Question

I’m working on this bacteria life game thing I have to make.

Basically I have a 2d string array let’s say 20 by 20.

What would be the best way to check all 8 spots around a certain index. Each index is suppose to represent a bacteria. For each bacteria(index) I have to check to see if any of the 8 spots around this index has another bacteria in it, if the index has a bacteria in it, it’s represented simply by a “*”, asterik.

What would be the best way to go about checking all 8 spots around each index, because based on what is in the indices around a certain index I have to make certain changes etc.

The only idea I have come up with is having a bunch of if statements to check all 8 spots, I was wondering if there is a better way to do this

ex:
row 1 – www , row 2 = wOw , row 3 – www ,

if I am at the O index, what would be the best way to check all the index spots around it for a certain string.

Sorry, I am not very good at explaining my problems, bad english :o.

thanks for any of the help.

Answer 1

so you have something like this

char[][] table = new char[20][20]

for(int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
    for(int j = 0; j < 20; j++) {
        int surroundingBacteria = 0;
        for(int x = max(i-1,0); x < min(20,i+1); x++) {
            for(int y = max(i-1,0); y < min(20,i+1); y++) {
                if(table[x][y] == '*') surroundingBacteria++;
            }
        }
        switch(surroundingBacteria) {
            // put your case logic here
        }
    }
}