Sorting two arrays simultaneously

Question

I'm learning and understanding Java now, and while practising with arrays I had a doubt. I wrote the following code as an example:

class example
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        String a[] = new String[] {"Sam", "Claudia", "Josh", "Toby", "Donna"};
        int b[] = new int[] {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};

        for(int n=0;n<5;n++)
        {
            System.out.print (a[n] + "...");
            System.out.println (b[n]);
        }
        System.out.println (" ");

        java.util.Arrays.sort(a);

        for(int n=0;n<5;n++)
        {
            System.out.print (a[n] + "...");
            System.out.println (b[n]);
        }
    }

In a nutshell, this class created two arrays with five spaces each. It fills one with names of characters from the West Wing, and fills the other with numbering from one to five. We can say that the data in these two strings corresponds to each other.

Now, the program sorts the array with the names in it using Arrays.sort(). After printing the array again, you can see that while the names are now in alphabetical order, the numbers do not correspond anymore as the second array is unchanged.

How can I shuffle the contents of the second array to match the sort requirements of the first? The solution must also be flexible to allow for changes in the scope and size of the program. Please do not post any answers asking me to change my methodology with the arrays, or propose a more 'efficient' way of doing things. This is for educational purposed and I'd like a straight solution to the example code provided. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I do NOT want to create an additional class, however I think some form of sorting through nested loops might be an option instead of Arrays.sort().

Answer 1

You should not have two parallel arrays. Instead, you should have a single array of WestWingCharacter objects, where each object would have a field name and a field number.

Sorting this array by number of by name would then be a piece of cake:

Collections.sort(characters, new Comparator<WestWingCharacter>() {
    @Override
    public int compare(WestWingCharacter c1, WestWingCharacter c2) {
        return c1.getName().compareTo(c2.getName();
    }
});

or, with Java 8:

Collections.sort(characters, Comparator.comparing(WestWingCharacter::getName));

Java is an OO language, and you should thus use objects.