Bulls & Cows project: cow checking - c++

Question

I'm almost done with my Bulls and Cows project however if I enter a word or a sequence of numbers with an alphabet or number repeating, the 'cow' portion of the code messes up. As an example: consider the following
Enter something that you want someone to guess: cool
Time to guess! The code is of size 4. book
COWS: 0 BULLS: 2
ozzo
COWS: 4 BULLS: 0
As you can see, after entering "ozzo", the cow value should be 2, not 4.
How can I fix this without having to change the entire code?
for (size_t i = 0; i != startg.getSize(); ++i){
if (guess[i] == origWord[i]){
bullCtr++;
} else {
for (size_t j = 0; j != startg.getSize(); ++j){
if (origWord[i] == guess[j]){
cowCtr++;
}
}
}
}
Code after applying fix:
for (size_t i = 0; i != startg.getSize(); ++i){
if (guess[i] == origWord[i]){
bullCtr++;
} else {
for (size_t j = 0; j != startg.getSize(); ++j){
if (origWord[i] == guess[j]){
origWord[i] = 'X';
cowCtr++;
}
}
}
origWord = origWordcpy;
}

Answer 1

Your cow checking is problematic.
What I would do for the sake of ease (not exactly) is this (I'm talking about the else statement only):
for(unsigned int j = 0 ; j != startg.getSize() ; j++)
{
if(origWord[i] == guess[j])
{
origWord[i] = 1; //Just assigning a certain value there to mark that we've already did something with it
cowCtr++;
}
}
And that should do the work.
EDIT:
You should obviously have a temporary string instead of origWord because changing it would affect the next iteration of the outer loop (getting the guess and comparing again) - I only showed you the way.

Answer 2

Here is one possible implementation of the Bulls & Cows game:
// used constants; numbers to be guessed
const int first_num = 2;
const int second_num = 4;
const int third_num = 1;
const int forth_num = 5;
int main(){
// vector holding the values to be guessed
vector<int>gamenum(4);
gamenum[0] = first_num;
gamenum[1] = second_num;
gamenum[2] = third_num;
gamenum[3] = forth_num;
// prompt message; input cycle till perfect guess (4 bulls)
int bulls = 0;
while (!(bulls == 4)){
// vector holding the guesses
vector<int>guesses;
// vector input values
int guess1(0), guess2(0), guess3(0), guess4(0);
cout << "\t\tPlay the game ""Bulls and Cows\n""" << endl;
cout << "Enter a set of four numbers, separated by whitespace space: ";
cin >> guess1 >> guess2 >> guess3 >> guess4;
guesses.push_back(guess1);
guesses.push_back(guess2);
guesses.push_back(guess3);
guesses.push_back(guess4);
// input confirmation; show your guess
cout << "\nYour guess is: ";
for (int i = 0; i < guesses.size(); ++i){
cout << guesses[i];
}
// bulls criterion
for (int j = 0; j < guesses.size(); ++j){
if (guesses[j] == gamenum[j]) ++bulls;
}
// cows criterion
int cows = 0;
for (int gue = 0; gue < guesses.size(); ++gue){
for (int gam = 0; gam < gamenum.size(); ++gam){
if (guesses[gue] == gamenum[gam] && gue != gam) ++cows;
}
}
// print result
if (bulls < 4){
cout << "\nBulls: " << bulls << " and Cows: " << cows <<endl;
cout << "\n\n\n" << endl;
// reset bulls
bulls = 0;
}
// empty guesses vector
guesses.clear();
// reset cows
cows = 0;
}
// print success
cout << "\nPerfect Guess!" << endl;
cout << "Bulls: " << bulls << endl;
cout << "\n\n\n" << endl;
keep_window_open();
return 0;
}
Not optimal by any means, rudimentary, but working. You can use it as benchmark.