Please Help... switch statement not recognising variable..and I can't figure out why

[HereIam]

We have to make a tic tac toe game for my introduction to java class... and I've been working at this for days now... including completely breaking it down and restarting it... no GUI used... anyways.. I got it to where it only has one error left..(that it's telling me anyway) and that error is that it doesn't recognize my variable in my switch statement.. This is what i have so far.. I know I did something wrong.. but i can't figure out what it is.. somebody please please please help.. and thank you tons!!

  import java.io.*;

  public class H2_TicTacToe
  {
	  public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException
	  {
	  	 String welcome = "Welcome to Michelle's Tic-Tac-Toe Game";
		 String[] board = {"","","","","","","","",""};

		 int markType;
		 String inputMark;
		 BufferedReader dataIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));

		 for(markType = 0; markType < 9; markType++){
		 menu();

		 inputMark = dataIn.readLine();
		 markType = Integer.parseInt(inputMark);
		 addMark(markType, board);

		 showBoard(board);
	         }
  	  }

 
 public static void addMark(int maType, String theBoard[])

 {
	 switch(maType)
	 {
	 case 1:
	 if(theBoard[0] == "")
	 	{
			if(markType % 2 = 0){
				theBoard[0] = "X";
				System.out.println("O's Turn to go. Please pick a space");
				menu();
			}else{
				theBoard[0] = "O";
				System.out.println("X's Turn to go. Please pick a space");
				menu();
			}
		}
	 else{
		 System.out.println("Space already claimed. Please pick another space");
		 menu();
	    }
     }
 }
}

other cases haven't been put in yet..and menu method excluded... this is the error it's giving me:
Documents\H2_TicTacToe.java:70: error: cannot find symbol
if(markType % 2 = 0){
^
symbol: variable markType
location: class H2_TicTacToe
1 error

Tool completed with exit code 1

[pbrockway2]

Documents\H2_TicTacToe.java:70: error: cannot find symbol
			if(markType % 2 = 0){
			   ^
  symbol:   variable markType
  location: class H2_TicTacToe
1 error

The "cannot find symbol" message means that you haven't declared markType anywhere. The two common reasons for this are (1) You have made a typo (spelled something wrong, wrong capitalisation etc) (2) You have called a method with the wrong type of arguments. (method wanted an int, you gave it a String: that sort of thing).

In this case it's (1). The variable in question is not markType, it is something else.

[HereIam]

oh no... ok.. thank you so much for responding.. i'll try to figure it out

[HereIam]

if that was something else.. would I also have to change my for statement in the beginning with that something else?

[pbrockway2]

No you don't have to change anything in the for loop. All that matters is that you are consistent with what you are calling the mark type within the addMark() method.

Of course there may be other things wrong that do affect the for loop (I haven't looked). But you can resolve the "cannot find symbol" in addMark() just by changing the variable the compiler is grumbling about to what it should be to be consistent with the rest of the method.

[HereIam]

feeling super stupid right about now... I went through and changed the variable so that it matched throughout the method.. and then it gave me an error with the modulo sign saying it found a value when it required a variable.. everything I saw was typed exactly the same.. i'm so confused... unless you mean the type.. but i assumed you meant i wrote it wrong.. which i probably did.. but when i tried to fix it like you said.. i must have done something else wrong..

[pbrockway2]

If you are getting a new compiler message, post it and the new markType() method.

(Note that only one variable had to change: the one the original message said was wrong.)

[Tolls]

To break it down a little:

addMark(markType, board);

That is how you are calling addMark.

The addMark method signature looks like this:

public static void addMark(int maType, String theBoard[])

So the variable markType is being passed into addMark.
According to the signature that value is stored in a variable called maType.