This is my solution to Stack Overflow's Challenge #13: Integer sorting in a grid.
In this challenge, we will sort some numbers onto a 6x6 square grid. Each cell will have one number.
Your challenge is to place all the integers into the grid such that
- Each row is descendingly sorted (ties are not allowed). For example: 6 5 4 3 2 1 is valid but 6 5 5 5 3 2 is not valid.
- Each column is descendingly sorted (ties are not allowed)
- or declare this impossible.
Example on a 3x3 grid: Given these numbers to sort [95, 75, 75, 74, 74, 74, 54, 45, 40]
A valid response would be [[95, 75, 74], [75, 74, 54], [74, 45, 40]]
In the attached file, we have 100 sets of 36 random integers. The integers are between 0 and 99. For each set, return either a valid sorting on a 6x6 grid or declare it impossible.
Please also return the total count of cases for which the sorting was impossible.
I began by observing the top-left corner must contain the highest number, as no number can be above it or to its left. As there is only 1 top-left corner, sorting is impossible if there's a tie for highest.
| C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | |||||
If there's a 2-way tie for second-highest number, we can place them in the spaces around the highest number. With a 3-way-or-more tie, we run out of room.
| C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | 98 | ||||
| 98 | |||||
Doing the same for the lowest numbers in the bottom-right, and extrapolating until they meet in the middle, we find 11 stripes that can contain sets of identical numbers:
| C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 |
| 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Except it's not quite that simple, as a set can span different stripes as long as no rows or columns are shared:
| C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | 98 | 97 | |||
| 97 | |||||
Essentially what this means is that as long as X >= Y, an X-space stripe can always contain a set of Y identical numbers, even if the stripe has been partially filled such that it has less than Y spaces left. In that case, we can "borrow" spaces from a larger adjacent stripe. The exception is the middle corner-to-corner stripe, where we have nowhere to borrow from.
This JavaScript module implements a stripe-by-stripe fill of the grid, borrowing spaces from larger stripes as necessary.
This repo includes a Node.js program that imports the module and runs every case from the challenge through it. With Node.js installed, it can be run with the command node node.mjs. The output is also included in the repo.