Sorting an object array into another array based on a variable

Question

I have a problem with a program I'm writing for a school assignment. Essentially, before this piece of code, I already recieve and work with a bunch of information that I store into an array of objects. Now I have to sort this array (after it's sorted, I will have to calculate some things in the order of the PRIORITY variable).

presume I already have a MyClass[] array called input, that stores a finite amount of MyClass objects.

MyClass[] priorityArray = new MyClass[input.length];
for (int i=0; i<priorityArray.length; i++) {
  int maxIndex = 0;
  int maxPrivilege = input[i].returnPrivilege();
  for (int j=1; j<input.legnth; j++) {
    int currentPrivilege = input[j].returnPrivilege();
    if (currentPrivilege > maxPrivilege) {
      maxPrivilege = currentPrivilege;
      maxIndex = j;
    }
  }
  priorityArray[i] = input[maxIndex];
  input[maxIndex].setPrivilege(-900000000);


}

the MyClass class if nothing fancy, but of course, contains a proper constructor, getter and setter methods and an integer variable "privilege".

I'm getting an error in my final tests of the program and, seeing as the program returns privileges as "-900000000", it has to have something to do with this part of the code. It's also not even writing certain MyClass instances from the input array into the priorityArray array.

How can I clead this up? Help.

Answer 1

I'll rewrite my answer totally.

In this line

priorityArray[i] = input[maxIndex];

You are assigning object from one array to another array by reference. It means that there is only one object and you set value to -9000000 in the next line to it. Of course element in priorityArray will have the same changes. To fix it you need to clone your object here.