/**
 * Returns the indices of searched for headers, e.g. if the file looks like this: (Name Email
 * Phone Age) and we call the method: findIndices("Name", "Age", "Email", "Phone"), if returns
 * [0,3,1,2].
 *
 * Ignores case of letters, i.e. Age and AGE "is" the same.
 *
 * @param input Strings to search for in the header
 * @return int[] with indices for the columns
*/
public int[] findIndices(String... input) throws IllegalArgumentException {
    int[] indices = new int[input.length];
    if (input.length > this.headers.length) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Amount of searched for headers, " + input.length
      + ", exceeded the actual amount of headers: " + this.headers.length);
    }
    boolean found = true; // Assume we will find all headers.
    int k = 0; // Counter variable.
    for (int i = 0; i < this.headers.length; i++) {
        for (String s : input) {
            if (s.equalsIgnoreCase(this.headers[i])) {
                indices[k++] = i;
                found = true;
            } else {
                found = false;
            }
        }
    }
    if (found) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "One or more of input arguments could not be found in the headers.");
    }
    return indices;
}

/**
 * Returns the indices of searched for headers, e.g. if the file looks like this: (Name Email
 * Phone Age) and we call the method: findIndices("Name", "Age", "Email", "Phone"), if returns
 * [0,3,1,2].
 *
 * Ignores case of letters, i.e. Age and AGE "is" the same.
 *
 * @param input Strings to search for in the header
 * @return int[] with indices for the columns
*/
public int[] findIndices(String... input) throws IllegalArgumentException {
    int[] indices = new int[input.length];
    if (input.length > this.headers.length) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Amount of searched for headers, " + input.length
      + ", exceeded the actual amount of headers: " + this.headers.length);
    }
    boolean found = true; // Assume we will find all headers.
    int k = 0; // Counter variable.
    for (int i = 0; i < this.headers.length; i++) {
        for (String s : input) {
            if (s.equalsIgnoreCase(this.headers[i])) {
                indices[k++] = i;
                found = true;
            } else {
                found = false;
            }
        }
    }
    if (!found) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "One or more of input arguments could not be found in the headers.");
    }
    return indices;
}

Edit: Found a bug which did not show up in my unit tests due to a misunderstanding of the JUnit api, found -> !found.

I'm working on a project where I needed to extract the indices for the headers of a CSV file to initialise objects. I thought that I should work on my documentation process and learn how to document code, seeing as I'm always reading about people not documenting code.

/**
 * Returns the indices of searched for headers, e.g. if the file looks like this: (Name Email
 * Phone Age) and we call the method: findIndices("Name", "Age", "Email", "Phone"), if returns
 * [0,3,1,2].
 *
 * Ignores case of letters, i.e. Age and AGE "is" the same.
 *
 * @param input Strings to search for in the header
 * @return int[] with indices for the columns
*/
public int[] findIndices(String... input) throws IllegalArgumentException {
    int[] indices = new int[input.length];
    if (input.length > this.headers.length) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Amount of searched for headers, " + input.length
      + ", exceeded the actual amount of headers: " + this.headers.length);
    }
    boolean found = true; // Assume we will find all headers.
    int k = 0; // Counter variable.
    for (int i = 0; i < this.headers.length; i++) {
        for (String s : input) {
            if (s.equalsIgnoreCase(this.headers[i])) {
                indices[k++] = i;
                found = true;
            } else {
                found = false;
            }
        }
    }
    if (found) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "One or more of input arguments could not be found in the headers.");
    }
    return indices;
}

My own thoughts:

1. The found flag seems poorly handled.
2. This is part of a custom CSV-reader class, with a headers private field. This seems a bit weird to me, this could maybe be static and take a String[] as input as well.
3. Should this actually throw an exception or should it just return a "bad" index? But I'm using an array to represent it. Null, maybe?

Thank you!

I'm working on a project where I needed to extract the indices for the headers of a CSV file to initialise objects. I thought that I should work on my documentation process and learn how to document code, seeing as I'm always reading about people not documenting code.

/**
 * Returns the indices of searched for headers, e.g. if the file looks like this: (Name Email
 * Phone Age) and we call the method: findIndices("Name", "Age", "Email", "Phone"), if returns
 * [0,3,1,2].
 *
 * Ignores case of letters, i.e. Age and AGE "is" the same.
 *
 * @param input Strings to search for in the header
 * @return int[] with indices for the columns
*/
public int[] findIndices(String... input) throws IllegalArgumentException {
    int[] indices = new int[input.length];
    if (input.length > this.headers.length) {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Amount of searched for headers, " + input.length
      + ", exceeded the actual amount of headers: " + this.headers.length);
    }
    boolean found = true; // Assume we will find all headers.
    int k = 0; // Counter variable.
    for (int i = 0; i < this.headers.length; i++) {
        for (String s : input) {
            if (s.equalsIgnoreCase(this.headers[i])) {
                indices[k++] = i;
                found = true;
            } else {
                found = false;
            }
        }
    }
    if (found) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(
            "One or more of input arguments could not be found in the headers.");
    }
    return indices;
}

My own thoughts:

1. The found flag seems poorly handled.
2. This is part of a custom CSV-reader class, with a headers private field. This seems a bit weird to me, this could maybe be static and take a String[] as input as well.
3. Should this actually throw an exception or should it just return a "bad" index? But I'm using an array to represent it. Null, maybe?