Inspirated

 
 

July 29, 2008

Orkut jumps the shark

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 8:46 pm

Google is obsessed with AJAX.

No, really. It’s starting to get on my nerves now. For those who’re unfamiliar with the term AJAX, it’s a combination of technologies (like Javascript) that, in essence, allow you to navigate on a web-page quickly without reloading the whole thing. The most prominent example people may recall is of Gmail’s interface.

So, why is it such a bad thing? Here’s the answer: it isn’t. When used properly, it can be great. Gmail, once again stands out as one of the leading examples here. Nevertheless, like any other technology, it has the potential of being abused. And, AJAX, when abused, can only be surpassed in terms of pure annoyance by Flash and Java. Quite surprisingly, the most effective example of “what not to do with AJAX” is also provided by Google, with its recent redesign of the social networking website Orkut.

In my opinion, Orkut is already a lost cause. No, not because Facebook is better. When Facebook started taking Orkut’s share, it wasn’t because Facebook was technologically superior to Orkut. And until just yesterday, I considered Orkut to be superior in at least that regard.

But now, Google decides to make all of Orkut’s pages empty. That’s right. Empty. All stuff would be loaded in those pages using AJAX and here’s the insane thing: they’re uniquely identified by anchors. That’s batshit insane. From a browser’s point of view, all of Orkut is a single page now. Stuff is just loaded on it dynamically using identifiable anchors like #Home.aspx. And no, there isn’t any fallback version. You just can’t use Orkut without Javascript now. All CGI-proxy access to Orkut (using sites like KProxy) is also broken now. My Orkut login frequency, thus, has taken a considerable hit and I really don’t think I’ll be using it even on weekly bases.

Aeternum vale, Orkut.

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July 27, 2008

At least I wasn’t even close

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 4:35 pm

“I think I have a problem with that silver medal.
I think, if I was an Olympic athlete, I would rather come in last then win the silver.
If you think about it… if you win the gold, you feel good.
If you win in the bronze, you think: “Well, at least I got something.”
But if you win that silver, it’s like:
“Congratulations! You… almost won.”
“Of all the losers, you came in first of that group.”
“You’re the number one… loser.”
“No one lost… ahead of you.”” — Jerry Seinfeld

I had two chances for progressing in Code Jam by qualifying in one of the two sub-rounds assigned to me. Both sub-rounds had three problems A, B & C ordered in increasing difficulty level. Here’s a quick summary of both:

  • For the first sub-round (1A), I did solve problem A and got 15 points. However, I didn’t solve it quick enough. Problem B was left untouched by me. Problem C’s small input contained only 29 cases and could have very well been solved using only a scientific calculator. However, that just didn’t seem the right way of progressing (30 points would have been enough to qualify, but I’d definitely have failed at the subsequent rounds).
  • For the second sub-round (1C), apart from connectivity issues, I couldn’t provide correct output for any of the problems. I did solve problem B but as my solution was recursive, it was taking too much time for calculating the output. I’m not that good with refactoring recursive solutions for yielding iterative ones, so my chances got blown right away.

Overall, Code Jam was pretty fun and having fun was the sole aim of participating this year. Now I’ve got to start reading the Introduction to Algorithms book and get myself formally acquainted with algorithmic problem solving. Good luck to all the gurus who did progress (seeing some of them solve all 3 problems within half the time was amazing). They thoroughly deserve it and I’ll keep monitoring later rounds as a spectator — just reading through their ingenuous solutions is nothing short of a delightful experience.

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July 18, 2008

Jam and Geometry

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 5:24 am

The scores for Google Code Jam qualification round are out. It lasted 24-hours, and the participants were allowed to enter any time and try to solve any of the three given problems. Each problem had one small and one large input set. Participants were able to check during the qualification whether their programs produced correct results on the small input sets but had to wait for the round to finish to know whether correct outputs were produced on large ones.

