simple word search java 2d arrays

Question

Im a begginner and i was wondering if anyone could tell me what im doing wrong here with this word search ? im stuck on checking each row for a word specified in the formal argument, currently it doesnt do any checks of any sort its jst a basic boolean method which returns true if a word is found within a row of the array.assuming the word search array is rectangular

    public boolean checkRow( char[][] puzzle, String w)
{
    int counter = 0;
    boolean match = true;
    for ( int row = 0; row < puzzle.length; row++)
    {
        counter = 0;


        for ( int col = 0; col < puzzle[row].length; col++)
        {
            if ( counter <= w.length() )
            {
                char word = puzzle[row][col];


                if( w.charAt(counter) == word)
                {
                    match = true;
                    counter++;
                }
            }


            else if ((counter == w.length()) && (match == true))
            {
                return true;
            }


             else 
            {

                match = false;
                counter = 0;
            }



        }
    }


    return match;
}

Answer 1

Here is your code corrected

public boolean checkRow(char[][] puzzle, String w) {
    int counter = 0;
    boolean match = true;
    for (int row = 0; row < puzzle.length; row++) {
        counter = 0;
        match = false;

        for (int col = 0; col < puzzle[row].length; col++) {
            if (counter < w.length()) {
                char word = puzzle[row][col];

                if (w.charAt(counter) == word) {
                    match = true;
                    counter++;
                } else {
                    match = false;
                    counter = 0;
                }

                if ((counter == w.length()) && (match == true)) {
                    return true;
                } 
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}

but this is not the best way how to do your check, here is much smoother and even faster (about 5 times, i'd test it) code

public boolean checkRow2(char[][] puzzle, String w) {
    String rowStr = null;
    for(int row = 0; row < puzzle.length; row++) {
        rowStr = new String(puzzle[row]);
        if(rowStr.contains(w)) return true;
    }
    return false;
}