Generating a Deck of Cards

Question

I\'m trying to make a simple blackjack program. Sadly, I\'m having problems right off the bat with generating a deck of cards.

#include 
#inc         


        

Answer 1

This might not compile, but here is the approach I would (and have used). You're going to want to use ints to represent your cards, but you can easily abstract this in a class. Which I'll write for you.

class Card
{
public:
    enum ESuit
    {
        kSuit_Heart,
        kSuit_Club,
        kSuit_Diamond,
        kSuit_Spade,
        kSuit_Count
    };

    enum ERank
    {
        kRank_Ace,
        kRank_Two,
        kRank_Three,
        kRank_Four,
        kRank_Five,
        kRank_Six,
        kRank_Seven,
        kRank_Eight,
        kRank_Nine,
        kRank_Ten,
        kRank_Jack,
        kRank_Queen,
        kRank_King,
        kRank_Count
    };

    static int const skNumCards = kSuit_Count * kRank_Count;

    Card( int cardIndex )
    : mSuit( static_cast( cardIndex / kRank_Count ) )
    , mRank( static_cast( cardIndex % kRank_Count ) )
    {}

    ESuit GetSuit() const { return mSuit );
    ERank GetRank() const { return mRank );

private:
    ESuit mSuit;
    ERank mRank;
}

Now its very simple to add to this class to get everything you want out of it. To generate the list its as simple as below.

rstl::vector mCards;
mCards.reserve( Card::skNumCards );

for ( int cardValue = 0; cardValue < Card::skNumCards; ++cardValue )
{
    mCards.push_back( Card( cardValue ) );
}

Do you need to shuffle?

#include 
std::random_shuffle( mCards.begin(), mCards.end() );

How about see what the value of the first card is?

if ( mCards[0].GetSuit() == Card::kRank_Club && mCards[0].GetRank() == Card::kRank_Ace )
{
    std::cout << "ACE OF CLUBS!" << std::endl;
}

I didn't compile any of this, but it should be close.