for loop to convert integer values into letters

Question

I am working on a homework assignment which encodes and decodes letters to int's and vice versa. The first encoding loop I have works great!

public static String Encode(String msg){
   String result="";
   String m = msg.toUpperCase();
    char c;
    int x;

    for (int i = 0; i<m.length(); i++){
        c = m.charAt(i);
        x = c;
        if (x == 32){
            x = 0;
        } else{
            x -= 64;
            if (x < 1 || x > 26){
                x = 99;
            }
        }
        result += String.valueOf(x) + " ";
    }
     return result;
}

It takes the string msg and runs a for loop to convert it into integer equivalent. My issue is the decoding. Essentially, the numbers you input would be entered in with a comma in between each number. I would then take the message into an array and split it to remove the commas. Then I would take it and read each value in a for loop and display the letter equivalent. This is where I am stuck. I understand the logic. It's basically reverse of the first loop, but I cannot seem to effectively code it. Here is what I have:

public static String Decode(String msg){
    String result = "";
    String m = msg;
    char c;
    int x;

    String[] nums = msg.split(",");
        for (int i = 0; i<nums.length; i++){

    String num = nums[i];
    x = Integer.parseInt(num);
    if(x <= 0 || x > 26){
           x=-1;
       }


        result += String.valueOf((char)(x + 64)) + " ";
    }

    return result;

}

I am having issues with reading the length of the nums array. I haven't had much luck with the rest of it. I understand that you have to parse the integers as well. Any insight into completing this would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Since it's homework, I'll just give you the next step; hopefully you can figure it out from there :)

In your for loop:

String num = nums[i];
x = Integer.parseInt(num);