What is wrong with this code? (A bigass loop)

[amesjustin]

hey!
this is the prototype of the WinCheck function of my TicTacToe game. The labels (0-8) are the 9 squares you play on.

Function WeHaveAWinner() As Boolean
    WeHaveAWinner = False
    Dim strWinningCombo(7) As String
    Do
        strWinningCombo(0) = lblMove(0).Caption And lblMove(1).Caption And lblMove(2).Caption
        strWinningCombo(1) = lblMove(3).Caption And lblMove(4).Caption And lblMove(5).Caption
        strWinningCombo(2) = lblMove(6).Caption And lblMove(7).Caption And lblMove(8).Caption
        strWinningCombo(3) = lblMove(0).Caption And lblMove(3).Caption And lblMove(6).Caption
        strWinningCombo(4) = lblMove(1).Caption And lblMove(4).Caption And lblMove(7).Caption
        strWinningCombo(5) = lblMove(2).Caption And lblMove(5).Caption And lblMove(8).Caption
        strWinningCombo(6) = lblMove(0).Caption And lblMove(4).Caption And lblMove(8).Caption
        strWinningCombo(7) = lblMove(2).Caption And lblMove(4).Caption And lblMove(6).Caption
        If strWinningCombo() Is "XXX" Then
            WeHaveAWinner = True
            If strComputer = "X" Then
                Call ComputerWin
                Exit Function
            End If
            If strHuman = "X" Then
                Call HumanWin
                Exit Function
            End If
        Else:
            If strWinningCombo() = "OOO" Then
                WeHaveAWinner = True
                If strComputer = "O" Then
                    Call ComputerWin
                    Exit Function
                End If
                If strHuman = "O" Then
                    Call HumanWin
                    Exit Function
                End If
            End If
        End If
    Loop Until (WeHaveAWinner = True) Or (Boardfull = True)
End Function

When it gets to the [If strWinningCombo() Is "XXX" Then] line it gets a "Type Mismatch" error on the "XXX".
I have tried at least 809 different configurations of this loop and this is the one error I cannot seem to figure out.
please help.

[kedaman]

I thought i answered this at least once.

And operator is a boolean logic operator, could also be used for bitwise comparation for numerical values, but never with strings. There's only one operator for strings and it's & used to conjunct them.

Is opertor is used to compare objects or comparations in select cases, not strings, use = instead. It's definitely not used to compare each default property of a control array with a string. You should have a loop here instead.

: after else is unnessesary, it acts as an extra line feed in code.

X=True is the same thing as X, remember this axiom.

The loop wont break until you have a winner, and that never happens since you exit the function in that case.

I recommend you declare the winner as boolean for human true and computer false:
winner=strHuman=strWinningCombo(i)
where i is the loop counter for the control array.
wehaveawinner=strwinningcombo(i)="XXX" or strwinningcombo(i)="000"

now i don't recommend strings for these jobs, but youre a newbe and it's forgivable. you should though get more used to the available datatypes though, arrays, loops and function calls should also be on your list.

[HarryW]

Umm... I don't really see what you're trying to do with that captions stuff... and I don't see how strWinningCombo() could have a string value, when it's just an array name without an index. I think you want to loop through each winning combo to check, if the line is a winner or not. The loop also doesn't seem to end until the game ends, but I think the function is just meant to check if anyone has won yet.

Since you seem to be kind of lost in this, I'm going to suggest some architecture for this game, okay? First off, I'm going to repeat that I suggest you seperate the interface from the implementation - don't start checking values of labels against each other, just use them to show what's going on. You should keep track of what's actually going on in a data structure within your code. Make displaying the current status a seperate part of the game.

Store your tic-tac-toe grid in a 3x3 array, and create a seperate 3x8 array to be the lookup array.

Okay here's some pseudocode (more or less):

global stuff:
declare an array called Grid(1 To 3, 1 To 3) to hold one character in each element
declare a type called Coord2D:
     Type Coord2D
          Dim X As Integer
          Dim Y As Integer
     End Type

declare an array called Lookup(1 To 3, 1 To 8) to be of type Coord2D:
     Dim Lookup(1 To 3, 1 To 8) As Coord2D


game initialisation:
set up each element in Lookup to hold the coordinates of a corresponding element in Grid.  The coordinates should be like this:
     (1, 1)   (1, 2)   (1, 3)
     (2, 1)   (2, 2)   (2, 3)
     (3, 1)   (3, 2)   (3, 3)
     (1, 1)   (2, 1)   (3, 1)
     (1, 2)   (2, 2)   (3, 2)
     (1, 3)   (2, 3)   (3, 3)
     (1, 1)   (2, 2)   (3, 3)
     (3, 1)   (2, 2)   (1, 3)

main game:
Do while the game is not over
     DoEvents
     if it's the player's turn then
          nothing to do yet
     else
          'must be computer's turn
          choose computer's move
          update the display to represent the grid with latest move
          if someone has won then game is over
          end turn by giving player the next turn
     end if
Loop

That's a pretty basic layout for your game. It doesn't include player's input because you can use the event-driven nature of VB to deal with that for you (that's why DoEvents is in there, to check for new events)

The standard layout of a game is initialisation, then a main loop, then shutdown. I didn't include any shutdown stuff because I don't know what you want to do when the game has been won or drawn.

For your win-checking code I would suggest something like this:

Dim squares(1 To 3) As String*1

For i = 1 To 8
     For j = 1 To 3
          squares(j) = Grid(Lookup(j, i).X, Lookup(j, i).Y)
     Next j
     If squares(1) = squares(2) And _
                    squares(2) = squares(3) And _
                    Trim(squares(1)) <> "" Then
          'The game is won
     End If
Next i

It's far cleaner than all that stuff with label captions.