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

Your question looks like a question called spiral memory. In that problem, each square on the grid is allocated in a spiral pattern starting from the number 1 which locates at the origin. And then counting up while spiraling outwards. For example:

17  16  15  14  13

18   5   4   3  12

19   6   1   2  11

20   7   8   9  10

21  22  23  ---->

My solution for computing the coordinates of each number following this spiral pattern is posted below:

def spiral_pattern(num):
    x = y = 0
    for _ in range(num-1):
        x, y = find_next(x, y)
    yield (x, y)


def find_next(x, y):
    """find the coordinates of the next number"""
    if x == 0 and y == 0:
        return 1, 0

    if abs(x) == abs(y):
        if x > 0 and y > 0:
            x, y = left(x, y)
        elif x < 0 and y > 0:
            x, y = down(x, y)
        elif x < 0 and y < 0:
            x, y = right(x, y)
        elif x > 0 and y < 0:
            x, y = x+1, y
    else:
        if x > y and abs(x) > abs(y):
            x, y = up(x, y)
        elif x < y and abs(x) < abs(y):
            x, y = left(x, y)
        elif x < y and abs(x) > abs(y):
            x, y = down(x, y)
        elif x > y and abs(x) < abs(y):
            x, y = right(x, y)

    return x, y

def up(x, y):
    return x, y+1


def down(x, y):
    return x, y-1


def left(x, y):
    return x-1, y


def right(x, y):
    return x+1, y