Question

I am learning Java, now working with arrays. I am doing an excercise where I am going to make the user input the values for a two-by-three integer array. Then I am supposed to find the smallest value. I do this by using an if-statement. The problem is that the compiler always prints the number “0” for the smallest value. I cannot find out what´s wrong with my code. Can anyone please help me?
The code is as follows:

  import java.util.Scanner;
  public class Oppgave79k 
  {
public static void main(String[] args) 
{
    Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
    int t[][] = new int[2][3];
    int smallest = t[0][0];

    for (int row = 0; row < t.length; row++)
        {
        for (int column = 0; column < t[row].length; column++)
            {
            System.out.println("Enter values for array: ");
            t[row][column] = input.nextInt();
            if (t[row][column] < smallest)
                {
                smallest = t[row][column];
                }
            }
        }
    for (int row = 0; row < t.length; row++)
        {
        for (int column = 0; column < t[row].length; column++)
            {
            System.out.printf("%d ", t[row][column]);
            }
        }
    System.out.printf("Smallest element is: %d\n", smallest);
}

}

Answer 1

In these lines:

int t[][] = new int[2][3];
int smallest = t[0][0];

you’ve started off with smallest as 0. So unless you enter a negative number, it’s never going to change.

You could use:

int t[][] = new int[2][3];
int smallest = Integer.MAX_VALUE;

to make sure that the first number entered is used.

As an aside, your indentation style is somewhat unconventional. Either

for (...) {
    // Code
}

or

for (...)
{
    // Code
}

look fine to me, but

for (...)
    {
    // Code
    }

is very unusual.