# Google Code Jam (Milkshakes) solution

For practice, I am working through some Google Code Jam problems. The code below is for the Milkshakes problem, which is located here.

Problem

You own a milkshake shop. There are N different flavors that you can prepare, and each flavor can be prepared "malted" or "unmalted". So, you can make $2N$ different types of milkshakes.

Each of your customers has a set of milkshake types that they like, and they will be satisfied if you have at least one of those types prepared. At most one of the types a customer likes will be a "malted" flavor.

You want to make $N$ batches of milkshakes, so that:

There is exactly one batch for each flavor of milkshake, and it is either malted or unmalted. For each customer, you make at least one milkshake type that they like. The minimum possible number of batches are malted. Find whether it is possible to satisfy all your customers given these constraints, and if it is, what milkshake types you should make. If it is possible to satisfy all your customers, there will be only one answer which minimizes the number of malted batches.

Input

• One line containing an integer $C$, the number of test cases in the input file.

For each test case, there will be:

• One line containing the integer $N$, the number of milkshake flavors.
• One line containing the integer $M$, the number of customers.
• $M$ lines, one for each customer, each containing:
• An integer $T >= 1$, the number of milkshake types the customer likes, followed by
• $T$ pairs of integers "X Y", one for each type the customer likes, where $X$ is the milkshake flavor between 1 and $N$ inclusive, and $Y$ is either 0 to indicate unmalted, or 1 to indicated malted. Note that:
• No pair will occur more than once for a single customer.
• Each customer will have at least one flavor that they like ($T >= 1$).
• Each customer will like at most one malted flavor. (At most one pair for each customer has $Y = 1$).

All of these numbers are separated by single spaces.

Output

• C lines, one for each test case in the order they occur in the input file, each containing the string "Case #X: " where X is the number of the test case, starting from 1, followed by:
• The string "IMPOSSIBLE", if the customers' preferences cannot be satisfied; OR
• N space-separated integers, one for each flavor from 1 to N, which are 0 if the corresponding flavor should be prepared unmalted, and 1 if it should be malted. Limits

Small dataset

$C = 100$
$1 <= N <= 10$
$1 <= M <= 100$

Large dataset

$C = 5$
$1 <= N <= 2000$
$1 <= M <= 2000$

The sum of all the $T$ values for the customers in a test case will not exceed 3000.

This solution solves for both the small and large data sets. Please let me know how I can improve this code.

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;

public class MilkShake {

private final int UNMALTED = 0;
private final int NOCHOICE = 2;
private boolean isPossible;
private ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>> customerPreferenceList = new ArrayList<ArrayList<Integer>>();
private int[] finalBatchAr;
private StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();

public static void main(String[] args) {
new MilkShake().go();
}

public void go() {

File inputFile = new File("/* File name */");

try {

//Loop through each test
for(int testCounter = 0; testCounter < numTests; ++testCounter) {
customerPreferenceList.clear();
initializeFlavorAr(numFlavors);

isPossible = true;

//For each test, loop through each customer
for(int customerCounter = 0; customerCounter < numCustomers; ++customerCounter) {
ArrayList<Integer> custRow = new ArrayList<Integer>();

for(int j = 0; j < customerPrefs.length; ++j) {
}
}

//Eliminate first element of each row. Number of elements each customer likes is not used.
if(!customerPreferenceList.isEmpty()) {
for(ArrayList<Integer> a : customerPreferenceList) {
if(!a.isEmpty()) { a.remove(0); }
}
}

boolean customerPreferenceListChanged = true;

while(customerPreferenceList.size() > 0 && isPossible && customerPreferenceListChanged == true) {
customerPreferenceListChanged = false;
ArrayList<Integer> removeList = new ArrayList<Integer>();

//Deal with rows with only one choice
for(int oneChoiceCounter = 0; oneChoiceCounter < customerPreferenceList.size(); ++oneChoiceCounter) {
if(customerPreferenceList.get(oneChoiceCounter).size() == 2) {
int indexOfFlavorInQuestion = customerPreferenceList.get(oneChoiceCounter).get(0);
if(finalBatchAr[indexOfFlavorInQuestion - 1] == NOCHOICE) {
finalBatchAr[indexOfFlavorInQuestion - 1] = customerPreferenceList.get(oneChoiceCounter).get(1);
customerPreferenceListChanged = true;
}
else if(finalBatchAr[indexOfFlavorInQuestion - 1] != customerPreferenceList.get(oneChoiceCounter).get(1)) {
isPossible = false;
break;
}
else {
//flavor already in map - remove from customerPreferenceList
customerPreferenceListChanged = true;
}
}
}

if(!removeList.isEmpty()) {
cleanUpCustomerPreferenceList(removeList);
removeList.clear();
}

