This is for [Project Euler question 18](https://projecteuler.net/problem=18) and I'm looking for feedback on whether my algorithm is incorrect or whether I've just implemented it wrong (which I don't think is the case after some testing). The question is to traverse the maximum path in a triangle. > 75 > 95 64 > 17 47 82 > 18 35 87 10 > 20 04 82 47 65 > 19 01 23 75 03 34 > 88 02 77 73 07 63 67 > 99 65 04 28 06 16 70 92 > 41 41 26 56 83 40 80 70 33 > 41 48 72 33 47 32 37 16 94 29 > 53 71 44 65 25 43 91 52 97 51 14 > 70 11 33 28 77 73 17 78 39 68 17 57 > 91 71 52 38 17 14 91 43 58 50 27 29 48 > 63 66 04 68 89 53 67 30 73 16 69 87 40 31 > 04 62 98 27 23 09 70 98 73 93 38 53 60 04 23 Starting from the second bottom row, each value is its current value + `max(left child, right child)`, which transforms each position in the tree to be its max path sum from that point. #include <iostream> #include <fstream> #include <iterator> #include <sstream> #include <vector> using namespace std; using Tree = vector<vector<int>>; constexpr bool LEFT {false}; constexpr bool RIGHT {true}; int pathsum(Tree& tree, size_t layer, size_t pos, bool right) { int sum {}; ++layer; // next level for (; layer < tree.size(); ++layer) if (right) sum += tree[layer][++pos]; else sum += tree[layer][pos]; return sum; } int max_pathsum(Tree& tree) { // start from bottom up, each node's value is node.val + max(left child, right child) for (int layer = tree.size() - 2; layer >= 0; --layer) { for (size_t pos = 0; pos < tree[layer].size(); ++pos) { tree[layer][pos] = tree[layer][pos] + max(tree[layer+1][pos], tree[layer+1][pos+1]); } } return tree[0][0]; } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { if (argc < 2) { cout << "Need to pass in file to read from\n"; return 1; } ifstream f {argv[1]}; if (!f.is_open()) { cout << "Could not open file\n"; return 1; } Tree tree; string line; while (getline(f, line)) { istringstream is {line}; tree.push_back(vector<int>(istream_iterator<int>(is), istream_iterator<int>())); } int mps {max_pathsum(tree)}; cout << "Max path sum: " << mps << endl; }