Comparing two states of a puzzle - c++11

How can I compare two states of 8 puzzles, given that "one state is less than
another state if and only if the value in the center cell of the first state is less than the value in the center cell of the second state." The states are in 3*3 puzzle or board and the states are stored in queues(as required by the question).
I am trying with the overloading operator < . But its not working. I have attached some parts of my coding here. Really be helpful if anyone can help!
#ifndef STATE_H_INCLUDED
#define STATE_H_INCLUDED
const int BOARDSIZE = 3;
const int Size=1;
class State
{
private:
int grid[BOARDSIZE][BOARDSIZE];
public:
State() {
for( int i=0;i<BOARDSIZE;i++){
for( int j=0;j<BOARDSIZE;j++){
cin >> grid[i][j];
}
}
}
State(const State& s) {
for(int i=0;i<BOARDSIZE;i++)
for(int j=0;j<BOARDSIZE;j++)
grid[i][j] = s.getValue(i,j);
}
bool operator <(State s) const {//problem is probably somewhere here
if(grid[1][1] < s.getValue(1,1));
return false;
return true;
}
};
And following is the .cpp:
while (!q.empty()){
q.front().printBoard();
if(q.front()<p){
cout<<"Less than previous!"<<endl;
break;
}
q.pop();
cout<<endl;
}
Part of the main question is :
Overload operator < so that one state is less than
another state if and only if the value in the center cell of the first state is less than the
value in the center cell of the second state. For instance,
7 0 5 0 1 3
1 3 8 < 4 6 5
4 6 2 7 2 8
Write a class driver to test the overloaded comparison operator.
Hint: The operator< function must be const, which looks like:
bool operator<(State s) const

Your operator< doesn't satisfy the requirements of Compare, because s < s returns true. Assuming that q in your snippet is a std::priority_queue<State>, then your program is ill-formed.
You probably mean to have
bool State::operator<(const State & rhs)
{ return grid[1][1] < rhs.grid[1][1]; }
If you want the front of the queue to be the minimum element, they you instead should define it as a std::priority_queue<State, std::vector<State>, std::greater<State>>, and define
bool State::operator>(const State & rhs)
{ return grid[1][1] > rhs.grid[1][1]; }
rather than have an inverted meaning <

