Question

For some reason, I can’t understand the logic of a program that:

1. Takes in a list of numbers
2. Goes through them (via a for each loop) to find the least number
3. displays the least number via writeline

If leastNumber must be initialized to 0, then won’t the leastNumber ALWAYS be 0?
(I’ve provided a basic txt file containing a list of various integers, that’s what TwoNumbers.txt is)

---

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines ( "TwoNumbers.txt" );

 int leastNumber = 999;
 int previousNumber = 0;

 foreach (string line in lines)
 {
   int currentNumber = int.Parse ( line );
   currentNumber = leastNumber;
   if (currentNumber < previousNumber)
   {
     leastNumber = currentNumber;
   }
 }

 Console.WriteLine ("The least number is: " + leastNumber);
 Console.ReadLine ();

---

Answer 1

In your program, you’re overriding the current number:

int currentNumber = int.Parse ( line );
currentNumber = leastNumber;

The second line will cause the current number to be 999 in the first iteration, which will then cause leastNumber to get set to 0 after your check.

After that point, currentNumber will always get set to 0, and remain that way.

You don’t really need previous number at all. Just do:

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines ( "TwoNumbers.txt" );

int leastNumber = int.MaxValue;

foreach (string line in lines)
 {
   int currentNumber = int.Parse ( line );
   if (currentNumber < leastNumber)
   {
     leastNumber = currentNumber;
   }
 }

 Console.WriteLine ("The least number is: " + leastNumber);
 Console.ReadLine ();