C#. Console.ReadLine() for two different obejcts

Question

I'm learning C# and very new to this topic. Currently, I'm working on a small console app (just doing tasks to strengthen my knowledge) Battleship game. I want to assign two names: Player 1 and Player 2.

Question is: Can I use one reader instead of two, to assign different names? I tried to use one reader, but it assigned one name to both players.

Here is my code:

public void StartGame(Game game)
        {
            if (game.GameStage == GameStage.Start)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Welcome to Battleship 2020.");
                Console.WriteLine("Player 1 enter your name:");

                var reader1 = Console.ReadLine();
                Player player1 = new Player();
                player1.Name = reader1;

                Console.WriteLine($"Welcome {player1.Name}");

                Console.WriteLine("Player 2 enter your name:");
                Player player2 = new Player();
                var reader2 = Console.ReadLine();
                player2.Name = reader2;

                Console.WriteLine($"Welcome {player2.Name}");
            }
        }

sure you can, you need to make a while loop that breaks the moment you reach the 2 input. — Maytham Fahmi, Dec 25 '20 at 11:34
@maytham-ɯɐɥʇʎɐɯ He could simply use a `for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)` cycle then :-) — xanatos, Dec 25 '20 at 11:34
[works for me](https://dotnetfiddle.net/h7Tov7) - you didn't "use two readers" here — Caius Jard, Dec 25 '20 at 11:34
@xanatos fully agree it was example of concept to start some where :) — Maytham Fahmi, Dec 25 '20 at 11:36
one example I found in SO https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24338657/multiple-lines-input-from-console-in-c-sharp — Maytham Fahmi, Dec 25 '20 at 11:39

Ashkan Mobayen Khiabani · Answer 1 · 2020-12-25T11:52:00.077

If you want to get both player names in one read, (you may first prompt the user) and tell them to enter players name comma or space separated and then after reading the player names separate them yourself

 var reader = Console.ReadLine();
 var playerNames = reader.Split(' '); // payerNames[0], playerNames[1] contains player names

If you mean just to reuse the reader variable. you can use it any times you want but the first time you need to declare it.

 var reader = Console.ReadLine();
 ...
 reader = Console.ReadLine();
 ...
 reader = Console.ReadLine();

You may put this in a loop like:

for(int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
{
    var reader = Console.ReadLine();
    ...
}

if you want to make sure that no empty value is entered, you may use do...while and loop till a valid value is set. (retry on empty or invalid values):

for(int i = 0; i < 2; i++)
{
    do
    {
        player[i] = Console.ReadLine();
    } while(player[i].Trim() != "");
}

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 25 '20 at 11:52

Console.ReadLine() does not return any "reader". It just returns String object which contains text grabbed from console input.
The line in method name means it will read everything available on the input until it will encounter line break.
If there is no line break, it will wait forever until user will press "enter" key. If there are many text lines in the bufffer, you need to call ReadLine() many times.

You can assign player name diretly using:

 player1.Name = Console.ReadLine();

C#. Console.ReadLine() for two different obejcts

2 Answers2