Related

What is segmentation fault. How to deal with it [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
What is a segmentation fault?
(17 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
Problem:
A student signed up for workshops and wants to attend the maximum
number of workshops where no two workshops overlap. You must do the
following: Implement structures:
struct Workshop having the following members: The workshop's start time. The workshop's duration. The workshop's end time.
struct Available_Workshops having the following members: An integer, (the number of workshops the student signed up for). An
array of type Workshop array having size . Implement functions:
Available_Workshops* initialize (int start_time[], int duration[], int n) Creates an Available_Workshops object and
initializes its elements using the elements in the and parameters
(both are of size ). Here, and are the respective start time and
duration for the workshop. This function must return a pointer to
an Available_Workshops object.
int CalculateMaxWorkshops(Available_Workshops* ptr) Returns the maximum number of workshops the student can attend—without overlap.
The next workshop cannot be attended until the previous workshop
ends. Note: An array of unkown size ( ) should be declared as
follows: DataType* arrayName = new DataType[n];
Your initialize function must return a pointer to an
Available_Workshops object. Your CalculateMaxWorkshops function
must return maximum number of non-overlapping workshops the student
can attend.
Sample Input
6
1 3 0 5 5 8
1 1 6 2 4 1
Sample Output
4
Explanation The first line denotes , the number of workshops. The next line contains space-separated integers where the integer
is the workshop's start time. The next line contains
space-separated integers where the integer is the workshop's
duration. The student can attend the workshops and without
overlap, so CalculateMaxWorkshops returns to main (which then
prints to stdout).
MY CODE:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class Workshop{
public:
int start_time{},duration{},end_time{};};
class Available_Workshops
{
public:
int n{};
struct Workshop*arr=new struct Workshop[n];
~Available_Workshops()
{
delete [] arr;
}
void arr_sort();
void arr_delete(int i);
};
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Available_Workshops * initialize(int start_time[],int duration[],int n)
{
Available_Workshops * x=new Available_Workshops{};
x->n=n;
for(int i=0;i<n;i++)
{
x->arr[i].start_time=start_time[i];
x->arr[i].duration=duration[i];
x->arr[i].end_time=start_time[i]+duration[i];
}
return x;
}
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
void Available_Workshops:: arr_delete(int i)
{
n-=1;
for(int j=i;j<n;j++)
{
arr[j]=arr[j+1];
}
}
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
void Available_Workshops:: arr_sort()
{
for(int i=0;i<n;i++)
{
for(int j=i+1;j<n;j++)
{
if(arr[i].start_time>arr[j].start_time)
{
struct Workshop temp=arr[i];
arr[i]=arr[j];
arr[j]=temp;
}
}
}
}
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
int CalculateMaxWorkshops(Available_Workshops * x)
{
x->arr_sort();
for(int i=0;i<x->n-1;i++)
{
for(int j=i+1;j<x->n;j++)
{
if(x->arr[i].end_time>x->arr[j].start_time)
{
if(x->arr[i].duration>=x->arr[j].duration)
x->arr_delete(i);
else x->arr_delete(j);
j--;
}
}
}
int y=x->n;
delete x;
return y;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int n; // number of workshops
cin >> n;
// create arrays of unknown size n
int* start_time = new int[n];
int* duration = new int[n];
for(int i=0; i < n; i++){
cin >> start_time[i];
}
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++){
cin >> duration[i];
}
Available_Workshops * ptr;
ptr = initialize(start_time,duration, n);
cout << CalculateMaxWorkshops(ptr) << endl;
return 0;
}
My code is not running. It has segmentation fault. Please help me find this error
You bug can be seen from the class declaration:
class Available_Workshops
{
public:
int n{};
struct Workshop* arr = new struct Workshop[n];
~Available_Workshops()
{
delete[] arr;
}
void arr_sort();
void arr_delete(int i);
};
Member n gets explicitly initialized to 0. Yet, your initialize function will happily fill in more elements into arr (an array of zero elements) and cause all kinds of undefined behavior.
You really, really want a proper constructor for your class instead of trying to inline initialize the members.
Available_Workshops(int size) :
n(size)
{
arr = new Workshop[n];
}
Another issue, although not related to your crash is inside your arr_delete function.
for (int j = i; j < n; j++)
{
arr[j] = arr[j + 1];
}
When j == n-1 on the last iteration of the loop, it will execute arr[n-1] = arr[n]. Accesing arr[n] is undefined behavior since the only valid indices in the array are from [0..n-1]

