Question

I’m trying to produce code that will search for an element starting at the end of an array and work it’s towards the beginning until i find what I am looking for. so far I have this, but it doesn’t seem to be working:

     for (int i = randomList.length - 1; i > 0; i--)
            {
             if (randomList[i].equals(findThis))
                {
                    System.out.println("The index of what you're looking for in the array is: " + i);

                }                
            }

When I compile and run this, it produces the same answer as this:

     for (int j = 0; j < randomList.length; j++)
            {
            if (randomList[j].equals(findThis))
                {
                    System.out.println("What you're looking for is located at this index: " + j);
                }           
            }

which is weird because it is starting at the front of the array and working its way to the end. I am grateful for all help!

Answer 1

You are returning the index of the found element, which is going to be the same in either direction (i.e. array[4] will be the same regardless of how you search)

If you want the count in the other direction, you could do:

for (int i = 0; i < randomList.length; i++)
{
  if (randomList[randomList.length - i - 1].equals(findThis))
    {
      System.out.println("The count from the back of the array is: " + i);
    }                
}