Please assist

Question about the task

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Definitely defeated today lol. Not sure why I'm not grasping the concept of setting the arguments and making it as specific as possible. If I try 0 0 15 it would not work :( please help. thanks.

package com.codegym.task.task04.task0420; /* Sorting three numbers */ import java.io.*; public class Solution { public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { //write your code here BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in)); int one = Integer.parseInt(bufferedReader.readLine()); int two = Integer.parseInt(bufferedReader.readLine()); int three = Integer.parseInt(bufferedReader.readLine()); int big = Math.max(one,Math.max(two, three)); int mid; int small = Math.min(one,Math.min(two, three)); if (big > one && one > small){ mid = one; System.out.println( big + " " + mid + " " + small); } else if (big > two && two > small){ mid = two; System.out.println( big + " " + mid + " " + small); } else if (big > three && three > small){ mid = three; System.out.println(big + " " + mid + " " + small); } else { System.out.println(big + " " + mid + " " + small); } } }

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Guadalupe Gagnon

Level 37 , Tampa, United States

22 October 2019, 13:40

The main problem that I see is a common mistake that most new programmers make (including myself). The problem is in assuming that if one if statement is false then the opposite if statement is true, for example: if (big > one) is false then (big < one) must be true -- this is the false assumption that needs to be avoided. If the case is that (one == big) then both of those statements are false. You can try it with a little test code: .

int a = 5;
int b = 5;
System.out.println("Is a > b? " +(a > b));
System.out.println("Is a < b? " +(a < b));
System.out.println("Does a == b? " +(a == b));

. This is just a little test so you can see it in practice. When running that code the output would be: a > b? false a < b? false a == b? true Knowing this now you can see that if any 2 of the entered numbers are equal to each other then all the if statements will be false because they do not check for equality and only the else block will be executed at line 37. Which bring me to: The second problem is that the variable mid has no value at line 37 because it is declared at line 22 but not initialized, and if line 37 is reached none of the other lines in the if block will have been executed. The direct code path would be:

int mid; // line 22
// all the other line in between that are false and therefore not executed
System.out.println(big + " " + mid + " " + small); // line 37

No where in between is mid set and the code won't compile.

Jimmy Phan

Level 7 , Atlanta, United States

22 October 2019, 22:19

So perhaps be as specific as possible when it comes to setting the condition. I passed the assignment but required a lot of specific "else If" statements to make every possible set of numbers passed. I thank you for the thorough explanation!!