Java code for selecting and comparing cards (without Arraylist)

Question

I see a lot of questions similar to this one but they are answered with code that I haven't learned yet. I am supposed to be able to do this task without an arraylist so that is providing a challenge for me. I need to play a game of war: create a card class, create a deck and then randomly generate the first card, "remove" the card from the deck and produce a 2nd card in order to see which card won, continue this comparison until the deck is exhausted. Here is what I have so far:

public class Card
{
private int cardValue; 
private String cardSuit;
private String stringValue;
static final String[] SUIT = {"Clubs", "Diamonds", "Hearts", "Spades"}; 
static final String[] VALUE =  {"Ace","Two", "Three", "Four", "Five", "Six", "Seven", "Eight", "Nine", "Ten", "Jack", "Queen", "King"}; 


/**
*CONSTRUCTOR for Card class
*contains the arrays for both suit and values
**/
public Card (int cardS, int cardV)
{

    cardSuit = SUIT[cardS]; 
    stringValue = VALUE[cardV];
}

/**
*Get method for card suit, access the value of cardSuit
**/
public String getCardSuit()
{
        return cardSuit;
}

/**
*get method for card's VALUES
**/
public String getValue()
{
    return stringValue;
}
//in order to display string value of cards
public String toString() 
{ 
    return String.format("%s of %s", stringValue, cardSuit); 
} 

}

public class Deck
    {
    private final int HIGH_SUIT=3;
    private final int HIGH_VALUE=12;

    int i = 0; 
    int cardCount;              

    Card[] fullDeck = new Card[52]; 
    public Deck()
    {

        for(int s = 0; s <= HIGH_SUIT; s++)
        {
            //for loop to determine the suit
            for (int v = 0; v <= HIGH_VALUE; v++)
            {
                //construct all 52 cards and print them out 
                fullDeck[i] = new Card(s, v);
                cardCount = (i + 1);
                i++;//increment the card counter

            }
        }   
    }

}

public class War3

{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    int i=0;
    Deck[] fullDeck = new Deck[52]; //set up the deck
    //create a random value for the first card
    int r = ((int) (Math.random() * 100) % 51);//create random number

    Card[] playerCard = new Card[r];//create the player's card

    System.out.println("The card is: " + playerCard.toString());


    }

As you can see, I didn't get very far with War 3 because I don't know how to display the first card. When run it displays this:The card is: [LCard;@4a5ab2random#1 How do I display the first card in the array? I need help figuring out how to assign the first card and the 2nd card, display them both then compare them. I've got a long way to go so one step at a time.

Answer 1

The easiest thing to do would be to implement a toString method in your Card class.

public String toString() {
    return String.format("%s of %s", stringValue, cardSuit);
}

While you are at it, move the two arrays (suit and value) out of the constructor, make them static final, and rename to all-upper case:

static final String[] SUIT = {"Clubs", "Diamonds", "Hearts", "Spades"};
static final String[] VALUE = {"Ace","Two", "Three", "Four", "Five", "Six", "Seven",
                "Eight", "Nine", "Ten", "Jack", "Queen", "King"};

Also the selection of the card should not be done like you do:

Card[] playerCard = new Card[r];//create the player's card

creates an array of r cards, and assigns it to playerCard. This is incorrect: you have already created all your cards in the Deck, it's a matter of taking a random one from it:

public Card takeRandomCard() {
    int r;
    do {
        r = (int)(Math.random() * 52);
    } while (taken[r]);
    taken[r] = true;
    return fullDeck[r];
}

Note the little addition here: taken is an array of 52 boolean objects indicating that the card has been taken from the deck.

Here is your code with my modifications from above working at ideone.