[derekvw]

I have the following code to evaluate a 3 of a kind hand in a poker game. I think the if statements are correct, but the evaluation of the card hand is not. Sometimes, I only get essentially sum+=bet...somehow the *2 isn't evaluated. Other times, I get the sum+=(bet*2). I don't really understand how it would be evaluating differently as the code is nearly identical and it always correctly tells me that I've got a three of a kind hand.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

                                        //Three of a Kind (2 pts)
                                        //No Joker
                                        if (one == two && two == three)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }

                                        if (two == three && three == four)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }

                                        if (three == four && four == five)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }
                                        //One Joker
                                        if (one == two && five == 15)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }
                                        if (two == three && five == 15)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }
                                        if (three == four && five == 15)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }
                                        //Two Jokers
                                        if (four == 15 && five == 16)
                                        {
                                            label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
                                            sum += (bet * 2);
                                        }

[tlhIn`toq]

This is horrible on so many levels.

First... label6... Really? Rename your controls as soon as you make them, giving them a meaningful name so anyone knows what they are just by looking at the code not just you because you wrote it. "lblFeedback" or "lblWinOrLost" for example.

Second: Do you really have individual variables for each card in the player's hand: one, two, three? Have you learned about List<>s or arrays yet?

Next... Are you really going to hardcode every possible combination of the hand like that? Just do a loop checking if the first element of the hand array matches all the successive ones if so increment a count, then the second element to the end and so on. Now you have a loop within a loop that dynamically checks for matches no matter how many cards are in the hand: Meaning you will get a result of 2 for a pair, 3 for a thee of a kind, 4 for four of a kind - whether you are dealing 5 card or 7 card variants of poker.

Next... Rule number one: We do not duplicate code. Bad coder, no Doritos. We do not copy/paste like that. What if you decide to change the payout later? You'd have to make a change for every time you pasted that line. Scrubbing through code is a maintenance nightmare. Either raise an event of "winner" that you react to in one place by setting the label and awarding the payout... or set a bool to true and do it one time at the end of the method.

Next... Don't set GUI properties like that: Use properties.

{
   bool winner = false;
   if (IsTwoPair) winner = true;
   if (IsThree) winner = true;
   if (IsFullHouse) winner = true;
   PlayerWins = winner;
}

public bool PlayerWins
{
   set
   {
       lblWinOrLoose = value ? "Winner" : "Looser";
       if (value) Player.Chips += (bet * 2);
   }
}

Sorry to sound so harsh, but this is a good example of trying to code before learning the coding language. Its just going to make you really frustrated and walk away from coding because it feels so hard when it shouldn't. You would do yourself a HUGE favor by working on tutorials and learning C# much better before you tried designing your own programs from scratch. I don't want to see you want away just because you felt this was too hard because your reach exceeded your grasp.

Quote

Where do I start?

You start by learning a coding language FIRST.
Learn to plan before you type.
THEN you start designing software with a purpose.

---

Finding answers to specific problems:

Spoiler

Sometimes just knowing where to look can make all the difference. Google is your friend.
Search with either "C#" or "MSDN" as the first word: "MSDN Picturebox", "C# Custom Events", "MSDN timer" etc.
How to do a good search that will get you targeted answers.

Once you have that MSDN page that describes the function, you may not be familiar with out to actually get useful information from that page. There is a LOT of data there. So what is the important parts? Read this guide to reading the MSDN.

Don't think you are the first person to ask a question. Try a search on this site to see if someone has already brought up this problem. Also, as soon as you post your question go to the bottom of the updated page: You will see where the system has already analyzed your question and tried to find similar threads for the same question, so check those links out.

---

If this sounds like you

Newbie/Rookie said:

I have a little programming experience but I need to write ...

read this section

Spoiler

You need to start there. I can't say "I have little experience in speaking Russian, but I have been assigned to write a mystery novel in Russian. Can you help me?"

We can help you by saying "First learn basic programming and the language of C#. Then take on assignments." Could someone here write this program for you? Sure. Could someone here map out all the processes you need to follow and do the Software Design part of this in the slim hope you could code it from there? Sure. But we don't volunteer to do the job that you're either getting paid for, or getting a grade for. You may want to read this.

For now, just work on the lessons. Do a self-teaching book from cover to cover. Then consider writing a program.

Don't try to create a useful working program to fit a need of yours (or a for-pay contract) as your introduction to coding project. When you are learning to code you don't know enough to code a program, let alone know how to engineer the architecture of a program. It would be like saying "I don't know how to read sheet music, or play an instrument. I think I'll write a 3 act opera as my first learning experience."

