Passing an array to another method in an applet

Question

So I am writing a program that randomly picks 10 cards in a deck and displays them. However, I can't figure out how to pass the array with I use to store the random cards to the method in which I print out the cards. This is my code:

import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.applet.Applet;
import java.lang.Math;
import java.util.Random;

public class unit12Assignment extends Applet
{
    Image card1 ... card52;

public void init()
{
    card1 = getImage( getDocumentBase(), "c1.gif" );
        ...
    card52 = getImage( getDocumentBase(), "sk.gif" );
}

public void getCards(String[] cardSelection)
{
    String cardNumber; 
    double cardRandom;
    int cardRandomNumber;
    Random ran = new Random();
            cardSelection = new String[10]

    for (int number = 0; number <=  9; )
    {
        cardRandom = ran.nextInt(52) + 1;
        cardRandomNumber = (int) Math.round( cardRandom );

        if ( cardRandomNumber > 0 && cardRandomNumber <= 52 )
        { 
            cardNumber =  "card" + cardRandomNumber;
            number++;
        }
    }   
}

    // i wanna pass it to this method
public void paint(Graphics g)
{
    setBackground( Color.green );
    g.drawImage( cardSelection[0], 10, 10, this);
    g.drawImage( cardSelection[1], 90, 10, this);
    g.drawImage( cardSelection[2], 170, 10, this);
    g.drawImage( cardSelection[3], 250, 10, this);
}

}

Its seems like a simple problem but I completely forgot how to do it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

You need to make the paint method accept a String[] . Then you can pass in your array when you call paint .

For example:

public void main(String[] args) {
  String[] myArray = makeArray();
  printArray(myArray);
}   

public String[] makeArray() {
  return new String[] {"element0", "element1", "element2"};
}   

public void printArray(String[] array) {
  for (String element : array) {
    System.out.println(element);
  }   
}

Answer 2

Declare String[] cardSelection; as an instance variable (next to the class declaration).

Then, in the getCards() method instantiate the array:

cardSelection = new String[10];