Correct solutions for small and large input sets were worth 5 and 20 points respectively. To progress to Online Round 1, each participant needed to score at least 25 points. Participants based on the times of their correct submissions and their wrong submissions. And, what I actually did not know was that the timer started ticking with the qualification kick-off. Which means that if someone slept through the earlier hours (or watched the final scenes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest again, like me), he’d be ranked lower even though he may solve the problem within half an hour of viewing it.

Anyways, since points were what mattered the most and not the rankings, I actually started off with the problem set 2-3 hours after the qualification had started. Participants were provided with the following three problems:

  1. Saving the Universe

    The urban legend goes that if you go to the Google homepage and search for “Google”, the universe will implode. We have a secret to share… It is true! Please don’t try it, or tell anyone. All right, maybe not. We are just kidding.

    The same is not true for a universe far far away. In that universe, if you search on any search engine for that search engine’s name, the universe does implode!

    To combat this, people came up with an interesting solution. All queries are pooled together. They are passed to a central system that decides which query goes to which search engine. The central system sends a series of queries to one search engine, and can switch to another at any time. Queries must be processed in the order they’re received. The central system must never send a query to a search engine whose name matches the query. In order to reduce costs, the number of switches should be minimized.

    Your task is to tell us how many times the central system will have to switch between search engines, assuming that we program it optimally.

    I solved the problem using a vector of strings in STL. It took me around 35-40 minutes. My entry for the small input set was judged to be correct on my first attempt.

  2. Train Timetable

    A train line has two stations on it, A and B. Trains can take trips from A to B or from B to A multiple times during a day. When a train arrives at B from A (or arrives at A from B), it needs a certain amount of time before it is ready to take the return journey – this is the turnaround time. For example, if a train arrives at 12:00 and the turnaround time is 0 minutes, it can leave immediately, at 12:00.

    A train timetable specifies departure and arrival time of all trips between A and B. The train company needs to know how many trains have to start the day at A and B in order to make the timetable work: whenever a train is supposed to leave A or B, there must actually be one there ready to go. There are passing sections on the track, so trains don’t necessarily arrive in the same order that they leave. Trains may not travel on trips that do not appear on the schedule.

    This was actually easier than problem A. As I only had to use a simple multimap and a vector to hold the departure/arrival times in minutes and then loop throughout the day and manage the trains. I had 2 wrong attempts on the smaller input set though, which were caused by the fact that I started solving the problem initially with a map instead of multimap; which was imposing the limit of only one train’s departure from a station at a given instant.

  3. Fly Swatter

    What are your chances of hitting a fly with a tennis racquet?

    To start with, ignore the racquet’s handle. Assume the racquet is a perfect ring, of outer radius R and thickness t (so the inner radius of the ring is R−t).

    The ring is covered with horizontal and vertical strings. Each string is a cylinder of radius r. Each string is a chord of the ring (a straight line connecting two points of the circle). There is a gap of length g between neighbouring strings. The strings are symmetric with respect to the center of the racquet i.e. there is a pair of strings whose centers meet at the center of the ring.

    The fly is a sphere of radius f. Assume that the racquet is moving in a straight line perpendicular to the plane of the ring. Assume also that the fly’s center is inside the outer radius of the racquet and is equally likely to be anywhere within that radius. Any overlap between the fly and the racquet (the ring or a string) counts as a hit.

    This is where I got stuck, and stuck bad. This problem had more to do with Euclidean Geometry than with data structures, STL or structured programming, and I know this much about Euclidean Geometry: chapter 6 from my higher-secondary school Mathematics book was titled “Conic Sections”. Naturally, my first resort was to try and find some library which would issue my particular problems (using free library code is allowed in Code Jam). More specifically, I wanted a library that would allow me to calculate the area of intersection between a circle and a rectangle (so that I’d gradually subtract out the racket strings’ area in calculations). The result wasn’t much different from my Euclidean Geometry knowledge, as now I know this too: there’s a GPL library called GLAC which does geometry stuff. To summarize, I was unsuccessful in solving this problem. Maybe I’ll need to familiarize myself with GLAC before next round to have a good shot at progressing.

