How to examine an Array for .Text values

Question

This is for a tic tac toe game where the grid can be sized to any number (3x3 4x4 8x8 etc)

When the form loads, a method reads the grid size and populates the form with that many buttons in a 1 dimensional Button Array. The Array is called buttonArray.

With just using the 1-dimensional buttonArray and without using LINQ, how can i compare the .Text values of buttons in buttonArray to see if they are either "X" or "O" for a CheckWinner() function.

After the button grid is created, I have an event handler for button clicks :

private void button_click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Button b = (Button)sender;
        b.Text = "X";
        b.Enabled = false;
        CheckWinner(buttonArray);
} 

I am then calling my CheckWinner function and passing in the array buttonArray.

Again, I am just looking for a primitive way to check/compare values without using LINQ. If I know the length of each side of the grid, I can say that for Horizontal win lines, I am looking for that many buttons in a row with "X" as their .Text property.

So if I have a grid of 5x5, and I have 25 buttons in buttonArray, how can i check every 5 starting at the 0 index of the grid for their .Text values being "X" and then print a message if 5 in a row are the same, or "X" in this case.

for (int z = 0; z < root; z++) //increments the column to start on
        {
            vCount = 0; //Starts the win counter at zero when moving to the next column
            for (int i = z; i < arrLength; i=i+root) //starts at the first column and increments it by root to test the next button in the column
            {
                string bText = buttonArray[i].Text;
                if (bText == "X")
                    vCount++;
                if (vCount == root)
                {
                    MessageBox.Show("Vertical row winner found !");
                    break;
                }
            }
        }//end of vertical column test

I did the vertical test like that? But I think combining them into one would def be better.

Answer 1

Assuming that you want to check if Button.Text == "X" in every element of a horizontal row. Following is a very basic way...

public void CheckWinner(Buttons[] buttonArray)
{
    int arrLength = buttonArray.Length; 
    int hCount = 0;
    //int vCount = 0;
    int root = (int)Math.Sqrt(Convert.ToDouble(arrLength));  

    for (int i = 0; i < arrLength ; i++)
    { 
        string bText = buttonArray[i].Text;

        hCount = i % root == 0? 0 : hCount;

        if(bText == "X") 
            hCount++;

        if(hCount == root) 
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Horizontal row winner found !");
            break;
        }
    }

}

To check virtical and/or horizontal winner:

public void CheckWinner(Buttons[] buttonArray)
{
    int arrLength = buttonArray.Length; 
    int hCount = 0;
    Int vCount = 0;
    int root = (int)Math.Sqrt(Convert.ToDouble(arrLength));  

    for (int i = 0;  i < root;  i++)
    {
        hCount = 0;
        vCount = 0;
        for(int j = 0;  j < root; j++)
        {
           if(buttonArray[ (i * root) + j ].Text == "X")
              hCount++;

           if(buttonArray[ i + (root * j) ].Text == "X")
              vCount++;
        }

        if( hCount + vCount == 2 * root)
        {
           Console.WriteLine("Horizontal and Virtical winner found !");
           break;
        } 
        else if ( hCount == root )
        { 
           Console.WriteLine("Horizontal winner found !");
           break;
        }
        else if ( vCount == root )
        { 
           Console.WriteLine("Virtical winner found !");
           break;
        }

    }
}