In ICS 212: Program Structure, a course I took in Spring 2024, we were tasked with designing a card deck simulator that mimics the functionality of a real deck of cards. The program starts by creating a full 52-card deck, assigning each card a rank (like Ace or King), a suit (like Hearts or Spades), and a color (red or black). The deck is stored using an array of structs and can be shuffled randomly using the rand() function seeded by the system clock.
Cards are stored using the following structure:
struct card {
char *rank;
char suit[MAX];
char color[MAX];
};
typedef struct card Card;
The deck is initialized using three predefined arrays: ranks, suits, and colors. Cards are created in a loop:
deck[i].rank = ranks[i % MAX_RANKS];
strncpy(deck[i].suit, suits[i / MAX_RANKS], MAX);
strncpy(deck[i].color, colors[i / MAX_RANKS], MAX);
This approach uses modulo and division to assign appropriate ranks and suits to all 52 cards while also associating the right color with each suit.
To simulate a real-world shuffle, the program uses a pseudo-random number generator seeded with time(NULL):
srand(time(NULL));
for (i = 0; i < MAX_CARDS; i++) {
swapper = rand() % MAX_CARDS;
temp = deck[i];
deck[i] = deck[swapper];
deck[swapper] = temp;
}
This Fisher-Yates-like algorithm ensures that the cards are randomly reordered. The user is then prompted whether they want to shuffle again.
Cards are printed in groups of three using the following format:
printf("%5s of %-12s (%s)\n", deck[i].rank, deck[i].suit, deck[i].color);
This output includes the card’s rank, suit, and color, and every three cards are followed by a newline for better readability.
The main program structure:
Card deck[MAX_CARDS];
initialize(deck);
display(deck);
while ('\n' == newline) {
shuffle(deck);
display(deck);
newline = getchar();
}
This loop allows the user to shuffle the deck repeatedly, reinforcing understanding of loops, conditionals, input handling, and function calls.
This project strengthened my ability to use C structures, pointers, arrays, and standard libraries like stdlib.h and time.h. I learned how to organize related data into a meaningful structure, work with arrays of structures, and incorporate randomness for realistic simulations. With occasional guidance from Professor Wright’s course materials, I was able to design, test, and debug the code independently. The process boosted my confidence in C/C++ programming and helped me think more clearly about program state and logic.