Sorting multiple arrays within a file. Putting states population in order

Question

**This is my first post so don't know if I did this right. But I have to read a file and then put the list in order from smallest to largest by the population. All I get is Alabama and that shows up only one time. I think my problem is from the "for" statement but I am not sure. It could also be from the "return" statement. The file is set up like this

Alabama,4779736
Alaska,7102313**

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;     
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Inorder {

    /**
     * @param args
     * @throws IOException 
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
         PrintWriter prw = new PrintWriter("outfile.txt");
                        File f = new File("census2010.txt");
                        if(!f.exists()) {
                            System.out.println( "f does not exist ");
                        }
                        Scanner infile = new Scanner(f);
                        infile.useDelimiter ("[\t|,|\n|\r]+");
                        final int MAX = 50;
                        int [] myarray = new int [MAX];
                        String[] statearray = new String[MAX];
                        int fillsize;


                        fillsize = fillarray (myarray, statearray, infile);

                        printarray (myarray, fillsize, prw);
                        sortarray(myarray, statearray, fillsize);

                    }

                    public static int fillarray (int[] num, String[] states, Scanner infile){


                        for( int count = 0; count < 50; count++){
                              int retcnt = 0;
                                int pop;
                                String state;
                                state = infile.next();
                                pop = infile.nextInt();
                            System.out.println(state + " " + pop + " ");
                            states[retcnt] = state;
                            num[retcnt] = pop;
                            retcnt++;


                        return (retcnt); }

                    }


                    public static void printarray (int[] num, int fillsize, PrintWriter prw){
                        for (int counts = 0; counts < fillsize ; counts++){
                            System.out.println("For the position ["+counts+"] the value is " + num[counts]);
                            prw.println("For the position ["+counts+"] the value is " + num[counts]);
                        }
                        return;
                    }

                    public static void  sortarray(int[] poparray, String[] statearray, int fillsize){

                        for( int fill = 0; fill < fillsize -1; fill = fill+1){
                            for ( int compare = fill+1; compare < fillsize; compare++){
                                if( poparray[compare] < poparray[fill]){

                                    int poptemp = poparray[fill];  
                                    poparray[fill] = poparray[compare]; 
                                    poparray[compare]  = poptemp;
                                // do I need something here?    
                                    String statetemp = statearray[fill];  
                                    statearray[fill] = statearray[compare]; 
                                    statearray[compare]  = statetemp;
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
}

Answer 1

It looks like you just need to move your return statement outside of the for loop.

public static int fillarray (int[] num, String[] states, Scanner infile){
    for( int count = 0; count < 50; count++){
        // ...
    } // Finish *all* iterations of the loop, *then* return
    return (retcnt); 
 }

By having a return inside your loop, you only execute the first iteration and the method returns (preventing all other 49 iterations). You do this correctly in your printarray method.

Edit:

As you mentioned, moving the return statement outside of your loop makes it so that retcnt is no longer accessible. This is because you declare retcnt inside the loop; if you declare retcnt before the loop, you will have no problems.

int retcnt = 0;
for (//...) {
    //...
}
// The variable retcnt is now accessible for the entire method scope, 
// instead of just the loop block
return retcnt;