Make unique array with minimal sum

It is a interview question. Given an array, e.g., [3,2,1,2,7], we want to make all elements in this array unique by incrementing duplicate elements and we require the sum of the refined array is minimal. For example the answer for [3,2,1,2,7] is [3,2,1,4,7] and its sum is 17. Any ideas?
It's not quite as simple as my earlier comment suggested, but it's not terrifically complicated.
First, sort the input array. If it matters to be able to recover the original order of the elements then record the permutation used for the sort.
Second, scan the sorted array from left to right (ie from low to high). If an element is less than or equal to the element to its left, set it to be one greater than that element.
Pseudocode
sar = sort(input_array)
for index = 2:size(sar) ! I count from 1
if sar(index)<=sar(index-1) sar(index) = sar(index-1)+1
forend
Is the sum of the result minimal ? I've convinced myself that it is through some head-scratching and trials but I haven't got a formal proof.
If you only need to find ONE of the best solution, here's the algorythm with some explainations.
The idea of this problem is to find an optimal solution, which can be found only by testing all existing solutions (well, they're infinite, let's stick with the reasonable ones).
I wrote a program in C, because I'm familiar with it, but you can port it to any language you want.
The program does this: it tries to increment one value to the max possible (I'll explain how to find it in the comments under the code sections), than if the solution is not found, decreases this value and goes on with the next one and so on.
It's an exponential algorythm, so it will be very slow on large values of duplicated data (yet, it assures you the best solution is found).
I tested this code with your example, and it worked; not sure if there's any bug left, but the code (in C) is this.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <limits.h>
typedef int BOOL; //just to ease meanings of values
#define TRUE 1
#define FALSE 0
Just to ease comprehension, I did some typedefs. Don't worry.
typedef struct duplicate { //used to fasten the algorythm; it uses some more memory just to assure it's ok
int value;
BOOL duplicate;
} duplicate_t;
int maxInArrayExcept(int *array, int arraySize, int index); //find the max value in array except the value at the index given
//the result is the max value in the array, not counting th index
int *findDuplicateSum(int *array, int arraySize);
BOOL findDuplicateSum_R(duplicate_t *array, int arraySize, int *tempSolution, int *solution, int *totalSum, int currentSum); //resursive function used to find solution
BOOL check(int *array, int arraySize); //checks if there's any repeated value in the solution
These are all the functions we'll need. All split up for comprehension purpose.
First, we have a struct. This struct is used to avoid checking, for every iteration, if the value on a given index was originally duplicated. We don't want to modify any value not duplicated originally.
Then, we have a couple functions: first, we need to see the worst case scenario: every value after the duplicated ones is already occupied: then we need to increment the duplicated value up to the maximum value reached + 1.
Then, there are the main Function we'll discute later about.
The check Function only checks if there's any duplicated value in a temporary solution.
int main() { //testing purpose
int i;
int testArray[] = { 3,2,1,2,7 }; //test array
int nTestArraySize = 5; //test array size
int *solutionArray; //needed if you want to use the solution later
solutionArray = findDuplicateSum(testArray, nTestArraySize);
for (i = 0; i < nTestArraySize; ++i) {
printf("%d ", solutionArray[i]);
}
return 0;
}
This is the main Function: I used it to test everything.
int * findDuplicateSum(int * array, int arraySize)
{
int *solution = malloc(sizeof(int) * arraySize);
int *tempSolution = malloc(sizeof(int) * arraySize);
duplicate_t *duplicate = calloc(arraySize, sizeof(duplicate_t));
int i, j, currentSum = 0, totalSum = INT_MAX;
for (i = 0; i < arraySize; ++i) {
tempSolution[i] = solution[i] = duplicate[i].value = array[i];
currentSum += array[i];
