Programming Practice Problems

Easy Problems

Moderate Problems

Easy Problems

+-------------------------+
34 21 32 41 25
+----+----+----+----+-----
14 42 43 14 31
+----+----+----+----+-----
54 45 52 42 23
+----+----+----+----+-----
33 15 51 31 35
+----+----+----+----+-----
21 52 33 13 23
+-------------------------+

1. Do you like treasure hunts? In this problem you are to write a program
to explore the above array for a treasure. The values in the array are
clues. Each cell contains an integer between 11 and 55; for each value the
ten's digit represents the row number and the unit's digit represents the
column number of the cell containing the next clue. Starting in the upper
left corner (at 1,1), use the clues to guide your search of the array. (The
first three clues are 11, 34, 42). The treasure is a cell whose value is the
same as its coordinates. Your program must first read in the treasure map
data into a 5 by 5 array. Your program should output the cells it visits
during its search, and a message indicating where you found the treasure.

2. Write a program to search for the "saddle points" in a 5 by 5 array of

integers. A saddle point is a cell whose value is greater than or equal to
any in its row, and less than or equal to any in its column. There may be
more than one saddle point in the array. Print out the coordinates of any
saddle points your program finds. Print out "No saddle points" if there are
none.
3. In the game of chess, a queen can attack pieces which are on the same
row, column, or diagonal. A chessboard can be represented by an 8 by 8

array. A 1 in the array represents a queen on the corresponding square,

and a O in the array represents an unoccupied square. Your program is to
read the location of two queens and then update the array appropriately.
Then process the board and indicate whether or not the two queens are
positioned so that they attack each other.
4. One classic method for composing secret messages is called a square
code. The spaces are removed from the english text
and the characters are written into a square (or rectangle). For example,
the sentence "If man was meant to stay on the
ground god would have given us roots" is 54 characters long, so it is
written into a rectangle with 7 rows and 8 columns.
ifmanwas
meanttos
tayonthe
groundgo
dwouldha
vegivenu
sroots
The coded message is obtained by reading down the columns going left to
right. For example, the message above is coded as:
imtgdvs fearwer mayoogo anouuio ntnnlvt wttddes aohghn sseoau
In your program, have the user enter a message in english with no spaces
between the words. Have the maximum message length be 81
characters. Display the encoded message. (Watch out that no "garbage"
characters are printed.) Here are some more examples:
Input
haveaniceday
feedthedog
chillout

Output
hae and via ecy
fto ehg ee dd
clu hlt io

5. The results from the mayor's race have been reported by each precinct
as follows:
Candidate
Precinct
A
1
192
2
147
3
186

Candidate Candidate Candidate

B
C
D
48
206
37
90
312
21
12
121
38

4
5

114
267

21
13

408
382

39
29

Write a program to do the following:

a. Read the raw vote totals from a data file that contains one row for each
precinct.
b. Display the table with appropriate headings for the rows and columns.
c. Compute and display the total number of votes received by each
candidate and
the percent of the total votes cast.
d. If any one candidate received over 50% of the votes, the program
should print
a message declaring that candidate the winner.
e. If no candidate received 50% of the votes, the program should print a
message
declaring a run-off between the two candidates receiving the highest
number of
votes; the two candidates should be identified by their letter names.
f. For testing, run the program with the above data, and also with another
data file where Candidate C receives only 108 votes in precinct 4.

Moderate Problems
Write a program to find all the sentences, or consecutive sequence of
sentences, in a text file where: min <= length <= max.
Assume that a sentence ends in a period, question mark, or exclamation
point.
In the special case of quoted sentences (that begin with quotes or an
apostrophe), include the terminating quote mark or apostrophe.
Count all blanks and punctuation, but assume only one blank between
sentences.
(All EOL characters should be converted to blanks).
Precondition: Min and Max will be positive integers less than 1000, and Min
<= Max.

