angelamcosta / push_swap

Because Swap_push isn’t as natural

🔄 Push_swap

Push_swap is a program written in C that solves the sorting problem for two stacks named a and b. The goal is to sort the numbers in stack a in ascending order using a specific set of operations. The program aims to find the smallest list of instructions to achieve the desired sorted state. The subject of the project can be found in this link.

🎮 Project rules

• The program is composed of 2 stacks named a and b.

  • the stack a contains a random amount of negative and/or positive numbers which cannot be duplicated.
  • b is empty.

• The goal is to sort in ascending order numbers into stack a.

• To do this you have the following operations at your disposal:

  • sa: swap a - swap the first 2 elements at the top of stack a. Do nothing if there is only one or no elements).
  • sb: swap b - swap the first 2 elements at the top of stack b. Do nothing if there is only one or no elements).
  • ss: sa and sb at the same time.
  • pa: push a - take the first element at the top of b and put it at the top of a. Do nothing if b is empty.
  • pb: push b - take the first element at the top of a and put it at the top of b. Do nothing if a is empty.
  • ra: rotate a - shift up all elements of stack a by 1. The first element becomes the last one.
  • rb: rotate b - shift up all elements of stack b by 1. The first element becomes the last one.
  • rr: ra and rb at the same time.
  • rra: reverse rotate a - shift down all elements of stack a by 1. The last element becomes the first one.
  • rrb: reverse rotate b - shift down all elements of stack b by 1. The last element becomes the first one.
  • rrr: rra and rrb at the same time.

🚀 Usage

To use the push_swap program, navigate to the files/ directory and run the following command::

make

Execute the program by providing the stack a as command-line arguments:

./push_swap 2 1 3 6 5 8

The program will display the smallest list of instructions to sort the stack a, with the smallest number at the top.