Simple Blackjack progam help

ria1328 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm having some trouble with this program. We're supposed to create a program with subroutines for Blackjack. The requirements are: Deck (1-10) Random Numbers; Plaver vs. Dealer; Bank (Sufficient Funds); Draw on 16; Stick on 17; 21 Wins; Dealer wins all ties; Calculate Funds available; Play until you want to quit or "Go bust"; Contains one or more subroutines I've never played Blackjack before so I'm more than a little confused. Here's my code:

 #!/usr/bin/perl


srand;

print "How much money are you playing?";
$total = <STDIN>;
print "What is your bet? ";
$bet = <STDIN>;
print "Here's your first card: ";
$draw1 = int &draw; 
print $draw1;
print "\nDealer has ";
$dDraw = int &draw;
print "\n $dDraw";

print "Would you like another card? y/n";
$another = <STDIN>;

if ($another == 'y')    
{
  do{
  $count = 2; 
  print "You're $count card is: \n";
  $draw2 = int &draw;
  print $draw2;
  print "Dealer has ";
  $dDraw = int &draw;
  print "$dDraw ";
  $count ++;
  $total = $draw1 + $draw2;

  print "\nWould you like another card? y/n";
  $another = <STDIN>;
  
  }while ($total>0 && $another == 'y');
}
else {if ($another == 'n')
  { print "$draw1 $draw2 ";}}


sub draw {
  $draw = int rand(10);
}
[download]

First, I'm getting stuck in an infinite loop in the if/dowhile part. I also can't figure out a way to count the cards up for both dealer and player and to calculate funds available. Any help?

Comment on Simple Blackjack progam help Download Code

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Re: Simple Blackjack progam help by moritz (Cardinal) on Oct 13, 2012 at 17:48 UTC
First of all, please start your code with `use strict; use warning;` [download] and declare your variables with my when you use them first. Some others errors I noticed at first glance: When you read in a line with `$variable = <STDIN>`, then the variables has a trailing newline character. Usually you don't need that, so remove it by calling chomp $variable. `if ($another == 'y')` [download] `==` is for comparing numbers, but 'y' isn't a number. Instead use `my $another = <STDIN>; chomp $another; if ($another eq 'y') { ... }` [download] next: `$draw1 = int &draw;` [download] Your `draw` subroutine already calls int, there's no need to do it twice `sub draw { $draw = int rand(10); }` [download] That returns an integer between 0 and 9, not between 1 and 10. Please search a bit for debugging tips & tricks here on perlmonks, there a quite a few that could have caught many of these errors, and probably many other errors that still lurk in your code. Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Simple Blackjack progam help by toolic (Bishop) on Oct 13, 2012 at 17:49 UTC
Tip #1 from the Basic debugging checklist is to add this to your code: `use warnings;` [download] That will show you some warning messages as you run your code. diagnostics will give hints as to how to make those warnings go away.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Simple Blackjack progam help by davies (Monsignor) on Oct 13, 2012 at 21:02 UTC
There are a few points of which to beware. First, I believe (this needs checking & I'm not going to do it today) that in Blackjack, an Ace can count as 1 or 11. Second, the odds of drawing a card of a given value are not the same, either at any time or at all times. That needs explanation in two parts. (A) Of the 52 cards in a pack, there are 16 with a value of 10. (B) After you have drawn one card, the odds change, so that if you have a deck of one pack, the chance of drawing a card with a value of 10 is 16/52. But once you have drawn one, the odds change to 15/51, and so on (if you draw a non-10, the odds change to 16/51 - still different). Finally, I believe that casinos use a deck of six packs, although this may have changed since the days of Strategic Investments (JFGI - you can legally beat the house at Blackjack). However many packs you include in your deck, you might well start with the standard dealing algorithm I demonstrated in Re: Random data generation. and Re: getting random number 8 times never the same, although you will need to amend it to deal cards one by one rather than use the `$length` variable I used in those. Regards, John Davies	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Simple Blackjack progam help by CountZero (Bishop) on Oct 14, 2012 at 14:46 UTC
Don't re-invent the wheel: there is a Games::Blackjack you can use as the basis of your program. CountZero A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James My blog: Imperial Deltronics	[reply]