Re: How to: referencing variables using the contents of otehr variables.

From:
Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.help
Date:
Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:10:16 -0700
Message-ID:
<WbqdnSdfMYxHZXjUnZ2dnUVZ_qednZ2d@earthlink.com>
Joshua Cranmer wrote:

fguy64s@gmail.com wrote:

OK, my chessboard is represented by an 8x8 char array, call it posn[]
[]. each cell contains one char, which corresponds to FEN notation. an
empty square is '1'. A White King is 'K", a black king is 'k', and so
on.


The best implementation for this would probably be to use an enum:

enum ChessPiece {
  Pawn('P'), Rook('R'), Bishop('B'), Knight('N'), Queen('Q'),
  King('K');

  private char representation;
  ChessPiece(char rep) { representation = rep; }
  public char getNotation() { return representation; }
  public String toString() { return ""+representation; }
}

....

I agree in general with Joshua's advice - I was writing something about
using an enum when I saw his article.

However, I think an individual chessman seems like a natural object.
That would help with tracking history. Whether white pawn x can do an en
passant capture of black pawn y depends not only on the current
locations of x and y, but on how y got to where it is. I would still
have an enum to encapsulate the common behavior of all pieces of the
same type and color, including how they display.

Patricia

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