Yeah you make a good point. I've thought about calling a new element marker like so:

int i = 0;
    	DataRecord s = new DataRecord(f, l, id);
    	data[i] = s;
    	fNamel.insertFirst(f,i);
        lNamel.insertFirst(l,i);
        Idl.insertFirst(id,i);
        
        data[nElems]=//this is where im not quite sure how to implement the newly entered fName, lName, and Id into the first element of data[]?
        nElems++;

I think the method itself is working close to right but my variables are off. I'm not quite sure how to incorporate the new info into data[] on each call to add()? nElems is initialized outside of the add() method to 0.

I figured i loop over the whole array, catch the minimum, and then get rid of it twice leaving third minimum the new absolute minimum.

That didn't change anything

Thank you guys. Okay I keep getting closer and closer but for some reason i just cant finish. I have gotten to this point and it sometimes gives me the third smallest and sometimes it doesn't?

function min3() 

		{

			inputString  = document.form1.text1.value;

			var stringArray = inputString.split(',');

			for(var i=0; i<stringArray.length; i++)

			{

			    var min1 = Math.min.apply(Math, stringArray);	

				for(var j=1; j<3; j++)

				var index = stringArray.indexOf(String(min1));

				stringArray.splice(index, 1);	

			}

		        document.form1.text2.value = "Min3 = " + min1;

		}

Thank you for your reply. I have gotten to this point now and my loop doesn't seem to be deleting the min number 3 times? I know its probably a little sloppy my intent with the loop is to cycle through array 2 times. Each time I define the min number and delete it leaving stringArray[0] the third minimum number. Somethings going wrong here i'm just not sure what?

function min1() 

		{

			inputString  = document.form1.text1.value;

			var stringArray = inputString.split(',');

			for(var i=0; i<stringArray.length; i++)

			var min1 = Math.min.apply(Math, stringArray);	

			//var count = 0;

			for(var j=0; j<3; j++)

			{ 

				var index = stringArray.indexOf(min1);

				stringArray.splice(index, 1);

				//count ++;

			}

		         document.form1.text2.value = "Min3 = " + stringArray[0];

		}