Why am I getting incorrect values for string length? - string

Question

My professor is teaching us Scala using Horstmann's book "Scala for the impatient", and one of our homework exercises are straight from the book; Chapter 4, exercise 2.
We are expected to read in the eBook in text format, the professor has specified that the input file should be "Moby Dick", available for free from the Guttenberg project here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701.txt.utf-8
My code works, as far as counting instances of words. However, he has added the requirement that we must we must format the output in two two columns, with words left justified, and counts right justified. To do so, I am determining the longest word in the book so I can figure the width of the "word" column. However, the values I am getting for the length of the strings is just wrong. In fact, it tells me that all the strings are the same length. "a" is being reported as length 26, just as is "Whale", "Ishmael", etc...
Here's the code:
object Chapter4Exercise2 extends App {
//for sorting
import util.Sorting._
//grab the file
val inputFile = new java.util.Scanner(new java.io.File("moby.txt"))
//create a mutable map where key/values == word/count
val wordMap = collection.mutable.Map[String, Int]() withDefault (_ => 0)
//for formatting output (later), the longest word length is relevant
var longestWord = 0
var theWord: String = ""
//start reading each word in the input file
while (inputFile hasNext) {
//grab the next word for processing, convert it to lower case, trim spaces and punctuation
var nextWord = inputFile.next().toLowerCase().trim().filter(Character.isLetter(_))
//if it's the longest word, update both theWord and longestWord
if (nextWord.size > longestWord) longestWord = nextWord.size; theWord = nextWord; println(theWord + " " + longestWord)
//update the map value for the key with same value as nextWord
wordMap(nextWord) += 1
}
println("Longest word is " + theWord + " at " + longestWord + " Characters")
}
The output of these lines:
if (nextWord.size > longestWord) longestWord = nextWord.size; theWord = nextWord; println(theWord + " " + longestWord)
and
println("Longest word is " + theWord + " at " + longestWord + " Characters")
is way off. It's telling me that EVERY word in the input file is 26 characters long!
Here's a small sample of what's being output:
husks 26
on 26
a 26
surfbeaten 26
beach 26
and 26
then 26
diving 26
down 26
into 26
What am I missing/doing wrong?

Answer 1

if (nextWord.size > longestWord) longestWord = nextWord.size; theWord = nextWord; println(theWord + " " + longestWord)
You shouldn't write multiple statements on a single line like that. Let's write this out in multiple lines and properly indent it:
if (nextWord.size > longestWord)
longestWord = nextWord.size
theWord = nextWord
println(theWord + " " + longestWord)
Do you see the problem now?

Answer 2

Try putting { and } around your if statement alternatives.
You can avoid this kind of pitfall by formatting your code in a structured manner - always using braces around code blocks.
if (nextWord.size > longestWord)
{
longestWord = nextWord.size;
theWord = nextWord;
println(theWord + " " + longestWord);
}
Your current code is equivalent to
if (nextWord.size > longestWord)
{
longestWord = nextWord.size;
}
theWord = nextWord;
println(theWord + " " + longestWord);