vb.net - Connect four winner -

i'm trying check winner vertically , horizontally in connect 4. have playing board of 7,6 when click button change labels color. labels in 2 dimensional array. loop have created make see if there winner every time button clicked, doesn't work.

dim board(7,6) integer  dim labelboard (7,6) label  labelboard(0,0) = l00 'i have 41 others   integer = 0 3     k integer = 0 3         if pturn =1 tag= "p1"             'horizontal win             integer = 0 3                 k integer = 0 6                     if labelboard(i, k).tag.tostring = "p1" andalso                       labelboard(i + 1, k).tag.tostring = "p1" andalso                       labelboard(i + 2, k).tag.tostring = "p1" andalso                       labelboard(i + 3, k).tag.tostring = "p1"                         msgbox("game on player 1 wins.")                     end if                 next             next 

your current posted code doesn't need outer for loops, , you'll index out of bound for k integer = 0 6, there's 6 elements in dimension - labelboard(7, 6). should for k integer = 0 5.

with changes in mind, following code (not tested) should trick:

if pturn = 1 tag = "p1" integer = 0 3   k integer = 0 5       if labelboard(i, k).tag.tostring() = tag andalso         labelboard(i + 1, k).tag.tostring() = tag andalso         lableboard(i + 2, k).tag.tostring() = tag andalso         labelboard(i + 3, k).tag.tostring() = tag             msgbox("game on player 1 wins.")       end if   next next 

however, that's pretty brute force way it, , you're not flagging game over, displaying message box. approach use couple of while loops (there other ways well). advantage of while loop once connect 4 found, can exit loop (i efficiency, though still inefficient).

for example, assuming standard 6 rows, 7 columns, this:

dim currentrow integer = 0 dim currentcol integer = 0 dim connectfour boolean = false dim connectcount integer = 0  if pturn = 1 tag = "p1"  while not connectfour , currentrow <= 5     currentcol = 0     connectcount = 0     while not connectcount = 4 , currentcol <= 6         if labelboard(currentcol, currentrow).tag.tostring() = tag           connectcount = connectcount + 1         else           connectcount = 0         end if           currentcol = currentcol + 1     end while     if connectcount = 4         connectfour = true     else         currentrow = currentrow + 1 end while 

the above sets 4 local variables, 1 currentrow, 1 currentcolumn, 1 count of connected labels , flag whether or not connect 4 found.

the outer while loop run long connectfour false , currentrow less or equal 5.

the inner loop (as we're looking @ specific row) first resets current column 0 , connect count 0.

during inner loop, each column checked. if matches tag, connectcount incremented 1. if doesn't, connectcount reset 0. currentcol incremented 1 @ end of each iteration of inner loop.

when inner loop finished (either connect 4 found or we've reached end of current row) check value of connectcount, , if it's 4 set connectfour true, end outer looop.

not different original code (modified), except won't check every row if connect 4 found on.