for (j = 0; j < i; ++j) { //to find ALL the best solutions, we should also put the first found value as true; it's just a line more
//yet, it saves the algorythm half of the duplicated numbers (best/this case scenario)
if (array[j] == duplicate[i].value) {
duplicate[i].duplicate = TRUE;
}
}
}
if (findDuplicateSum_R(duplicate, arraySize, tempSolution, solution, &totalSum, currentSum));
else {
printf("No solution found\n");
}
free(tempSolution);
free(duplicate);
return solution;
}
This Function does a lot of things: first, it sets up the solution array, then it initializes both the solution values and the duplicate array, that is the one used to check for duplicated values at startup. Then, we find the current sum and we set the maximum available sum to the maximum integer possible.
Then, the recursive Function is called; this one gives us the info about having found the solution (that should be Always), then we return the solution as an array.
int findDuplicateSum_R(duplicate_t * array, int arraySize, int * tempSolution, int * solution, int * totalSum, int currentSum)
{
int i;
if (check(tempSolution, arraySize)) {
if (currentSum < *totalSum) { //optimal solution checking
for (i = 0; i < arraySize; ++i) {
solution[i] = tempSolution[i];
}
*totalSum = currentSum;
}
return TRUE; //just to ensure a solution is found
}
for (i = 0; i < arraySize; ++i) {
if (array[i].duplicate == TRUE) {
if (array[i].duplicate <= maxInArrayExcept(solution, arraySize, i)) { //worst case scenario, you need it to stop the recursion on that value
tempSolution[i]++;
return findDuplicateSum_R(array, arraySize, tempSolution, solution, totalSum, currentSum + 1);
tempSolution[i]--; //backtracking
}
}
}
return FALSE; //just in case the solution is not found, but we won't need it
}
This is the recursive Function. It first checks if the solution is ok and if it is the best one found until now. Then, if everything is correct, it updates the actual solution with the temporary values, and updates the optimal condition.
Then, we iterate on every repeated value (the if excludes other indexes) and we progress in the recursion until (if unlucky) we reach the worst case scenario: the check condition not satisfied above the maximum value.
Then we have to backtrack and continue with the iteration, that will go on with other values.
PS: an optimization is possible here, if we move the optimal condition from the check into the for: if the solution is already not optimal, we can't expect to find a better one just adding things.
The hard code has ended, and there are the supporting functions:
int maxInArrayExcept(int *array, int arraySize, int index) {
int i, max = 0;
for (i = 0; i < arraySize; ++i) {
if (i != index) {
if (array[i] > max) {
max = array[i];
}
}
}
return max;
}
BOOL check(int *array, int arraySize) {
int i, j;
for (i = 0; i < arraySize; ++i) {
for (j = 0; j < i; ++j) {
if (array[i] == array[j]) return FALSE;
}
}
return TRUE;
}
I hope this was useful.
Write if anything is unclear.
Well, I got the same question in one of my interviews.
Not sure if you still need it. But here's how I did it. And it worked well.
num_list1 = [2,8,3,6,3,5,3,5,9,4]
def UniqueMinSumArray(num_list):
max=min(num_list)
for i,V in enumerate(num_list):
while (num_list.count(num_list[i])>1):
if (max > num_list[i]+1) :
num_list[i] = max + 1
else:
num_list[i]+=1
max = num_list[i]
i+=1
return num_list
print (sum(UniqueMinSumArray(num_list1)))
You can try with your list of numbers and I am sure it will give you the correct unique minimum sum.
I got the same interview question too. But my answer is in JS in case anyone is interested.
For sure it can be improved to get rid of for loop.
function getMinimumUniqueSum(arr) {
// [1,1,2] => [1,2,3] = 6
// [1,2,2,3,3] = [1,2,3,4,5] = 15
if (arr.length > 1) {
var sortedArr = [...arr].sort((a, b) => a - b);
var current = sortedArr[0];
var res = [current];
for (var i = 1; i + 1 <= arr.length; i++) {
// check current equals to the rest array starting from index 1.
if (sortedArr[i] > current) {
res.push(sortedArr[i]);
current = sortedArr[i];
} else if (sortedArr[i] == current) {
current = sortedArr[i] + 1;
// sortedArr[i]++;
res.push(current);
} else {
current++;
res.push(current);
}
}
return res.reduce((a,b) => a + b, 0);
} else {
return 0;
}
}

