Best way to represent game card class in C#

Question

I use class Card which contains 2 enumerated properties (suite - hearts diamonds spades and clubs) and card value from 2 to A. And overrides ToString() method to returns som

Answer 1

There's an obvious numeric value for the pip-cards, and we can add J=11, Q=12, K=13.

It may be more convenient to have A=14 than A=1 depending on the game being modelled (so one can more simply compute different relative values of hands).

Enums gives no real advantage, especially since enums allow out-of-range values unless you explicitly check for them (e.g. there is nothing to stop someone assigning (CardValue)54 to the card-value enumeration value).

ToString can be aided with an array of the values {null,"1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","10","J","Q","K"}. Likewise {'♥','♦','♠','♣'} could give a nicer output.

Parsing always trickier than outputting a string, even if you are very strict in what you accept, as you have to deal with the potential for invalid input. A simple approach would be:

private Card(string input)
{
  if(input == null)
    throw new ArgumentNullException();
  if(input.length < 2 || input.length > 3)
    throw new ArgumentException();
  switch(input[input.Length - 1])
  {
    case 'H': case 'h': case '♥':
      _suit = Suit.Hearts;
      break;
    case 'D': case 'd': case '♦':
      _suit = Suit.Diamonds;
      break;
    case 'S': case 's': case '♠':
      _suit = Suit.Spades;
      break;
    case 'C': case 'c': case '♣':
      _suit = Suit.Clubs;
      break;
    default:
      throw new ArgumentException();
  }
  switch(input[0])
  {
    case "J": case "j":
      _cardValue = 11;
      break;
    case "Q": case "q":
      _cardValue = 12;
      break;
    case "K": case "k":
      _cardValue = 13;
      break;
    case "A": case "a":
      _cardValue = 1;
      break;
    default:
      if(!int.TryParse(input.substring(0, input.Length - 1), out _cardValue) || _cardValue < 2 || _cardVaue > 10)
        throw new ArgumentException;
      break;
  }
}
public static Card Parse(string cardString)
{
  return new Card(cardString);
}

You might want to add a static method that read a larger string, yield returning cards as it parsed, to allow for easier encoding of several cards.