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text based undo function in java

I'm trying to figure out how to get a undo function for a small maze game. First I worked out a way to do this by checking what the last direction was and just going back in the opposite direction. But this code was getting way too long since I also had to track back possible item pickups or hidden walls etc.
Background info on the code: I use a String[][] to store the maze as this was the easiest. I use an Arraylist<String[][]> to store all the strings.
After each step the player takes I save the String[][] array to the arraylist. When the player say undo I look at the second last String[][] in the arraylist and want to set the String[][] back to this. But the currentPos never seems to get updated. I'm not sure where the problem lies.
if (direction.equals("north")) {
if (currentPos[i - 1][j].equals("---")) {
continue;
} else {
currentPos[i][j] = " ";
currentPos[i - 2][j] = "P";
break;
}
}
if (direction.equals("undo")) {
currentPos = history.get(history.size()-2);
history.remove(history.size()-1);
break;
}

Without understanding the way you are setting history, I've made the assumption from your question that you are simply adding the current map to the history list. If you aren't careful, you will be simply adding the same Object, populating the history with multiply Object references to the current map state. This would have the effect you are observing with the state not changing, because you the history only contains a reference to the most recent map (Not storing any actual history).
To obtain the value from an Object, you typically need to clone the object (invoking the clone() method). However, cloning a 2-dimensional array is somewhat problematic. Invoking the clone() method on a 2-dimensional array "shallow" clones the object, essentially only cloning the first dimension while leaving the second as a reference to the same object (The reason for this is that the first 1-dimension of the array holds a reference to the second 1-dimension). Changing the value on a shallow copied object will change the value of the original and vice-versa, not what you want if you want to keep the Objects distinct.
To create two distinct objects, you will need to perform a "deep" clone, which can be easily implemented in a helper method. The below code illustrates the importance of ensuring you fully clone the object before storing it in the history list.
public static void main (String args[]) throws Exception {
ArrayList<String[][]> list = new ArrayList<>();
String[][] shallowClonedMap = new String[1][1];
String[][] deepClonedMap = new String[1][1];
shallowClonedMap[0][0] = "Old";
deepClonedMap[0][0] = "Old";
list.add(shallowClonedMap.clone());
list.add(deepClone(deepClonedMap));
shallowClonedMap[0][0] = "New";
deepClonedMap[0][0] = "New";
list.add(shallowClonedMap.clone());
list.add(deepClone(deepClonedMap));
for (String[][] item : list) {
System.out.print(item[0][0]);
}
}
public static String[][] deepClone(String[][] arry) {
if (arry == null) {
return null;
}
String[][] clone = new String[arry.length][];
for (int i = 0; i < arry.length; i++) {
clone[i] = arry[i].clone();
}
return clone;
}
The output for executing this code is : NewOldNewNew whereas the "intended" output is "OldOldNewNew". From this you can see the shallowClonedMap was updated to "New" even after being cloned and added to the list.

Java ArrayList trying to check if object with this name exists

I'm having a bit of trouble in my head trying to solve this:
I'm working on a "rankList", an arrayList made of "Score". Score it's the object that has the following atributes: name,wins,loses,draws. My class Ranking has an ArrayList of Score objects. To create a new Score object I just use the name (and set the rest to 0 since it's new). However I'm trying to check if the player's name it's already in rankList I don't have to create new but sum a win or lose or draw.
I have been reading arround that I have to override equals then others say I have to override contains... It's getting a big mess in my head. My fastest solution would be to write an "for" that goes arround the arrayList and use the getName().equals("name"); however this is getting too messi in my code. I have checkPlayer (if the palyer is in the list):
public boolean checkPlayer(String playerName) {
for (int i = 0; i < this.rankList.size(); i++) {
if (this.rankList.get(i).getName().equals(playerName)) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
then if I want to incrase the wins i have this :
public void incraseWins(String playerName) {
if (checkPlayer(playerName)) {
for (int i = 0; i < this.rankList.size(); i++) {
if (this.rankList.get(i).getName().equals(playerName)) {
this.rankList.get(i).setWins(this.rankList.get(i).getWins() + 1);
break;
}
}
} else {
createPlayer(playerName);
//more for to get to the player i'm looking for...
for (int i = 0; i < this.rankList.size(); i++) {
if (this.rankList.get(i).getName().equals(playerName)) {
this.rankList.get(i).setWins(this.rankList.get(i).getWins() + 1);
break;
}
}
}
So i guess there is a better way to do this... :/

