need help with a for loop

[christianB]

i need to condense this piece of code down by 10 characters and I cannot think of a way to do that. I cannot change any of the variable names and changing any of the loop contents will change the function of the program. Is there a way that I can repeat a pair of loops just once? Thanks to anyone who can help.

for (row = 0; row < height; row = row++){

	for (col = 0; col < row; col = col++){
		printf(" ");
	}
	for (col = 0; col < width; col = col++){
		printf("X");
	}
	for (col = 0; col < width; col = col++){
		printf(" ");
	}
	for (col = 0; col < width; col = col++){
		printf("X");
	}

	printf("\n");
}

[quzah]

Take out "col =" everywhere except where you have "col = 0". When you increment, you just do this: x++ not x = x++. The same thing goes for your "row = row++". That will save you 30 characters.


Quzah.

[grumpy]

quzah's suggestion also has the benefit of ensuring the code does not exhibit undefined behaviour.....

In addition, since the third and fourth inner loops are identifical to the first and second, simply put the first pair of loops into another loop that is executed twice.

If the body of a loop only consists of a single statement, no need to put braces around it. The braces will need to be introduced if you ever want a second statement in the loop though - that is a compromise of maintainability.

Having a goal of minimising (or reducing) the number of characters in source code is, frankly, silly in about 99.9% of all circumstances. The compiler will probably not reward you with smaller object code, and the linker will not reward you with smaller executable files - unless you also tweak optimisation settings.

[quzah]

You could do even more with a bit of math:

for each row
    for c = 0; c < cols * 4; c++
        if c < cols OR (c < cols * 3 && c > cols * 2)
            print space
        else
            print x

You could shorten it even more with ? :, and even more again by using single character variable names. I'm not sure what your exact exercise goal was here. Were you shortening it because you were told it could be done better by a teacher, or just to see how short you can get it, or is there some piece of reference cod you are supposed to be mimicing?


Quzah.

[AndrewHunter]

Were you shortening it because you were told it could be done better by a teacher, or just to see how short you can get it, or is there some piece of reference cod you are supposed to be mimicing?

Quzah.

mimicking

[quzah]

mimicking

Stupid English language. Now C I can understand...


Quzah.

[CommonTater]

for (row = 0; row < height; row++){

	for (col = 0; col < row; col++){
		printf(" ");
	}
	for (col = 0; col < width; col++){
		printf("X");
	}
	for (col = 0; col < width; col++){
		printf(" ");
	}
	for (col = 0; col < width; col++){
		printf("X");
	}

	printf("\n");
}

Reduction = 20 characters.

[CommonTater]

Stupid English language. Now C I can understand...
Quzah.

Are you really sure about that?

[quzah]

Reduction = 20 characters.

Are you really sure about that?


Quzah.

[CommonTater]

Are you really sure about that?
Quzah.

LOL... Touche!