One of the advantages of using STL is that if your program is correct on small inputs, i.e., the logic is applied correctly, there’s little chance that things shall take the unfortunate route for the large ones as larger data structures are accommodated dynamically. Consequently, my solutions for A and B were later on judged as correct for the large input sets too. This gave me 50 points, and 1319th rank among the 7154 participants (I wish I had known that wasting time earlier on means a drop in my ranks, but all’s well that ends well).

The Online Round 1 takes place in another week or so. I started solving algorithmic problems only a fortnight ago so I think I’ll need some more practice to be able to compete properly. To be fair though, I didn’t have high hopes for even the qualification round, as I had entered just for fun and some experience so that I’d be able to contend properly next year — after I’ve had some proper and extensive practice with this kind of problem-solving.

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July 11, 2008

Programming Challenges: Australian Voting

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 10:44 am

PC/UVa IDs: 110108/10142, Popularity: B, Success rate: low, Level: 1

I had 28 (that’s twenty-eight) “Time Limit Exceeded” tries on this problem. I was looking everywhere for a loop that would drag, for every possible input that would cause breakdown and I couldn’t find any such thing. So much so, that I considered labeling this post as Australian Nightmare. The issue, once I found it, had nothing to do with Australia and all to do with the string and istringstream objects being significantly heavy to be constructed/destructed on each iteration of the loop on lines #138-153.

The book recommends further reading on voting systems and has linked to some mathematical theorem that proves that no voting system can ever be perfect. Considering the democratic results around the world in recent elections, yeah, what an absolute shocker.

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#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
#include <map>
 
using namespace std;
 
#define NBALLOTS 1000
 
typedef vector< vector< int > > twod_vector;
 
vector< int > calculate(vector< int > &votes, int ncand, bool atleast_50)
{
	vector< int > winners;
 
	int total = votes.size();
	int max = 0;
	for(int i = 0; i < ncand; i++) {
		int vote_count = count(votes.begin(), votes.end(), i);
		bool cond = !atleast_50 || (vote_count > total / 2);
		if(vote_count > 0 &&
				vote_count >= max &&
				cond) {
			max = vote_count;
			winners.push_back(i);
		}
	}
 
	return winners;
}
 
bool compare(pair< int, int > a, pair< int, int > b)
{
	return a.second < b.second;
}
 
map< int, int > vote_map(vector< int > &votes)
{
	map< int, int > table;
 
	for(vector< int >::iterator p = votes.begin();
			p < votes.end();
			p++) {
		table[*p]++;
	}
 
	return table;
}
 
vector< int > least_votes(vector< int > &votes)
{
	map< int, int > table = vote_map(votes);
	vector< int > min_keys;
	int min_value =
		min_element(table.begin(), table.end(), compare)->second;
 
	map< int, int >::iterator p;
	for( p = table.begin(); p != table.end(); p++ ) {
		if(p->second == min_value) {
			min_keys.push_back(p->first);
		}
	}
 
	return min_keys;
}
 
void eliminate(twod_vector &ballots, int value)
{
	for(int i = 0; i < (int) ballots.size(); i++) {
		for(int j = 0; j < (int) ballots.at(i).size(); j++) {
			if(ballots.at(i).at(j) == value) {
				for(int k = i;
					k < (int) ballots.size() - 1;
					k++) {
					ballots.at(k).at(j)
						= ballots.at(k + 1).at(j);
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
 
void eliminate(twod_vector &ballots)
{
	vector< int > min_values = least_votes(ballots.at(0));
 
	for(vector< int >::iterator p = min_values.begin();
			p != min_values.end();
			p++) {
		eliminate(ballots, *p);
	}
}
 
bool draw(vector< int > &votes)
{
	if(!votes.size()) {
		return true;
	}
 
	map< int, int > table = vote_map(votes);
	map< int, int >::iterator p = table.begin();
	int n = p->second;
	p++;
	for(; p != table.end(); p++) {
		if( n != p->second ) {
			return false;
		}
	}
 
