A Problem Solved—Computing Deviations

In this lesson, we will look at an example of array processing. We will read some user-supplied numbers and compute the deviation of each number from the average of all the numbers read.

We'll cover the following

- Problem statement
- The program

Problem statement

We wrote some code in this chapter’s first lesson that read numbers from the user and computed their average value. We will now modify that code so that it also computes the deviation of each number from the average.

We begin by defining an array numbers that is just large enough to accommodate the numbers we plan to read as data. As we read those numbers, we will save them in the array as well as accumulate their sum. Afterward, we’ll compute and display the deviation of each number from their average.

The program

Run the following program using the five numbers 1.2, 2.3, 3.4, 4.5, and 5.6 as data. Note the loss of precision in the results due to the way a computer represents real numbers.

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A First Look at Java

Arithmetic Expressions

Debugging Interlude—The Errors Programmers Make

Using Classes and Objects

Class Definitions—The Fundamentals

Debugging Interlude—Common Mistakes with Classes

Decisions

Class Definitions—More Details

Multiway Decisions

Debugging Interlude—Avoiding Mistakes; Finding Mistakes

Repetition

Repetition Continued

Debugging Interlude—Debugging Loops

Arrays

An Array-Based Data Structure

Debugging Interlude—Debugging Arrays

Glossary

Appendixes

Copyright

A Problem Solved—Computing Deviations

Problem statement

The program