help learning "for" loops

[shazakala]

well for homework we have been asked to create a for loop that creates a certain amount of $ signs when passed though the parameter of "howMany"
and I have no idea how to tell a method how to repeat a character but im sure it has something to do with char, basically heres what I have to fill in, note this is only a method, not a whole program, no need for it to actually run.

Private void printRowOfDollarSigns (int howMany) {



      System.out.println();
}

basically can you show me how to do this?

[JosAH]

This prints one dollar sign:

System.out.print('$');

... and this prints 'howMany' dollar signs:

for (int i= 0; i < howMany; i++)
   System.out.print('$');

kind regards,

Jos

[shazakala]

sweet, thanks man.
just wondering because my text book is a bit vague on some bits, how does that I++ bit work, it is just adding to "i" how many $ signs to return?

[JosAH]

sweet, thanks man.
just wondering because my text book is a bit vague on some bits, how does that I++ bit work, it is just adding to "i" how many $ signs to return?

Nope, it just adds one to variable i; you could've written this instead:"

for (int i= 0; i < howMany; i= i+1)
   ...

Study your text book; it should mention and explain both the prefix and the postfix ++ operators.

kind regards,

Jos

[ozzyman]

sweet, thanks man.
just wondering because my text book is a bit vague on some bits, how does that I++ bit work, it is just adding to "i" how many $ signs to return?

++ is the 'increment' operator so that 'i' always increments. you could also run a loop backwards with i-- (decrement). you could get powers of two with i*2. you could actually use any mathematical calculation in the third statement of a for-loop to alter the value of 'i' per run of the loop. also note that 'i' is just a variable and you could use any name instead of 'i'.

// change every 3rd item in an array

for (int somethingNotCalledI = 3; somethingNotCalledI<array.length; somethingNotCalledI+3) {
    // somethingNotCalledI = 3, then 6, then 9... etc
    ...
}

[shazakala]

thanks guys I really appreciate the help.