Best practice for method calling on objects within a collection.

Question

Hi guys
As you may be aware, based on my other thread here. I'm designing a card game in Java. I was hoping for some advice on the best practise on how methods should be called on a custom Object contained within a custom Collection.
I have an instance variable for the Deck class as follows: List<Card> deckWhen creating an instance of the class I use deck = new ArrayList<Card>();So I have a Deck which only holds Card objects. My question is, for the Card methods, should I call them on the Card objects after 'getting' the Cards from the Deck or should I write methods within the Deck class which handles this method calling. Code explanation is as follows:
Deck standardDeck = new Deck();I want to retrieve the suit value of a card within the deck. Is this the best way to do it this way:
standardDeck.getCardAt(50).getSuit();
//getCardAt is a method within the Deck class, getSuit() is a method within the Card classor this way:
standardDeck.getSuitForCardAt(50);
//getSuitForCardAt() is a method within the Deck class. This method calls the getSuit() method within its method body.Cheers for any help guys.
Edited by: Faz_86 on Jul 10, 2010 9:53 AM

Answer 1

Hey Saish
Thanks for the response.
My Card class does indeed override hashCode(), equals() and toString().
The reason I am asking a card from the deck for its Suit is simply because of the rules of the game being played. The game I made is a 'Card Shredding' game where a player attempts to remove as many cards from their hand during each turn. The first to remove all their cards is the winner.
When the game starts, two decks are created. A standard 52 card deck and an empty deck. Then 8 cards are dealt to each player and one card is dealt into the empty deck. The suit and value of the card on the empty deck called the 'shredding deck' dictates which moves are valid during each turn; The played card must match the Suit or the Value of the current card on the 'shredding deck'
For example:
Card on the empty deck = 8 of Spades
The only card from a players hand which can be removed are any Spade or an Eight of any suit.
Going back to the Deck.getSuitOfCardAtIndex(int index) , this method is needed because both the AI player and human player need to have the ability to take a look at the cards which have been added to the 'shredding deck'. Again this is because of the rules of the game. Therefore I need a method to take a look at the Suit and Value for any card in the 'shredding deck'.
Taking all this into account, so far I have the following in my Deck class. Please comment on my design so far. As you can see I've tried to follow the Law Of Demter by creating many little wrapper methods. I understand totally wh getters and setters are bad but I cannot come up with a design solution to achieve what I need to based on the rules of the game without users getters. - Any tips on this would be great.
     public Card dealCard()
          Card cardToDeal = deck.remove(0);
          return cardToDeal;
     public void addCard(Card usedCard) //This method is used to add 'used' cards to the deck.
          deck.add(usedCard);
     public Card getFaceCard() //Returns the current face up playing card
          Card faceCard = deck.get(deck.size()-1);
          return faceCard;
     public int getFaceCardValue()
          int faceCardValue = deck.get(deck.size()-1).getValue();
          return faceCardValue;
     public int getFaceCardSuit()
          int faceCardSuit = deck.get(deck.size()-1).getSuit();
          return faceCardSuit;
     public String getFaceCardName()
          String faceCardName = deck.get(deck.size()-1).toString();
          return faceCardName;
     public Card getCardAt(int position) //Returns the current face up playing card
          Card card = deck.get(position);
          return card;
     public int getFaceCardValueAt(int position)
          int cardValue = deck.get(position).getValue();
          return cardValue;
     public int getFaceCardSuitAt(int position)
          int cardSuit = deck.get(position).getSuit();
          return cardSuit;
     public String getFaceCardNameAt(int position)
          String cardName = deck.get(position).toString();
          return cardName;
     public int getDeckSize() //When recycling cards, the size of the deck is needed to determine the best time to add more cards.
          return deck.size();
     }