All of the option to replace an unknown number of characters

I am trying to find an algorithm that for an unknown number of characters in a string, produces all of the options for replacing some characters with stars.
For example, for the string "abc", the output should be:
*bc
a*c
ab*
**c
*b*
a**
***
It is simple enough with a known number of stars, just run through all of the options with for loops, but I'm having difficulties with an all of the options.
Every star combination corresponds to binary number, so you can use simple cycle
for i = 1 to 2^n-1
where n is string length
and set stars to the positions of 1-bits of binary representations of i
for example: i=5=101b => * b *
This is basically a binary increment problem.
You can create a vector of integer variables to represent a binary array isStar and for each iteration you "add one" to the vector.
bool AddOne (int* isStar, int size) {
isStar[size - 1] += 1
for (i = size - 1; i >= 0; i++) {
if (isStar[i] > 1) {
if (i = 0) { return true; }
isStar[i] = 0;
isStar[i - 1] += 1;
}
}
return false;
}
That way you still have the original string while replacing the characters
This is a simple binary counting problem, where * corresponds to a 1 and the original letter to a 0. So you could do it with a counter, applying a bit mask to the string, but it's just as easy to do the "counting" in place.
Here's a simple implementation in C++:
(Edit: The original question seems to imply that at least one character must be replaced with a star, so the count should start at 1 instead of 0. Or, in the following, the post-test do should be replaced with a pre-test for.)
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
// A cleverer implementation would implement C++'s iterator protocol.
// But that would cloud the simple logic of the algorithm.
class StarReplacer {
public:
StarReplacer(const std::string& s): original_(s), current_(s) {}
const std::string& current() const { return current_; }
// returns true unless we're at the last possibility (all stars),
// in which case it returns false but still resets current to the
// original configuration.
bool advance() {
for (int i = current_.size()-1; i >= 0; --i) {
if (current_[i] == '*') current_[i] = original_[i];
else {
current_[i] = '*';
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
private:
std::string original_;
std::string current_;
};
int main(int argc, const char** argv) {
for (int a = 1; a < argc; ++a) {
StarReplacer r(argv[a]);
do {
std::cout << r.current() << std::endl;
} while (r.advance());
std::cout << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}

