Trouble with find_min

Question

I'm trying to implement a bubble sort in the find_min function in pset3 runoff. But It looks like it is not returning the correct min. I think it is because candidates[0].votes may not be the lowest eliminated candidate but I'm not sure how to specify further. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

int find_min(void)
{
    for (int n = 0; n < candidate_count; n++) 
    {
            for (int d = 0; d < candidate_count - 1; d++) 
            {
                if (candidates[d].votes > candidates[d + 1].votes)
                {
                    int x = candidates[d].votes;
                    candidates[d].votes = candidates[d + 1].votes;
                    candidates[d + 1].votes =  x;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    int min = candidates[0].votes;
    return min;
}

Answer 1

First, there's no guarantee that candidates[0] isn't eliminated. You'd have to go through the candidates array and find the first one that isn't eliminated.

Also, you're messing up the candidates array because you're switching the vote totals, but not the names, so once this function is run, you have no idea how many votes a candidate has. Your code might pass check50 because of how that program works, but your code won't actually work right.

But most importantly, you don't have to sort. You just have to find the minimum. So what you can do is go through the candidates array one element at a time, and check if that candidate has fewer votes than the current minimum number of votes, and if they're not eliminated. If so, that's your new minimum while you go through the rest of the array. This is O(n), while your bubble sort is O(n^2)..