	return true;
}
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	twod_vector ballots;
	int ncases;
	cin>>ncases;
	cin.ignore();
	string dummy;
	getline(cin, dummy);
 
	for(int i = 0; i < ncases; i++) {
		int ncand;
		cin>>ncand;
		cin.ignore();
 
		vector< string > candidates(ncand);
		for(int j = 0; j < ncand; j++) {
			getline(cin, candidates.at(j));
		}
 
		twod_vector ballots(ncand);
		string str;
		istringstream iss;
		for(int j = 0; j < NBALLOTS; j++) {
			getline(cin, str);
 
			if(str == "") {
				break;
			}
			iss.str(str);
 
			for(int k = 0; k < ncand; k++) {
				int value = *istream_iterator< int >(iss);
				ballots.at(k).push_back(
						value - 1
						);
			}
			iss.clear();
		}
 
		vector< int > winners;
		int j = 0;
		while(winners.size() == 0) {
			if(draw(ballots.at(0))) {
				winners = calculate(ballots.at(0),
						ncand,
						false);
				break;
			}
 
			winners = calculate(ballots.at(0), ncand, true);
			eliminate(ballots);
			j++;
		}
 
		if(!ballots.at(0).size()) {
			for(int k = 0; k < ncand; k++) {
				winners.push_back(k);
			}
		}
 
 
 
		sort(winners.begin(), winners.end());
		if(i > 0) {
			cout<<endl;
		}
		vector< int >::const_iterator p;
		for(p = winners.begin(); p < winners.end(); p++) {
			cout<<candidates.at(*p)<<endl;
		}
	}
 
	return 0;
}
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July 3, 2008

“Will you bite the hand that feeds?”

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 9:23 pm

Today, I woke up to find that my FeedBurner feed for Inspirated has stopped updating because the source feed is timing out. After digging around a little, the source of the problem turned out to be long posts containing (hundreds of lines of) code.

At this point, I could change settings in WordPress to display “summarized” texts instead of full ones in my feeds. The downside of which was the fact that it would require readers to click through their feed aggregators even for posts that weren’t long enough to cause server delays. The better solution was to use the wp-cache plugin so that WordPress wouldn’t have to “process” the feeds at each request. The plugin itseld works like a charm, but getting things working again with FeedBurner was a bit of PITA. Here’s the order of steps that worked:

  • Disable the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin in WordPress administration panel.
  • Access the original feed to make wp-cache do its magic.
  • Resync the feed in FeedsBurner administration panel.
  • Enable the FeedSmith plugin again.

It took me almost a couple of hours to sort out the whole picture, and ironically, one of the songs in my playlist at the time had lyrics that I’ve quoted in the post-title.

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Foxy records

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 9:14 am

“Adversity causes some men software to break; others to break records.” — William Arthur Ward

Firefox Download Day!

It’s official. Firefox 3 has created a world record for being the most downloaded software in a 24-hour time-period (approximately 8 million times actually, and that too with a server outage). I did download the source-code on the release day but I didn’t compile it until only yesterday. The compilation went smoothly, mainly because I had already solved out incompatibility issues while messing with the betas.

The grandmother’s theorem just got another postulate to build open ;-) .

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July 2, 2008

Programming Challenges: Check the Check

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 7:55 pm

PC/UVa IDs: 110107/10196, Popularity: B, Success rate: average, Level: 1

I had two approaches in mind for checking the check before solving this problem:

  • return a flag value from the move-generation functions as soon as opponent’s king is encountered in a reachable square.
  • Generate all reachable squares for a side first, and then check whether opponent’s king is positioned on one.

I opted for the latter because even though it was more performance-intensive, it made my move-generation functions more generic and appropriate for extensibility.

