C: Comparing two elements not producing correct results? - c

Question

My code is below, most of which may not be helpful, but maybe the problem lies outside of where I think it is. That being said, please read the following first because it gives the rundown of my code and states where I think the problem lies.
I'm trying to create a Battleship game in C. I first create two two-dimensional arrays, one representing the player's board and one representing the enemy's board. I fill both of them with periods. I print them out with numbers along the sides to make things look nice (using my initialPrintBoards function). I then set the locations of the enemy's ships by replacing some of the periods in the enemy's array with 's' and print it out to make sure they are where I want them to be. They are, which is great. I then have the player "fire" at the enemy's ship. This is done by replacing 's' in the enemy's array with 'x' (which represents a hit) or replacing '.' with 'o' (which represents a miss). I print this out, and everything works well.
Now, here's where I hit a problem. Up to this point, for the sake of testing, the enemy's ships have been completely visible to the player via my print method. I don't want that. So, what I figured I'd do is create a new print function (called printBoards) that does exactly what my previous print function does except it prints '.' on the board when it encounters 's' as an element in the enemy's array. My initial thought in accomplishing this was to use comparisons. Basically, if the element stored in the enemy's array at location whatever is 's', print '.', otherwise print out what's stored at that location in the array (which would be '.', 'x', or 'o'). Unfortunately, all it does is print all periods, even if there's an 'x' or 'o' stored at that location in the array. I'm at a loss as to why this is. I'm quite new to C (I've studied Java in the past), so maybe there's something about comparisons in C that I don't know about. But that's assuming the problem is with the comparisons, which it might not be.
Any help or hints would be greatly appreciated.
#include <stdio.h>
char playerBoard[8][8];
char enemyBoard[8][8];
void fillBoards()
{
int a;
for (a = 0; a < 8; a++)
{
int b;
for (b = 0; b < 8; b++)
{
enemyBoard[a][b] = '.';
}
}
int x;
for (x = 0; x < 8; x++)
{
int y;
for (y = 0; y < 8; y++)
{
playerBoard[x][y] = '.';
}
}
}
void initialPrintBoards()//This is used before the enemy's ships are set.
{
printf("Enemy Board\n*12345678\n");
int a;
for (a = 0; a < 8; a++)
{
printf("%d", a + 1);
int b;
for (b = 0; b < 8; b++)
{
printf("%c", enemyBoard[a][b]);
}
printf("\n");
}
printf("\n");
printf("Player Board\n*12345678\n");
int x;
for (x = 0; x < 8; x++)
{
printf("%d", x + 1);
int y;
for (y = 0; y < 8; y++)
{
printf("%c", playerBoard[x][y]);
}
printf("\n");
}
printf("\n");
}
void printGreeting()
{
printf("\nWelcome to Battleship!\n\n");
}
void setEnemyShips()
{
// Ship 1.
enemyBoard[3][2] = 's';
enemyBoard[4][2] = 's';
enemyBoard[5][2] = 's';
// Ship 2.
enemyBoard[1][1] = 's';
enemyBoard[1][2] = 's';
enemyBoard[1][3] = 's';
// Ship 3.
enemyBoard[6][5] = 's';
enemyBoard[6][6] = 's';
enemyBoard[6][7] = 's';
}
void playerFire()
{
if (enemyBoard[2][2] == 's')
{
enemyBoard[2][2] = 'x';
}
else
{
enemyBoard[2][2] = 'o';
}
}
void printBoards()//This is used after the enemy's ships are set.
{
printf("Enemy Board\n*12345678\n");
int a;
for (a = 0; a < 8; a++)
{
printf("%d", a + 1);
int b;
for (b = 0; b < 8; b++)
{
if (enemyBoard[1][0] == 's')
{
printf("%c", '.');
}
else
{
printf("%c", enemyBoard[1][0]);
}
}
printf("\n");
}
printf("\n");
printf("Player Board\n*12345678\n");
int x;
for (x = 0; x < 8; x++)
{
printf("%d", x + 1);
int y;
for (y = 0; y < 8; y++)
{
printf("%c", playerBoard[x][y]);
}
printf("\n");
}
printf("\n");
}
int main()
{
fillBoards();
printGreeting();
initialPrintBoards(); //This will print the boards before the enemy's ships are set.
setEnemyShips();
initialPrintBoards(); //This will end up printing the enemy ships' locations. Need a different print method.
playerFire();
initialPrintBoards(); //This prints to see if a hit or miss is properly printed.
printBoards(); //This prints to see if the ships are hidden and a hit or miss is properly printed.
return 0;
}

Answer 1

regarding this code, found in the printBoards() function:
if (enemyBoard[1][0] == 's')
{
printf("%c", '.');
}
else
{
printf("%c", enemyBoard[1][0]);
}
This always looks at the second row, first column to determine what is printed. As you saw, that is an error.
Suggest:
if (enemyBoard[a][b] == 's')
{
printf("%c", '.');
}
else
{
printf("%c", enemyBoard[a][b]);
}

Answer 2

Let the Board[][] variables contain the state '.' (water) or 'A', 'B' ... 'E' for the 5 ships.
When a ship is hit, change 'A' to 'a', etc.
When printing, pass in a control variable to control how the view is rendered: Enemy View, Player View, Programmer View.