Printing the minuend and subtrahend in a Minimum Difference algorithm I have a Minimum Difference algorithm, and I wanted to expand on it by printing the actual elements that were subtracted. I'm just wanting to know if this is the best way to do it.

public static int findMinimumDifference(int[] arr) {

    int minuend = 0; //initialize them here
    int subtrahend = 0; 
    Arrays.sort(arr); //sort the array first

    int difference = 0; 

    if (arr.length == 1) { 
        difference = arr[0]; 
    }
    if (arr.length &gt; 1) { 
        difference = Math.abs(arr[0] - arr[1]); //This will give only positive integers for difference - e.g. 6 - 7 = -1 = 1

        for (int i = 0; i &lt;= arr.length; i++) {
            if (i + 1 &lt; arr.length) { //as long as we're not at the end yet
                int temp = Math.abs(arr[i] - arr[i + 1]); // temp variable is assigned to difference of consecutive elements i and i + 1
                if (temp &lt; difference) // if temp is the new minimum difference, assign difference to temp
                    difference = temp; 
                if(arr[i + 1] - arr[i] == difference) { 
                    minuend = arr[i + 1]; //Here's where I assign them
                    subtrahend = arr[i]; 
                }
            }
        }
    }
    if(arr.length == 1) { //If there's only one element it will 
                          //display arr[0] - 0 = arr[0]
                          //e.g. 12 - 0 = 12
        System.out.print(arr[0] + " - " + minuend + " = ");
    }
    else { //otherwise, show the subtraction
        System.out.print(minuend + " - " + subtrahend + " = ");
    }
    return difference;
    }
}


This is the output for two arrays as an example:




int[] array1 = {5, 16, 3, 32, 6};
int[] array2 = {13, 22, 37, 40, 11, 99, 100, 222, 1000, 101, 9999, 10000};

The minimum differences in the arrays are: 
6 - 5 = 1
10000 - 9999 = 1



NOTE: I understand that second array actually has another subset (99, 100) that will equal 1. I just haven't figured out how to display both sets yet. I will work on that later.
Sorting

Arrays.sort(int[]) performs an in-array sorting, which may not be desirable if the caller of your method isn't expecting so. You may want to make a copy of the input via Arrays.copyOf(int[]) first.

Calculation

int temp = Math.abs(arr[i] - arr[i + 1]);
if (temp &lt; difference) /* ... */


Since you have sorted the array in ascending order, you have two possible approaches:


Leave temp as negative so that you're looking for the largest negative number, e.g. -1 to find the smallest difference.
Use arr[i + 1] - arr[i] so that the comparison afterwards can remain the same.


Using Math.abs() is therefore unnecessary.

Initializing values and array references

You treat arr.length = 1 differently from a multi-valued array when it comes to printing the value, but with some adjustment to how you initialize minuend and difference, you don't have to do so, e.g.:

int minuend = arr[0];
int difference = Integer.MAX;


In addition, consider storing just the difference and the array index where you have the smallest difference, so that you don't need to remember subtrahend.