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#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
 
using namespace std;
 
#define EMPTY '.'
#define CROSS 'x'
 
typedef vector< vector< char > > twod_vector;
 
bool opponent(twod_vector board, int row1, int col1, int row2, int col2)
{
	return (islower(board.at(row1).at(col1))
			&& isupper(board.at(row2).at(col2)))
		|| (isupper(board.at(row1).at(col1))
			&& islower(board.at(row2).at(col2)));
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_rook_limit(twod_vector board,
		int row, int col, int limit)
{
	for(int i = row - 1, n = 0; i >= 0 && n < limit; i--, n++) {
		if(board.at(i).at(col) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, i, col)) {
				board.at(i).at(col) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(i).at(col) = CROSS;
	}
 
	for(int i = row + 1, n = 0; i <= 7 && n < limit; i++, n++) {
		if(board.at(i).at(col) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, i, col)) {
				board.at(i).at(col) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(i).at(col) = CROSS;
	}
 
	for(int j = col - 1, n = 0; j >= 0 && n < limit; j--, n++) {
		if(board.at(row).at(j) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, row, j)) {
				board.at(row).at(j) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(row).at(j) = CROSS;
	}
 
	for(int j = col + 1, n = 0; j <= 7 && n < limit; j++, n++) {
		if(board.at(row).at(j) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, row, j)) {
				board.at(row).at(j) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(row).at(j) = CROSS;
	}
 
	return board;
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_bishop_limit(twod_vector board,
		int row, int col, int limit)
{
	for(int i = row - 1, j = col - 1, n = 0;
			i >= 0 && j >= 0 && n < limit;
			i--, j--, n++) {
		if(board.at(i).at(j) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, i, j)) {
				board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
	}
 
	for(int i = row + 1, j = col - 1, n = 0;
			i <= 7 && j >= 0 && n < limit;
			i++, j--, n++) {
		if(board.at(i).at(j) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, i, j)) {
				board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
	}
 
	for(int i = row - 1, j = col + 1, n = 0;
			i >= 0 && j <= 7 && n < limit;
			i--, j++, n++) {
		if(board.at(i).at(j) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, i, j)) {
				board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
	}
 
	for(int i = row + 1, j = col + 1, n = 0;
			i <= 7
			&& j <= 7
			&& n < limit;
			i++, j++, n++) {
		if(board.at(i).at(j) != EMPTY) {
			if(opponent(board, row, col, i, j)) {
				board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
			}
			break;
		}
		board.at(i).at(j) = CROSS;
	}
 
	return board;
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_rook(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	return generate_move_rook_limit(board, row, col, 8);
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_bishop(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	return generate_move_bishop_limit(board, row, col, 8);
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_queen(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	return generate_move_bishop_limit(
			generate_move_rook_limit(board, row, col, 8),
			row,
			col,
			8);
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_king(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	return generate_move_bishop_limit(
			generate_move_rook_limit(board, row, col, 1),
			row,
			col,
			1);
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_pawn_white(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	if(row - 1 >= 0) {
		if(col - 1 >= 0) {
			if(board.at(row - 1).at(col - 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row - 1, col - 1)) {
				board.at(row - 1).at(col - 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
		if(col + 1 <= 7) {
			if(board.at(row - 1).at(col + 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row - 1, col + 1)) {
				board.at(row - 1).at(col + 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
	}
 
	return board;
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_pawn_black(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	if(row + 1 <= 7) {
		if(col - 1 >= 0) {
			if(board.at(row + 1).at(col - 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row + 1, col - 1)) {
				board.at(row + 1).at(col - 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
		if(col + 1 <= 7) {
			if(board.at(row + 1).at(col + 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row + 1, col + 1)) {
				board.at(row + 1).at(col + 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
	}
 
	return board;
}
 
twod_vector generate_move_knight(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	if(row - 2 >= 0) {
		if(col - 1 >= 0) {
			if(board.at(row - 2).at(col - 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row - 2, col - 1)) {
				board.at(row - 2).at(col - 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
		if(col + 1 <= 7) {
			if(board.at(row - 2).at(col + 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row - 2, col + 1)) {
				board.at(row - 2).at(col + 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
	}
 
