Question

I am trying to create a method that searches through an array for a user specified name and return its position in the array, or -1 if the name isnt found. I thought I had it but I get an error stating “not all code paths return a value” The code is throwing it in the name of the method, so its not being very specific, though with the error I wasnt expecting to much specificity.

anyway, here is the code, can anyone tell me what is throwing the error?

    static int FindStudent()//search for student name
    {
        while (z < NameArray.Length)
        {
            if (name == NameArray[z])
            {
                return z;
            }//end if statement
            else
            {
                z++;
            }//end else statement
        }//end while loop
        if (z==5)
        {
            return -1;
        }//end student not found
    }//end FindStudent method

Answer 1

Remove your final if statement. As your code is now, it will only return -1 if there are exactly 4 items in your array and none of them match. For that matter, you could also remove your else as well; Because the if above it returns, the else is implied.

static int FindStudent()//search for student name
{
    while (z < NameArray.Length)
    {
        if (name == NameArray[z])
        {
            return z;
        }
        z++;
    }
    return -1;// student not found
}