push_swap

Push_Swap

Project Overview

Push_Swap is a coding project from the 42 school curriculum, designed to introduce students to complex algorithms, particularly focusing on sorting algorithms and stack operations. The objective is to sort data on a stack with a limited set of operations, using the smallest number of actions. The project is divided into two programs:

• push_swap: This program calculates and displays a list of operations that sort a stack of integers.
• checker: This is a supplementary program that checks if the list of operations from the push_swap program actually sorts the stack.

Features

• Efficient Sorting Algorithm: Implements an advanced sorting algorithm to sort numbers in ascending order with minimal stack operations.
• Error Handling: Robust validation of input data to handle errors gracefully.
• Visualization Tool: Includes a visualizer to watch the sorting algorithm in action, enhancing understanding and debugging.

Available Instructions

The sorting operations allowed in this project are limited to manipulating the two stacks, A and B, as follows:

• sa (swap A): Swap the first two elements at the top of stack A.
• sb (swap B): Swap the first two elements at the top of stack B.
• 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.
• pb (push B): Take the first element at the top of A and put it at the top of B.
• ra (rotate A): Shift up all elements of stack A by 1.
• rb (rotate B): Shift up all elements of stack B by 1.
• rr: ra and rb at the same time.
• rra (reverse rotate A): Shift down all elements of stack A by 1.
• rrb (reverse rotate B): Shift down all elements of stack B by 1.
• rrr: rra and rrb at the same time.

Prerequisites

• GCC compiler
• Make
• Ruby (optional, for generating random numbers)

Installation

Clone the repository and compile the programs using the Makefile:

git clone https://yourrepositorylink.com/push_swap.git
cd push_swap
make

Usage

Running push_swap To run push_swap, you need to provide a series of space-separated integers:

./push_swap 42 21 17 6 8

This will output a series of operations that sort the numbers.

Verifying with checker

To verify that the operations output by push_swap are correct, you can pipe its output to checker:

ARG="42 21 17 6 8"; ./push_swap $ARG | ./checker $ARG

Bonus Feature

The bonus part includes the checker program, which can be compiled using:

make bonus

Visualizer

The visualizer can help you see the sorting process. To use it, download and build the visualizer with the following command:

make v

Then, run the visualizer (only works in bash):

ARG=$(ruby -e "puts (0..500).to_a.shuffle.join(' ')"); ./push_swap ${ARG} | ./pro_checker ${ARG}

Additional notes

Visualizer used is: https://github.com/ailopez-o/42Barcelona-PushSwap-ProChecker