I don't say this to be mean. We've seen lots of new coders take this approach and we know it doesn't work. Trying to design your own programs before you understand the basics of the code language you've chosen just leads to problems, frustrations, and 'swiss-cheese' education (lots of holes).

Otherwise, you can just jump to the resources here:
Some of the tutorials below are for C# or Java not C, C++, VB.NET [...]. But the conceptual stuff of classes, object oriented design, events etc. are not language specific and should give you enough guidance in theory of program development for you to be able to look-up specific code example in your chosen coding language.

---

Resources, references and suggestions for new programmers. - Updated Mar 2012

---

Spoiler

Quote

I already have a background in programming from this other software/technology/lanugage so I don't think I need to do tutorials

Here's how I look at doing tutorials even if one has a coding background that makes one think they don't need to do tutorials:

• If one's background really is enough to not need the tutorials, then they won't take long - So what's the harm?
  
• If the tutorials do take a while, then it might be time to re-think how much of one's old experience really applies to the new technology.
  
• There's no down-side. Every tutorial/series teaches something in a new way. Maybe you pick up a neat trick or a different approach to something that you already knew.

The stages of asking for homework help on a forum



But honestly, just typing away and seeing what pops up in Intellisense is going to make your self-education take 20 years. You can learn by trying to reverse engineer the language through banging on the keyboard experimentation - or you can learn by doing the tutorials and following a good "How to learn C#" book. There are so many great "How do I build my first application" tutorials on the web... There are dozens of "Learn C# in 21 days", "My first C# program" type books at your local book seller or even public library.

Beginner:

Java

Spoiler

Best beginner books
Reading and writting a file in Java

C#

Spoiler

C# Reading list by Eric Lipert

C# Fundamentals: Development for absolute beginners (video series)
Build a Program Now! in Visual C# by Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2542-5 is a terrific book that has you build a Windows Forms application, a WPF app, a database application, your own web browser.

Martyr2's mega project ideas list is a great place to start on developmental projectst that you can learn from; rather than trying to make something complex like a game as a self-teaching tool {that never works for anyone}

Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts

D.I.C. C# Resource page Start here
Intro to C# online tutorial then here...
C# control structures then here.
MSDN Beginner Developer video series
MSDN video on OOP principals, making classes, constructors, accessors and method overloading
MSDN Top guideline violations, know what to avoid before you do it.
Design patterns as diagrams

I hate sending people to another site when we have such good tutorials here, but this series shouldn't be overlooked.
Programming OOP in C# - Part 1
Programming OOP in C# - Part 2
Programming OOP in C# - Part 3
Programming OOP in C# - Part 4
Programming OOP in C# - Part 5

Writing a text file is always one of the first things people want to do, in order to store data like high-scores, preferences and so on.
Writing a text file tutorial.
Reading a text file tutorial.
.Split()ing a string

Have you seen the 500+ MSDN Code Samples? They spent a lot of time creating samples and demos. It seems a shame to not use them.

Intermediate:
Microsoft Events (webcasts and podcasts)
The tutorials below walk through making an application including inheritance, custom events and custom controls, object serialization and more.
Quick and easy custom events
Bulding an application - Part 1
Building an application - Part 2
Separating data from GUI - PLUS - serializing the data to XML
WPF version (WPF-MVVM data binding)
Passing values between forms/classes
Decouple your multi-threaded work from the GUI so forms don't hang

Working with environmental variables
'Why do we use delegates?' thread
And everyone always wants to connect to a database, right out of the gate so Database tutorials right here on DIC

C# Cookbooks
Are a great place to get good code, broken down by need, written by coding professionals. You can use the code as-is, but take the time to actually study it. These professionals write in a certain style for a reason developed by years of experience and heartache.

Everyone:
Debugging tutorial
Debugging tips
Debugging in detail
Great debugging tips
It still doesn't work, article

I urge you to work through the C# learning series here on DIC, and to work a self-teaching book from cover to cover before you even think about designing your own applications.
Microsoft Visual Studio Tips, 251 ways to improve your productivity, Microsoft press, ISBN 0-7356-2640-5 Has many, many great, real-world tips that I use all the time.

These are just good every-day references to put in your bookmarks.
MSDN C# Developers Center with tutorials
Welcome to Visual Studio
Free editions of Visual Studio 2010
Student editions of Visual Studio


Windows Presentation Foundation:
Create Animations Programmatically

Some of my common tips (some may apply more than others to your specific style):

• You have to program as if everything breaks, nothing works, the cyberworld is not perfect, the attached hardware is flakey, the network is slow and unreliable, the harddrive is about to fail, every method will return an error and every user will do their best to break your software. Confirm everything. Range check every value. Make no assumptions or presumptions.
  