	if(row + 2 <= 7) {
		if(col - 1 >= 0) {
			if(board.at(row + 2).at(col - 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row + 2, col - 1)) {
				board.at(row + 2).at(col - 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
		if(col + 1 <= 7) {
			if(board.at(row + 2).at(col + 1) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row + 2, col + 1)) {
				board.at(row + 2).at(col + 1) = CROSS;
			}
		}
	}
 
	if(row - 1 >= 0) {
		if(col - 2 >= 0) {
			if(board.at(row - 1).at(col - 2) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row - 1, col - 2)) {
				board.at(row - 1).at(col - 2) = CROSS;
			}
		}
		if(col + 2 <= 7) {
			if(board.at(row - 1).at(col + 2) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row - 1, col + 2)) {
				board.at(row - 1).at(col + 2) = CROSS;
			}
		}
	}
 
	if(row + 1 <= 7) {
		if(col - 2 >= 0) {
			if(board.at(row + 1).at(col - 2) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row,
						col, row + 1, col - 2)) {
				board.at(row + 1).at(col - 2) = CROSS;
			}
		}
		if(col + 2 <= 7) {
			if(board.at(row + 1).at(col + 2) == EMPTY
				|| opponent(board, row, col,
						row + 1, col + 2)) {
				board.at(row + 1).at(col + 2) = CROSS;
			}
		}
	}
 
	return board;
}
 
twod_vector generate_move(twod_vector board, int row, int col)
{
	switch(board.at(row).at(col)) {
	case 'R':
	case 'r':
		return generate_move_rook(board, row, col);
		break;
	case 'B':
	case 'b':
		return generate_move_bishop(board, row, col);
		break;
	case 'Q':
	case 'q':
		return generate_move_queen(board, row, col);
		break;
	case 'K':
	case 'k':
		return generate_move_king(board, row, col);
		break;
	case 'P':
		return generate_move_pawn_white(board, row, col);
		break;
	case 'p':
		return generate_move_pawn_black(board, row, col);
		break;
	case 'N':
	case 'n':
		return generate_move_knight(board, row, col);
		break;
	}
 
	return board;
}
 
char mix_board_position(char a, char b)
{
	if(a == CROSS || b == CROSS) {
		return CROSS;
	}
	if(a == EMPTY) {
		return b;
	}
	return a;
}
 
twod_vector join_boards(twod_vector board1, twod_vector board2)
{
	twod_vector v(8, vector< char >(8, EMPTY));
 
	for(int i = 0; i <=7; i++) {
		transform(board1.at(i).begin(),
				board1.at(i).end(),
				board2.at(i).begin(),
				v.at(i).begin(),
				mix_board_position);
	}
 
	return v;
}
 
twod_vector calculate_reach(const twod_vector board, bool white)
{
	twod_vector reach(8, vector< char >(8, EMPTY));
 
	for(int i = 0; i <= 7; i++) {
		for(int j = 0; j<= 7; j++) {
			if((bool) isupper(board.at(i).at(j)) == white) {
				reach = join_boards(
						generate_move(
							board,
							i,
							j),
						reach
						);
			}
		}
	}
 
	return reach;
}
 
bool check_check(twod_vector board, bool white)
{
	char king = (white ? 'K' : 'k');
	twod_vector reach = calculate_reach(board, !white);
 
	for(int i = 0; i <= 7; i++) {
		for(int j = 0; j <= 7; j++) {
			if(board.at(i).at(j) == king) {
				if(reach.at(i).at(j) == CROSS) {
					return true;
				} else {
					return false;
				}
			}
		}
	}
 
	return false;
}
 
bool is_board_empty(twod_vector board)
{
	for(int i = 0; i <= 7; i++) {
		for(int j = 0; j <= 7; j++) {
			if(board.at(i).at(j) != EMPTY) {
				return false;
			}
		}
	}
 
