Learn to Program with Small Basic

Listing 18-9 shows the main part of the program. Open Unscramble.sb
from this chapter’s folder for the full list of words.
1 ' Unscramble.sb
2 words = "1=mountain;2=valley;...;22=animation;" ' See file for full list
3
4 While ("True")
5 strIn = words[Math.GetRandomNumber(Array.GetItemCount(words))]
6 Scramble() ' Returns strOut (a scrambled version of strIn)
7
8 TextWindow.Write("Unscramble [" + strOut + "]: ")
9 ans = TextWindow.Read()
10 ans = Text.ConvertToLowerCase(ans)
11
12 If (ans = strIn) Then
13 TextWindow.WriteLine("Good Job!")
14 Else
15 TextWindow.WriteLine("No. It is " + strIn + ".")
16 EndIf
17 TextWindow.WriteLine("")
18 EndWhile
Listing 18-9: Scrambling words and asking the player to unscramble them
The words array contains the words for this game (line 2). The program
randomly picks a word from this array and saves that word as strIn
(line 5). It then makes a call to Scramble() to produce strOut, a scrambled
version of strIn (line 6): we’ll add the Scramble() subroutine in a moment.
Next, the program asks the player to unscramble strOut (line 8). It reads
their answer (line 9) and converts it to lowercase (line 10). It then compares
the player’s answer with the correct word (line 12). If the player’s
answer matches the original word, the game displays Good Job! (line 13).
Otherwise, the game displays the correct word (line 15). In both cases,
the program ends by displaying an empty line (line 17) to separate the
rounds and the loop repeats.
Now let’s look at the Scramble() subroutine, which shuffles the characters
of a string into a random order. The caller sets the input string (strIn),
and the subroutine returns a new string (strOut) that contains the characters
of strIn shuffled around. Listing 18-10 shows this subroutine.
1 Sub Scramble ' Scramble subroutine
2 len = Text.GetLength(strIn)
3 For N = 1 To len ' Loops up to length of word
4 char[N] = Text.GetSubText(strIn, N, 1) ' Saves each letter into an array
5 EndFor
6
7 strout = "" ' Empties the output string
8 While (Text.GetLength(strout) < len)
Advanced Text Magic 279