  
• Take the extra 3 seconds to rename your controls each time you drag them onto a form. The default names of button1, button2... button54 aren't very helpful. If you rename them right away to something like btnOk, btnCancel, btnSend etc. it helps tremendously when you make the methods for them because they are named after the button by the designer.btnSend_Click(object sender, eventargs e) is a lot easier to maintain than button1_click(object sender, eventargs e)
  
  
• You aren't paying for variable names by the byte. So instead of variables names of a, b, c go ahead and use meaningful names like index, timeOut, row, column and so on. You should avoid 'T' for the timer. Amongst other things 'T' is commonly used throughout C# for Type and this will lead to problems. There are naming guidelines you should follow so your code confirms to industry standards. It makes life much easier on everyone around you, including those of us here to help. If you start using the standards from the beginning you don't have to retrain yourself later.
  You might want to look at some of the naming guidelines. Its a lot easier to start with good habits than to break bad habits later and re-learn.
  
  
  • Guidelines for names
    
  • Naming guidelines
    
  • Design guidelines for classes
  
  
  
• Try to avoid having work actually take place in GUI control event handlers. It is better to have the GUI handler call other methods so those methods can be reused and make the code more readible.
  
  Spoiler

  
  

  btnSave(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveMenuItem(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  SaveContextMenu(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      SavePreferences();
  }
  
  FormMain_Closing(object sender, eventargs e)
  {
      if (IsDirty) SavePreferences();
  }
  

  
  
  
• Don't replace lines of code that don't work. Instead comment them out and put your new attemps below that. This will keep you from re-trying the same ideas over and over. Also, when you come back to us saying "I've tried this 100 different ways and still can't get it", we can actually see what you tried. So often a failed attempt is very very close and just needs a little nudge in the right direction. So if we can say "See what you did in attempt 3... blah blah" it helps a lot
  
  
  Spoiler

  // Try #1 - May 1, 0900hrs
  //    code
  //    code  
  //    code
  // Try #2 - May 2, 1700hrs   Okay, plan B.  What if I do it *this* way
  //    code
  //    code  
  //    code
  // Try #14 - May 3, 0500hrs after 5 cans of RedBull.  Maybe I should get some sleep. I can't think of anything else but this last idea
      code
      code  
      code
  
  

  
  If you are using Visual Studio you can select a block of lines and hit control+k control+c (Kode Comment) to comment it out. control+k control+u (Kode Uncomment) to uncomment a selected block.
  
  
  
• I strongly suggest installing VMware or some other virtualization technology on your development PC so you can create a couple virtual computers for testing. This would allow you to debug and test inside: WinXP32, XP64, Vista, Win7x32, Win7x64... etc. without having to actually have 5 physical PC's. Visual Studio will let you send the debug directly into one of these virtual machines so you can watch it operate, check its variables, see the crashes and so on just as if it were debugging on your real machine.
  
  
• This can't be stressed enough in today's world of cell phone messaging:
  Don't use txt/sms/leet/T9 speak like: u no, u r, dnt, wut i m do-n, coz, al gud, b4, ny1, and so on like this guy:
  
  
  Spoiler

  dis not b d'hood dawg... You are sitting at a real keyboard with a real monitor, not a cell phone. You are not here texting your high school posse to come to your kegger after their shift at Taco Bell. You are here asking for help from senior coding professionals who graciously donate their valuable time to helping the next generation of coders with their chosen craft. Please try to show them, yourself and the industry some respect by writing at least at an eighth grade level. (IE: English not ebonics or SMS, real words, punctuation and so on). If you can't take your own problem/question seriously enough to write like an adult, then why would you expect anyone else to take it seriously?
  
  When you write a post you are presenting yourself. Your writing style is all you have to show others who you are and what you stand for. When I see posts filled with lack of capitalization, SMS text like 'Urself', lack of punctuation and so on; what I see is someone who just doesn't care to make even an eighth grade presentation of themselves. I also see that you feel we are not worth the effort. Posts that look like this show that you don't feel the person you are talking to is worth speaking to as an adult. If you show this level of contempt or apathy towards someone you are asking for help how can you expect to be taken seriously or expect to receive that expert's fullest attention and time to help you?

[tlhIn`toq]

derekvw You copy/pasted my entire post for some reason. No other content. ???

Did you have a question?

TIP:
You don't have to quote the entire previous message every time. It just makes the entire thread very, very long. If your comments are directly related to the last post you can just use reply box at the end of the page.