The name of the text file is to be provided as a command line argument

(not read from Standard Input).
For example, given this text:
Black is white. Day is night. Understanding is ignorance.
Truth is fiction. Safety is danger.
If min = max = 16 then the output is
"Black is white."
If min = max = 18 then the output is
"Truth is fiction."
"Safety is danger."
If min = 30 and max = 37 then the output is
"Truth is fiction. Safety is danger."
because the two sentences are consecutive sentences with the desired
length.
Here is a sample text file for Alice in Wonderland.

1. Write a program to convert roman numerals into their arabic

equivalent.
INPUT REQUIREMENTS
Read one or more roman numerals from standard input. Process one line
at a time. Each input line contains only one roman numeral, starting in
column one. Assume the characters are all upper case with no embedded
blanks.
OUTPUT REQUIREMENTS
The arabic equivalent of each input roman numeral is displayed on
standard output, starting in column one.
FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Here are the arabic equivalents for roman symbols:
The "basic" roman symbols
symbols
I

The "auxiliary" roman

10

100

1000

50

500

Convert the roman numeral to arabic processing the symbols from left to
right according to the following rules:
1. A symbol following one of greater or equal value adds to its value.
(E.g., XII = 12)
2. A symbol preceding one of greater value subtracts its value.(E.g., IV =
4; XL = 40)
ERROR HANDLING REQUIREMENTS
In each of the error conditions below, display the given message and skip
the numeral and continue processing the next line.
"Invalid character in input. Valid characters are I,V,X,L,C,D,M."
Only the listed characters are valid.
"Invalid numeral: can't subtract auxiliary symbol."
It is not permitted to subtract an "auxiliary" symbol. (CML, not LM = 950;
XLV not VL, = 45).
"Invalid numeral: two consecutive subtractions."
Can't do two subtractions in a row, thus LIVX is illegal.
"Invalid numeral: additions don't decrease."
Additions must decrease, as you go from left to right. Thus, each symbol
added must have a value equal or less than the last symbol which was
added. Thus, LIIX is wrong, cause we added L, added I, subtracted I, then
try to add X.

Phone "words"
Each number on the telephone dial (except 0 and 1) corresponds to three
alphabetic characters. Those correspondences are:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

ABC
DEF
GHI
JKL
MNO
PRS
TUV
WXY

Given a seven digit telephone number, print all 2187 possible "words" that
number spells. (They may not be real english words, but just some
sequence of characters). Since the digits 0 and 1 have no alphabetic
equivalent, an input number which contains those digits should be
rejected. The input will be one or more seven digit integers from standard
input.
The problem can be made a bit more challenging by outputting more than
one word per line. Usually about seven words will fit on a line.

Frequency of letter pairs

Write a program to count the occurrences of all letter pairs in a sample of
text (like the first paragraph of the Constitution). Disregard differences
between lower and upper case letters. (Blanks are not considered as
letters). Output the 100 most frequent letter pairs, in order by percent of
total. Also show which percent of total pairs is accounted for by this list of
100. Your program should correctly process situations where the input file
is empty or where less than 100 pairs occur.
Sample output
th 2.37%
in 2.20%
...
(100 letter pairs)

fj 2.00% ... (6 per line)

Output represents 73.44% of 23641 letter pairs.

Computing "subword" combinations.

Accept any number of lines of input entered from standard input. A valid
line contains a word and a number. The word comes first, and is up to
twenty alphabetic characters (A-Z) in upper or lower case. The word may
be preceeded and followed by any number of blanks. The number is a
decimal integer greater than zero, and may be followed by any number of
blanks or a return. Input is terminated by EOF character. For each input
word, print all possible "subwords" that have as many characters as
specified by the number. A "subword" is a n-letter word comprised of only
characters that are found in the given word. If you are familiar with the
game Scrabble, it's as though the input word is your pool of letters, and
you want to find all possible arrangements of n letters from your pool. .nf
For example, CAT 2 would produce CA CT AC AT TA TC and DOG 1 would
produce D O G and BIRD 3 would produce BIR BID IRD RID DIR RIB ... Note,
that we are producing combinations WITHOUT replacement, so in the BIRD
3 example, BBB and RRR are NOT possible subwords. The output should

echo the input line to standard output, followed by the list of subwords,
one word per line, left justified. Each set of output words should be
followed by one blank line. The program should respond to invalid input by
echoing the input line to the output, and then issuing a one line message
indicating the nature of the error:
"Illegal character in word"
"Illegal character in number"
"Number greater than length of word"
"Word longer than 20 characters"
After issuing the message, processing should resume with the next input
line. When all input has been processed, issue a message indicating the
number of input words that were processed (including word with errors)
e.g., "End of input encountered, 4 words processed."

