ArrayList help

[wotsits]

I'm making a hanafuda game (Japanese type card game).

public static void main(String[] args) {

ArrayList<Card> deck = new ArrayList<Card>();

Card janbright = new Card();
janbright.month = "January";
janbright.flower = "Pine";
deck.add(janbright);

Card janpoemscr = new Card();
janpoemscr.month = "January";
janpoemscr.flower = "Pine";
deck.add(janpoemscr);

Card janbasic1 = new Card();
janbasic1.month = "January";
janbasic1.flower = "Pine";
deck.add(janbasic1);

etc etc, this goes on for 48 cards. So then I do
Collections.shuffle(deck);

And now, I want to pass 8 cards in to player1's hand, 8 to the table, and 8 to player2's hand. All of these collections have constantly changing sizes so I need something (i guess) like 3 arraylists, one for player1, one for player2, one for the table.

So my question is - Now that I have shuffled the deck, how do i 'select' index 0 through index 7, then index 8 through 15, then 16 through 23, and pass the objects in those indexes in to the other arraylists? Because the deck has been shuffled, I know that I have those indexes, but I dont know which object is in each index.

[nuzzle]

Because the deck has been shuffled, I know that I have those indexes, but I dont know which object is in each index.

Well, that's the whole idea with shuffling, isn't it? :)

Before the shuffle you knew where each object was because you put them there. After the shuffle you don't anymore because the objects have been moved around randomly.

[wotsits]

yeah, i get ya. the problem is that i want to say to the array, "take the first five objects that you get when you point to indexes 1,2,3,4,5,etc, or take the first 5 cards, and pass them in to the player1 array" but i dont know how?

[nuzzle]

yeah, i get ya. the problem is that i want to say to the array, "take the first five objects that you get when you point to indexes 1,2,3,4,5,etc, or take the first 5 cards, and pass them in to the player1 array" but i dont know how?

You added 48 Card objects to the ArrayList. This means it's now an array with 48 index positions (going from 0 thru 47). You can get each one using the get method of ArrayList, like

Card c0 = deck.get(0);
Card c42 = deck.get(42);
Card c48 = deck.get(48); // error - out of bounds exception

This won't remove any objects though, just read them.