title: Sort three letters alphabetically
body: <p>Currently, I am a student beginning to learn java. I am not familiar with arrays or any complex methods. My teacher wants us to do it this way to understand the logic involved, so I can't use a built-in sort function. Sometimes my code works. For example, when I input "iea", it prints "aei", which is correct. However, sometimes when I enter inputs like "abc", for example, it just prints "c" as the middle value. Help? I'm a noob.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import java.util.*;
  public class SortThreeLetters {
  
    public static void main(String[]args){
      Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
      char largest = ' '; 
      char middle = ' ';
      char min = ' ';
      String word;
      System.out.println("Enter three lower case letters: ");
      word = sc.nextLine();
  
      char letter1 = word.charAt(0);
      char letter2 = word.charAt(1);
      char letter3 = word.charAt(2);
  
      if ( letter1 &gt; letter2 &amp;&amp; letter1 &gt; letter3 ){
        largest = letter1;
  
        if(letter2 &gt; letter3){
          middle = letter2;
          min=letter3;
        }
        else if (letter3&gt;letter2){
          middle = letter3;
          min=letter2;
        }
      }
  
  
      else if ( letter2 &gt; letter1 &amp;&amp; letter2 &gt; letter3 ){
        largest = letter2;
  
        if(letter3&gt;letter1){
          letter3=middle;
          letter1=min;
        }
        else if (letter1&gt;letter3){
          letter1 = middle;
          letter3 = min;
        }
      }
  
      else if ( letter3 &gt; letter1 &amp;&amp; letter3 &gt; letter2 ){
        largest = letter3;
  
        if(letter2&gt;letter1){
          letter2 = middle;
          letter1 = min;
  
        }
        else if (letter1&gt;letter2){
          letter1 = middle;
          letter2 = min;
  
        }
      }
      System.out.println(min+""+middle+""+largest);
  
  
  
    }
  
  
  }
  </code></pre>