Converting Letters to Numbers 2

Question

In the file test.in.rtf, I have 'abcd' typed. However, when I run the program, I get ??? ??????????? ???????? plus maybe a few more in test.out.rtf. Why is this? Am I missing something?

import java.io.BufferedReader; import java.io.BufferedWriter; import java.io.FileReader; import java.io.FileWriter; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.PrintWriter; import java.util.StringTokenizer; public class Test { public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { BufferedReader f = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("test.in.rtf")); PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("test.out.rtf"))); StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(f.readLine()); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); for (char c : st.nextToken().toCharArray()) { sb.append((char)(c - 'a' + 1)); } out.println(sb); // output result out.close(); // close the output file System.exit(0); } }

I am trying to convert letters to numbers where a = 1, b = 2, c = 3, d = 4, z = 26... — Anonymous181
– Anonymous181, Commented May 18, 2012 at 22:35
RTF files are binary files. You can't process them like string data. — skaffman
– skaffman, Commented May 18, 2012 at 22:53
@skaffman They're not binary. It's a markup language, which you could parse, it's just not very trivial. — trutheality
– trutheality, Commented May 18, 2012 at 22:55

trutheality · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-18 22:43:51Z

I'm pretty sure you want

sb.append(Integer.toString(c - 'a' + 1));

or simply

sb.append( c - 'a' + 1 );

which implicitly does the same thing, since the expression c - 'a' + 1 is implicitly cast to an int since Java does all non-long integer math (anything involving chars, bytes, shorts, and/or ints) by converting everything to ints first.

What you had cast the integer result to a char, which would be represented by the character whose ASCII value is that number (something b/w 1 and 26), which isn't something readable.

No, I get 27-418206-47-4114199-41141993167-47-46-43-46-4315315118206-47-48-45-40-431531511921218206-45-43-48 somehow.
Is test.in.rtf a Rich Text Format file by any chance? Because this will only work for a text file.

esej · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-18 22:42:33Z

You are trying to write the char values 1,2,3 and 4 ('a'-'a' + 1 = 1 and so on), which are all "unwriteable" hence the "?"s. Why you get 7 and not 4? I don't know - maybe a locale issue or 3 of them are just written as two "?".

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