Tournament bracket placement algorithm

Question

Given a list of opponent seeds (for example seeds 1 to 16), I\'m trying to write an algorithm that will result in the top seed playing the lowest seed in that round, the 2nd

Answer 1

Since this comes up when searching on the subject, and it's hopeless to find another answer that solves the problem AND puts the seeds in a "prettier" order, I will add my version of the PHP code from darkangel. I also added the possibility to give byes to the higher seed players.

This was coded in an OO environment, so the number of participants are in $this->finalists and the number of byes are in $this->byes. I have only tested the code without byes and with two byes.

  public function getBracket() {
      $players = range(1, $this->finalists);
      for ($i = 0; $i < log($this->finalists / 2, 2); $i++) {
        $out = array();
        $reverse = false;
        foreach ($players as $player) {
          $splice = pow(2, $i);
          if ($reverse) {
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, -$splice));
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, 0, $splice));
            $reverse = false;
          } else {
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, 0, $splice));
            $out = array_merge($out, array_splice($players, -$splice));
            $reverse = true;
          }
        }
        $players = $out;
      }
      if ($this->byes) {
        for ($i = 0; $i < $this->byes; $i++ ) {
          for ($j = (($this->finalists / pow(2, $i)) - 1); $j > 0; $j--) {
            $newPlace = ($this->finalists / pow(2, $i)) - 1;
            if ($players[$j] > ($this->finalists / (pow(2 ,($i + 1))))) {
              $player = $players[$j];
              unset($players[$j]);
              array_splice($players, $newPlace, 0, $player);
            }
          }
        }
        for ($i = 0; $i < $this->finalists / (pow(2, $this->byes)); $i++ ) {
          $swap[] = $players[$i];
        }
        for ($i = 0; $i < $this->finalists /(pow(2, $this->byes)); $i++ ) {
          $players[$i] = $swap[count($swap) - 1 - $i];
        }
        return array_reverse($players);
      }
      return $players;
    }