infinite for loop…?

Question

I've built this program to read a user name from a file. It checks to see if the user name that the user entered is on the profile file. Now, if it isn't on the file, it asks would you like to create a new user? What I'm trying to do is some input validation from the user - meaning, I want him to be able to answer with only a Y for yes and N for no, and for only 5 attempts.

My problem is that something is not working correctly in my "labeled for" loop. It's suppose to ask the user for his user name only 5 times, but it asks forever, like an infinite loop. Also, I want it to write to the user only once that I couldn't find his profile, so I've put it outside the for loop, but it shows up in every iteration.

any help will be appericiated.

else {
    System.out.println("Sorry couldn't find your user profile " + userName + ".");
    // If profile wasn't found, ask to create a new one.
    search:
    for(int i=0; i<5; i++) {    
        System.out.println("Would you like to create a new user profile now? (Enter Y for yes), (Enter N for no and exit).");
        try{
            BufferedReader answer = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
            String addNewUser = answer.readLine();
            // If user pressed Y than write the new user name to myFile.txt
            if (addNewUser.toLowerCase().startsWith("y")) {
                if(addNewUser.length() == 1){
                    System.out.println("Please enter a new user name:");
                    BufferedReader readNewUser = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
                    String newUserName = readNewUser.readLine();
                    PrintWriter write = new PrintWriter("d:\\profile.txt");
                    write.print(newUserName);
                    write.close();
                    break search;
                } else {
                    System.out.println("You've mistyped, please enter only one char:"); 
                    break;
                }
            } else {
                System.out.println("You've mistyped, the answer can only be Y or N. Try again:");   
            }

Answer 1

I think that you misunderstand what break does. Break will exit the loop and move on with your code. Breaking to a label allows you to break out of a specific loop, however you only have 1 loop, so that code is just redundant.
The command you're looking for is continue , which will skip to the next iteration of the loop.

I'd suggest reading this Oracle article about break and continue.

Answer 2

First: you have to replace the second break with continue .
Second: correct the end of the method. You have to check if the user has inserted a "n":

if (addNewUser.toLowerCase().startsWith("n")) {
   // do something...
}else {
   System.out.println("You've mistyped, the answer can only be Y or N. Try again:");   
}