karandeepbhardwaj / go-tic-tac-toe Goto Github PK

Creating a simple Tic Tac Toe game is a great way to get familiar with the basics of programming in Go. This beginner tutorial will guide you through the steps to build a console-based Tic Tac Toe game. We'll start with the basics of Go syntax and gradually build up our game.

• Basic understanding of programming concepts
• Go installed on your machine (Download Go)

Before you start coding, make sure Go is correctly installed on your system. Open your terminal or command prompt and type:

go version

This command should return the version of Go installed on your system.

Create a new directory for your project, navigate into it, and then initialize a new Go module:

mkdir tic-tac-toe
cd tic-tac-toe
go mod init tic-tac-toe

Create a file named main.go in your project directory. This file will contain the entry point to your game.

touch main.go

Open main.go in your favorite text editor, and let's start coding.

First, we'll define the game board. Add the following code to main.go:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    // Initialize the game board with empty spaces
    board := [3][3]string{
        {" ", " ", " "},
        {" ", " ", " "},
        {" ", " ", " "},
    }

    printBoard(board)
}

// printBoard prints the current state of the board
func printBoard(board [3][3]string) {
    for i := 0; i < 3; i++ {
        for j := 0; j < 3; j++ {
            fmt.Print(board[i][j])
            if j < 2 {
                fmt.Print("|")
            }
        }
        if i < 2 {
            fmt.Println("\n-+-+-")
        }
    }
    fmt.Println()
}

This code initializes your Tic Tac Toe board as a 3x3 array filled with spaces, indicating empty positions. The printBoard function prints the board to the console.

Next, we'll add a function to allow players to make moves:

import (
    "bufio"
    "fmt"
    "os"
    "strconv"
    "strings"
)

func makeMove(player string, board *[3][3]string) {
    var x, y int
    scanner := bufio.NewScanner(os.Stdin)

    for {
        fmt.Printf("Player %s, enter your move (row col): ", player)
        scanner.Scan()
        input := strings.Split(scanner.Text(), " ")
        if len(input) != 2 {
            fmt.Println("Invalid input. Please enter row and column as two numbers separated by a space.")
            continue
        }

        var err error
        x, err = strconv.Atoi(input[0])
        y, err = strconv.Atoi(input[1])
        if err != nil || x < 1 || x > 3 || y < 1 || y > 3 || board[x-1][y-1] != " " {
            fmt.Println("Invalid move. Try again.")
            continue
        }

        break
    }

    board[x-1][y-1] = player
}

This function prompts the current player to enter their move, validates the input, and updates the board accordingly.

Now, let's implement the main game loop and alternate turns between two players until one wins or the game ends in a draw:

func main() {
    board := [3][3]string{
        {" ", " ", " "},
        {" ", " ", " "},
        {" ", " ", " "},
    }

    currentPlayer := "X"
    for {
        printBoard(board)
        makeMove(currentPlayer, &board)
        // Switch player
        if currentPlayer == "X" {
            currentPlayer = "O"
        } else {
            currentPlayer = "X"
        }
        // Add check for win or draw here (explained in the next step)
    }
}

To keep this tutorial concise, I'll briefly outline how you could implement win and draw detection:

• After each move, check if the current player has won by having three of their marks in a row, column, or diagonal.
• Check if the board is full (indicating a draw) if no player has won yet.
• You can implement these checks in a function called checkWin(board [3][3]string) bool and checkDraw(board [3][3]string) bool.

To run your game, navigate to your project directory in the terminal and execute:

go run main.go

Congratulations! You've just created a simple Tic Tac Toe game in Go. This tutorial covered initializing a Go module, creating a game board, accepting player inputs, and implementing a game loop. To enhance your game, consider adding win and draw detection, refactoring the code to improve its organization and readability, and implementing a better AI for single-player mode.

Enjoy coding with Go!