My teacher gave us this MinFinder example, but I'm having a hard time understanding it.

It accomplishes its goal of displaying the smallest number of 5:

MinFinder example code output:

Someone please address my issues with this example:

• I thought only arrays were able to find the min of multiple numbers in Java?
• Explain why an If statement can be used to find the min. And please explain how the If statement in this example works.
• Is it possible for Math.min to be used to find the min of multiple numbers in Java?

(You don't have to answer all 3 issues. I know this is a long post, lol. Any help is appreciated)

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Scanner scn = new Scanner(System.in);
    int min = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i  ) {
        System.out.print("Enter number: ");
        int num = scn.nextInt();
        if (i == 0)
            min = num;
        if (num < min)
            min = num;
    }
    System.out.println("The smallest number is: "   min);

    scn.close();

CodePudding user response：

If we are continuously getting it from user inside the loop like above then the logic remains is just comparison so in that case we don't need array.

But array/collections is needed when more than two elements involved.

Similarly we can use either math.max() or min() functions or < or > to do the comparison directly.

CodePudding user response：

This code is for finding the lowest number from the numbers entered... If you want to find the largest number then make this minute changes...

if (num > min)
        min = num;

Maybe you could also use Math.max() like this: min = Math.max(num, min)

Now this will show you the maximum number... Also change the names of the variables (such as min to max) and the printing message to "The largest number is: " and you are done...