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I am trying to create a Blackjack game and am having an issue when it comes to splitting the hands. Ultimately I want to create an associative array that has a total and a status for each split, treating each one as it's own hand object. One of the issues I'm having is with the naming functionality which I am trying to do dynamically so each time the Split Function is called, it creates the name according to the number of times the hand has been split.

A bit of background on what I have created so far; A card object holds the name, suit and value (ie. Queen, Clubs, 10). I have an array called cardsInDeck that hold all the card objects in a deck which is shuffled so each card can be pulled randomly. When a card is pulled from the deck, the value is pushed into an array for calculating the value, and the name and suit are concatenated and added to a string to populate the HTML to show the cards on the page.

function drawOne() {
    let card = cardsInDeck.pop();
    return card;
}

var handNumber = 0;
var playerHand01 = [];
var p1, p2, d1;

function initialDealOut() {
    ++handNumber;
    p1 = drawOne();
    playerHand01.push(p1.value);
    ++playerCount;
    let p1n = p1.name + p1.suit;
    let p1c = "images/" + p1n + ".png";
    let p1Image = document.getElementById('player01');
    p1Image.src = p1c;
}

This is repeated for the dealers first card (d1) and the Player's second card (p2) and works well and good. What I would like to do is have the playerHand01 be part of a Hand object that is in a Player array that holds all the hands, and associate a status ("action", "stand", "bust") to each Hand object.

I am trying to accomplish this with something like the code below:

var player = new Array();

function Hand(total, status) {
  this.total = total;
  this.status = status;
}

function Split() {
  ++handNumber;
  let handName = "playerHand0" + handNumber;
  let handTotal = "playerHandTotal0" + handNumber;
  handName = new Hand {
      handTotal: 0,
      status: "action"
    }
}

I am new to programming and I know it can be done, just know that the way I am approaching it isn't quite right.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

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3 Answers 3

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1

I would probably just use an array to store the hands. They'll be accessible by their index. If you want to give them a name, that could be part of the hand object.

let playerHands = [];
function Split() {
   ++handNumber;
   let newHand = new Hand ({
     handName: 'playerHand' + handNumber
     handTotal: 0, 
     status: 'action'
   });
   playerHands.push(newHand);
}

Alternatively, if you want to use an object (perhaps because i've misunderstood your requirements), it is possible to give an object a property dynamically. There are two different syntaxes that can be used for object properties. Both of the following have the same result:

let myObject = {};
myObject.test = 'hi';

and

let myObject = {};
myObject['test'] = 'hi';

You'll usually use the former, but if you don't know the name until runtime, the latter gives you increased flexibility, because you can access using any string. So for example, the following is perfectly valid:

let player = {};
let handName = 'playerHand0' + handnumber;
player[handName] = new Hand();
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2 Comments

The array to store the hands is the idea...player = new Array(); but my thought was that I needed to have a number of Hand Objects in that array to be able to store multiple values...ie, handName, handTotal, handStatus. I think your first suggestion will work best for what I am trying to do. Thank you for your response!
So when I create the newHand and assign the handName: handTotal: and status, when I log it out it returns: name:{name: "playerHand01", total: Array(0), status: "action"} status: undefined total:undefined proto:Object
0

This is a little confusing to read and I don't think you've fully thought through what information you need to store.

Since the focus of this question is really how to split a hand IMO, I will show you that in hopes that it will point you in the right direction.

First the hand object. I will use es6, but you can do something similar using the constructor method that you have there.

class Hand {
  constructor(total, status){
    this.total = total;
    this.status = action;
    this.cards = [];
  }

  drawCard(){
    this.addCard(drawOne());
  }

  addCard(card){
    this.cards.push(card);
    this.updateScore();
  }

  updateScore(){
     // loop through and update the score and status
  }

  // this is the one you've been waiting for
  split(player){
    // can only split in certain conditions
    if(this.cards.length !== 2 || this.cards[0] !== this.cards[1]){
      console.log('cannot split this (?)');
      return null;
    }

    // create the new hand
    let additionalHand = new Hand(0, 'active');
    additionalHand.addCard(this.cards.pop());
    player.hands.push(additionalHand);

    // need to draw a new card for each hand
    this.drawCard();
    additionalHand.drawCard()

    //return the new hand in case you want to do something with that.
    return additionalHand;
  }
}

This may not be exactly what you want, but it should be a good initial guide to help.

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I would suggest classes for each of the concepts (Player, Card, Deck, Hand, Game), and at the Game level you would keep an array of active hands, which (after a split), could have a different number than the number of players.

Here is how it could look:

class Card {
    constructor(name, suit, value) {
        this.name = name+'';
        this.suit = suit;
        this.value = typeof name === 'number' ? name 
            : 10 + (name === 'Ace');
    }
}

class Player {
    constructor(name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
}

class Hand {
    constructor(player, total, status) {
        this.player = player; // a back reference to the owning player
        this.total = total;
        this.status = status;
    }
    addCard(card) {
        this.total += card.value;
    }
    copy() {
        return new Hand(this.player, this.total, this.status);
    }
}

class Deck {
    constructor() {
        this.cards = [];
        for (let suit of ['Clubs', 'Hearts', 'Spades', 'Diamonds']) {
            for (let name of ['Ace',2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,'Jack','Queen','King']) {
                this.cards.push(new Card(name, suit));
            }
        }
    }
    shuffle() {
        for (let i = this.cards.length; i; i--) {
            let j = Math.floor(Math.random() * i);
            [this.cards[i - 1], this.cards[j]] = [this.cards[j], this.cards[i - 1]];
        }
        return this;
    }
    drawOne() {
        return this.cards.pop();
    }
}

class Game {
    constructor() {
        this.players = [];
        this.activeHands = [];
        this.currentHandId = 0;
        this.deck = new Deck().shuffle();
    }
    addPlayer(player) {
        this.players.push(player);
        // Create a hand for this player:
        this.activeHands.push(new Hand(player, 0, "active"));
    }
    deal() {
        // Draw card and assign to current hand
        this.activeHands[this.currentHandId].addCard(this.deck.drawOne());
    }
    nextHand() {
        this.currentHandId = (this.currentHandId + 1) % this.activeHands.length;
    }
    split() {
        // Insert the new, copied hand just after the current one:
        this.activeHands.splice(this.currentHandId+1, 0, 
            this.activeHands[this.currentHandId].copy());
    }
    bust() {
        // remove hand from active hands:
        this.activeHands[this.currentHandId].status = "busted";
        this.activeHands.splice(this.currentHandId, 1);
    }
}

// Start a game
var game = new Game();
game.addPlayer(new Player('Helen'));
game.addPlayer(new Player('John'));

// Deal a card to the first active hand
game.deal();
game.nextHand(); // move to second player
game.deal();
// ...etc.
// When you need to split the current hand
game.split();
// Then deal a card to both hands:
game.deal();
game.nextHand(); // move to second hand of same player
game.deal();
// ..etc.

You would of course need to add more game logic and rules. But this could be a template to extend to your needs.

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1 Comment

That is an amazing response...although this is a far stretch from what I have working already. This is completely new way of approaching the problem and I will come back to revisit this at another time. Thank you for your input!

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