Question regarding Arrays

Question

Just to give you a heads up on what I'm doing I am currently building a phone searching program that will search a set of parallel arrays and return information to the user based on the id number they enter. I have figured out how to create 3 parallel arrays (I have initialized those arrays to one containing the id numbers, the names of the people, and the phone numbers).
I am confused about the parse method. I used the JOptionPane to ask the user to enter an id number. I am use to the user entering an int or a double and I understand how to parse those data types but I don?t understand when it comes to a string what exactly to do. Do I parse it to a char using the charAt(0)?
When the user enters the ID number I have a for loop that searches to make sure that the ID number is valid How do I then take that ID number and output the parallel information like for example:
if(deptIdFound)
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,
                    "Id Number is " + idNum + "/nName is " +
                    name + "/nPhone Number is " + phoneNum);I am probably making this seem more difficult than it needs to me 0r over analyzing. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
-Ian-

Answer 1

i remodified your code and add an arrayIndex:
import javax.swing.*;
public class SearchList
     public static void main(String[] args)
          String[] directory = new String[5];
          String[] idNum = {"101", "107", "109", "112", "217"};
          String[] name = {"B. B.", "B. H.", "S. H.",
               "B. K.", "J. J."};
          String[] phoneNum = {"601-555-5555", "478-777-7777", "561-999-9999",
               "912-555-0000, "202-777-1111"};
          String id;
          int arrayIndex = 0;
          int x;
          boolean deptIdFound = false;
          id = JOptionPane.showInputDialog(null,
               "Enter an Id Number");
          char aChar = id.charAt(0);
          for(x=0; x<idNum.length; ++x){
               if(id.equals(idNum[x])){
                 deptIdFound = true;
                          arrayIndex = x;
          if(deptIdFound)
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,
                    "Id Number is " + idNum[arrayIndex] + "/nName is " +
                    name[arrayIndex]+ "/nPhone Number is " + phoneNum[arrayIndex]);
          else
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, id +
                " was not found in the list");
          System.exit(0);
}please tell me if you god some errors, i only modified it on text editor and not try to make it run.. thank you