Fixed size array

Question

I'm developing a WPF game with C# and .NET Framework 4.5.1.

I have this class:

public class Player
{
    public Card[4] Hand { get; set; }
}

And I need to set that Player.Hand can only contain four cards ( Card is a class that represent a card).

How can I do it? The above code show the exception "matrix size cannot be specified in variable declaration" . And if I use List<Card>() , I can set max size.

Answer 1

The size of an array is not part of its type.

You need to create it with that size:

public Card[] Hand {get; set;}

public MyClass()
{
    Hand = new Card[4];
}

You could also use a full property and initialize the array to that size.

private Card[] hand = new Card[4];
public Card[] Hand
{
    get { return hand; }
    //Set if you want!
}

Answer 2

In the property declaration, you should specify only property type, but not the data. The array size can be specified in the moment of array creation.

public class Player
{
   public void Initialize()
   {
       // An example of initialization logic
       Hand = new Card[4];
       for (int i = 0; i < Hand.Length; i++)
           Hand[i] = new Card();
   }

   public Card[] Hand { get; set; } 
}

public class Card
{
}