Java Method for Checking Y or N: A Beginner's Guide

[JaysFan31]

I'm very new to Java and I was looking for some help on this particular problem.

I need to create a method that takes a String as a parameter and returns "true" if the parameter is the letter Y or the letter N (in either upper or lower case), or false otherwise.

Most of the methods we've been working on are numbers (integers mostly) not strings, so this one confuses me quite a bit. How do you make the computer look for a certain character like y, Y, n, N. I don't want to declare them as variables, I just want Java to see them as letters.

I have:
public static boolean isYorN(String str)
{
boolean character;
switch (character)
{
case 'y':
character = true;
return true;
break;

case 'Y':
character = true;
return true;
break;

case 'n':
character = true;
return true;
break;

case 'N':
character = true;
return true;
break;

default:
character = false;
return false;

}
}
}

I think a switch case is the best method, but I'm missing something about naming because all my compiling errors are telling me that I have incompatible types (i.e. found: boolean, required: int).

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Kuno]

The switch would be the best method if you were looking at a single character.
I would try looping through an array testing each character.

 

[haki]

Well, I would stay away from switch statements if possible.

I would first check if the String(bottom line it is sequence(array) of chars) is of length 1 if not return false.

if(str == null || str.length != 1){
return false;
}

now since the string is of length 1, let's get the char and see if it is N or Y.

char chr = Charachter.toUpperCase(str.getCharAt(0));

return char == 'N' || char == 'Y';

 

[t!m]

char chr = Charachter.toUpperCase(str.getCharAt(0));

return char == 'N' || char == 'Y';

I'm sure you meant return chr == 'N' || chr == 'Y';

I think haki's way is the smartest here, but as the most basic you could also just do:

return str.equals("Y") || str.equals("y") || str.equals("N") || str.equals("n");