Question

I currently have a 2 dimensional array that has data like this :

    X   X   X       X
    X   X   X       X
        X       X   X
        X   X   X   X
    X   X       X   X
    X   X   X   X   X

X marks a cell that has data, blank means its empty.
I having been pulling my hair for the last hour trying to figure out how to count what I call “holes”.
It’s basically a cell with empty data between two cells having data.
So by order you can see the cols have respectively 2, 0, 2, 0, 0 holes from left to right.
My function needs to return the total holes, so for this case 4.

Currently I have done this really close but my function is counting the 2 first cells on the 4th col which is wrong and I can’t figure out how to account for that.

Here is my actual code :

public function countHoles(){
        $total = 0;
        for($i=0; $i<5; $i++){
            $counting = false;
            $passed = false;
            for($j=0; $j<10; $j++){
                if(count($this->table[$j][$i])>0){
                    $passed = true;
                }
                if($passed && !$counting && count($this->table[$j][$i])==0){
                    $counting = true;
                }
                else{
                    $counting = false;
                }
                if($passed && $counting){
                    $total++;
                }
            }
        }
        return $total;
    }

Your help is appreciated.

Answer 1

I have an answer in javascript, try this:

var arr = [[1,2,3,null,5],[1,2,3,null,5],[null,2,null,null,5],[null,2,3,4,null],[1,null,null,4,5],[1,2,3,4,null]];  
var hole = 0;   
for(var i=0; i<arr.length; i++){        
    for(var j=1; j<arr[i].length-1; j++){
        if(arr[i][j]==null){
            for(var k=j;k<arr[i].length; k++){
                if(arr[i][k] != null){
                    k = arr[i].length;
                }else{
                    j++;                        
                }
            }
            if(j < arr[i].length){                  
                hole++;
            }
        }
    }
}
alert(hole);

‘hole’ is the var with the number of holes