Creating an instance of an array of objects class in Java

Question

I'm new to Java, and I'm getting an error in my main function when I try to create an instance of a DeckofCards class. The DeckofCards class is supposed to be a private array of "Cards" objects. I think my issue is something in the DeckofCards class, for some reason it's not an array I think? Maybe I created it wrong?

The errors in my main are '(' or '[' expected and array required but DeckofCards found

Here is my main function:

public static void main(String[] args) {

        Card myCard = new Card(13,1);
        System.out.println(myCard.getSuit());
        System.out.println(myCard);
        DeckofCards myDeck = new DeckofCards;  //error here
        for(int i=0; i<53; i++) {
            System.out.println(myDeck[i]); //second error here
        }
    }

Here is my DeckofCards class:

public class DeckofCards {

    private Card[] deck = new Card[52];

    public DeckofCards(){
        int i = 0;

            for(int s = 1; s<5; s++){
                for(int r = 1; r<14; r++){
            deck[i].rank = r;
            deck[i].suit = s;
            i++;

    }
}
    }
}

If anyone can tell me if I'm missing some syntax or something that'd be great! Thank you.

Answer 1

You need to call the constructor:

DeckofCards myDeck = new DeckofCards(); // note parens!

In Java, the parentheses are required.

In the constructor, you will also need to initialize each element of the array to a new Card object:

for(int s = 1; s<5; s++){
    for(int r = 1; r<14; r++){
        deck[i] = new Card();
        deck[i].rank = r;
        deck[i].suit = s;
        i++;

Answer 2

Replace

DeckofCards myDeck = new DeckofCards;

with

DeckofCards myDeck = new DeckofCards();

and myDeck was never initialized to be an array.