Randomly filling a 2d array with certain restrictions

Question

so, i have to randomly fill an string array with predeterminated words but each word has a limit ammount of times it can be on the array
This its what i coded but it returns a null array and i dont khow why:

package test;

import java.util.Random;

public class Main {

    public static void main (String []args){
        String [][] array = new String [4][4];
        String [] words = new String [6];
        int limits[] = new int [4];
        int counter[] = {0, 0, 0, 0};
        words[0] = "Roberto";
        words[1] = "Matias";
        words[2] = "Carlitos";
        words[3] = "Leonel"; 
        limits[0] = 2;
        limits[1] = 3;
        limits[2] = 5;
        limits[3] = 1; 
        //when filled its true means that the correspondent word has reached its limits.
        boolean filled []= new boolean [4];
        filled [0] = false;
        filled [1] = false;
        filled [2] = false;
        filled [3] = false;

        Random rnd = new Random();
        //not f
        boolean notfilled = true;
        while(notfilled){
            int x = 0, y =0;
            for(int i = 0;i<counter.length; i++ ){
                if(counter[i]==limits[i]){
                    filled[i] = true;
                }


            }
            if (filled[0] == true && filled[1] == true && filled[2] == true && filled[3] == true){
                notfilled = false;
            }
        int rndm = rnd.nextInt(4);
        switch(rndm){
        case 1:{
            if(filled[0] != true){
                array[x][y] = words[rndm];
            }
        }
        case 2:{
            if(filled[1] != true){
                array[x][y] = words[rndm];
            }
        }       
        case 3:{
            if(filled[2] != true){
                array[x][y] = words[rndm];
            }
        }
        case 4:{
            if(filled[3] != true){
                array[x][y] = words[rndm];
            }
        }
        if(x == array.length){
            y++;
            x = 0;
        }else{x++;}
    }
  }


 }
}

question its what its wrong with mi code and how to fix it

Answer 1

There are a couple problems with your code. As Boddington mentioned your limits need to add up to 16. Also x and y need to be initialized outside the while loop so they won't be reset.

    int x = 0, y =0;
    boolean notfilled = true;
    while(notfilled){

As Mnemomic said case 4 will never be executed. To fix this start your cases at 0 and add a break to the end of each case. Your last problem is that the code will skip a space in the matrix if the randomly selected word is used up. To fix this you need to move x and y only if the random word is not filled

After all that your case statements should look like this

case 0:{
            if(filled[0] != true){
                array[x][y] = words[0];
                counter[0]++;
                x++;
                if(x == array.length){
                    y++;
                    x = 0;
                }
            }
            break;
        }