working with arrays

[cremo]

i'm trying to develop this very rudimentary dice game in java that gives the player five values (out of 6 from a dice) at random and then do scoring based on what values their dice have.

i'm using standard poker hands like pair/three of a kind/two pair/full house (pair and a three of a kind)/ double (two pairs) / four of a kind / five of a kind / straight (1,2,3,4,5/2,3,4,5,6).

i'm having problems trying to figure out algorithms for these except for five of a kind as that was easy.

if(face_values[0] == face_values[1] && face_values[1] == face_values[2] && face_values[2] == face_values[3] &&
			face_values[3] == face_values[4]){
		  	System.out.println("FIVE OF A KIND!!!!!");
}

for the others i was thinking of sorting the array first by using sort(face_values); then trying to figure out if there's a score there.

what i want to know is when i sort the array using the sort method does it actually move the values around.

ie if i have an array like this

a[0] a[1] a[2] a[3] a[4]
  3    4    6    2    4

will sort make it like this?

a[0] a[1] a[2] a[3] a[4]
  2    3    4    4    6

what would be the best way to check for these combinations?

 

[cremo]

sorry the first code example i posted was checking for five of a kind, just noticed now, and have edit the original post.

i have this method for doing a straight.

public void straight(){
		face_values();
		java.util.Arrays.sort(face_value);
		for(int i=0 ; i < face_value.length ; i++){
			if(face_value[i] < face_value[i+1])
				System.out.println("STRAIGHT");

		}

	}

face_values() is a method that inserts the values into the array that i'm working with as the die values are contained in another class.

i'm getting a ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException though when i call the straight method.


for the other you're suggesting i...
1. set up an array of 7 elements and initialise it to zero.
2. count the occurences
3. use a method called numberOfOccurences()

i'm not fully sure how that numberOfOccurences() works what's the parameter in relation to and why do you check that it's == to one?