ArrayList is not the right data structure here. To check if an element exists in the array you are searching the entire arraylist. Which means it's O(N).
To keep an array list is sorted order and do a binary search on it would definitely be faster as suggested in the comments. But that wouldn't solve all your problems either because insert into the middle would be slow. Please see this Q&A: When to use LinkedList over ArrayList?
One suggestion is to use a Map. You would then be storing player name, player object pairs. This would give you very quick look ups. Worst case is O(log N) i believe.
It's also worth mentioning that you would probably need to make a permanent record of these scores eventually. If so an indexed RDBMS would give you much better performance and make your code a lot simpler.

Try using a hashtable with a key, it would be much more efficient!

e..Why not using map<>.
a binary search is good idea if you must use List,code like this
List<Method> a= new ArrayList<>();
//some method data add...
int index = Collections.binarySearch(a, m);
Method f = a.get(index);
and class method is impl of Comparable,then override compareTo() method
public class Method implements Comparable<Method>{
........
#Override
public int compareTo(Method o) {
return this.methodName.compareTo(o.getMethodName());
}
if you don't want use binsearch,CollectionUtils in commons can help you
CollectionUtils.find(a, new Predicate() {
#Override
public boolean evaluate(Object object) {
return ((Method)object).getMethodName().equals("aaa");
}
});
in fact CollectionUtils.find is also a 'for'
for (Iterator iter = collection.iterator(); iter.hasNext();) {
Object item = iter.next();
if (predicate.evaluate(item)) {
return item;
}
}

Android II JAVA Sorting An ArrayList of an object

First of all sorry if my English bad, its not my first language..
I'm working on and android app project, that needed to sort ArrayList of an object..so I made this method to deal with that...
Lets say that I have an object of Restaurant that will contain this data:
private String name;
private float distance ;
And I sort it using the value of the variable distance from lowest to highest:
public void sort(RArrayList<RestaurantData> datas) {
RestaurantData tmp = new RestaurantData();
int swapped;
boolean b = true;
while (b) {
swapped = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < datas.size()-1; i++) {
if (datas.get(i).getDistance() > datas.get(i+1).getDistance()) {
tmp = datas.get(i);
datas.set(i, datas.get(i+1));
datas.set(i+1, tmp);
swapped = 1;
System.err.println("Swapped happening");
}
}
if (swapped == 0) {
System.err.println("Swapped end");
break;
}
}
But when i try the program..the result of an ArrayList is still random, is there any problem with my logic to sort the ArrayList of an object..
Please Help...Thankyou..

Why not use the Collections.sort method?
Here's how you could do it in your project:
public void sort(RArrayList<RestaurantData> datas) {
Collections.sort(datas, new Comparator<RestaurantData>() {
#Override
public int compare(RestaurantData lhs, RestaurantData rhs) {
return lhs.getDistance() - rhs.getDistance();
}
});
}
The above solution is a bit "destructive" in the sense that it changes the order of the elements in the original array - datas. If that's fine for you go ahead and use it. Personally I prefer things less destructive and if you have the memory to spare (meaning your array is small) you could consider this solution which copies the array before sorting. It also assumes your RArrayList is an implementation of ArrayList or backed up by it:
public List<RestaurantData> sort(RArrayList<RestaurantData> datas) {
// Create a list with enough capacity for all elements
List<RestaurantData> newList = new RArrayList<RestaurantData>(datas.size());
Collections.copy(newList, datas);
Collections.sort(newList, new Comparator<RestaurantData>() {
#Override
public int compare(RestaurantData lhs, RestaurantData rhs) {
return lhs.getDistance() - rhs.getDistance();
}
});
return newList;
}
Another thing to consider is also to create a single instance of the Comparator used in the method, since this implementation will create one instance per call. Not sure if it's worth it though, because it will also be destroyed quite soon since the scope is local.
Here's the documentation for the Collections api
One last thing, the comparator simply needs to return a value less than 0 if the elements are in the right order, bigger than 0 if they're in the wrong order or 0 if they're the same. Therefore it seems to be that it's enough to simply subtract the distances of each restaurant. However, if this isn't the case, please implement the comparator suiting your needs.

