DWITE Online Computer Programming Contest, January 2010, Problem 5
Yes, it's a maze, but it's one of those fancy puzzle mazes where there is no friction on the floor and one must bump into walls to stop.
#
— wall.
— frictionless open spaceA
-F
— points of interest
You will start at a point of interest, and must traverse to the next point in alphabetical order. You may only travel in straight lines, and will continue to slide until there is a #
wall directly in front of the path. Once stopped, you can push off in any of 4 directions. Assume that the maze's boundary is surrounded by walls.
The objective is to stop at the target, not simply slide through it.
For example, in a distance of 13. Note that arrows are to illustrate the shortest path, and will not actually be in the data file.
A>>>#
###v#
^>>B#
<<<v#
...##
The input will contain a single maze as described above.
The output will contain 5 integers, distance travelled from starting at a point of interest to stopping at the next. That is, sets A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E, E-F.
Sample Input
A....E...B
..........
..........
..........
..........
..........
F.........
#.........
......#...
.....D...C
Sample Output
9
9
16
9
11
Problem Resource: DWITE
Comments
does fewer turns equals few steps?
no
you will never know why I get so many downvote
you're not volcano
thanks d
Is it guaranteed to be possible to reach every checkpoint?
yes
(it is possible to stop at B from A, and C from B, etc)
Thank you for the clarification.