Print Statements and Comments

Let the Program Speak!

Let’s try to write a program that says Hello World out by typing the line of code System.out.print("Hello World");

The program prints out whatever you typed in the parenthesis of System.out.print. And, each line of code ends with ;.

After, add more statements to print numbers by putting numbers in the parenthesis (i.e. System.out.print(2020)) or a symbol by putting one symbol between 2 single quotes ' (i.e. System.out.print('@')).

Launch Replit

Did you notice that all the statements you typed printed in one line?

Sometimes we want to enter a new line when typing. To do that, we type a slightly different code System.out.println();

(Note: we type println instead of print to create a new line after)

Go back up and give it a try. Make all the statements print on different lines!

How to print multiple symbols in one line of code?

We learned that to print symbols we put them around 2 single quotes ', but how do we print multiple symbols in one line?

We can simple put them between 2 double quotes " (i.e. System.out.print("@ , - h A #");)

!! Important !! Sometimes you can’t just put characters in between " "

When putting characters in between " " in a print statement, sometimes it’s easy to confuse the computer on what characters to print.

For example, how do we tell computer to print "?

If you type System.out.print(""");, you will get an error! because the computer can’t identify where the text ends!

Instead, certain characters need to be escaped by adding a \ in front of it.

 System.out.print("\"");  // this prints out "

Other characters that needs to be escaped in Java includes: ', ", \.

Let’s meet 🐥 Patrick’s first friend, the owl Minerva 🦉!

Use what you just learn and recreate this owl below using just 4 lines of code! (Art credit: asciiart.eu/animals/birds-land)

    , ___    / ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ ‾ \
 `\/{o,o}  <   Hi, I am Minerva. Patrick's friend!  |
  / /)  )    \ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ /
 /,--"-"- 

Launch Replit

I got an error!

 Main.java:4: error: reached end of file while parsing

If you get an error like this, it is possible that you forgot to escape chararcters such as " and \.

Revisit the third tip above to see how to escape characters in a print statement!

Make a Comment

When creating a Java program, we can jot down some notes by adding one line comment using // or multi-line comment using /* and */ (Note: The instructions in the previous activities were written as comments).

Also, adding comments will not affect the program whatsoever. So, you can add any notes with comments throughout your code!

 // sample one line comment
 /* sample
  * multi-line
  * comment */