Sams Teach Yourself Java™ in 24 Hours, Sixth Edition

Sorting an Array

When you have grouped a bunch of similar items together into an array, one thing you can do is rearrange items. The following statements swap the values of two elements in an integer array called numbers:

int temp = numbers[5];numbers[5] = numbers[6];numbers[6] = temp;

These statements result in numbers[5] and numbers[6] trading values with each other. The integer variable called temp is used as a temporary storage place for one of the values being swapped. Sorting is the process of arranging a list of related items into a set order, such as when a list of numbers is sorted from lowest to highest.

Santa Claus could use sorting to arrange the order of gift recipients by last name with Willie Aames and Hank Aaron raking in their ...