How do I check if I have just clicked on a certain object from an array?

Basicly I am creating a game that you click on falling objects, E.G cookies, and I need to know how to check and see if a certain cookie has been pressed so it can disappear but the problem is that its in an array.
Here is a bit of my code:
Input class...
public class Input implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener{
#Override
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
if(e.getSource().equals(MainGame.CG)){
if(MainGame.MG.inGame){
//There is actually something else here but its classified (haha sorry about that)
if(e.getPoint().x > /*I NEED SOMETHING HERE*/){
//tells you if the object has been pressed
MainGame.CG.cookieClicked = true; //CG = ClickerGame
}
}
}
}
}
class with array...
public class ClickerGame extends JPanel{
public int amount;
public FallingObject[] fo = new FallingObject[120]; //THE ARRAY I'M HAVING TROUBLES WITH
/*THE REST IS A SECRET (SORRY ABOUT THAT)*/
}
If you don't understand here is a picture to demonstrate what I need...

In order to avoid having to check the coordinates of 120 different items on each click, make every element inside FallingObject[] aware of three things:
Its own area of influence (see sn00fy's answer)
The containing class (in this case probably ClickerGame
Its location in the array (an int)
To do this, you would need to change your FallingObject constructor to look something like this:
public void FallingObject(ClickerGame master, int index); //add whatever else is needed for Falling Object.
Then you could instantiate the array as follows.
for(int i = 0; i < 120; i++) {
fo[i] = new FallingObject(this, i ); //add anything else needed for the constructor
}
Then each FallingObject is responsible for its own state, and when clicked it is able to report back to the ClickerGame instance. All you need now is a method in ClickerGame which each FallingObject can call.
public void clickedObj(int index) {
FallingObject temp = null;
if(index >= 0 && index < 120) {
temp = fo[index];
//Do stuff with temp :)
}
}
To call this method from within FallingObject just reference the 'master' variable (which you should probably save as a global variable within the class.

You have to check every element in your FallingObject[] array if it intersects with the mouse pointer coordinates at the moment of the click.
You can implement a simple rectangle test or use a circle for each cookie as explained here:
Equation for testing if a point is inside a circle

Editable 2D Array

I want to create a 2D Array that creates a mini seating chart of an airplane. So far, I've gotten it to successfully print out something that looks like this:
1A(0) || 1B(0) || 1C(0)
2A(0) || 2B(0) || 2C(0)
3A(0) || 3B(0) || 3C(0)
4A(0) || 4B(0) || 4C(0)
The zeroes represent an empty seat, and the number one is used to represent an occupied seat.
I first created the program with arrays that were class variables for a First Class, but I wanted to make this program usable for an Economy Class section. The only difference between the two sections is the size of the array so I edited my code to look like this:
public class Seating
{
private int FIRSTCLASS= 12;
private int ECONOMYCLASS= 240;
private int occupied, column;
private String[][] seatchart;
private int[][] seatlist;
private String[][] namelist;
private String name;
public String customer;
public Seating(String seatclass)
{
seatclass.toUpperCase();
if (seatclass.equals("FIRSTCLASS"))
{
seatchart= new String[FIRSTCLASS/3][3];
seatlist= new int[FIRSTCLASS/3][3];
namelist= new String[FIRSTCLASS/3][3];
}
else
if (seatclass.equals("ECONOMY"))
{
seatchart= new String[ECONOMYCLASS/3][3];
seatlist= new int[ECONOMYCLASS/3][3];
namelist= new String[ECONOMYCLASS/3][3];
}
}
public void Creation()
{
for (int i=0; i< seatlist.length; i++)
{
for (int j=0; j<seatlist[i].length; j++)
{
seatlist[i][j]= 0 ;
}
}
I get an null pointer exception error around for (int i=0; i< seatlist.length; i++)
How can I fix this error?
Thanks in advance!

