c# Roll Dice simulation to return how many times every side landed

Question

My first post on here! I started learning how to program a couple of days ago and have picked up a rolling dice project. I think I have done the main part of it but my problem comes from:

Printing how many times each side came up (maybe store them in an array)? Bonus: Print out the percentage of times each side appeared (rounded up to 2 decimals)

Keep in mind the times and sides are user input so could be e.g. 50 times x 35 sides.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

namespace Dice_roll
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            static int getRandomNumber(int min, int max)
            {
                Random randomRoll = new Random();
                lock (randomRoll)
                {
                    return randomRoll.Next(min, max);
                }
            }

            int sides, rollTimes, i;
            i = 0;
            bool boolCheckSides = false;
            bool boolCheckRolls = false;
            Console.WriteLine("Welcome to a little dice rolling program.\n Select how many sides you want the dice to have: \n");
            do
            {
                boolCheckSides = Int32.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out sides);
                if (boolCheckSides == false)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Invalid number.. \n");
                }
            } while (boolCheckSides == false);

            Console.WriteLine("Now select how many times you want it to roll: \n");
            do
            {
                boolCheckRolls = Int32.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out rollTimes);
                if (boolCheckRolls == false)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Invalid number.. \n");
                }
            } while (boolCheckRolls == false);

            do
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Rolling... " + getRandomNumber(1, sides));
                i = i + 1;
                System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500);
            } while (i < rollTimes);



            int[] arr = new int[rollTimes];
        }
    }
}

I'm sorry if my code is messy or something, I'm still very beginner.

Answer 1

Well, I assume that your code is not complete yet, so I will just share some opinions of mine.

1- You are adding a method getRandomNumber inside your main function. This method won't compile and should be moved outside the scope of main function. The scope of main function is any code between the curly brackets "{}" shown in the code below

static void main(string[] args){}

just a small side note, try to use Uppercase letters for naming methods in C#, except the main function as that's a naming convention ;-)

2- You did a great job in declaring the variables you need (boolCheckSides, boolCheckRolls, i) before you start assigning them values. However, you also need to declare the Array before using it not after, so your code should look something like this

//Declare the Array
int[] arr = new int[rollTimes];

do
{
    int temp = getRandomNumber(1, sides);
    Console.WriteLine("Rolling... " + temp);
    //Save the value acquired from this roll in the array
    arr[i] = temp;
    i = i + 1;
    System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(500);
} while (i < rollTimes);

Then you can easily play around with the array and find the frequency of any number. I would suggest you refer to this post Count the frequency of element of an array in C# if you want to find the short answer, and refer to this post Frequency of Numbers in a 1D Array for the long answer. Just please note that the second post is using C++ language, but it is still showing the same logic though.

3- Just a small advise, please try to avoid "do...while" loops as much as possible. It needs a lot of attention when you write them as they can easily get you into infinite loop.