	return true;
}
 
ostream& operator<<(ostream &out, twod_vector v)
{
	twod_vector::const_iterator p;
 
	for(p = v.begin(); p < v.end(); p++) {
		copy((*p).begin(), (*p).end(),
				ostream_iterator< char >(cout, ""));
		cout<<endl;
	}
 
	return out;
}
 
istream& operator>>(istream& in, twod_vector &v)
{
	for(twod_vector::iterator p = v.begin(); p < v.end(); p++) {
		for(vector< char >::iterator pr = (*p).begin();
				pr < (*p).end();
				pr++) {
			*pr = *istream_iterator< char >(in);
		}
	}
 
	return in;
}
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	twod_vector board(8, vector< char >(8, '\0'));
 
	int i = 1;
	cin>>board;
	while(!is_board_empty(board)) {
		if(check_check(board, true)) {
			cout<<"Game #"<<i<<": white king is in check."
				<<endl;
		} else if(check_check(board, false)) {
			cout<<"Game #"<<i<<": black king is in check."
				<<endl;
		} else {
			cout<<"Game #"<<i<<": no king is in check."
				<<endl;
		}
 
		string dummy;
		getline(cin, dummy);
		cin>>board;
 
		i++;
	}
 
	return 0;
}
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July 1, 2008

Programming Challenges: Interpreter

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 8:38 am

PC/UVa IDs: 110106/10033, Popularity: B, Success rate: low, Level: 2

Nothing extraordinarily interesting here — typical straight-outta-the-book exercise.

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#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#include <vector>
 
using namespace std;
 
bool decode(int &pc, vector< int > &reg, vector< int > &ram)
{
	int inst = ram.at(pc);
	int c = inst / 100,
		a = (inst % 100) / 10,
		b = inst % 10;
 
	switch(c) {
	case 1:
		return false;
		break;
	case 2:
		reg.at(a) = b;
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 3:
		reg.at(a) += b;
		reg.at(a) %= 1000;
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 4:
		reg.at(a) *= b;
		reg.at(a) %= 1000;
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 5:
		reg.at(a) = reg.at(b);
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 6:
		reg.at(a) += reg.at(b);
		reg.at(a) %= 1000;
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 7:
		reg.at(a) *= reg.at(b);
		reg.at(a) %= 1000;
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 8:
		reg.at(a) = ram.at(reg.at(b));
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 9:
		ram.at(reg.at(b)) = reg.at(a);
 
		pc++;
		break;
	case 0:
		if(reg.at(b) == 0) {
			pc++;
		} else {
			pc = reg.at(a);
		}
 
		break;
	}
 
	return true;
}
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	string dummy;
	int ncases;
 
	cin>>ncases;
 
	// ignore two empty lines
	getline(cin, dummy);
	getline(cin, dummy);
 
	for(int n = 0; n < ncases; n++) {
		vector< int > reg(10), ram(1000);
 
		fill(reg.begin(), reg.end(), 0);
		fill(ram.begin(), ram.end(), 0);
 
		for(int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
			string str;
 
			getline(cin, str);
			if(str == "") {
				break;
			}
 
			istringstream iss(str);
			iss>>ram.at(i);
		}
 
		int executed = 1;
		int pc = 0;
		while(decode(pc, reg, ram)) {
			executed++;
		}
 
		if(n > 0) {
			cout<<endl;
		}
		cout<<executed<<endl;
	}
 
	return 0;
}
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Programming Challenges: Graphical Editor

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 1:31 am

PC/UVa IDs: 110105/10267, Popularity: B, Success rate: low, Level: 1

Few notes:

