im writing a simple program in java SE, in this program i need to get input from the user in a unlimited numbers. At the moment i have two ways to do it, one is to use a "for i" loop and say i run it 10 times and it count down for every time the loop is run.

The other way i can do this is to use a sentinel number for example -1, this will allow me to take input unlimited of times from the user, till the user decide to stop the loop by typing -1, however this kind of loop is ok when you are working with positive numbers, but negative numbers wont work so good here(?)

...So i was wondering is it anybody here that can help me a little bit, how can i get unlimited numbers from a user and also enable the user to enter both positive and negative numbers unlimited of times.

Sincerely
Frank Jarle
Norway/Singapore

One of mye friends came with 2 good solutions.

1: Check for a blank input. If the input is blank then exit the loop and calculate the numbers
2: Check for a character, if the character is not between 0x30 and 0x39, then exit/finish the loop and calculate the numbers.

However, im very new to java se, and im not sure how i would perform this check, is it anybody that could provide me with a simple check either for both examples or just one of them, i would be much thankful.

Sincerely
Frank Jarle
Norway/Singapore

Really nobody that can help me?
This is bad, i remember i used to get lots of help from the previouse Forum, anyway. i just wait some more...

Sincerely
Frank Jarle
Norway/Singapore

well,
 i hope u are using BufferedReader to take input from System.in
like:
BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
when you say: String s=br.read()
it will return you the string read by this reader from console.

now you have to convert this String into a number. Use
int n=Integer.parseInt(s);
This will return the number if valid, otherwise throw an exception.
when exception is thrown, break your loop.

Altaf Malik

Thanks Altaf, i will take a look into it and get back to you to let you know how things are going.
But dont i still need to use some kind of loop to continue to get input fro the user.

I read in some book that they were converting the string to a number, it seems to work ok, but they were still using a for i-loop to count down, the other option they were using was a setinel value like -1.

Mainly its not the input that is my problem in this case, but to run the loop infinity times accepting both negative and positive numbers, however using a senitel value with -1, it will break the loop, not something i want....I think, correct me if im wrong.

Sincerely
Frank Jarle
Norway/Singapore