ERROR: This method must return a result of type int

Question

Code:

import java.util.*;

public class shuffleDeck
{ 
    public static int shuffleDeck (int[] deck, int theNumber)
    {
        int [] array1         


        

Answer 1

On java, when you define a method, that method must either must return a value, or must be declared with the void keyword.

public static int shuffleDeck(int[] deck);

means, you are going to return a primitive integer (int) with the use of return keyword.

public static int shuffleDeck(int[] deck);

means, you are not going to return something, thus void is used here to declare that.

Finally, I think this is what you try to accomplish, there were some several problems on the code you have provided, may be you can go over the sample below;

import java.util.Random;

public class Test1 {

    public static void shuffleDeck(int[] deck) {
        int[] array1 = new int[52];

        Random random = new Random();
        for (int i = deck.length, j, tmp; i > 1; i--) {
            j = random.nextInt(i);

            tmp = deck[i - 1];
            deck[i - 1] = deck[j];
            deck[j] = tmp;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] deck = new int[52];
        for (int i = 0; i < deck.length; i++) {
            deck[i] = i + 1;
        }

        System.out.println("Initial Ordered Deck");
        printDeck(deck);

        int count;
        count = 1;
        int total = 1;

        shuffleDeck(deck);

        System.out.println("Shuffled Deck");
        printDeck(deck);

    }

    private static void printDeck(int[] deck) {
        System.out.println("**************************************");

        for (int i = 0; i < deck.length; i++) {
            if (i % 13 == 0 && i > 0 )
                System.out.println();

            System.out.printf("%2d ", deck[i]);
        }

        System.out.println("\n**************************************");
        System.out.println();
    }

}

And the output is;

Initial Ordered Deck
**************************************
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 
27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 
**************************************

Shuffled Deck
**************************************
22  6 13 11 35 23 29 27  8 30 44 20  1 
31 34 28 47  5 46 17 51 38  3 19 36 18 
42 33  7  4  2 24 41  9 15 45 21 16 37 
14 48 43 49 32 12 40 39 26 50 52 10 25 
**************************************