How to implement a dealer class without storing a deck of cards?

Question

• Question

  Even only 52 cards, the permutationIndex where I describe in Explanations section, would be a huge number; it is

Answer 1

I am also struggling to see the whole picture here, but you could convert each permutation to base(52) with a single character representing each card and have a string representing each permutation.

So Spades could be 1-9 (ace - 9), 0ABC (10, J Q K), then DEFG... starting the hearts and so on.

So a deck of 3 cards, 2 Spade (2), 3 Heart (F) and 2 Diamond (say e), would have these permutation numbers:

2Fe
2eF
F2e
Fe2
eF2
e2F

You could convert these back and forth to a int/long/bigint by doing base 52 to base 10 conversions.

Here's an introduction to converting between bases.

So e2F would be F + 2*52 + e * 52^2 which would be 16 + 2*52 + 43*52*52 = 116392

So 116392 would be your permutation number.

(btw. I'm guessing about it 2 diamond being 'e' and 43, you can count it up and see exact what it would be)