Morse code conversion on how to return a method

Question

Please pardon me for my weak porgramming ability. I'm trying to write a method converting english to morse code. As you can see, I use hashmap to store the equivalant and then convert it and stored the morse code into the variable 'result'. My concern is I can't return the variable 'result' outside of the loop. If i return 'dataInput', isn't it just returning the original input? How can I return the correct result?

public static String morseCode(String dataInput)
{
     Map<String, String> morseCode = new HashMap<String, String>();
     morseCode.put("a", ".-");            
     morseCode.put("b", "-...");
     morseCode.put("c", "-.-.");


        for (int i = 0; i<dataInput.length(); i++)
        {
            String result = (String)morseCode.get(dataInput.charAt(i)+"");
            //convert input data into morse code

        }

        return dataInput;        
}

Answer 1

Try like this:

  import java.lang.StringBuffer; //at the top

  Map morseCode = new HashMap(); 
  morseCode.put("a", ".-");
  morseCode.put("b", "-..."); 
  morseCode.put("c", "-.-."); 
  StringBuffer buff = new StringBuffer();

  for (int i = 0; i<dataInput.length(); i++)
    {
        String result = (String)morseCode.get(dataInput.charAt(i));
        //convert input data into morse code
        buff.append(result+" ");
    }
   return buff.toString();
 }