CPSC 170 Spring 2006
Assign 1 (part A): Playing Cards

Objectives

• Manage the relationships in a program that deals with mutltiple objects.
  
• Design an Object Hierarchy based on a textual Descritption.
• Work with Arrays and ArrayLists.
  

Description

• One deck of 52 cards is used.
• To set up the game, 28 cards are dealt face down into 7  positions - each position contains the number of cards corresponding to its number - Position #1 has one card, Position #2 has 2 cards, etc.   (1+2+3+4+5+6+7 = 28).   Then the top card in each position is then exposed.
  
• The objective of the game is to build a collection of cards grouped by suit and ordered from Ace to King (A-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K).  The score is determined by the sum of the highest card in each suit.
  
• To play:
• To begin, a card is drawn from the top of the remaining cards in the deck and added to a waste pile. 
  
• The top card on the waste pile or any of the seven positions can be removed and added to the scoring collection (provided it is the next one in the sequence).
• A stack of exposed cards can be moved from  position A to position B provided that the bottom-most exposed card in Postion A is an alternate color suit and one less in value than the top-most exposed card in position B.    (for example the 10 Spades could be moved onto a Jack of Diamonds).  Individual cards or subsets of the exposed cards cannot be moved between positions.
• When a stack is moved from a position, the top-most unexposed card in the postion becomes exposed.
• A stack of exposed cards with a King as the bottom-most card can be moved onto a position that is vacant (no exposed or unexposed cards).
  
• The game ends when all cards in the deck have been exhausted and no additional moves can be made.

To Do

• Create a card class.
• Contains private instance data for the suit (0-3) and value (1-13).
• Constants for the suits (HEARTS, DIAMONDS, CLUBS, SPADES)
• Constants for the non-numeric values ( 1= ACE, 11= JACK, 12=QUEEN, 13= KING, -1= JOKER)
• A constructor that takes two integer values (suit, value).   If invalid input is provided, both suit and value should be set to JOKER
• a toString Method that converts the numeric representation to a meaning ful string (i.e.   "JACK of Diamonds")

• Create a deckOfCards class.
• Uses an ArrayList to store a collection of cards.
• A constructor that creates a complete (52), ordered deck of cards.
• A method called shuffle that  reorders the  list.   This may be tricky - hint think about what we did to increaseSize in lab1.
• A toString method  that lists each card in the deck on a separate line.

•  Create a gameOfCards class
• Instantiates a deckofCards.
• Prints the deckofCards.
• Shuffles the deckofCards.
• Prints the deckofCards.

• Notice that the game descibed above can be decomposed into a bunch of "piles of cards".   For example, there is a pile for the Deck, another pile for the Waste and so on.    Further inspection shows that some of these piles are performing similar functions (i.e. there is a pile for 'scoring' the spades and a pile for 'scoring' the hearts), while other piles seem to behave quite differently (i.e.  adding a card to the waste pile follows a different set of rules than adding a card to the scoring pile).   Identify the different "kinds" of piles that make up the game of Klondike (I count 5 kinds -- think about it).    For each pile provide an English (not JAVA) description that :
  
• Explains its role in the game - "These piles store..."
• How many of this kind of  pile is needed?
  
• What does this kind of pile need to be able to do (Broadly)?
• What are the specific interaction rules it needs to obey?

• Create a tar file that contains your three java programs "Assign1Answers.xxx"  and email  it to me by  Wed Feb 1. at Classtime (9:40).