while loop for a game in C? - c

Question

I have a word guessing game which I needs to repeat until the user types Q:. Generally, the answer is in a format A: answer. The game's using sockets!
Instead of while(1), I tried using while(buffer[0]!='Q') but that does not seem to work.
How do I keep making the client play the game?
Additionally, I also need to tell the user how many games he passed correctly?
while (1)
{
FD_ZERO(&readfds);
FD_SET(server_fd, &readfds);
int max_fd = server_fd;
for (int i = 0; i < NUMCLIENT; i++)
{
file_descriptor = client_sockets[i];
if (file_descriptor > 0)
{
FD_SET(file_descriptor, &readfds);
}
if (file_descriptor > max_fd)
{
max_fd = file_descriptor;
}
}
int return_value = select(max_fd + 1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, NULL);
if (return_value == -1)
{
printf("Select Error\n");
}
if (FD_ISSET(server_fd, &readfds))
{
if ((new_socket = accept(server_fd, (struct sockaddr *) &address,
(socklen_t*) &addrlen)) < 0)
{
perror("accept");
}
send(new_socket, greetings[0], strlen(greetings[0]), 0);
send(new_socket, greetings[1], strlen(greetings[1]), 0);
for (int i = 0; i < NUMCLIENT; i++)
{
if (client_sockets[i] == 0)
{
my_fortune(i);
client_sockets[i] = new_socket;
send(new_socket, client_challenges->question, strlen(client_challenges->question), 0);
break;
}
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < NUMCLIENT; i++)
{
file_descriptor = client_sockets[i];
if (file_descriptor == 0)
{
continue;
}
if (FD_ISSET(file_descriptor, &readfds))
{
memset(buffer, 0, 1024);
valread = read(file_descriptor, buffer, 1024);
if (valread == 0)
{
close(file_descriptor);
client_sockets[i] = 0;
continue;
}
printf("%s\n", buffer);
if (buffer[0] == 'A')
{
if (strlen(client_challenges->answer) == (strlen(buffer) - 4))
{
char store[100];
for (int i = 1; i <= strlen(client_challenges->answer); i++)
{
store[i - 1] = buffer[2 + i];
}
store[strcspn(store, "\r\n")] = 0;
if (strcmp(store, client_challenges->answer) == 0)
{
send(file_descriptor, correct, strlen(correct), 0);
//printf("O: Congratulation - challenge passed!\n");
}
else
{
send(file_descriptor, wrong, strlen(wrong), 0);
send(file_descriptor, client_challenges->answer, strlen(client_challenges->answer), 0);
}
//printf("Wrong guess - expected: %s",client_challenges->answer);}
}
else
{
send(file_descriptor, wrong, strlen(wrong), 0);
send(file_descriptor, client_challenges->answer, strlen(client_challenges->answer), 0);
}
//{printf("Wrong guess - expected: %s",client_challenges->answer);}
}
else if (buffer[0] == 'Q')
{
send(file_descriptor, ending, strlen(ending), 0);
exit(1);
}
else
{
send(file_descriptor, error, strlen(error), 0);
exit(1);
}
}
}
}

Answer 1

If there will only be 1 client, you can simply do
// Actual function to start the game
int play() {
int run = 1;
while (run) {
// run the game
// if game over,
run = 0;
}
return 0; // indicate the game ends gracefully
}
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
int run = 1;
int playAgain = 0;
while (run) {
if (play()) {
// Error: the game ends ungracefully
}
// Prompt for play again
if (!playAgain) {
run = 0;
}
}
// Bye
}
The reason is that the variable run is used to control the game flow. If the user quits or something went wrong, you can set run to 0 and the game will stop running.
If there are going to be multiple clients, you might want to have a look at pthread. Every time you receive a new connection, you can create a new thread with pthread_create and set the play function as start_routine and the fd as the argument. For example, you can try
int MAX_CLIENT = 5;
struct pthread_args {
int fd;
};
void* play(void* arg) {
struct pthread_args* args = (struct pthread_args*)arg;
int fd = args->fd;
// Start the game
}
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
pthread_t pth[MAX_CLIENT];
struct pthread_args pth_args;
int new_fd;
int i = 0;
while(1) { // The server continuously receive connections
// Accept connections
new_fd = accept(/*...*/)
if (new_fd < 0) {
// Error: accepting new connection
}
pth_args.fd = new_fd;
int r = pthread_create(&pth[i], NULL, play, &pth_args);
if (!r) {
// Error: creating thread
}
++i;
}
}
PS: You may want to have a look at pthread_detach as well.
Instead of while(1), I tried using while(buffer[0]!='Q') but that does not seem to work.
The reason while(buffer[0] == 'Q') doesn't work is because by the time the while check for the condition, the buffer (assuming it was declared outside of the while loop) might not be the same buffer anymore because you are looping over all clients and save the buffers from clients to the same buffer variable. So if there are 2 clients and the first client says 'Q' and the second client says 'A', the while sees buffer[0] as 'A' instead of 'Q' and hence continuing the game.
Also, I don't think exit(1) in else if (buffer[0] == 'Q') is a good idea. It kills the server and all clients will be forced to quit the game. Just remove the particular client from the client_sockets array.
:) Hope it helps