Hello,
I've been trying to solve this for ages (3 days) now and I just cannot figure it out. I will try to explain the problem comprehensively because it is a bit more complex.
My school assignement is to create a simple text game using OOP in C# Visual Studio 2008 (should be built on a library the teacher provided for us). It should only use console. I have a decent experience with OOP from PHP and C++ but I still cannot figure this out.
80% of the text game is already working so I won't bore you with classes and stuff that already works and is not related to the problem. Ok let's get started:
Each command in the game (what you can type into the console and hit enter) is represented by a single class both extending an abstract class and an interface from the library I am supposed to built the game on. Bellow is a class Use which represents a command for using items (e.g. you type "use sword" into the console and the game will look for an item called sword and call its use method):
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
namespace Game.Commands
{
class Use : TextGame.Commands.ACommand, TextGame.Commands.ICommand
{
private string name;
public new string Name
{
set { this.name = value; }
get { return this.name; }
}
private string description;
public new string Description
{
set { this.description = value; }
get { return this.description; }
}
private string parameters;
public new string Params
{
set { this.parameters = value; }
get { return this.parameters; }
}
public Use(string name, string description) : base(name, description)
{
this.name = name;
this.description = description;
}
private TextGame.Core.GameState gameState;
public TextGame.Core.GameState Execute(TextGame.Core.IGame game)
{
// This is just a test because it appears the problem is
// with the parameters property. There should be a command
// you have typed in the console but its always null
// Note that I have not yet coded the body of this method.
// I will do that once I solve the problem.
if (this.parameters == null)
{
Console.WriteLine("is null");
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine(this.parameters);
}
return this.gameState;
}
}
}
There are two other classes that are used. The Parser class and the Game class. There are a bit longer so I will only post snippets of relevant stuff from them. Parser class:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections; // ArrayList, Dictionary, Hashtable
using System.Text.RegularExpressions; // regex engine
using Game.Commands;
namespace Game
{
class Parser
{
private ArrayList commands = new ArrayList();
// All commands that are available in the game so far are
// initialized here in the constructor (and added to the arraylist)...
// skip to the other method this is not important
public Parser()
{
this.commands.Add(new North("^north", "Go north"));
this.commands.Add(new South("^south", "Go south"));
this.commands.Add(new East("^east", "Go east"));
this.commands.Add(new West("^west", "Go west"));
this.commands.Add(new Use("^use\\s\\w+", "Try to use the selected item"));
this.commands.Add(new Quit("^quit", "Quit the game"));
}
// This method takes as an argument a string representing
// a command you type in the console. It then searches the arraylist
// via the regex. If the command exists, it returns an the command object
// from the arraylist
// This works fine and returns right objects (tested)
public TextGame.Commands.ACommand GetCommand(string command)
{
TextGame.Commands.ACommand ret = null;
foreach (TextGame.Commands.ACommand c in this.commands)
{
Regex exp = new Regex(@c.Name, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
MatchCollection MatchList = exp.Matches(command);
if (MatchList.Count > 0)
{
ret = c;
}
}
return ret;
}
}
}
Now a snippet from the Game class where I'm using both above classes:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using TextGame.Core;
using System.Collections;
using Game.Items;
using Game.Commands;
namespace Game
{
class Game : TextGame.Core.IGame
{
public void Play()
{
// Here I read commands from the console in a loop and
// call the ProcessCommand() method. No problem here.
while (true)
{
string command = Console.ReadLine();
this.ProcessCommand(command);
}
}
// This is the IMPORTANT method so take a closer look
private TextGame.Core.GameState gameState;
public TextGame.Core.GameState ProcessCommand(string command)
{
Parser parser = new Parser();
TextGame.Commands.ACommand c = parser.GetCommand(command);
if (c != null)
{
// HERE I ADD THE COMMAND FROM THE CONSOLE TO THE C OBJECT
// I ADD IT VIA THE SETTER TO THE PARAMETERS PROPERTY
// OF THE COMMAND
c.Params = command;
// AND I CALL THE COMMAND'S EXECUTE() METHOD - SEE THE FIRST CLASS -
// USE - WHERE I TEST FOR THE PARAMS PROPERTY BUT IT IS STILL NULL
this.gameState = ((TextGame.Commands.ICommand)c).Execute(this);
}
}
}
}
I have added comments to the snippets to describe where is the problem. I hope I have explained it well.
Anyone has any ideas? I've been working on this projects for about 3 weeks now and most of the stuff went smoothly when 3 days ago I came across this problem and since then I've been trying to get my head around this problem.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards, Richard