Question

I’m going through a book on Java and I’ve been understanding most of it so far. However, I’ve run across some code that I can’t seem to figure out. This is from a simple Blackjack game:

public class CardDeckTest {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        CardDeck deck = new CardDeck();
        System.out.println("Deck Listing:");
        deck.list();
        Card card = deck.deal();
        System.out.println("Dealt " + card);
        card = deck.deal();
        System.out.println("Dealt " + card);
        System.out.println("Top index: " + deck.getTopIndex());
        deck.reset();
        System.out.println("Reset deck... Top index: " + deck.getTopIndex());
        card = deck.deal();
        System.out.println("Dealt " + card);
        System.out.println("The last card is " + deck.getCard(deck.getNumCards() - 1));
    }
}

The confusing line to me is Card card = deck.deal(); So far I’ve seen lines similar to the second one, with a “new” in it. What is this line doing? Why isn’t there a “new” there.

I believe it’s referring to this in CardDeck

public Card deal() {
        Card dealt = cards[top];
        top ++;
        if (top >= cards.length) reset();
        return dealt;
    }

Thank you!

Answer 1

It is invoking the deal method on a specific instance of CardDeck, and returning an instance of Card, which is being stored in the local variable card. Does that help?