The push_swap project focuses on sorting data within two stacks while minimizing the number of required moves. This task involves managing two stacks, 'a' and 'b,' initially with 'a' containing a set of positive and negative numbers without duplicates, while 'b' starts as an empty stack. The primary goal is to sort the numbers in stack 'a' in ascending order, with the smallest number positioned at the top. To accomplish this, the project offers a set of operations, including element swapping within stacks, element pushing between stacks, and element rotation within stacks.
The key challenge involves finding the most efficient approach to sort numbers with as few operations as possible. This project tests the algorithmic and problem-solving skills since it requires creating efficient sorting strategies and applying them using the provided set of operations.
The available set of operations that needed to be implemented:
| Operation | Explanation |
|---|---|
| sa (swap a) | Swap the first 2 elements at the top of stack a. |
| sb (swap b) | Swap the first 2 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 stack b and put it at the top of stack a. |
| pb (push b) | Take the first element at the top of stack a and put it at the top of stack b. |
| 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. |
- clone this repository and
cdinto it:
git clone https://github.com/jmatheis00/42_push_swap.git && cd 42_push_swap- Compile the project using make:
make- Run the project with the following command and replace
<number1 number2 (... numberN)>bv the numbers you want to sort.
./push_swap <number1 number2 (... numberN)>