If you are responding to just a small portion of an earlier comment, then use the Quote and Respond button, but edit the portion quoted to just the part you are responding to. It keeps the reading more coherent to the rest of us without bloating the threads.

[derekvw]

Eh. Sorry. I did post something I thought.

I was just saying that I agree with your ideas but as I won't mess with this after it's turned in, I'm not going to redo the whole program at this point in the game. This is my first time working in Visual Studio (and in c#) so I really haven't got the naming conventions down yet. All we worked in in class was just c++ and a command prompt situation. I have learned about arrays, structures, classes, etc...but this is just how I saw it work out in my head. Not the ideal situation, I understand.

I was just curious as to why it sometimes evaluates one way and then other times evaluates a different way. Wouldn't it seem that anything the label put out "Three of a Kind" that it would do sum += (bet*2)? I'm honestly just thinking about putting all the math after the if statement and doing a separate if statement based on whatever label6 is.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Quote

All we worked in in class was just c++ and a command prompt situation.

In .net this is called a Console Application, which is one of the Project Types you can create in VS.

[h4nnib4l]

I really think you should take tlhIn`toq's advice on rewriting your evaluations here. You're missing quite a few of the possible combinations for your three of a kind, so I can only assume you've made similar mistakes while evaluating for the other possible outcomes. For example, you evaluate for one == two && two == three, but what if one == two && two == four? And because you're using a series of plain if statements, you're potentially calling a four of a kind, a three of a kind. What if your first two if statements are both correct? That would mean four of a kind.

The point is, hard-coding should generally be avoided at all costs. Not only does that make the code cleaner, more concise, and easier to read, but it is also more extensible and reusable. This may not be a concern on this project, but it will be throughout your career, and you should learn and practice the way you will need to perform in the future.

EDIT: Grammar and spelling

This post has been edited by h4nnib4l: 01 May 2012 - 06:54 AM

[tlhIn`toq]

Quote

Wouldn't it seem that anything the label put out "Three of a Kind" that it would do sum += (bet*2)?

Yes that's reasonable and correct. I will point out that if you aren't resetting that label's text anywhere then a change from "three of a kind" to "three of a kind" won't be noticed. And if it already says "three of a kind" and there is no match because as points out you are missing permutations then you have nothing to make it say anything else.

But the more important issue here is that you shouldn't be guessing about what is happening. There is no need to in Visual Studio. You can place a breakpoint at the start of the method and execute line by line while watching the variables change value.

PLEASE read this article to see how to do that.
What does this error mean?

[derekvw]

The one, two, three, four, and five are ints out of what I call, a sortArray. The cards are numbered 1>13 (Ace through Kind King) with 15/16 being two jokers. Once the hand is complete, the cards go into the array, are sorted by rank and suite and then put back into the one through five card slots. This way, my only possible combination for 3 of a kinds are what is in the code...or at least that's what I believe. Also, all of the possible card hands are sorted from highest point value to lowest so that way a 4 of a kind would evaluate before a 3 of a kind.

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 01 May 2012 - 08:39 AM

[tlhIn`toq]

derekvw, on 01 May 2012 - 09:32 AM, said:

This way, my only possible combination for 3 of a kinds are what is in the code...or at least that's what I believe.

Just a quick look but these permutations aren't being checked:

1, 3, 4
1, 4, 5
2, 4, 5

There may be others: I didn't study it that hard.

Then you have the problem of the if's not being exclusive, but additive.

Quote

Also, all of the possible card hands are sorted from highest point value to lowest so that way a 4 of a kind would evaluate before a 3 of a kind.

Sorting won't stop this situation 1,2,3,4 all the same: Four of a kind. You'll increase the winnings twice. You need to stop checking after you find a match. break; out of the loop or return; out of the method.

03 if (one == two && two == three)
04 {
05 label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
06 sum += (bet * 2);
07 }
08
09 if (two == three && three == four)
10{
11 label6.Text = "Three of a Kind";
12 sum += (bet * 2);
13 }

The first if at line 3 is true so the sum is increased.
Then the if at line 9 is also true, so the sum is increased again.

Quote

4 of a kind would evaluate before a 3 of a kind.

Are you saying you have another method with all the permutation checks hard coded just like this one? This game must be 2000 lines long. If you have missed permutations in your 4 of a kind check just like you have in this 3 of a kind check then execution would have dropped through to this method, then maybe have the additive results that I just described.

[Momerath]

the numbers are sorted (he said so in his post above yours) so there are no permutations to check. He does do extra checks that he doesn't need to do, but he's covered everything.