Arrays.sort() issue when Numbers are a string!

Question

Hey guys -- here is my problem.
I am working on a TOP TEN SCORES mechanism for a trivia game. I have read in the score and the players name from a file. SO I have 2 different arrays topScores[] and topNames[] ---
Now if someone plays the game and has a higher score than the lowest score, they get to put their score and name in the file and replace the low score.
HOWEVER -- I do not know how to sort topSCORES[] and then make whatever sorted changes apply also to the topNAMES[] array.
SO I thought - HEY I will concatenate the topScores and topNames into a single String array. And then SORT! This sounded like a great idea until I realized that the following will happen:
100 tvance (first one)
1000 dvance (second score)
250 danderson (third score) !!!
See my problem? When I sort this way - it is sorting alphabetically so it will put a 1000 score before a 200-900 score! ---
**I hope I explained this adequately -- can someone help? Is there a way to sort the topScores array and have it also change the order of the topNames array as well?

Answer 1

Create a new class - HighScore, which has a highScore and a name?Yup. This technique even has a name: object-oriented programming!
Demo:
import java.util.*;
public final class HighScore implements Comparable<HighScore> {
    private final int score;
    private final String name;
    public HighScore(int score, String name) {
        if (name == null)
            throw new NullPointerException();
        this.score = score;
        this.name = name;
    public int getScore() {
        return score;
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    public int compareTo(HighScore that) {
        if (this.score < that.score)
            return -1;
        else if (this.score > that.score)
            return +1;
        else
            return this.name.compareTo(that.name);
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        if (this == obj)
            return true;
        else if (obj instanceof HighScore) {
            HighScore that = (HighScore) obj;
            return this.score == that.score && this.name == that.name;
        } else
            return false;
    public int hashCode() {
        return score ^ name.hashCode();
    public String toString() {
        return score + " " + name;
    //demo
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        HighScore[] top = {
            new HighScore(250, "danderson"),
            new HighScore(1000, "dvance"),
            new HighScore(100, "dvance")
        Arrays.sort(top);
        for(int i=0; i<top.length; ++i) {
            System.out.println(top);
If you are using an older version of Java (1.4 or earlier), the generics won't be
recognized. In that case the class definition would begin:
public final class HighScore implements Comparable {And the compareTo method would begin:
public int compareTo(Object obj) {
    HighScore that = (HighScore) obj;Good luck!