C++: Hangman game - c++

Question

I'm in the process of writing the program and stumbled upon a few issues.
The code reads a text file, which contains a list of 20 string words. The function playHangman() is supposed to read the file and randomly picks one word, which is displayed as asterisks in the console. The code works fine with local words when the function is called. For example Playhangman("stackOverflow"), will show the exact number of characters and will loop through them until the word is guessed right. If you take a look at the code, I'm calling the random word into the function. That word is stored as array. I know that that's not the proper way to do randomize, but for now, even if it picks the same word over and over, that's Ok, I just need to make sure it actually reads the array. The other thing is, when all characters are revealed, all the words on that text file are displayed, looks like I'm calling the entire content of the array instead of just that random word that's supposed to be generated.
Any help would be appreciated, thank you!
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
string word[20];
string randomWord = word[rand() % 20];
int playHangman(string randomWord) {
int misses = 0;
int revealedletters = 0;
string display = randomWord;
ifstream textFile;
// Open file
textFile.open("hangman.txt");
// Check if file exists
if (!textFile) {
cerr << "Unable to open text file\n";
exit(1); // Call system to stop
}
else {
cout << "File opened successfully. Program will continue...\n\n";
// Loop through the content of the file
while (textFile >> randomWord) {
for (int i = 0; i < display.length(); i++)
display[i] = '*';
while(revealedletters < randomWord.length()) {
cout << "Misses: " << misses << endl;
cout << "Enter a letter in word ";
cout << display << " : ";
char response;
cin >> response;
bool goodGuess = false;
bool duplicate = false;
for (int i = 0; i < randomWord.length(); i++)
if (response == randomWord[i]) {
if (display[i] == randomWord[i]) {
cout << response << " is already in the word." << endl;
duplicate = true;
break;
}
else {
display[i] = randomWord[i];
revealedletters++;
goodGuess = true;
}
}
if (duplicate)
continue;
if (!goodGuess) {
misses++;
cout << response << " is not in word\n";
}
}
cout << "You guessed right! The word is " << randomWord << ".\n";
}
return misses;
}
}
// TODO: Do you want to guess another word, Y/N?
int main () {
playHangman(randomWord);
// TODO: number of misses to guess the word.\n";
}

Answer 1

In your declaration and initialisation of your global variables:
string word[20];
string randomWord = word[rand() % 20];
word is an array of 20 empty strings and therefore randomWord will also always be empty.
In your playHangman function you have:
while (textFile >> randomWord) {
for (int i = 0; i < display.length(); i++)
display[i] = '*';
while(revealedletters < randomWord.length()) {
......
This reads a single word from the file into randomWord, plays the game with that word then loops round to read the next word and plays again with that word. As revealedletters doesn't get reset the game will finish immediately if the first word is longer than the next one.
I think the code you actually want looks something like this (remove your global variables too):
std::string word;
std::vector<std::string> words;
while (textFile >> word) {
words.push_back(word);
}
randomWord = words[rand() % words.size()];
std::string display = std::string(randomWord.size(), '*');
while(revealedletters < randomWord.length()) {
......
If you really must use arrays:
const size_t maxWords = 20;
std::string words[maxWords];
size_t wordCount = 0;
while (textFile >> word && wordCount < maxWords) {
words[wordCount++] = word;
}
randomWord = words[rand() % wordCount];
std::string display = std::string(randomWord.size(), '*');
while(revealedletters < randomWord.length()) {
......