Beginner needs help!

[Lee M.]

I have a homework assignment due tonight;

I need to write a program in C++ with the following:

Hangman Game

It has to have 2 parallel arrays, One named Word, which will store the word entered by a user.

The second array will be called Guesses, will store a corisponding dash (-) for each letter in the word.

with each correct guess the (Hyphen) will be replaced by the letter.

Both the Guess and the word array will need to be 6 element Character arrays.

Now I fumbled my way through the simple array project, and this is my last problem, and I really need help. The book isn't really clear. I just want to finish the class and move on, it was required. I have no plans on writing in C++, I am O.K. with VB.


Help! I really need to get it done, and I have NO CLUE!

Well, I don't think people on here would do your assignment for you, but we'd be glad to help where ever you are having trouble. What are you stuck on right now?

[Lee M.]

I wasn't looking for that. I am confused on the parallel array and how to even begin writing it

char cWord[5];  // 6 elements including 0
char cUnderscores[5];

cWord = "Myword";
cUnderscores = "_____";

[Lee M.]

Never mind.
I know how to initialize the array.
I needed some insights on how the parallel arrays work.

I will look elsewhere.

[Lee M.]

Megatron,
First off let me say I didn't mean to sound like a dick.

After the quake scrambled my hard drive, let's just say I was in poor spirits.

I got the assignment done, and still have no clue how I did it.

Things here in Seattle have been a little hectic lately.

I hope you were not offended, (for too long).
Lee

[HarryW]

You need to declare the char array with a size equal to the number of characters you want in your string, plus 1 for the end of string character ('\0'). You also can't just assign string literals to char arrays (a string literal like "Myword" in your code is basically a pointer to that string in the .exe), you need to use the strcpy() function to copy them over.

char cWord[7];  // 6 elements plus the '\0'
char cUnderscores[7];

strcpy(cWord, "Myword");
strcpy(cUnderscores, "_____");

I think the idea with the parallel arrays is that when a user guesses a letter, you can loop through your arrays and check in the cWord[] array whether that letter occurs. If it does then you set the equivalent letter in the cUnderscores array to the letter it's supposed to be. You can use a loop to do that for all the letters in the arrays. If the character wasn't found then it was a bad guess and you need to do something like decrement the number of lives they have left.

Using the parallel arrays is quite a good idea, it's not hard to use that to do all your game logic.

[Lee M.]

Thanks Guys!