Reorder a string by half the character

This is an interview question.
Given a string such as: 123456abcdef consisting of n/2 integers followed by n/2 characters. Reorder the string to contain as 1a2b3c4d5e6f . The algortithm should be in-place.
The solution I gave was trivial - O(n^2). Just shift the characters by n/2 places to the left.
I tried using recursion as -
a. Swap later half of the first half with the previous half of the 2nd part - eg
123 456 abc def
123 abc 456 def
b. Recurse on the two halves.
The pbm I am stuck is that the swapping varies with the number of elements - for eg.
What to do next?
123 abc
12ab 3c
And what to do for : 12345 abcde
123abc 45ab
This is a pretty old question and may be a duplicate. Please let me know.. :)
Another example:
Input: 38726zfgsa
Output: 3z8f7g2s6a
Here's how I would approach the problem:
1) Divide the string into two partitions, number part and letter part
2) Divide each of those partitions into two more (equal sized)
3) Swap the second the third partition (inner number and inner letter)
4) Recurse on the original two partitions (with their newly swapped bits)
5) Stop when the partition has a size of 2
For example:
123456abcdef -> 123456 abcdef -> 123 456 abc def -> 123 abc 456 def
123abc -> 123 abc -> 12 3 ab c -> 12 ab 3 c
12 ab -> 1 2 a b -> 1 a 2 b
... etc
And the same for the other half of the recursion..
All can be done in place with the only gotcha being swapping partitions that aren't the same size (but it'll be off by one, so not difficult to handle).
It is easy to permute an array in place by chasing elements round cycles if you have a bit-map to mark which elements have been moved. We don't have a separate bit-map, but IF your characters are letters (or at least have the high order bit clear) then we can use the top bit of each character to mark this. This produces the following program, which is not recursive and so does not use stack space.
class XX
{
/** new position given old position */
static int newFromOld(int x, int n)
{
if (x < n / 2)
{
return x * 2;
}
return (x - n / 2) * 2 + 1;
}
private static int HIGH_ORDER_BIT = 1 << 15; // 16-bit chars
public static void main(String[] s)
{
// input data - create an array so we can modify
// characters in place
char[] x = s[0].toCharArray();
if ((x.length & 1) != 0)
{
System.err.println("Only works with even length strings");
return;
}
// Character we have read but not yet written, if any
char holding = 0;
// where character in hand was read from
int holdingPos = 0;
// whether picked up a character in our hand
boolean isHolding = false;
int rpos = 0;
while (rpos < x.length)
{ // Here => moved out everything up to rpos
// and put in place with top bit set to mark new occupant
if (!isHolding)
{ // advance read pointer to read new character
char here = x[rpos];
holdingPos = rpos++;
if ((here & HIGH_ORDER_BIT) != 0)
{
// already dealt with
continue;
}
int targetPos = newFromOld(holdingPos, x.length);
// pick up char at target position
holding = x[targetPos];
// place new character, and mark as new
x[targetPos] = (char)(here | HIGH_ORDER_BIT);
// Now holding a character that needs to be put in its
// correct place
isHolding = true;
holdingPos = targetPos;
}
int targetPos = newFromOld(holdingPos, x.length);
char here = x[targetPos];
if ((here & HIGH_ORDER_BIT) != 0)
{ // back to where we picked up a character to hold
isHolding = false;
continue;
}
x[targetPos] = (char)(holding | HIGH_ORDER_BIT);
holding = here;
holdingPos = targetPos;
}
for (int i = 0; i < x.length; i++)
{
x[i] ^= HIGH_ORDER_BIT;
}
System.out.println("Result is " + new String(x));
}
}
These days, if I asked someone that question, what I'm looking for them to write on the whiteboard first is:
assertEquals("1a2b3c4d5e6f",funnySort("123456abcdef"));
...
and then maybe ask for more examples.
(And then, depending, if the task is to interleave numbers & letters, I think you can do it with two walking-pointers, indexLetter and indexDigit, and advance them across swapping as needed til you reach the end.)
In your recursive solution why don't you just make a test if n/2 % 2 == 0 (n%4 ==0 ) and treat the 2 situations differently
As templatetypedef commented your recursion cannot be in-place.
But here is a solution (not in place) using the way you wanted to make your recursion :
def f(s):
n=len(s)
if n==2: #initialisation
return s
elif n%4 == 0 : #if n%4 == 0 it's easy
return f(s[:n/4]+s[n/2:3*n/4])+f(s[n/4:n/2]+s[3*n/4:])
else: #otherwise, n-2 %4 == 0
return s[0]+s[n/2]+f(s[1:n/2]+s[n/2+1:])
Here we go. Recursive, cuts it in half each time, and in-place. Uses the approach outlined by #Chris Mennie. Getting the splitting right was tricky. A lot longer than Python, innit?
/* In-place, divide-and-conquer, recursive riffle-shuffle of strings;
* even length only. No wide characters or Unicode; old school. */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
void testrif(const char *s);
void riffle(char *s);
void rif_recur(char *s, size_t len);
void swap(char *s, size_t midpt, size_t len);
void flip(char *s, size_t len);
void if_odd_quit(const char *s);
int main(void)
{
testrif("");
testrif("a1");
testrif("ab12");
testrif("abc123");
testrif("abcd1234");
testrif("abcde12345");
testrif("abcdef123456");
return 0;
}
void testrif(const char *s)
{
char mutable[20];
strcpy(mutable, s);
printf("'%s'\n", mutable);
riffle(mutable);
printf("'%s'\n\n", mutable);
}
void riffle(char *s)
{
if_odd_quit(s);
rif_recur(s, strlen(s));
}
void rif_recur(char *s, size_t len)
{
/* Turn, e.g., "abcde12345" into "abc123de45", then recurse. */
size_t pivot = len / 2;
size_t half = (pivot + 1) / 2;
size_t twice = half * 2;
if (len < 4)
return;
swap(s + half, pivot - half, pivot);
rif_recur(s, twice);
rif_recur(s + twice, len - twice);
}
void swap(char *s, size_t midpt, size_t len)
{
/* Swap s[0..midpt] with s[midpt..len], in place. Algorithm from
* Programming Pearls, Chapter 2. */
flip(s, midpt);
flip(s + midpt, len - midpt);
flip(s, len);
}
void flip(char *s, size_t len)
{
/* Reverse order of characters in s, in place. */
char *p, *q, tmp;
if (len < 2)
return;
for (p = s, q = s + len - 1; p < q; p++, q--) {
tmp = *p;
*p = *q;
*q = tmp;
}
}
void if_odd_quit(const char *s)
{
if (strlen(s) % 2) {
fputs("String length is odd; aborting.\n", stderr);
exit(1);
}
}
By comparing 123456abcdef and 1a2b3c4d5e6f we can note that only the first and the last characters are in their correct position. We can also note that for each remaining n-2 characters we can compute their correct position directly from their original position. They will get there, and the element that was there surely was not in the correct position, so it will have to replace another one. By doing n-2 such steps all the elements will get to the correct positions:
void funny_sort(char* arr, int n){
int pos = 1; // first unordered element
char aux = arr[pos];
for (int iter = 0; iter < n-2; iter++) { // n-2 unordered elements
pos = (pos < n/2) ? pos*2 : (pos-n/2)*2+1;// correct pos for aux
swap(&aux, arr + pos);
}
}
Score each digit as its numerical value. Score each letter as a = 1.5, b = 2.5 c = 3.5 etc. Run an insertion sort of the string based on the score of each character.
[ETA] Simple scoring won't work so use two pointers and reverse the piece of the string between the two pointers. One pointer starts at the front of the string and advances one step each cycle. The other pointer starts in the middle of the string and advances every second cycle.
123456abcdef
^ ^
1a65432bcdef
^ ^
1a23456bcdef
^ ^
1a2b6543cdef
^ ^

How do I sort a list of integers using only one additional integer variable?

