Draw a fence in Java using for loops

Question

I am tasked to make a fence drawing program. So far I can have the user input values to set height and width and using nested for loops I can get it to output the height and width as a "#" symbol. The problem is I need it to have a border of # with | in the middle.

Currently a 4 height 4 width fence looks like this

####     
####
####
####

I need it to look like this

####
#||#
#||#
####


   public void draw() {
       for (i = 1; i < height-1; i++) {
           System.out.print("#");
           for (j = 1; j < width-1; j++) {
               System.out.print("|");
           }
           System.out.println("#");
       }
       fenceCount++;
   }

When is it ok to use a break. I have a loop asking if the user would like to build another fence type y or n. At the end for the terminating user input "n" does anyone know if there is a better way to do this than a break; ? and is a single break "ok" here? I have heard breaks are sloppy in loops. Also I always feel like I have to reverse my thinking on while loops.

Answer 1

Change draw() to:

public void draw() {
    String border = String.format("%0" + width +"d", 0).replace("0", "#");
    System.out.println(border); // top-border
    for (int i = 1; i < height-1; i++) {
        System.out.print("#"); 
        for (int j = 1; j < width-1; j++) {
            System.out.print("|");
        }
        System.out.println("#");
    }
    System.out.println(border); // bottom-border
}