see”.

Edit: Applied recommended changes:

import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class ChatBot 
{
private int responseCount = 0;
public String getResponse(String value)
{
    String X = longestWord(value);
    this.responseCount++;
    if (responseCount == 10)
    {
        return "Sorry, but our time is up. I can't talk with you any longer.";
    }
    if (value.contains("you"))
    {
        return "I'm not important. Let's talk about you instead.";
    }


    else if (X.length() <= 3)
    {
        return "Maybe we should move on. Is there anything else you would like to talk about?";
    }
    else if (X.length() == 4)
    {
        return "Tell me more about " + X;
    }

    else if (X.length() == 5)
    {
        return "Why do you think " + X + " is important?";
    }
    else if (X.length() <=9)
    {
    return "Now we are getting somewhere. How does " + X + " affect you the most?";
    }

    return getRandomResponse();
}


public String longestWord(String value){
    Scanner input = new Scanner (value);
    String longest = new String();
    longest = "";

    while (input.hasNext())
    {
        String temp = input.next();
        if(temp.length() > longest.length())
        {
            longest = temp;
        }
    }
    return longest;
}

private String getRandomResponse()
{

String [] responses = {"OMG", "LOL", "You don't say", "Really?", "I See"};

return responses [(int)(Math.random() * responses.length)];
}
}

The problem is, it keeps returning the same response, instead of one of the five responses given. Any help would me much appreciated, thank you!

Edit:It's now giving only the random responses, and overriding every other response in the getResponse() method.

Answer 1

Given your logic, your getRandomResponse method should always return "OMG". This is because on the first run of the loop in that method, counter = 1. Thus the first if statement will run and will return "OMG" exitting the method. A nicer equivalent might putting all teh responses into an array and returning a random value from it, rather than doing somehting strange with iteration:

String[] responses = {"OMG", "LOL", "You don't say", "Really?", "I See"};
return responses[(int)(Math.random() * responses.length)];

Answer 2

In getRandomResponse, you make a random number generator using Random(), but you never use it. Then in your for loop, you execute your decision-making tree but use a variable counter that always begins at 0. Then on the first time through your loop, the first if statement will execute because 0 < 5, so "OMG" is returned.

Edit: I just noticed something else that is not going to work in your code:

Random randomNumber = new Random();
for (int counter =0; counter<10; counter++)
{
    counter = randomNumber.nextInt();

You're trying to use counter to do two different things: you are trying to run this loop 10 times, but you're also using it to store random values.