Assignment - Maze Runner

• Student: Kevin Zhu
• Program: B. Eng. In Software Engineering
• Course code: SFWRENG 2AA4
• Course Title: Software Design I - Introduction to Software Development
• Term: Level II - Winter 2024

Business Logic Specification

This program explores a maze, finding a mazePath from an entry point to an exit one.

• The maze is stored in a text file, with # representing walls and ␣ (empty space) representing passages.
• You’ll find examples of such mazes in the examples directory.
  • You can also use the Maze Generator to generate others.
• The Maze is surrounded by walls on its four borders, except for its entry/exit points.
  • Entry and exit points are always located on the East and West border.
  • The maze is not directed. As such, exit and entry can be interchanged.
• At the beginning of the exploration, we're located on the entry tile, facing the opposite side (e.g., if entering by the eastern entry, you're facing West).
• The program generates a sequence of instructions to reach the opposite exit (i.e., a "mazePath"):
  • F means 'move forward' according to your current direction
  • R means 'turn right' (does not move, just change direction), and L means ‘turn left’.
• A canonical mazePath contains only F, R and L symbols
• A factorized mazePath squashes together similar instructions (i.e., FFF = 3F, LL = 2L).
• Spaces are ignored in the instruction sequence (only for readability: FFLFF = FF L FF)
• The program takes as input a maze and print the mazePath on the standard output.

How to run this software?

To build the program, simply package it with Maven:

% mvn -q clean package 
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When called on a non-existing file, it stops and ends.

% java -jar target/mazerunner.jar -i ./examples/medium.maz.txtd
[INFO ] Main ** Starting Maze Runner
[INFO ] Controller **** Reading the maze from file medium.maz.txtd
[ERROR] Controller /!\ An error has happened /!\
[INFO ] Controller Invalid Maze file
[INFO ] Controller **** No Maze Found
[INFO ] Main ** End of MazeRunner
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Command line arguments

The program uses the following flags:

• -i MAZE_FILE: specifies the filename to be used.
• -p PATH_SEQUENCE: activates the mazePath verification mode to validate that PATH_SEQUENCE is correct for the maze
• -method {bfs, righthand}: specifies which mazePath computation method to use.
• -baseline {bfs, righthand}: if provided with -method will return time taken to run both methods and speedup based on number of mazePath steps reduced.

Examples

When no logs are activated, the programs only print the computed mazePath on the standard output.

% java -jar target/mazerunner.jar -i ./examples/straight.maz.txt -method bfs
** Path: FFFF
** Factorized Path: "4F"
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If a given mazePath is correct, the program prints the message *** Path is Correct on the standard output.

% java -jar target/mazerunner.jar -i ./examples/straight.maz.txt -p 4F
** Path is Correct
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If a given mazePath is incorrect, the program prints the message *** Path is Incorrect on the standard output.

% java -jar target/mazerunner.jar -i ./examples/straight.maz.txt -p 3F
*** Path is Incorrect
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If given both a method and baseline it will return runtimes and compare mazePath length(Speedup).

% java -jar target/mazerunner.jar -i ./examples/medium.maz.txt -method bfs -baseline righthand
Time taken to create maze: 8.04ms
Time taken to solve maze with bfs: 1.98ms
Time taken to solve maze with righthand: 4.60ms
Speedup: 7.23
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