Looping in a spiral

Question

A friend was in need of an algorithm that would let him loop through the elements of an NxM matrix (N and M are odd). I came up with a solution, but I wanted to see if my fe

Answer 1

This is in C.

I happened to choose bad variable names. In the names T == top, L == left, B == bottom, R == right. So, tli is top left i and brj is bottom right j.

#include

typedef enum {
   TLTOR = 0,
   RTTOB,
   BRTOL,
   LBTOT
} Direction;

int main() {
   int arr[][3] = {{1,2,3},{4,5,6}, {7,8,9}, {10,11,12}};
   int tli = 0, tlj = 0, bri = 3, brj = 2;
   int i;
   Direction d = TLTOR;

   while (tli < bri || tlj < brj) {
     switch (d) {
     case TLTOR:
    for (i = tlj; i <= brj; i++) {
       printf("%d ", arr[tli][i]);
    }
    tli ++;
    d = RTTOB;
    break;
     case RTTOB:
    for (i = tli; i <= bri; i++) {
       printf("%d ", arr[i][brj]);
    }
    brj --;
    d = BRTOL;
    break;
     case BRTOL:
    for (i = brj; i >= tlj; i--) {
       printf("%d ", arr[bri][i]);
    }
    bri --;
        d = LBTOT;
    break;
     case LBTOT:
    for (i = bri; i >= tli; i--) {
       printf("%d ", arr[i][tlj]);
    }
    tlj ++;
        d = TLTOR;
    break;
 }
   }
   if (tli == bri == tlj == brj) {
      printf("%d\n", arr[tli][tlj]);
   }
}