clone problem

[feniger]

I'm building a chess game, and I encounterred a problem when I'm checking to see if the NEXT move is valid:
explanation:
the problematic case is when a player "checked" his opponent,
therefore the opponents next move is obligated to be a move that protects the king,
the way I do it is by cloning the board, making the move of the "checked" opponent, checking if his king is still "checked", and if its so, I ask the opponent to enter a different move.
the problem surprisingly occurs when the move protects the king,
when that happens, for some reason the "future board" (the clone I was doing the check on) is not cloned properly and there are changes made to the original board, I have failed to find the bug yet, maybe I'm not well aware of the clone() method,
here are the code snippets needed:

// board is the original board, futureBoard is the one I'm testing
// the next move on.
// inside class Board I have:
// theBoard - 8 on 8 objects named Square
// thePieces - a list of objects named Piece - the are the pieces on the board
// whiteKing, blackKing - Piece type, a referance to the location of the kings

// this functions creates the clone of board - futureBoard
static void cloneToFutureBoard(Board board)
{
futureBoard = new Board();
futureBoard.initializeBoard(); //method inside Board that creates the board
futureBoard.theBoard = board.theBoard.clone();
futureBoard.thePieces = new Piece[board.thePieces.length];
futureBoard.thePieces = board.thePieces.clone();
Col tempBlackCol = board.blackKing.getCol();
int blackRow = board.blackKing.getRow();
int blackIntCol = colToInt(tempBlackCol);
futureBoard.blackKing = futureBoard.theBoard[blackRow][blackIntCol].getPiece();
Col tempWhiteCol = board.whiteKing.getCol();
int whiteRow = board.whiteKing.getRow();
int whiteIntCol = colToInt(tempWhiteCol);
futureBoard.whiteKing = futureBoard.theBoard[whiteRow][whiteIntCol].getPiece();

}

// the next code snippet is from the flow of the game:
// check is a boolean thats true when the king is "checked"


if (check)
{
cloneToFutureBoard(board);
if (futureBoard.getTheBoard()[newRow][intNewCol].getPiece() != null)
futureBoard.thePieces = removePiece(futureBoard.thePieces, newCol, newRow);
futureBoard.theBoard[currentRow][intCurCol].getPiece().moveTo(newCol, newRow);
futureBoard.update();
if (isCheck(futureBoard))
{
System.out.println("You are Checked!");
continue;
}
else
{
System.out.println("Check is Over");
check = false;
}
}
if (board.getTheBoard()[newRow][intNewCol].getPiece() != null)
board.thePieces = removePiece(board.thePieces, newCol, newRow);


the final if is supposed to come out false because I move the king to an empty spot, instead (after trying to debug) I found out the king has already moved to the new spot, so what happens is that the original spot is empty, and the new spot is full! but because a piece is moving there, it removes this piece, so actually, the king is taking himself!
I dont understand why messing around with the clone changes the original board,
is there anything wrong with my cloning method?

[tim]

Hello feniger

The problem could be in any of the clone() methods that you defined. For example:

Code:

futureBoard.theBoard = board.theBoard.clone();

Remember that when you clone an object, you must create new instances of every data type in your object. I created a chess game before and faced the same problem. I used cloning successfully, but I realized later, that if you implement AI then the game becomes painfully slow. (like two minutes between moves) I can help you with your game, but for me, cloning the whole chessboard was not a suitable solution.

[feniger]

I guess cloning is not the smartest thing I can do here, and yet, I'd like to know what am I doing wrong,
I made a new clone method that runs through the squares and Pieces and clone basically anything thats an Object (and not an Enumaration or primitive data type)
and still, I cant get rid of this bug...
maybe looking at the entire code is the only solution?...

[CaptainMorgan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by feniger

....

and still, I cant get rid of this bug...
maybe looking at the entire code is the only solution?...

I always prefer seeing as much code as you can stand to paste(please use code tags, it makes for easier reading).

[feniger]

thanks for your help tim! I finally managed to find the cloning problem thanks to your guidance,
Cap'n, thanks for the intention, I managed on my own though,
however I do have a newbie question: how do I use code tags?

[CaptainMorgan]

Feniger, no problem. Would you care to share how you solved your clone problem, for future readers of your thread? I'm interested.

You'll find the code next to the quote tags, they're very similar with a different name. '[' followed by the word code closed with the other bracket ']'. On the closing code tag, be sure use the forward slash / before the word code.

[gibsonrocker800]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainMorgan

Feniger, no problem. Would you care to share how you solved your clone problem, for future readers of your thread? I'm interested.

You'll find the code next to the quote tags, they're very similar with a different name. '[' followed by the word code closed with the other bracket ']'. On the closing code tag, be sure use the forward slash / before the word code.

ahh now i finally know how to use code tags. i wanted to know how but i didn't want to ask anyone lol.

Ohh, and I would also like to see how you solved the problem.

[CaptainMorgan]

Quote:

Ohh, and I would also like to see how you solved the problem.

LOL?, I'm an avid chess player so I found your problem interesting - doesn't necessarily mean I have the time to solve it! I simply encourage folks to provide their solution, if they want to, for future reference by other folks that may come across the same issue.

Cheers

[gibsonrocker800]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainMorgan

LOL?, I'm an avid chess player so I found your problem interesting - doesn't necessarily mean I have the time to solve it! I simply encourage folks to provide their solution, if they want to, for future reference by other folks that may come across the same issue.

Cheers

Noooo dude, i was talking to the poster of this thread lol. (sorry for the confusion, i guess i should be careful with the word "you" lol).

[CaptainMorgan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gibsonrocker800

Noooo dude, i was talking to the poster of this thread lol. (sorry for the confusion, i guess i should be careful with the word "you" lol).

Hahah! Likewise for me too, I thought you were the original poster. wow.. heh.

Cheers

[gibsonrocker800]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainMorgan

Hahah! Likewise for me too, I thought you were the original poster. wow.. heh.

Cheers

ohhh ok haha. I can only imagine what thoughts went through your head when you thought someone (me) told you do solve their problem lmao.

[CaptainMorgan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gibsonrocker800

ohhh ok haha. I can only imagine what thoughts went through your head when you thought someone (me) told you do solve their problem lmao.

You can imagine!! lol, thanks for the good chuckle this evening.

[feniger]

lots of replys while I havent been around!
anyway, the source of my problem was my lack of knowledge in cloning,
what I found out is that I have to clone EVERY type of Object withing the class/object I am cloning, which means if I have an object, that one of its fields (attributes) is not a primitive data type, but another object (for example: Square will have int row, int col, but also a PieceType pieceOnSquare)
then I'll have to clone pieceOnSquare as well,
when I found that out, I STILL had the same problem!! it didnt go away and it took me time to understand that in order to clone pieceOnSquare in a valid way,
I have to clone all the Object types inside THAT object,
which basically means that as long as I havent gotten down to the most primitive data types/enumarations, I have to clone manually every Object within its attributes,

I hope my explanation was clear enough,
if anyone has trouble understanding that, tell me, I'll try and rephrase it...

feniger

[tim]

Hello feniger

I had the same problem:

Quote:

Originally Posted by feniger

the source of my problem was my lack of knowledge in cloning,
what I found out is that I have to clone EVERY type of Object withing the class/object I am cloning, which means if I have an object, that one of its fields (attributes) is not a primitive data type, but another object (for example: Square will have int row, int col, but also a PieceType pieceOnSquare)
then I'll have to clone pieceOnSquare as well,

That's why I said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by tim

The problem could be in any of the clone() methods that you defined

Cloning objects is useful though. Do not be afraid to implement cloning because it is strange.