So far this semester I've had zero problems learning java but looping doesn't seem to make sense to me. I have an assignment in which i have to translate vanity phone numbers (phone numbers that contain letters) into numbers. The program also has to output a hyphen after the third digit, allow the user to use uppercase or lowercase, as well as spaces between words, and should only process the first 7 digits and ignore anymore. The program needs to be able to process as many numbers as the user wants and should have a stop feature.

Here's the hint the book gives, "You can read the entered telephone number as a string and then use the charAt method of the class String to extract each character. For example, if str refers to a string, then the expression str.charAt(i) returns the character at eh ith position. Recall that in a string, the position of the first character is 0."

Here is what i have so far....any help or pointers would be great!


import java.util.*;

public class page296Prob5 {

static Scanner console = new Scanner(System.in);

public static void main(String[] args) {

String str;
char letter;

System.out.println("Enter phone number expressed in letters: ");
str = console.next();

for (int i=0;i<str.length();i++)
System.out.print(letter(str.charAt(i)));
System.out.println();

static char letter(char c) {
switch (c)
{

case 'A': case 'a': case 'B': case 'b':
case 'C': case 'c': System.out.print("2");
break;
case 'D': case 'd': case 'E': case 'e':
case 'F': case 'f': System.out.print("3");
break;
case 'G': case 'g': case 'H': case 'h':
case 'I': case 'i': System.out.print("4");
break;
case 'J': case 'j': case 'K': case 'k':
case 'L': case 'l': System.out.print("5");
break;
case 'M': case 'm': case 'N': case 'n':
case 'O': case 'o': System.out.print("6");
break;
case 'P': case 'p': case 'Q': case 'q': case 'R': case 'r':
case 'S': case 's': System.out.print("7");
break;
case 'T': case 't': case 'U': case 'u':
case 'V': case 'v': System.out.print("8");
break;
case 'W': case 'w': case 'X': case 'x': case 'Y': case 'y':
case 'Z': case 'z': System.out.print("9");
break;
default: System.out.print(" ");

}
switch (str.charAt(1))
{
case 'A': case 'a': case 'B': case 'b':
case 'C': case 'c': System.out.print("2");
break;
case 'D': case 'd': case 'E': case 'e':
case 'F': case 'f': System.out.print("3");
break;
case 'G': case 'g': case 'H': case 'h':
case 'I': case 'i': System.out.print("4");
break;
case 'J': case 'j': case 'K': case 'k':
case 'L': case 'l': System.out.print("5");
break;
case 'M': case 'm': case 'N': case 'n':
case 'O': case 'o': System.out.print("6");
break;
case 'P': case 'p': case 'Q': case 'q': case 'R': case 'r':
case 'S': case 's': System.out.print("7");
break;
case 'T': case 't': case 'U': case 'u':
case 'V': case 'v': System.out.print("8");
break;
case 'W': case 'w': case 'X': case 'x': case 'Y': case 'y':
case 'Z': case 'z': System.out.print("9");
break;
default: System.out.print(" ");
}
switch (str.charAt(2))
{
case 'A': case 'a': case 'B': case 'b':
case 'C': case 'c': System.out.print("2");
break;
case 'D': case 'd': case 'E': case 'e':
case 'F': case 'f': System.out.print("3");
break;
case 'G': case 'g': case 'H': case 'h':
case 'I': case 'i': System.out.print("4");
break;
case 'J': case 'j': case 'K': case 'k':
case 'L': case 'l': System.out.print("5");
break;
case 'M': case 'm': case 'N': case 'n':
case 'O': case 'o': System.out.print("6");
break;
case 'P': case 'p': case 'Q': case 'q': case 'R': case 'r':
case 'S': case 's': System.out.print("7");
break;
case 'T': case 't': case 'U': case 'u':
case 'V': case 'v': System.out.print("8");
break;
case 'W': case 'w': case 'X': case 'x': case 'Y': case 'y':
case 'Z': case 'z': System.out.print("9");
break;
default: System.out.print(" ");
}

}
else
System.out.println("Invalid input");
}

}