Print shortest path to print a string on screen - GeeksforGeeks

Print shortest path to print a string on screen - GeeksforGeeks
Given a screen containing alphabets from A-Z, we can go from one character to another characters using a remote. The remote contains left, right, top and bottom keys.

Find shortest possible path to type all characters of given string using the remote. Initial position is top left and all characters of input string should be printed in order.

Screen:

A B C D E
F G H I J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Y
Z

The idea is to consider screen as 2D-matrix of characters. Then we consider all characters of given string one by one and print out the shortest path between current character and next character in the matrix. In order to find shortest path, we consider the coordinates of current character and next character in the matrix. Based on the difference between x and y values of current and next character’s coordinates, we move left, right, top or bottom. i.e.

If row difference is negative, we move up
If row difference is positive, we move down
If column difference is negative, we go left
If column difference is positive, we go right

void printPath(string str)

{

    int i = 0;

    // start from charcater 'A' present at position (0, 0)

    int curX = 0, curY = 0;

    while (i < str.length())

    {

        // find cordinates of next character

        int nextX = (str[i] - 'A') / 5;

        int nextY = (str[i] - 'B' + 1) % 5;

 

        // Move Up if destination is above

        while (curX > nextX)

        {

            cout << "Move Up" << endl;

            curX--;

        }

 

        // Move Left if destination is to the left

        while (curY > nextY)

        {

            cout << "Move Left" << endl;

            curY--;

        }

 

        // Move down if destination is below

        while (curX < nextX)

        {

            cout << "Move Down" << endl;

            curX++;

        }

 

        // Move Right if destination is to the right

        while (curY < nextY)

        {

            cout << "Move Right" << endl;

            curY++;

        }

 

        // At this point, destination is reached

        cout << "Press OK" << endl;

        i++;

    }

}

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