The problem is with this line:
seatclass.toUpperCase();
Replace it with:
seatclass = seatclass.toUpperCase();
I think you are creating the class with a string like "firstclass" rather than "FIRSTCLASS" right? Those aren't the same strings and just invoking the toUpperCase method on the string without assigning the result to a variable to then be tested means nothing happens.
Then since none of your if conditions are met, the arrays are not initialized and a null pointer exception is thrown when Completion() is called.
I'm not sure if you are new to java programming, but I wanted to add a few recommendations to your class:
public class Seating {
private static int FIRSTCLASS= 12; // Make these constants static since they pertain to all
private static int ECONOMYCLASS= 240; // instances of your class. That way there is exactly on
// copy of the variables, which is more memory efficient.
private int occupied;
private column; // Okay but Java convention is to declare each member variable on its own line
// increases code readability.
private String[][] seatchart;
private int[][] seatlist;
private String[][] namelist;
private String locSeatClass;
private String name;
public String customer; // Okay but better to leave this private and then provide getter and
// setter methods to provide access to this string. Much easier to track
// down who is changing its value in your code.
public Seating(String seatclass) { // Java convention is to place the opening bracket here not
// on the next line.
// Make sure that seatClass is not null or empty. NOTE: This is a neat trick for
// simultaneously checking for both null and empty strings in one shot. Otherwise, you have
// you have to check for null and then examine the string's length which is more code.
if ("".equalsIgnoreCase(seatClass) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Seat class undefined.");
}
// Store the seat class in a member variable for use. Could also be a local variable.
// My original solution is problematic because it changes the original value of the seat
// class that was passed into the constructor (you might want that information).
locSeatClass = seatclass.toUpperCase();
if (locSeatClass.equals("FIRSTCLASS"))
{
seatchart= new String[FIRSTCLASS/3][3];
seatlist= new int[FIRSTCLASS/3][3];
namelist= new String[FIRSTCLASS/3][3];
}
else if (locSeatclass.equals("ECONOMY")) {
seatchart= new String[ECONOMYCLASS/3][3];
seatlist= new int[ECONOMYCLASS/3][3];
namelist= new String[ECONOMYCLASS/3][3];
}
else {
// Throw an exception if someone passes in an unknown seat class string.
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown seat class detected.")
}
}
public void creation() { // NOTE: Java convention is to begin method names with a lower
// case letter.
// This method is unnecessary. Arrays of integers are initialized with an initial value
// of zero by default. However, if you want to make your class reusable, you could change
// change the name of the this method to clear, which would allow you to clear the arrays of
// an existing object.
for (int i=0; i< seatlist.length; i++)
{
for (int j=0; j<seatlist[i].length; j++)
{
seatlist[i][j]= 0 ;
}
}
}

The only way that line of code can generate a NPE is if seatlist is null. Unless you assign null to seatlist somewhere else in your class, the only way it can be null is if the argument that you pass to the Seating constructor does not match either "FIRSTCLASS" or "ECONOMY". Check your call to the constructor. Also, you might want to just use seatclass.equalsIgnoreCase().
You should modify your constructor to at least warn about that eventuality, since it is vital to the proper operation of the class that any instances of Seating have valid seatlist and namelist arrays.