wangyu-ustc/SlidingPuzzleSolver

NxN-Puzzle Solver

This is a C++ program that solves the NxN puzzle game using two different search algorithms, A* and IDA*. This project was developed as a final project for CSE 202.

1. Requirements

To run the program, you need to have a GCC C++ or Clang compiler and CMake installed on your system.

1.1 For MacOS users

Firstly, for users using homebrew, you can install CMake by running the following command:

brew install cmake

(Optional) Note that for macOS, we recommend using Clang as your preferred compiler. Also, to ensure coding style consistency, we suggest installing clang-format using brew.

Next, to compile the program, follow these steps:

1. Create a build folder

mkdir build && cd build

2. Configure the project

export CC=clang
export CXX=clang++
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

3. Build the project

cmake --build .

3. Usage

The program can be used with the following arguments:

Usage: puzzle_solver [--help] [--version] [--algorithm VAR] --k VAR --NxN-puzzle VAR --input_file VAR

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help            shows help message and exits 
  -v, --version         prints version information and exits 
  -a, --algorithm       specify the algorithm to use. The available algorithms are: Astar and IDAstar. The default algorithm is Astar. [default: "Astar"]
  -k, --k               specify the parameter of the heuristic function [required]
  -n, --NxN-puzzle      specify the dimension of puzzle grid [required]
  -i, --input_file      specify the input file. The input file should be in the format of NxN puzzle grid, with each row separated by a newline character, and each number separated by a comma. The number 0 represents the empty slot. [required]

An example usage case is provided in example_run.sh. To generate files with random input status for a given puzzle grid dimension, a Python script genInput.py is included in the ./res folder.