On The Beach Ruby Challenge

The Challenge

Imagine we have a list of jobs, each represented by a character. Because certain jobs must be done before others, a job may have a dependency on another job. For example, a may depend on b, meaning the final sequence of jobs should place b before a. If a has no dependency, the position of a in the final sequence does not matter.

  • Given you’re passed an empty string (no jobs), the result should be an empty sequence.
  • Given the following job structure:
    a =>
    
    The result should be a sequence consisting of a single job a.
  • Given the following job structure:
    a =>
    b =>
    c =>
    
    The result should be a sequence containing all three jobs abc in no significant order.
  • Given the following job structure:
    a =>
    b => c
    c =>
    
    The result should be a sequence that positions c before b, containing all three jobs abc.
  • Given the following job structure:
    a =>
    b => c
    c => f
    d => a
    e => b
    f =>
    
    The result should be a sequence that positions f before c, c before b, b before e and a before d containing all six jobs abcdef.
  • Given the following job structure: a => b => c => c The result should be an error stating that jobs can’t depend on themselves.
  • Given the following job structure:
    a =>
    b => c
    c => f
    d => a
    e =>
    f => b
    
    The result should be an error stating that jobs can’t have circular dependencies.