One of the things I like most about Damian Conway's books is his use of clear, resonant, verisimilar code examples. I try to emulate his writing when I answer questions on PerlMonks.

The other day, in a reply to another monk's inquiry, I recommended he add a control break to his program. I decided afterwards to write an example Perl script to demonstrate simple control break processing. Dealing straight poker hands seemed like a good, familiar real-world process to use as the basis of the example.

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use utf8;
use open qw( :encoding(UTF-8) :std );

use List::Util qw( shuffle );

@ARGV == 1 or die "Usage: perl $0 <total rounds>\n";

my $TOTAL_ROUNDS = shift;

my @players = qw( Bob Carol Ted Alice );
my $player_to_dealers_right = $players[-1]; # Alice

my $round = 1;
my %hand_of;
my @deck;
my @cards;

for my $rank (qw( 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A )) {
    for my $suit (qw( ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ )) {
        push @cards, $rank . $suit;
    }
}

ROUND:
while ($round <= $TOTAL_ROUNDS) {
    @deck = shuffle(@cards);

    SHUFFLE:
    while (@deck) {

        PLAYER:
        for my $player (@players) {
            push @{ $hand_of{$player} }, pop @deck;
        }

        if (@{ $hand_of{$player_to_dealers_right} } == 5) {
            print "Round $round\n";

            for my $player (@players) {
                my $hand = join ' ', @{ $hand_of{$player} };
                print "$player has $hand\n";
            }

            print "\n";

            %hand_of = ();

            last ROUND if ++$round > $TOTAL_ROUNDS;
        }
    }
}

__END__
Round 1
Bob has 7♥ 8♠ Q♥ 2♦ 9♥
Carol has 6♦ Q♠ 2♠ A♠ 3♦
Ted has K♥ 10♦ 5♦ 7♠ A♥
Alice has J♠ 10♥ 6♣ 6♥ K♠

Round 2
Bob has A♣ A♦ 9♣ 4♣ 2♥
Carol has 7♣ 4♦ 4♥ 8♥ 8♣
Ted has 6♠ J♣ K♦ 3♣ 9♠
Alice has 9♦ 7♦ Q♦ 8♦ 10♣

Round 3
Bob has 5♠ K♣ 3♠ 7♦ 7♥
Carol has 5♣ Q♣ 2♣ 9♣ Q♦
Ted has 3♥ 4♠ 10♠ J♦ 5♥
Alice has J♦ 5♥ J♥ A♠ 10♠

Round 4
Bob has K♣ J♥ 7♠ 4♠ J♠
Carol has 10♦ 9♦ Q♥ 9♥ 6♥
Ted has 10♣ 4♦ 4♣ 3♣ K♥
Alice has A♣ 5♦ 2♦ 3♦ 8♣

Round 5
Bob has 5♣ 2♣ 6♠ K♦ 2♠
Carol has A♦ 5♠ 6♣ 10♥ 4♥
Ted has 2♥ 9♠ A♥ Q♠ 7♣
Alice has 3♥ Q♣ K♠ 8♦ 8♠

Round 6
Bob has J♣ 2♠ J♥ 9♥ 6♠
Carol has 8♥ 10♣ 9♣ 5♣ 4♦
Ted has 3♠ K♥ K♣ A♦ Q♣
Alice has 6♦ 9♠ 3♥ 8♦ 9♦

Round 7
Bob has Q♥ 8♥ Q♦ 5♥ 3♣
Carol has 6♥ 10♥ 5♦ 7♣ 2♦
Ted has 10♦ 4♠ 4♥ 8♠ 7♦
Alice has J♠ 7♥ J♦ K♦ 2♣

Round 8
Bob has J♣ Q♠ 5♠ A♠ Q♠
Carol has 6♣ 8♣ A♥ A♣ 5♦
Ted has 10♠ 3♦ 3♠ 4♣ 6♥
Alice has 2♥ 6♦ K♠ 7♠ 7♠

Round 9
Bob has 3♥ 9♥ 8♦ 2♦ 7♣
Carol has 10♠ 6♦ 2♣ 4♣ J♠
Ted has 5♣ 4♥ 4♠ 3♠ 3♣
Alice has J♦ 7♦ 2♠ 8♥ Q♣

Round 10
Bob has 7♥ 10♦ J♥ A♣ 8♣
Carol has 9♦ 5♥ K♠ A♥ K♥
Ted has 5♠ 8♠ 4♦ 9♣ 2♥
Alice has A♦ 9♠ 6♠ 3♦ J♣

I don't play poker myself, so I got some of the poker lingo from the Wikipedia Poker article (for example, "round").

It occurred to me only after I had written the script that perhaps a computer program to deal straight poker hands isn't the best, most typical example of control break processing. What do you think?

Jim


In reply to Perl Example of Control Break Processing by Jim

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