Algorithm for iterating over an outward spiral on a discrete 2D grid from the origin

Question

For example, here is the shape of intended spiral (and each step of the iteration)

          y
          |
          |
   16 15 14 13 12
   17  4  3  2 11
--         


        

Answer 1

There's nothing wrong with direct, "ad-hoc" solution. It can be clean enough too.
Just notice that spiral is built from segments. And you can get next segment from current one rotating it by 90 degrees. And each two rotations, length of segment grows by 1.

edit Illustration, those segments numbered

   ... 11 10
7 7 7 7 6 10
8 3 3 2 6 10
8 4 . 1 6 10
8 4 5 5 5 10
8 9 9 9 9  9

.

    // (di, dj) is a vector - direction in which we move right now
    int di = 1;
    int dj = 0;
    // length of current segment
    int segment_length = 1;

    // current position (i, j) and how much of current segment we passed
    int i = 0;
    int j = 0;
    int segment_passed = 0;
    for (int k = 0; k < NUMBER_OF_POINTS; ++k) {
        // make a step, add 'direction' vector (di, dj) to current position (i, j)
        i += di;
        j += dj;
        ++segment_passed;
        System.out.println(i + " " + j);

        if (segment_passed == segment_length) {
            // done with current segment
            segment_passed = 0;

            // 'rotate' directions
            int buffer = di;
            di = -dj;
            dj = buffer;

            // increase segment length if necessary
            if (dj == 0) {
                ++segment_length;
            }
        }
    }

To change original direction, look at original values of di and dj. To switch rotation to clockwise, see how those values are modified.