Not deleting items next to each other

[wfsteadman]

Greetings all,
So I am working on a project where I select a number and it checks an array for that number, deletes it and moves everything down in the array. I have it working for the most part. It was part of an assignment and I got a 100 on the assignment, but I think that is because the teacher did not run into this particular issue I am having so I got lucky. Actually the assignment wasn't setup where he would ever run into this issue, but as I started playing with it more after the fact, I found that when I populated an array with all of the same numbers it only deleted half of them.

So for example if my array was 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

when I ran the delete, it tells me it only deleted 5 of the elements and when I do go see how many elements are in the array it does in fact show there are still 5 elements with a value of 1

my code for the delete class is below. I believe what is happening is that it finds the first instance at a[0] then moves a[1] down to fill a[0] but doesn't recheck if a[0] is again the number. you will notice in my class I have multiple counters and that was so I could show the teacher how many steps the process took. (This is a data structures class so doing much with N Steps and Big O notation)
I am having a problem figuring out how to get it to recheck a[0] to see if the number that got moved into it was the same (the number I want deleted).
Any assistance would be appreciated.

Wally

public void deleteElements()
  {
    int moveCount = 0;

    System.out.print("Input the number you want to delete:\n");
    int searchNumber = userInput.nextInt();

    for (counter = 0; counter < elementValue; counter++)
    {
      if (counter == elementValue)
      {
        System.out.printf("Number %d was not found after searching all %d elements\n", searchNumber, elementValue);
        break;
      }
      if (newArray[counter] == searchNumber)
      {
        System.out.printf("%d was found in element location %d\n", searchNumber, counter);
        for (int k = counter; k < elementValue; k++)
        {
          newArray[k] = newArray[k + 1];
          moveCount++;
        }
        elementValue--;
      }
    }
    System.out.printf("This looked at all %d element and moved %d element(s) for a total of %d comparisons and moves\n", counter, moveCount, counter + moveCount);
  }

[JosAH]

After line #23 where you update the total number of elements in the array, also decrement the counter variable so it checks the same element position again in the next loop pass; alternatively you could remove found elements from the right so you don't need this trickey.

kind regards,

Jos

[wfsteadman]

Brilliant. I want to kick myself..... I was building while loops and doing a nested for loop. Lines and lines of code... I probably need a life, the assignment is already in and graded and I am sitting at home on a Saturday trying to improve it. But hey, learning is fun so thanks for the brilliant answer.

[JosAH]

If I kicked myself for each and every silly mistake I made I'd be long dead or in a wheelchair ;-) I have been in this field for ages and I've seen most of those little pitfalls; here's a small tip (take it from an old sloppy sod like me): jot those things down somewhere or you'll make the same mistake again (I know I did in almost each and every language).

kind regards,

Jos