Combine similar methods with different text?

Question

I made the popular Guess-The-Number game and included an AI version that picks random numbers. The AI version has slightly different Console output that differ slightly, for example:

I generated a number between 1 and 100. Can you guess it?
You generated a number between 1 and 100. Let me try

First I did this:

Console.WriteLine("{0} generated a number between 1 and 100. {1}", ai? "I" : "You", ai? "Can you guess it?", "Let me try");

As this needed to be done a few more times, it looked very clumsy, but could implement both versions in one medium length method. After that I seperated the different versions and made two shorter methods GuessUser and GuessAI which are cleaner, but both share a lot of similar code, almost everything besides Console.WriteLine(x).

Is there a smart way to combine those two versions into a small method?

Complete version

Answer 1

I can't say that it's going to be more efficient, or better designed, but one option is to take advantage of polymorphism by creating a set of classes for this.

public abstract class GuessBase
{
   protected abstract string GuessMessage { get; }
   protected abstract string WrongMessage { get; }
   protected abstract string RightMessage { get; }

   protected abstract int GetGuess();

   public void DoGuessing()
   {
        Console.WriteLine(GuessMessage);
        while (guess != number)
        {
            if (GetGuess() != number)
                Console.WriteLine(WrongMessage, guess);
            tries++;
        }
        Console.WriteLine(RightMessage, number, tries);
        Console.ReadLine();
    } 
}
public class AIGuess : GuessBase
{
   protected override string GuessMessage
   {
      get
      {
         return "You generated a number between 1 and 100. Let me try";
      }
   }
   // Similar for WrongMessage and RightMessage

   protected override int GetGuess()
   {
      return Pick(number, ref guess);
   }
   // Put Pick() method here.
}
public class UserGuess : GuessBase
{
   protected override string GuessMessage
   {
      get
      {
         return "I generated a number between 1 and 100. Can you guess it?";
      }
   }
   // Similar for WrongMessage and RightMessage

   protected override int GetGuess()
   {
      int guess;
      int.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out guess); // This won't do what you want if the user doesn't provide a valid number.
      return guess;
   }
}

Then, in your main code, do this:

GuessBase guess;
if (/* AI */) guess = new AIGuess();
else guess = new UserGuess();
guess.DoGuessing();

Answer 2

While I do like the polymorphism way a bit more, you could opt for something along the following lines. Notice I've cut out a bit of the sczizophrenic talking to itself, and improved on the use of variables aswell.

class Program
{
    static readonly Random Rng = new Random();
    static int min;
    static int max = 100;

    private static void Main()
    {
        var number = Rng.Next(1, 100);
        Console.WriteLine("Do you want to [g]uess or [c]hoose?");

        string choice = Console.ReadLine() ?? "";

        if (choice.StartsWith("c"))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Insert your number between 1 and 100:");
            int.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out number);

            Console.WriteLine("You generated a number between 1 and 100. Let me try");
            int previousGuess = 0;
            var tries = Guess(number, () => Pick(number, ref previousGuess));
            Console.WriteLine("Great, the answer was {0}. It took me {1} tries.", number, tries);
        }
        else
        {
            Console.WriteLine("I generated a number between 1 and 100. Can you guess it?");
            var tries = Guess(number, () => int.Parse(Console.ReadLine()));
            Console.WriteLine("Great, the answer was {0}. It took you {1} tries.", number, tries);
        }

        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    private static int Guess(int number, Func<int> guessMethod)
    {
        int tries = 1;
        while(true)
        {
            var guess = guessMethod();
            if (guess != number)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("No, it's {0} than {1}.", guess < number ? "higher" : "lower", guess);
                tries++;
            }
            else
            {
                return tries;
            }
        } 
    }

    private static int Pick(int number, ref int guess)
    {
        if (guess > number)
            max = guess;
        else
            min = guess;
        return guess = Rng.Next(min, max);
    }
}

Answer 3

Well, I combined both everything into one method that I think is both elegant and suffices for this short program. I'm aware of abstractions similar to Bobson proposed, but I think that would be overkill for this. Any comments?

Random rng = new Random();
int min = 0, guess = 0, tries = 0, max = 100, number = rng.Next(1, 100);
bool ai = false;

Console.WriteLine("Do you want to [g]uess or [c]hoose?");
string choice = Console.ReadLine();
if (choice.StartsWith("c"))
{
    Console.WriteLine("Insert your number between 1 and 100:");
    int.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out number);
    ai = true;
}

string message = ai  ? "You generated a number between 1 and 100. Let me try"
                     : "I generated a number between 1 and 100. Can you guess it?";
Console.WriteLine(message);

while (guess != number)
{
    int.TryParse(ai  ? (guess > number ? rng.Next(min, max = guess) : rng.Next(min = guess, max)).ToString()
                     : Console.ReadLine(),
                     out guess);
    if (guess != number)
        Console.WriteLine("No, it's {0} than {1}. Try again.", guess < number ? "higher" : "lower", guess);
    tries++;
}
message = ai  ? "Great, the answer was {0}. It took me {1} tries."
              : "Great, the answer was {0}. It took you {1} tries.";
Console.WriteLine(message, number, tries);
Console.ReadLine();