Question

I want to layout X buttons.

At the start, Y items can be in a row.
After the first row is laid out, only Y – 1 items can appear in the next row and so on.

So say I have 13 buttons and the first row can have up to 6 buttons, I would need 3 rows. The first would have 6 buttons the second 5 buttons, and the 3ed 2 buttons.

Thanks

What algorithm could be to do:

int getRowCount(int startCols, int numItems);

I know how to do it with MOD if the number of columns is constant but how would you do it if the maximum number of columns decreases with each row?

Answer 1

In situations like this, I try to translate the english into code.

int getRowCount(int startCols, int numItems) {
  int currentCols = startCols;
  int numRows = 0;

  while (numItems > 0) {      // as long as items remain
    numRows += 1;             // add another row
    numItems -= currentCols;  // reduce the remaining items by the current number of columns
    currentCols--;            // reduce the number of columns by one
  }
}

It’s always best to run through the scenario with some edge cases. Ask yourself questions like:

What answer do I get if numItems is 0?
What answer do I get if startCols is 0?
What answer do I get if numItems == startCols?