Thread: Problems with objects and enum

Hello

After some advice from a few more experienced members on this board I decided to scrap my poor attempt at a chess engine and start over , this time using OOP.
I am currently having an issue with using enum variables and objects.
Please excuse my ignorance before hand , I come from a background of embedded programming.

Basically I have a class ChessGame for the game itself , a class ChessPiece and a class for each of the types of Pieces (king , queen , bishop etc) which extends ChessPiece.
First of all , why do the individual pieces classes extend ChessPiece? Because I use an enum type for the color and rank of the piece and I doesn't allow me to declare it in each class separately.

Now , when I start the interface , I create a new instance of the ChessGame. In that instance of the ChessGame I want to create an instances of all the pieces on the board meaning 2 kings , 2 queens , 16 pawns etc .

Can someone tell me why this is giving me an error? The line where I make an instance of a king.
I've tried making an instance of the king from the class , constructor , main and anywhere else I could think of but it's giving me an error saying that the enum types ( WHITE , RANK )
- Cannot find symbol : variable WHITE .
Why is it not working? The King class extends the ChessPiece class where the enum types are declared.

public class ChessGame  {
 
    King kingWhite = new King(WHITE , KING , 0 , 4  );
 
     private int chosenSquareXCoordinate; 
     private int chosenSquareYCoordinate;
 
     //...........................................

The constructor in the King class:

 public King(Shade color, Rank rank, int piecePositionX , int PiecePositionY) 
    {
 
       super();
       isAlive = true; // Whether the piece is still on the board
       this.color = color; // Color of the piece
       this.rank = rank;  // Type of piece
       this.piecePositionX = piecePositionX;
       this.piecePositionY = piecePositionY;
 
    }

and the Chesspiece Class where the enum is declared:

 
enum Shade
{
    WHITE , BLACK
}
 
enum Rank
{
   PAWN , ROOK , KNIGHT , BISHOP , QUEEN , KING , BLANK
}
 
public class ChessPiece {
 
    Shade color; // color of the piece
    Rank rank;  // Type of piece 
 
 
 
    public ChessPiece()
 
     {
 
 
     }
 
// ....................

Is it Shade.WHITE? But I'm not sure what that gets you yet. Keep us posted on your progress. Sounds like a more interesting approach than your last one.

Excellent question OP!

You need to fully qualify the 'Shade' and 'Rank'.

// It cannot find WHITE because it isn't local to ChessGame
King kingWhite = new King(WHITE , KING , 0 , 4  );
 
// Fix
King kingWhite = new King(ChessPiece.Color.WHITE , ChessPiece.Rank.KING , 0 , 4  );

Greg Thanks alot for the Fix!

kingWhite = new King( Shade.WHITE , Rank.KING , 0 , 4  );

Seems to be correct .
The reason I am assigning a parameter Rank and Color to each piece is so the game knows what rules to apply to the moves.
But i'm thinking of changing those parameters to Strings because I don't know how to work with enum so well.




Christopherlowe:

King kingWhite = new King(ChessPiece.Color.WHITE , ChessPiece.Rank.KING , 0 , 4 );

Gives me a red point : Cannot find symbol : color .
Could you explain in abit more detail what it means to "fully qualify" the KING?

- Considering that the individual piece classes ( King , Queen etc..) extend ChessPiece , I don't need to create an object of ChessPiece to use the individual classes do I?
I'm guessing not .

Thanks for your answers so far .

--- Update ---

I have another question :

The way my engine works is that I have a String array

     private String[][] ChessBoard = {                    // Piece array
 
 
        {"r","k","b","q","a","b","k","r"},
        {"p","p","p","p","p","p","p","p"},
        {" "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "},
        {" "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "},
        {" "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "},
        {" "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "},
        {"P","P","P","P","P","P","P","P"},
        {"R","K","B","Q","A","B","K","R"}
 
    };

Which holds the initial and current position of the pieces and everytime I make a move then the values in the array are changed accordingly .
My question is , instead of the array being a String array and having functions which decipher what piece by what letter is currently in the space , could
I make an array of Instances of each piece, and use null where there are no pieces?

If this would be possible then I would have to have an array of a certain type right ? I assume I can't make an array of type ChessPiece and insert instances of
the individual piece classes into it..
Or perhaps if I declared my piece instances something like :

   ChessPiece KING = new King([parameters here]);
 
or maybe
 
     King KING = new ChessPiece([parameters here]);

I am aware that this is called polymorphism but I'm not exactly sure what it is or what It will do in this case

You're welcome. I don't use enums much myself and was a bit uncertain in my answer, but I verified later - especially after seeing Christopher's answer.

As for using Strings rather than the path you're currently on, I don't know which would be better. Stick with what you're doing, because I don't think your design is firm yet. You're in the early stages of defining the design, and there will be plenty of times to make adjustments. Think it through a few times (many), write a little code, see how what you're thinking all fits together, then adjust.

I'm wondering what will be the purpose for the ChessBoard array. Isn't this going to be a graphical program? I think the chessboard (an object) should have 8 x 8 or 64 locations (cells, whatever you call them) referenced by row/column which themselves indicate which piece is on them, if any.

Yes it's a graphical project.
I already have the graphics done and they seem to be working fine.
The clicks on the squares adress the array in ChessGame class to see what is currently on the position of the square clicked , and then the mouse release also adresses the same array to see where the piece
is supposed to be moved. After those two functions are performed, a repaint() is executed and the graphical board updates.

The purpose of the Chessboard array is for the graphic mouse click coordination and calculating the allowed moves of each piece.
It seems reasonable to me ... so far.
Thanks for your input , I only have 2 weeks to finish this so I'll be asking more questions pretty soon