Basic questions

Question

I am new to Java and this a very basic question. This is a very small part of the program. Here is what I have to do:
User inputs a number (1-26) in keyLength as an encryption. If number is 1, secretletter would be a; if its 2 it would be b, and so on until z where it will be 26.

What I want to know is that, is there a better way than doing this:

if (keyLength==1){
    secretletter=a;
if (keyLength==2){
    secretletter=b;

What I have done is below, but my for loop is wrong and I always end up with z.

public static char secret(String str,int keyLength){
    char secretletter = 0;
    if (keyLength>=0 && keyLength<27){
        for(char i='a'; i<='z';i++){
            secretletter=i;
        }   
    }
    return secretletter;
}

EDIT: I found my mistake and @that other guy helped me as well

secretletter=(char)('a'+ keyLength - 1);

Answer 1

You may want to take a look at Oracle documentation for the switch statement.

public static char secret(int keyLength){
  char key;
  switch (keyLength) {
    case 1:  key = 'a';
      break;
    case 2:  key = 'b';
      break;
    case 3:  key = 'c';
      break;
    ........
    default: key = 'z';
      break;
  }
  return key;
}