  • In the problem input, pixels are specified as [column# row#], whereas two-dimensional vectors (or arrays) are referenced using [row# column#] format.
  • The program would be doomed to infinite recursion if the condition on line #51 is omitted.
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#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
#include <vector>
#include <iterator>
 
using namespace std;
 
typedef vector< vector< char > > twod_vector;
 
ostream& operator<<(ostream &out, const twod_vector &v)
{
	twod_vector::const_iterator p;
 
	for(p = v.begin(); p < v.end(); p++) {
		copy((*p).begin(), (*p).end(),
				ostream_iterator< char >(cout, ""));
		cout<<endl;
	}
 
	return out;
}
 
void reset(twod_vector &image)
{
	twod_vector::iterator p;
 
	for(p = image.begin(); p < image.end(); p++) {
		fill((*p).begin(), (*p).end(), 'O');
	}
}
 
void set_pixel(twod_vector &image, int x, int y, char c)
{
	image.at(y).at(x) = c;
}
 
void fill_rect(twod_vector &image,
		int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, char c)
{
	for(int i = y1; i <= y2; i++) {
		for(int j = x1; j <= x2; j++) {
			image.at(i).at(j) = c;
		}
	}
}
 
void fill_region(twod_vector &image, int x, int y,
		char old_color, char new_color)
{
	if(old_color == new_color) {
		return;
	}
 
	image.at(y).at(x) = new_color;
 
	if(x > 0) {
		if(image.at(y).at(x - 1) == old_color) {
			fill_region(image, x - 1, y,
					old_color, new_color);
		}
	}
 
	if(x < static_cast<int>(image.at(y).size()) - 1) {
		if(image.at(y).at(x + 1) == old_color) {
			fill_region(image, x + 1, y,
					old_color, new_color);
		}
	}
 
	if(y > 0) {
		if(image.at(y - 1).at(x) == old_color) {
			fill_region(image, x, y - 1,
					old_color, new_color);
		}
	}
 
	if(y < static_cast<int>(image.size()) - 1) {
		if(image.at(y + 1).at(x) == old_color) {
			fill_region(image, x, y + 1,
					old_color, new_color);
		}
	}
}
 
void swap(int &x, int &y)
{
	int tmp = x;
	x = y;
	y = tmp;
}
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	twod_vector image;
	string line;
 
	getline(cin, line);
	while(line[0] != 'X') {
		istringstream iss(line);
		int m, n, x, y, x1, x2, y1, y2;
		char command, c, file_name[13];
		twod_vector::iterator p;
 
		iss>>command;
		switch(command) {
		case 'I':
			iss>>m>>n;
 
			image.clear();
			image.resize(n);
			for(p = image.begin(); p < image.end(); p++) {
				(*p).resize(m);
			}
 
			reset(image);
 
			break;
		case 'C':
			reset(image);
 
			break;
		case 'L':
			iss>>x>>y>>c;
			x--;
			y--;
 
			set_pixel(image, x, y, c);
 
			break;
		case 'V':
			iss>>x>>y1>>y2>>c;
			x--;
			y1--;
			y2--;
 
			if(y1 > y2) {
				swap(y1, y2);
			}
 
			fill_rect(image, x, y1, x, y2, c);
 
			break;
		case 'H':
			iss>>x1>>x2>>y>>c;
			x1--;
			x2--;
			y--;
 
			if(x1 > x2) {
				swap(x1, x2);
			}
 
			fill_rect(image, x1, y, x2, y, c);
 
			break;
		case 'K':
			iss>>x1>>y1>>x2>>y2>>c;
			x1--;
			y1--;
			x2--;
			y2--;
 
			if(x1 > x2) {
				swap(x1, x2);
			}
			if(y1 > y2) {
				swap(y1, y2);
			}
 
			fill_rect(image, x1, y1, x2, y2, c);
 
			break;
		case 'F':
			iss>>x>>y>>c;
			x--;
			y--;
 
			fill_region(image, x, y,
					image.at(y).at(x), c);
 
			break;
		case 'S':
			iss.ignore();
			iss.getline(file_name, 13);
 
			cout<<file_name<<endl;
			cout<<image;
 
			break;
		}
 
		getline(cin, line);
	}
 
	return 0;
}
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