Question

I am trying to build a blackjack game. I have created a deck, now I want to display it.

I know I’m doing something wrong because I cannot access displayStack within CardStack class. Also, I have a feeling that I’m not doing inheritance correctly. How could I fix this?

Here is my code:

public class CreateCardDeck {
    int deckSize = 52;
    CardStack cardStack = new CardStack(deckSize);

    public void CreateDeck() {
        String[] suit = {"clubs", "diamonds", "hearts", "spades"};
        int[] rank = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13};

        for (int i = 0; i < rank.length; i ++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < suit.length; j++) {
                cardStack.push(suit[j], rank[i]);
            }
        }
    }
}

Card class:

class Card {
    String suit;
    int rank;

    Card(String suit, int rank) {
        this.suit = suit;
        this.rank = rank;
    }

    public String getSuit() {
        return suit;
    }

    public String getRank() {
        String nameTheRank;
        if (rank == 1)
            nameTheRank = "Ace";
        else if (rank == 11)
            nameTheRank = "Jack";
        else if (rank == 12)
            nameTheRank = "Queen";
        else if (rank == 13)
            nameTheRank = "King";
        else
            nameTheRank = String.valueOf(rank);
        return nameTheRank;
    }
}

CardStack class:

class CardStack {
    public void displayDeck() {
        for (int i = 0; i < stackArray.length; i ++)
            System.out.println(stackArray[i]);
    }
}

The Main Class:

public class MainClass {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        CreateCardDeck c = new CreateCardDeck();
        c.CreateDeck();
        // How to display my deck?
    }
}

Answer 1

I would redesign your types to start with. CreateCardDeck sounds like it should really be a static method called createDeck within a CardDeck or possibly just Card type. It also sounds like the knowledge of suits and number shouldn’t really be part of that method. Cards are often used as a demonstration of enums in Java – one enum for the values (ace to king) and one for the suits.

Think about what it really means to have an instance of CreateCardDeck – does that really make sense to you? It feels more like a verb (a method) than a noun (a type).

Now you could have a CardDeckFactory or something similar – but then I wouldn’t expect the deck to be part of the state of the object; it would just be returned by a method.