Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

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Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X

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Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X

first previous next

last

Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X O

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last

Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X O X

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last

Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X O X

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last

Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X O X

X X O

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Two dimensional arrays

Imagine the game tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses

O X O
X wins!

X X X O

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Two dimensional arrays

How could we represent the board in a C++ program? Given what we know so far about arrays O
top row 0 middle row 0 bottom row 0 1 2
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X X X X O O

char toprow[3]; char middlerow[3]; char bottomrow[3];

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Two dimensional arrays

But it would be much better if we could indicate that all 9 boxes are part of the same entity each of the three rows is exactly the same: an array of 3 chars
row1 0 row2 0 row3 0 1 2
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Two dimensional arrays

arrays are used to group items of the same type could we use an array to group together the rows? YES
row 0 row 1 row 2 0 1 2 0 board 1 2 0 1 2

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Two dimensional arrays

so now board[0] will describe the entire first row board[1] will describe the entire second row board[3] will describe the entire third row
0 board 1 2

board[0] contains an array of char board[1] contains an array of char board[2] contains an array of char

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Declaring 2D arrays

an array of arrays like the board is called a twodimensional (or 2D) array we can declare such a structure in C++
const int MAXROW = 3 const int MAXCOL = 3 char board[MAXROW][MAXCOL]

0 board 1 2 0 1 2

and assign values into any of the locations by specifying 0 the row and column
board[2][1] = X;

board

1 2 0 X 1 2
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Declaring 2D arrays

an array of arrays like the board is called a twodimensional (or 2D) array we can declare such a structure in C++
const int MAXROW = 3 const int MAXCOL = 3 char board[MAXROW][MAXCOL]

0 board 1 2 0 1 2

and assign values into any of the locations by specifying 0 the row and column
board[2][1] = X; board[1][1] = O;

board

1 2 0

O X 1 2
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first previous next

Declaring 2D arrays

an array of arrays like the board is called a twodimensional (or 2D) array we can declare such a structure in C++
const int MAXROW = 3 const int MAXCOL = 3 char board[MAXROW][MAXCOL]

0 board 1 2 0 1 2

and assign values into any of the locations by specifying X 0 the row and column
board[2][1] = X; board[1][1] = O; board[0][2] = X;

board

1 2 0

O X 1 2
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Processing 2D arrays

what if we want to display the state of the board during the course of the game?

output the values in each column of row 0 output the values in each column of row 1 output the values in each column of row2

we use nested for loops

for (int row = 0; row < MAXROW; row++) for (int column = 0; column < MAXCOL; column++) cout << [ << row << ][ << column << ] << board[row][column] << endl;

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Processing 2D arrays

so for the 3 moves we saw earlier we would see

[0][0] [0][1] [0][2] X [1][0] [1][1] O [1][2] [2][0] [2][1] X [2][2]

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2D output

but we really want it to look like the board

for arrays of more than 1 dimension we have to specify the number of elements in the other dimensions

void display_board(char any_board[][MAXCOL], int rowsize, int colsize) { for (int row = 0; row < rowsize; row++) { cout << row; for (int col = 0; col < colsize; col++) cout << "\t" << any_board[row][col]; cout << endl; } for (int col = 0; col < colsize; col++) cout << "\t" << col; cout << endl; }
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2D output

sample output 0 1 2 X X 0 O O 1

X 2

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tic-tac-toe

high level algorithm

int main() { // declare variables set first player initialise the board (provide board and dimensions) display the board (provide board and dimensions) do { get player row and column until an empty position is chosen update the board display the board swap player } while the game is not over }
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tic-tac-toe
int main() { char board[MAXROW][MAXCOL]; int row, column; char player; player = X; initialise_board(board, MAXROW, MAXCOL); display_board(board, MAXROW, MAXCOL); do { do { // get row and column } while (board[row][column] != ); board[row][column] = player; display_board(board, MAXROW, MAXCOL); if (player == X) player = O; else player = X; } while (!game_over(board, MAXROW, MAXCOL)); } first previous next last 21

tic-tac-toe
void initialise_board(char any_board[][MAXCOL], int rowsize, int colsize) { for (int row = 0; row < rowsize; row++) for (int col = 0; col < colsize; col++) any_board[row][col] = ' '; }

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tic-tac-toe

how to determine if the game has finished?

any row contains all X any row contains all O any column contains all X any column contains all O all positions are full (there are no empty squares) we will ignore diagonals for now

have a go at writing a function

bool game_over(char any_board[][MAXCOL], int rowsize, int colsize);

full tic-tac-toe on the web site

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More on strings

what if we wanted to store the names of students in the class?

const int SIZE = 30; char char char .. .. char name1[SIZE]; name2[SIZE]; name3[SIZE]; name155[SIZE];

so why not group the names together into an array?

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More on strings

so lets have an array of strings ie an array, where each element is an array of char ie a 2D array of char
const int STRINGSIZE = 10; const int NUMNAMES = 5; char names[NUMNAMES][STRINGSIZE];
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More on strings

so we have
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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More on strings

so then

const int STRINGSIZE = 10; const int NUMNAMES = 5; char names[NUMNAMES][STRINGSIZE]; for (int i = 0; i < NUMNAMES; i++) { cout << Enter name : ; cin.getline(names[i], STRINGSIZE); }

Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter

name name name name name

: : : : :

S Jones Jo Blow Bill Roy Ken Smith Cathy Ng

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More on strings

so then
0 1 2 3 4 S J B K C 0 o i e a 1 J l n t 2 o B l h 3 n l e s \0 ? ? ? ? ? o w \0 R o i

y \0 t

S m y 4 5

h \0 ? 9
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N g \0 6 7 8

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More on strings

so then
for (int i = 0; i < NUMNAMES; i++) cout << names[i] << endl;

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More on strings

so then
for (int i = 0; i < NUMNAMES; i++) cout << names[i] << endl;

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