Recursive Question

Mistro116@yahoo.com · 11-27-2005, 04:28 PM

I've gotten to a stage in my program where I'm testing runtime efficiency and I want to write a recursive function that will search a 2-dimensional array of characters for a words.

I'm trying to write the function for SearchLeft, where it will search entirely to the left throughout the entire grid of characters until it either finds the word or it doesn't and changes the value of its starting row and column; however, it's not finding the word, so I think there may be a few problems with it.

Here is my code so far:

Code:

int RecursiveSearchLeft (char letters
			 [LETTERARRAYROWSIZE][LETTERARRAYCOLUMNSIZE],
			 int row, int column, WORD *words,
			 int wordIndex, int characterIndex)
{
   if (words [wordIndex].word [characterIndex] ==
       letters [row][column])
   {
      if (characterIndex == 0)
      {
	 words [wordIndex].startRow = row;
	 words [wordIndex].startCol = column;
      }
      
      characterIndex++;
      
      if (characterIndex < strlen (words [wordIndex].word))
      {
	 RecursiveSearchLeft (letters, row, column - 1, words,
			      wordIndex, characterIndex);
      }
      
      return 1;
   }
   else if (column == NOBUFFERSTARTCOLUMN && row <= NOBUFFERENDROW)
   {
      RecursiveSearchLeft (letters, row + 1, column + 14, words,
			   wordIndex, characterIndex);
      
      return 0;
   }
   else
   {
      RecursiveSearchLeft (letters, row, column - 1, words,
			   wordIndex, characterIndex);
   }
   
   return 0;
}

The sample 2-d array would be:

Code:

 EHUKXDICNMYTYLF 
 WOCJSKLTIMHONII 
 NOTGNIHSAWZIFNP 
 IRBWNIIWPPIERCE 
 BMETVELIIOKOWOK 
 QUOWCLEVELANDLN 
 VNCCOORTHTSNUNA 
 AMKHRHFELSIONOM 
 DULNAANETXUQNSU 
 AIOATNVEORKBARR 
 MMPZVEANSUALBET 
 SYSDSWGNBITCLFI 
 OHZOMYDENNEKWFD 
 IAOTNARGRNVTFEF 
 KRRVFVEEDMBDMJZ

Specifically, I'm testing this by searching for the word GRANT, which is on row 14, col 8.

What is wrong with this code? Can anyone help? It's urgent.

Thanks once more,
Mistro116

Edit: The 2-d array has a buffer around it:

Code:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XEHUKXDICNMYTYLFX
XWOCJSKLTIMHONIIX
XNOTGNIHSAWZIFNPX
XIRBWNIIWPPIERCEX
XBMETVELIIOKOWOKX
XQUOWCLEVELANDLNX
XVNCCOORTHTSNUNAX
XAMKHRHFELSIONOMX
XDULNAANETXUQNSUX
XAIOATNVEORKBARRX
XMMPZVEANSUALBETX
XSYSDSWGNBITCLFIX
XOHZOMYDENNEKWFDX
XIAOTNARGRNVTFEFX
XKRRVFVEEDMBDMJZX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mistro116@yahoo.com · 11-27-2005, 05:29 PM

This is some updated code, but it still does not function, but takes care of a few issues:

Code:

int RecursiveSearchLeft (char letters
			 [LETTERARRAYROWSIZE][LETTERARRAYCOLUMNSIZE],
			 int row, int column, WORD *words,
			 int wordIndex)
{
   int characterIndex = 0;
   
   if (letters [row][column] ==
       words [wordIndex].word [characterIndex] &&
       characterIndex <= strlen (words [wordIndex].word))
   {
      if (characterIndex == 0)
      {
	 words [wordIndex].startRow = row;
	 words [wordIndex].startCol = column;
      }
      
      characterIndex++;
      
      if (characterIndex == (strlen (words [wordIndex].word) - 1))
      {
	 return 1;
      }
      
      RecursiveSearchLeft (letters, row, column - 1, words,
			   wordIndex);
   }
   else if (column > NOBUFFERSTARTCOLUMN)
   {
      RecursiveSearchLeft (letters, row, column - 1, words,
			   wordIndex);
   }
   else if (column == NOBUFFERSTARTCOLUMN && row < NOBUFFERENDROW)
   {
      RecursiveSearchLeft (letters, row + 1, NOBUFFERSTARTCOLUMN,
			   words, wordIndex);
   }
   
   words [wordIndex].startRow = 0;
   words [wordIndex].startCol = 0;
   
   return 0;
}