CODEWITHSUNDEEP
java
BodyBingers
BodyBingers

Reputation: 65

adding conditions inside a for loop

I am doing some codingbat challenges for java. In one challenge, you are to return true if the given array in its first 2 or last 2 elements have a 1 followed by a 3.

Example:

unlucky1([1, 3, 4, 5]) → true
unlucky1([2, 1, 3, 4, 5]) → true
unlucky1([1, 1, 1]) → false

As such, I have the following:

for(int i=0, j=nums.length-1; i<nums.length-1; i++, j--) {
   if((i<3&&nums[i]==1&&nums[i+1]==3)) {
      return true;
   }
   else if(j>3&&nums[j]==3&&nums[j-1]==1) {
      return true;
   }
}
  return false;

My question is, is there a better way to set the conditions? I do not like the idea of checking if the iterating variables are less than / greater than a constant. My code passes for all of their tests but one, however I feel that it is flawed/messy. How can I efficiently check if the last two & first two indexes have a 1 followed by a 3 without checking if j>3 or i<3?

The test that it does not pass is with the following array: [1, 1, 1, 3, 1] My code returns true when the test is supposedly false.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 65

Answers (1)

Scary Wombat
Scary Wombat

Reputation: 44834

Don't use any loops, edited as per shmosels comment

if (arr[0] == 1 && arr[1] == 3 ||
    arr[1] == 1 && arr[2] == 3 ||
    arr [arr.length -2]  == 1 && arr[arr.length - 1] == 3)
    return true;

Upvotes: 1

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