# Tetris implementing rotation

I am currently at the last stage of the Tetris Clone using SDL library, the only thing left is rotation. For each piece I have a separate class, and in order to move the pieces down I use a method:

void PieceZ::movePieceDown()
{
drawBlock(x1,y1++);
drawBlock(x2,y3++);
drawBlock(x3,y3++);
drawBlock(x4,y4++);
}


This method is called like that: current->movePieceDown(); where current represents a pointer to the current piece. Now to rotate the piece I have another method:

void PieceZ::rotatePiece()
{
drawBlock(newX1,newY2++);
drawBlock(x2,y2);
drawBlock(newX3,newY3++);
drawBlock(newX4,newY4++);
}


New X and Y coordinates are calculated elsewhere, with x2 and y2 taken as the origin. My question is how do I swap current->movePieceDown() with current->rotatePiece() while the piece is moving? Taking into acount that I am handling keyboard events in another method.

I found a solution, I am posting it just in case. Basically I removed the method rotatePiece(), instead of that I have a method that calculates the rotation independently of drawing:

void PieceZ::getRotation()
{
newX1 = (y1-y2) + x2;
newY1 = (x2-x1) + y2;

newX3 = (y3-y2) + x2;
newY3 = (x2-x3) + y2;

newX4 = (y4-y2) + x2;
newY4 = (x2-x4) + y2;

x1 = newX1;
x3 = newX3;
x4 = newX4;

y1 = newY1;
y3 = newY3;
y4 = newY4;
}


new values are set to 0 initially, and every time a user presses a button on the keyboard this method gets called, it calculates the new rotation in new and assigns it to x and y values. Which gives you a 90 degree counter clockwise rotation.

Alternatively, you could store four different pre-defined rotations and swap amongst them.

• That's true. But that would envolve having hard coded arrays instead of coordinates. – user82301 May 12 '16 at 20:13