CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaarrays
Anne Bailly
Anne Bailly

Reputation: 411

Java - Cannot pull out min value in array

I am practicing Java arrays. I managed to create code to successfully extract array of random ints, sum, max element, difference, shift array to left; however, I cannot extract min element, which always comes up as zero(0) even if the array doesn't contain 0. I researched this issue, and it seems min value is always 0 because the array variables are initialized to 0 due to 0 being default value...however, I cannot find any solution to this issue.

I found several posts from users dealing with this issue as well, however, there doesn't seem to be any solution as far as I can tell...Posts seem to explain issue, but not solve it...I tried playing with the code, such as creating separate for loops for max and min, as well as set the below nested if condition for min loop, but nothing works. if (numArray[i] == 0) {continue;}

package june22;
import java.util.Arrays; 
import java.util.Scanner;

public class MoreArrayPractice {

    public static void main(String[] args) {            

        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("Enter number of random values you want in your array: ");
        int num = sc.nextInt();
        int[] numArray = new int[num];      
        int total = 0;
        int diff = 0;
        int max = numArray[0];
        int min = numArray[0];
        int i, temp;
        for (i = 0; i < numArray.length; i++)
        {
            numArray[i] = (int) (Math.random()*num)+1;
            total = total + numArray[i];
            System.out.print(numArray[i] + " ");
            if (numArray[i] > max) {max = numArray[i];}                 
            if (numArray[i] < min) {
                if (numArray[i] == 0) {continue;}
                min = numArray[i];} 
        }       

        temp = numArray[0];
            for (i = 1; i < numArray.length; i++) {
            numArray[i - 1] = numArray[i];
        }   numArray[numArray.length-1] = temp;             

        System.out.println();
        System.out.println("Sum is " + total); 
        System.out.println("Max is " + max); 
        System.out.println("Min is " + min); 
        System.out.println("Array shuffled left is ");
        for (i = 0; i < numArray.length; i++) {System.out.print(numArray[i] + " ");}
        System.out.println();
        for (int a: numArray) {
            diff = diff - a; }
            System.out.println("Difference of numbers is " + diff);  
        //correct syntax for printing Array         
    }    
}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 99

Answers (2)

AAA
AAA

Reputation: 3670

The issue is with your initialisation:

 int max = numArray[0];
 int min = numArray[0];

As this point all elements in the array are zero. So that's (0) going to be your min, unless you have a negative element in your array. To solve this, you ought to set min to the maximum integer value:

int max = 0;
int min = Integer.MAX_VALUE;

This way, you can still have just one loop. It also simplifies your min-checking code to:

if (numArray[i] < min) {min = numArray[i];}

Of course, I assume you are doing all these for practice, like you noted. There are more efficient ways to do what you are doing.

Upvotes: 0

Dawood ibn Kareem
Dawood ibn Kareem

Reputation: 79808

Your problem is that when you run the line 

int min = numArray[0];

your random numbers haven't been put into your array, so you're setting min to zero up front.

I would suggest you break your main loop into two separate loops - one to get the random numbers, and another to set max and min. So you'll have, in this order,

  • the loop that populates the array with random numbers,
  • the declaration of max and min, and setting their initial values to the first thing in the array,
  • the loop to find the right values for max and min.

Upvotes: 4

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