//Loop through all other cases, if any element already in finalBatchAr remove the row from customerPreferenceList
for(int elementExistsCounter = 0; elementExistsCounter < customerPreferenceList.size(); ++elementExistsCounter) {
for(int j = 0; j < customerPreferenceList.get(elementExistsCounter).size(); j += 2) {
if(finalBatchAr[customerPreferenceList.get(elementExistsCounter).get(j) - 1] == customerPreferenceList.get(elementExistsCounter).get(j + 1)) {
customerPreferenceListChanged = true;
break;
}
}
}

if(!removeList.isEmpty()) {
cleanUpCustomerPreferenceList(removeList);
removeList.clear();
}

//Loop through customerPreferenceList again, get rid of all elements that conflicts with finalBatchAr
//If currentRow empty afterwards, set isPossible to false
for(int conflictCounter = 0; conflictCounter < customerPreferenceList.size(); ++conflictCounter) {
int currentRowSize = customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).size();

for(int j = 0; j < currentRowSize; j += 2) {
if((finalBatchAr[customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).get(j) - 1] != NOCHOICE) && (finalBatchAr[customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).get(j) - 1] != customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).get(j + 1))) {
customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).remove(j);
customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).remove(j);
j -= 2;
currentRowSize -= 2;
customerPreferenceListChanged = true;
}
}

if(customerPreferenceList.get(conflictCounter).size() == 0) {
isPossible = false;
break;
}

}
}

finalizeFlavorAr(numFlavors);
appendResult(testCounter + 1, numFlavors);
}
} catch(FileNotFoundException fe) {
fe.printStackTrace();
} catch(IOException ie) {
ie.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
if(br != null) {
br.close();
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
writeResultToFile();
}

private void initializeFlavorAr(int numFlavors) {
finalBatchAr = null;
finalBatchAr = new int[numFlavors];

for(int i = 0; i < numFlavors; ++i) {
finalBatchAr[i] = NOCHOICE;
}

}

private void finalizeFlavorAr(int numFlavors) {
for(int i = 0; i < numFlavors; ++i) {
if(finalBatchAr[i] == NOCHOICE) {
finalBatchAr[i] = UNMALTED;
}
}
}

private void appendResult(int testCase, int numFlavors) {

result.append("Case #" + testCase + ": ");

if(!isPossible) {
result.append("IMPOSSIBLE");
}
else {
for(int i = 0; i < finalBatchAr.length; ++i) {
result.append(finalBatchAr[i] + " ");
}
}
result.append("\n");
}

private void writeResultToFile() {
PrintWriter pr = null;

try {
pr = new PrintWriter(new File("/* File name */"));
pr.print(result);

} catch(FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
if(pr != null) {
pr.close();
}
}
}

private void cleanUpCustomerPreferenceList(ArrayList<Integer> removeList) {
for(int i = 0; i < removeList.size(); ++i) {
int removeIndex = removeList.get(i);
customerPreferenceList.remove(removeIndex - i);
}
}
}

-

Your go() method is waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy to long, break it up in digestible parts. Try to think in different abstraction levels, and don't mix them in one method (e.g. you deal with file input directly, but have a separate method for writing into a file). Follow the Single Responsibility Principle.

You should use extended for loops where possible, e.g.

for(int j = 0; j < customerPrefs.length; ++j) {
}

-->

for(String customerPref : customerPrefs) {

The answer is "level of abstraction". If your method needs to do A, B and C to perform a task, it must do it. However if you have to do A1, A2 and A3 in order to do A, you should have a separate method encapsulating these steps, which is called from the top-level method. In your method, you have more or less a comment for every logical step, which are top-level abstractions. Pack the code after every comment a separate method, and call it from go(). But all of this is just an application of the Single Responsibility Principle. –  Landei Aug 30 '11 at 7:08
Move try/catch/finally block body to separate method. Its main goal is an error processing, and body is a main functionality, so they have different responsibility.