How to sort list of values using only one variable?
A solution in C:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int list[]={4,7,2,4,1,10,3};
int n; // the one int variable
startsort:
for (n=0; n< sizeof(list)/sizeof(int)-1; ++n)
if (list[n] > list[n+1]) {
list[n] ^= list[n+1];
list[n+1] ^= list[n];
list[n] ^= list[n+1];
goto startsort;
}
for (n=0; n< sizeof(list)/sizeof(int); ++n)
printf("%d\n",list[n]);
return 0;
}
Output is of course the same as for the Icon program.
I suspect I'm doing your homework for you, but hey it's an interesting challenge. Here's a solution in Icon:
procedure mysort(thelist)
local n # the one integer variable
every n := (1 to *thelist & 1 to *thelist-1) do
if thelist[n] > thelist[n+1] then thelist[n] :=: thelist[n+1]
return thelist
end
procedure main(args)
every write(!mysort([4,7,2,4,1,10,3]))
end
The output:
1
2
3
4
4
7
10
You could generate/write a lot of sorting-networks for each possible list size. Inside the sorting network you use a single variable for the swap operation.
I wouldn't recommend that you do this in software, but it is possible nevertheless.
Here's a sorting-routine for all n up to 4 in C
// define a compare and swap macro
#define order(a,b) if ((a)<(b)) { temp=(a); (a) = (b); (b) = temp; }
static void sort2 (int *data)
// sort-network for two numbers
{
int temp;
order (data[0], data[1]);
}
static void sort3 (int *data)
// sort-network for three numbers
{
int temp;
order (data[0], data[1]);
order (data[0], data[2]);
order (data[1], data[2]);
}
static void sort4 (int *data)
// sort-network for four numbers
{
int temp;
order (data[0], data[2]);
order (data[1], data[3]);
order (data[0], data[1]);
order (data[2], data[3]);
order (data[1], data[2]);
}
void sort (int *data, int n)
{
switch (n)
{
case 0:
case 1:
break;
case 2:
sort2 (data);
break;
case 3:
sort3 (data);
break;
case 4:
sort4 (data);
break;
default:
// Sorts for n>4 are left as an exercise for the reader
abort();
}
}
Obviously you need a sorting-network code for each possible N.
More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_network
In java:
import java.util.Arrays;
/**
* Does a bubble sort without allocating extra memory
*
*/
public class Sort {
// Implements bubble sort very inefficiently for CPU but with minimal variable declarations
public static void sort(int[] array) {
int index=0;
while(true) {
next:
{
// Scan for correct sorting. Wasteful, but avoids using a boolean parameter
for (index=0;index<array.length-1;index++) {
if (array[index]>array[index+1]) break next;
}
// Array is now correctly sorted
return;
}
// Now swap. We don't need to rescan from the start
for (;index<array.length-1;index++) {
if (array[index]>array[index+1]) {
// use xor trick to avoid using an extra integer
array[index]^=array[index+1];
array[index+1]^=array[index];
array[index]^=array[index+1];
}
}
}
}
public static void main(final String argv[]) {
int[] array=new int[] {4,7,2,4,1,10,3};
sort(array);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array));
}
}
Actually, by using the trick proposed by Nils, you can eliminate even the one remaining int allocation - though of course that would add to the stack instead...
In ruby:
[1, 5, 3, 7, 4, 2].sort
You dont, it is already sorted. (as the question is vague, I shall assume variable is a synonym for an object)
If you have a list (1 5 3 7 4 2) and a variable v, you can exchange two values of the list, for example the 3 and the 7, by first assigning 3 to v, then assigning 7 to the place of 3, finally assigning the value of v to the original place of 7. After that, you can reuse v for the next exchange. In order to sort, you just need an algorithm that tells which values to exchange. You can look for a suitable algorithm for example at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithm .

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