I need help with C# loops

Alex501

I need to create this program and needs to have if, else statements. Could you please help me? I want to create a program that will look like that? Welcome to HollowRectanglePrinter! How many columns wide should the rectangle be? 6 How many rows tall should the rectangle be? 4 Here you go: ****** * * * * ******

Pete OHanlon

OK - for a starter if/else statements aren't loops. They're conditional statements. Next, we won't do your homework for you - and this is so obviously a homework assignment. Finally, if you can't solve a basic problem like this quickly then you really shouldn't be aiming at a career in programming.

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PIEBALDconsult

(I agree that it looks like homework.) Loops? Plural? I can do that without loops. P.S. Without conditionals as well. P.P.S. And no recursion either for that matter.

Gareth H

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zdf6yhx5.aspx[^] If you still cant work it out... Regards, Gareth.

Guffa

It's fun to obfuscate homework. ;)

int w=6,h=4;h*=w;for(int i=h;i>0;Console.Write("*\r\n ".Substring(--i%w==0|w==i%w+1|w>i|h<i+w?0:3,i%w==0?3:1)));

Experience is the sum of all the mistakes you have done.

Colin Angus Mackay

Some fancy pants string formatting?

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Colin Angus Mackay

Okay - I've got a working solution without a single loop or conditional statement, nor does it use recursion. Probably not the most elegant solution, not as compact as Guffa's solution, but interesting none the less.

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PIEBALDconsult

Mostly PadRight, with a smattering of Replace thrown in. And to think I wrote a version last year using four for loops; oh the shame! :doh:

PIEBALDconsult

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.... In the interest of being the smart-ass brown-noser in the class I used line drawing characters rather than asterisks. Anybody can use asterisks. :-D

System.Console.WriteLine
(
"\u250C".PadRight ( Width - 1 , '\u2500' ) + "\u2510\n" +

"".PadRight ( Height - 2 , '@' ).Replace
(
    "@"
,
    "\\u2502".PadRight ( Width - 1 ) + "\\u2502\\n"
) +

"\\u2514".PadRight ( Width - 1 , '\\u2500' ) + "\\u2518"

) ;

PIEBALDconsult

Oh no! You didn't use Environment.Newline! The world is going to end! :-D

Colin Angus Mackay

I suspect your solution is printing one character too wide. My solution is not so compact:

    private static void Main(string\[\] args)
    {
        Console.Write("Width:");
        int width = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
        Console.Write("Height:");
        int height = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());

        string end = new string('\*', width);
        string middle = string.Concat("\*", new string(' ', width - 2), "\*", Environment.NewLine);
        string fill = new string('-', height - 2);
        fill = fill.Replace("-", middle);
        Console.WriteLine(end);
        Console.Write(fill);
        Console.WriteLine(end);

        Console.ReadLine();
    }

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Guffa

PIEBALDconsult wrote:

The world is going to end!

The world is going to \r\n! ;)

Experience is the sum of all the mistakes you have done.

Guffa

Letting the replace do the looping is an interresting idea. The string constructor can do some looping too. :) int w=6,h=4;Console.Write(("h"+new string('w',h-2)+"h").Replace("h",new string('*',w)+"n").Replace("w","*"+new string(' ',w-2)+"*n").Replace("n", Environment.NewLine));

Experience is the sum of all the mistakes you have done.

PIEBALDconsult

In what I posted I use width-1 so it's not a character too wide. (Pad only adds enough characters to satisfy the requested length.) I've never looked at constructors for string so I didn't think of that, but "".PadRight ( width , '*' ) results in the same thing as new string('*', width) I suspect the constructor is more efficient. Another tool for the toolbox, thanks.

PIEBALDconsult

StringBuilder.Append will do that as well, leading me to suspect that the string constructor uses a StringBuilder. Stepping into the source code should confirm it. :-D

Guffa

I doubt that. I believe that the string constructor does something much less complicated than using a StringBuilder. It probably just allocates the memory needed for the string and fills it with the character. Also, the StringBuilder returns a finished string object, so it would be complicated to merge the string object being created with the string object returned from the StringBuilder. :)

Experience is the sum of all the mistakes you have done.