Meet the Scanner Class

To begin working with user input in Java, you will use the Scanner class. The Scanner class is part of the Java standard library and is designed to make it easy to read input from various sources, including the keyboard. Whenever you want to allow users to type data into your program, Scanner is usually the first tool you will reach for. It handles raw input and converts it into usable data types such as strings, integers, and more.

Looking at the example above, notice how the code starts by importing the Scanner class. This is done using the import java.util.Scanner; statement at the top of the file. The java.util package contains the Scanner class, and importing it allows you to use Scanner in your program. Next, a Scanner object is created with the line Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);. Here, scanner is just the variable name for the Scanner object. The System.in part tells Java that you want to read input from the standard input stream, which is usually the keyboard. This setup prepares your program to accept user input and process it as needed.