Sorting two arrays...

[James Palmer]

Hello
Basically my problem is i have two arrays,numbers(from 1 to 10) and persons. For each person there is an individual number and as both arrays already have their variables i want to put the numbers in descending order.The problem is that by sorting the numbers,i dont know how to sort the names at the same time to stick with their individual numbers.For example:
String[] names = {John, Andy};
int[] scores = {7,3};

By sorting the scores here they will become {3,7} so the 3 will be the first element of the array and it will go with John instead of Andy,which is what i would wish to do.Any ideas?Thanks

[Tom Hill]

It's probably best to store the name and number that correspond to each other as an object. Then write a compareTo() method which returns values corresponding to how the objects compare eg: -1 less than, 0 greater than, 1 more than. So:

public class PersonNumber{
 
 private String Name;
 private int Number;
 
//SOME GETTERS AND SETTERS HERE
 
 public static int compareTo(PersonNumber myPN){
   if(this.getNumber() > myPN.getNumber()){
     return 1;
   }else if(this.getNumber() < myPN.getNumber()){
     return -1;
   }else{
     return 0;  //they are equal
   }
 }
}
 

Then sort an array of PersonNumber Objects i guess.
[ July 22, 2004: Message edited by: Tom Hill ]

[Tom Hill]

A Hack and Slah way to do it would be: if you have array A of ints: and array B of names (Strings).
When your sorting algorithms swaps the locations of 2 ints (i assume via an empty variable?) that at the same time you swap the strings on the names: So:

int a = new int{5,4,3,2,1};
String b = new String{"Bob","Mary","Jane","Peter","Brian"};
int tempInt;
string tempString;
//bubble Sorting algorithm
 ...
for (int i=0; i<a.length; i++) {
  for (int j=0; j<b.length-i; j++)
    if (a[j+1] < a[j]) {  /* compare the two neighbors */
      tempInt = a[j];         /* swap a[j] and a[j+1]      */
      tempString = b[j];
      a[j] = a[j+1];
      b[j] = b[j+1];
      a[j+1] = tempInt;
      b[j+1] = tempString;
  }
}

I dont like this very much though - it is not as neat at the alternative solution. Ive probably made some mistake in there too