Question

I am trying to make a breadth-first search to solve a square-shifting puzzle (the one where you move squares into an empty space until it’s solved). My breadth-first algorithm uses a queue. Unfortunately, it only seems to be working for the UP and DOWN cases, and not the LEFT or RIGHT cases:

                if (up)
            {
                int[][] current = copy(v.state);
                current[x][y] = current[x - 1][y];
                current[x - 1][y] = 0;

                State w = new State(current);
                w.distance = v.distance + 1;
                w.path = v;
                System.out.println(q.insert(w));
            }

            if (down)
            {
                int[][] current = copy(v.state);
                current[x][y] = current[x + 1][y];
                current[x + 1][y] = 0;

                State w = new State(current);
                w.distance = v.distance + 1;
                w.path = v;
                System.out.println(q.insert(w));
            }

            if (left)
            {
                int[][] current = copy(v.state);
                current[x][y] = current[x][y - 1];
                current[x][y - 1] = 0;

                State w = new State(current);
                w.distance = v.distance + 1;
                w.path = v;
                System.out.println(q.insert(w));
            }

            if (right)
            {
                int[][] current = copy(v.state);
                current[x][y] = current[x][y + 1];
                current[x][y + 1] = 0;

                State w = new State(current);
                w.distance = v.distance + 1;
                w.path = v;
                System.out.println(q.insert(w));
            }

I think it’s a problem with my queue, the implementation of which is below. Is there something wrong with my queue, or is it another problem? Does the Java API have a queue class I could use?

public class ArrayQueue {
State[] items;
int maxSize;
int front;
int rear;
int numItems;

public ArrayQueue(int max)
{
    items = new State[max];
    maxSize = max;
    front = 0;
    rear = -1;
    numItems = 0;
}

public boolean insert(State item)
{
    if (isFull()) return false;
    rear = (rear + 1) % items.length;
    items[rear] = item;
    return true;
}

public State remove()
{
    if (isEmpty()) return null;
    State removed = items[front];
    front = (front + 1) % items.length;
    return removed;
}

public boolean isFull()
{
    if ((front + 1) % maxSize == rear)
        return true;
    else
        return false;
}

public boolean isEmpty()
{
    if ((rear + 1) % maxSize == front)
            return true;
    else
        return false;
}
}

Here is the copy method:

public static int[][] copy(int[][] input)       //This method is necessary because we are trying to clone a multi-dimensional array.
{                                               //Just using clone() will copy the outer arrays but they will be arrays of references to the original inner arrays.
int[][] output = new int[input.length][];
for (int i = 0; i < input.length; i++)
    output[i] = input[i].clone();
return output;
}

Answer 1

The JDK provides a Queue interface and a number of implementations, which can be found in the “All Known Implementing Classes” section of the Queue documentation.

For your purposes, a LinkedList should probably be good enough.