Calculating bowling match scores

A bowling match consists of ten frames. Each frame except for the tenth
consists of one or two balls, or attempts to knock down the ten pins at the
end of the alley. Doing so on the first ball of the frame is called a strike,
and the second ball of the frame is not rolled. Knocking down all ten pins
with both balls (having left some up with the first ball) is called a spare. If
both attempts to knock down the pins leave some standing, the frame is
called an open frame. A spare in the tenth frame gives the bowler one
extra ball; a strike in the tenth gives him or her two extra balls. A bowling
score is computed as follows. A strike counts as 10 points plus the sum of
the next two balls. A spare counts as 10 points plus the next ball. Any
other balls merely count as themselves, as do any bonus balls rolled as a
result of a strike or a spare in the tenth frame. Suppose for example that
the sequence of balls was
9 1 0 10 10 10 6 2 7 3 8 2 10 9 0 9 1 10
The score for the ten frames would be
Frame score
----- ----1
10
2
30
3
56
4
74
5
82
6
100
7
120

8
9
10

139
148
168

Write a program to accept from standard input the scores for a sequence
of balls and output the scores for the ten frames. There may be multiple
lines of input, where each input line will be the scores for one player. The
scores will be separated by one or more blanks. You may assume that the
number of scores on the line is valid.

Lotto Guesser
Cobbletown has a lottery (a small version of California's Lotto) in which
players guess four number between 1 and 9. Larry likes to play and thinks
he has a scheme to pick winning numbers. He keeps a history of past
winning numbers in a text data file. Larry thinks that if a number hasn't
occurred recently then it is more likely to show up as a winner. (Obviously
Larry isn't familiar with the statistical fact that each number has an equal
likelihood of being picked, since each week's drawing is an independent
event). Larry wants us to write a program to assist him in his wacky
scheme.
INPUT REQUIREMENTS
The lotto history data: a file of unknown length, with four integers per line.
Each integer is in the range 1 to 9.
OUTPUT REQUIREMENTS
1. The four least frequently occurring integers in the history data. (That is,
counting all the weeks, the four numbers that appeared fewer times than
any others).
2. The one integer with longest time since last occurrence. (That is, if you
count backward from now, the number for which you count the most
weeks since it occurred).
FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
(You may assume that no data validity checking is required).
1. Determine and display the four integers which occur least often in the
history data.
Note: To make the problem easier, if there is a tie between two or more
numbers for fourth place, it doesn't matter which one is printed.

2. Determine and display the integer which has gone the longest without
appearing in a winning sequence.
At a minimum your program must work correctly for the following sample
data.
Test Data

1234

5678

8765

1567

4321

Castles and Creatures

Write a program to play a simple
"adventure"-style interactive game. The
adventure world consists of up to five
castles each of which has up to seven rooms
(35 total). Each room has a treasure, worth
a certain number of points, and a creature
guarding the treasure. The treasure can be
captured by bluffing or fighting the creature.
Bluffing always has a 30% chance of
succeeding. The odds for winning a fight
vary from creature to creature. The object of
the game is to visit different rooms and gain
as many treasure points as possible. The
player begins with 9 lives and each fight lost
costs a life. (There's no penalty for losing a
bluff.) When all the lives (or all treasures)
are gone the game ends. The adventure
world information (like castle and room

names) is stored in a text file. The program

must read the text file and create a data
structure to represent the world. (HINT: Use
a record structure for each room.) The
program must handle interaction with the
player, including display of menus for castle
and room choices, display of current lives
and treasure points accumulated, and
responding to one-character commands to
fight, bluff, or move around the world.

Sudoku Solver
Sudoku Solver assignment

Last modified on 10/17/2014 23:37:40Last modified on 05/13/2001

12:36:16