Java replacement of specific characters

Question

This is my first question on this site so i\'ll try not to be a total noob..

I\'m currently creating hangman game in java. So my question to you is if we are given a wor

Answer 1

The easiest way to do that would be to use a Java regular expression on the target word. So whenever a user types in a letter you look for that letter in a regex match. That match will give you back the index of matching characters which you can then use to replace the letter in the __ version of the string.

...    
    listOfWords[9] = "zapping";
    Random generator = new Random();
    int lineNumber = generator.nextInt(9);
    disguisedWord = listOfWords[lineNumber];
    char[] hidden = disguisedWord.replaceAll("*","_").toCharArray();
}

public void makeGuess() throws IOException {
    System.out.println("Your word is " + disguisedWord.length() + " letters long.");
    System.out.println("Feel free to guess a letter.");
    String guess = System.in.read();

    Pattern pat = new Pattern(guess);
    Matcher mat = pat.matcher(disguisedWord);
    while (mat.find()) {
        int start = mat.start();
        hidden[start] = guess.toCharArray()[0];
    }
}