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Discussion on: Daily Challenge #59 - Snail Sort

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ynndvn profile image
La blatte •

Here it is!

snail = arr =>
    arr.length > 1
      ? [
          ...arr.shift(),
          ...arr.map(e => e.pop()),
          ...arr.pop().reverse(),
          ...arr.reverse().map(e => e.shift())
        ].concat(arr.length ? snail(arr.reverse()) : [])
      : arr[0];
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It works kinda litterally:

  • Take the first line of the array
  • Add every remaining last element
  • Add the last line, reversed
  • Reverse the array, and return every first element
  • Restart, with the remaining elements

And the results:

snail([[]])
[]
snail([[1]])
[1]
snail([[1, 2, 3], 
        [4, 5, 6], 
        [7, 8, 9]]);
(9) [1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 8, 7, 4, 5]
snail([[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 
        [6, 7, 8, 9, 10], 
        [11, 12, 13, 14, 15], 
        [16, 17, 18, 19, 20], 
        [21, 22, 23, 24, 25]]);
(25) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 16, 11, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 19, 18, 17, 12, 13]
snail([[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6],
        [20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 7], 
        [19, 32, 33, 34, 25, 8], 
        [18, 31, 36, 35, 26, 9], 
        [17, 30, 29, 28, 27, 10], 
        [16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11]])
(36) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36]
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colorfusion profile image
Melvin Yeo •

Solution in Python based on La blatte's wonderful implementation if anyone is interested!

def snail(arr):
    return arr[0] if len(arr) == 1 else [*arr.pop(0), *[elem.pop() for elem in arr], *arr.pop()[::-1], *[elem.pop(0) for elem in arr[::-1]]] + snail(arr) if len(arr) else []
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chrisachard profile image
Chris Achard •

Much cleaner than mine! Nicely done 🎉

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cgty_ky profile image
Cagatay Kaya •

I did the same thing with nearly 10x more code. Great work!