More Newbie help needed please.

Question

Hello,
I am attempting to sort an array which is defined in the main method, but the array must be sorted through the use of another method. From my understanding, this is tricky, because as I found out last night, you cannot use another method from within the main method (this kind of makes sense). I think I am pretty close but am getting non-static referrence errors. Here is the actual error and code. Thanks for looking at this.
error:
D:\School\IT315\Programs\Inventory.java:64: non-static variable sortItem cannot be referenced from a static context
          sortItem = ("myItem[0].getTotal()" + "myItem[1].getTotal()" + "myItem[2].getTotal()");
^
1 error
Tool completed with exit code 1
public class Inventory
     // Begin main method
     public static void main( String args[] )
          int i;
          //Instantiate Iteminfo array
          Iteminfo[] myItem = new Iteminfo[3];
          // Create Item Info object
          myItem[0] = new Iteminfo( 01, "Laptop", 15, 2000 );
          myItem[1] = new Iteminfo( 02, "Desktop", 25, 1500 );
          myItem[2] = new Iteminfo( 03, "Server", 10, 5000 );
          // Display Program title and description.
          System.out.println( "Inventory Program Part 2" );
          System.out.println(); //outputs blank line
          System.out.println();
          // Display item info
          System.out.printf( "The first item is: \n\n" );
          myItem[0].displayInfo();
          System.out.println();
          System.out.printf( "The second item is: \n\n" );
          myItem[1].displayInfo();
          System.out.println();
          System.out.printf( "The third item is: \n\n" );
          myItem[2].displayInfo();
          System.out.println();
          System.out.printf( "The total of all inventory is: $%.2f. \n\n", getInvTotal(myItem) );
          System.out.printf( "The sorted inventory list is: %s", sortItemInfo(myItem) );
     } // End method main
     //method to total inventory
     static double getInvTotal(Iteminfo[] myItem)
          return myItem[0].getTotal() + myItem[1].getTotal() + myItem[2].getTotal();
     } //end method
     // method to sort array;
     String sortItem;
     static String sortItemInfo(Iteminfo[] myItem)
          sortItem = ("myItem[0].getTotal()" + "myItem[1].getTotal()" + "myItem[2].getTotal()");
     } //end method
} // End class Payroll

Answer 1

oh yeah. sorry. Two new errors were generated (same
type). ...Yeah, sorry I didn't look closely enough.
May I suggest a different approach? This is far from perfect, but is a big improvement of your current code:public class Inventory
    public static void main( String args[] )
        Iteminfo[] myItems = new Iteminfo[3];
        myItems[0] = new Iteminfo( 01, "Laptop", 15, 2000 );
        myItems[1] = new Iteminfo( 02, "Desktop", 25, 1500 );
        myItems[2] = new Iteminfo( 03, "Server", 10, 5000 );
        System.out.println("Inventory Program Part 2\n\n");
        displayItems(myItems);
        System.out.printf( "The total of all inventory is: $%.2f. \n\n", getInvTotal(myItems));
        System.out.printf( "The sorted inventory list is: ");
        sortItemInfo(myItems);
        displayItems(myItems);
    static void displayItems(Iteminfo[] myItems)
        for(int i = 0; i < myItems.length; i++)
            System.out.printf("Item "+(i+1)+": \n\n");
            myItems.displayInfo();
static double getInvTotal(Iteminfo[] myItems)
double total = 0.0;
// Do the same thing with the for-statement here as
// well, and add everything to the variable total.
return total;
static void sortItemInfo(Iteminfo[] myItems)
// your sort algorithm here
Try to finish it.
Good luck.