Custom sort with insertion sort

Question

I've gotten the basics of insertion code but I'm stuck on how to compare it with another condition other then (list by AZ, ZA)

for the example a list of staff ranks were given :

public static final String[] staffrank = {
        "Trainee",
        "Junior",
        "Senior",
        "Administrator"
    };

I have a method to compareRank

If it returns 0 means they're of equal rank (staff 1 and staff 2)

if it returns -1 means staff 1 is lower rank than staff 2

if it returns 1 means staff 1 is higher rank than staff 2

Then I have a list of staffs in void main

Staff[] snames;
    int countname=0;
    snames = new Staff[50];
    snames[countname++] = new Staff("Amy","Trainee");
    snames[countname++] = new Staff("Annie","Junior");
    snames[countname++] = new Staff("Tom","Administrator");
    snames[countname++] = new Staff("Dave","Trainee");
    snames[countname++] = new Staff("Gary","Junior");
    snames[countname++] = new Staff("Donna","Senior");

then the insertion sort compare code

public static void insertionSortbyRank(Staff[] snames, int countname) {


//insertion sort
for(int i =1; i < countname; i++) {
int j = i;
int comparerank = Staff.compareRank(snames[j],snames[j-1]);

String name = snames.getName();
String rank = snames.getRank();

//if staff is lower rank
if(comparerank==-1) {

Then i'm unsure what to put in this while loop still giving me an unsorted list

while( j >0 && rank.compareRank(list[j], list[j - 1]) == 1))) {
   list[j].rank =[j-1].rank;
   list.[j].name = [j-1].name;

   j--;
}

then the end is replacing the new values

snames[j].name = name;
snames[j].rank = rank;

the output suppose to give : (by order of their ranks from low to highest according to the chart)

Amy, Trainee Dave, Trainee Annie, Junior Gary, Junior Donna, Senior Tom, Administrator

Any help would be appreciated..thank you

Answer 1

I would assume that since you've been given a staffrank variable, that you should probably make use of it. However, aside from mentioning it at the top of your question, you make no other use of it that we've been shown...So my assumption is that you've ignored it completely.

I think that's the key to your puzzle here.

Note that I'm ignoring the fact that String arrays are not the best representation (I'd go for an enum or something like a class...Potentially implementing Comparable<StaffRank> somewhere...But this is a test question as noted, after all...)

Answer 2

You could make a function like this:

public static final int compareRank(String[] ranks, String rank) {
    for (int i=0; i<ranks.length; i++) {
        String string = ranks[i];
        if string.equals(rank) return i;
    }
    return -1;
}

Which will return an integer between -1 and (ranks.length -1) which you can use for comparison. The smaller the number the more junior the rank.

Inside your while loop you'll have to compare each staff and swap them if the "i"-th staff is greater than the "i+1"-th staff.

for (int i=0; i<(snames.length-1); i++) {
    Staff sname1 = sname[i];
    Staff sname2 = sname[i+1]
    //compare sname1 to sname2 and swap if sname1 > sname2
}