Help Displaying Highest and Lowest Numbers

Question

Hello everyone, I'm new to Java and I have an issue with my program.
All it does is randomly select 5 numbers from 1-10 right now, but I want it to display to the user the highest and lowest number that was selected. I'm not entirely sure how to do this so if you could help me that would be great. Here is my program.
import java.util.Random;
     public class Dice
          public static void main(String[] args)
               Random generator = new Random();
               int num1;
               int num2;
               int num3;
               int num4;
               int num5;
               int lowestnumber;
               int highestnumber;
               System.out.println("Let's roll the 10 sided dice!");
               num1 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #1: " + num1);
               num2 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #2: " + num2);
               num3 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #3: " + num3);
               num4 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #4: " + num4);
               num5 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #5: " + num5);
//This is where my problem is, I'm not sure how to go about getting my two integers to read the highest
//and lowest number.
               System.out.println("The highest number you rolled was: " + highestnumber);
               System.out.println("The lowest number you rolled was : " + lowestnumber);
}

Answer 1

gmiller4th wrote:
Hello everyone, I'm new to Java and I have an issue with my program.
All it does is randomly select 5 numbers from 1-10 right now, but I want it to display to the user the highest and lowest number that was selected. I'm not entirely sure how to do this so if you could help me that would be great. Here is my program.
import java.util.Random;
     public class Dice
          public static void main(String[] args)
               Random generator = new Random();
               int num1;
               int num2;
               int num3;
               int num4;
               int num5;
               int lowestnumber;
               int highestnumber;
               System.out.println("Let's roll the 10 sided dice!");
               num1 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #1: " + num1);
               num2 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #2: " + num2);
               num3 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #3: " + num3);
               num4 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #4: " + num4);
               num5 = generator.nextInt(11);
               System.out.println("Roll #5: " + num5);
//This is where my problem is, I'm not sure how to go about getting my two integers to read the highest
//and lowest number.
               System.out.println("The highest number you rolled was: " + highestnumber);
               System.out.println("The lowest number you rolled was : " + lowestnumber);
}Instead of having a bunch of separate ints, you could just have one array and use an insertion sorting algorithm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insertion_sort
So instead, you would have:
import java.util.Random;
public class Dice
public static void main(String[] args)
Random generator = new Random();
int[] nums;
int lowestnumber;
int highestnumber;
System.out.println("Let's roll the 10 sided dice!");
nums[0] = generator.nextInt(11);
System.out.println("Roll #1: " + nums[0]);
nums[1] = generator.nextInt(11);
System.out.println("Roll #2: " + nums[1]);
nums[2] = generator.nextInt(11);
System.out.println("Roll #3: " + nums[2]);
nums[3] = generator.nextInt(11);
System.out.println("Roll #4: " + nums[3]);
nums[4] = generator.nextInt(11);
System.out.println("Roll #5: " + nums[4]);
nums = InsertionSorting(nums);
//The sorting method will sort the number from lowest to highest, thus:
highestnumber = nums[4];
lowestnumber = nums[0];
System.out.println("The highest number you rolled was: " + highestnumber);
System.out.println("The lowest number you rolled was : " + lowestnumber);
public static int[] InsertionSorting (int[] a) {
          for (int i = 1; i < a.length; i++ )
              int value = a;          // next item to be inserted in order
          int j;
          // Back up in the array to find the spot for value.
          for ( j = i - 1; j >= 0 && a[j] > value; j-- )
     // This element is bigger than the element being inserted,
     // so move it up one slot.
     a[j+1] = a[j];
     // a[j] is the item that should precede value.
          // Put value after it.
     a[j+1] = value;
          return a;
The comments in the insertion sort are not my own... I yoinked it from the web.
I apologize if there are any errors. Hope it helps
Edit: __colin  has a good suggestion... you'd want to use something like that as well for error protection.
Silly me, I just realized that my sorting is way more complicated than it needs to be... But it's fun anyway! -slightly embarassed-
Edited by: Thok on Oct 11, 2007 9:42 AM
Edited by: Thok on Oct 11, 2007 9:48 AM