The problem I am facing is the following:
I have a function based on the BFS search algorithm that I use in a NxM grid, the mission of this function is to return the following Direction from a set of possible Directions = {Up, Down, Left , Right} (No diagonal moves!)to which a player has to move, so that in each "round / frame" where there is a type of item of a game (For example, in this specific case, a bazooka) is closer to the item.
To address the problem, I have created a Map class made of vector <vector <Cell> > where vector is from the standard library and Cell is what the grid is made of and has some consulting methods on what is in one of the NxM cells (if there is a building, an enemy, a Bazooka, etc.)
So, for implementing a solution for this, I made a struct TrackingBFS to reconstruct the path of the BFS search:
struct TrackingBFS {
pair <int,int> anterior;
bool visited;
};
And this is the BFS search implementation:
//Pre: origen is a valid position on the grid where the player is
//Post:Returns a pair of bool and a direction to the closest bazooka. If we have access to a bazooka, then we will return a pair (true,Dir) where Dir is a direction to take to be closer to the bazooka else a pair (false, Dir) where dir is just the same direction as origen.
pair <bool,Dir> direction_to_closest_gun (const Pos& origen) {
//R = board_rows() C = board_cols()
//m = mapa
//sr,sc = origin positions
int sr = origen.i;
int sc = origen.j;
//Variables para mantener tracking de los pasos cogidos
queue <int> rq; //Queue of x-row coordinates
queue <int> cq; //Queue of y-row coordinates
int move_count = 0; //Number of steps
int nodes_left_in_layer = 1; //How many nodes we need to de-queue before doing a step
int nodes_in_next_layer = 0; //How many nodes we add to the expansio of the BFS so we can upgrade nodes_left_in_layer in the next iteration
bool arma_mejor_encontrada = false;
//Visited is a MxN matrix of TrackingBFS that for every i,j stores the following information:
//If we visited the cell at position visited [i][j], then the TrackingBFS struct will be visited = true and last_node = (k,l) where k and l are the components of the LAST cell on the grid we visited in the BFS search.
//Else if we didn't visited the cell at [i][j], the TrackingBFS struct will be visited = true and last_node (-1,-1).
TrackingBFS aux;
aux.last_node = make_pair(-1,-1);
aux.visited = false;
//We create a Matrix of TrackingBFS named visited of NxM filled with the unvisited cells
vector < vector <TrackingBFS> > visited (board_rows(), vector <TrackingBFS> (board_cols(),aux));
//--------------------------------SOLVE---------------------------------
rq.push(sr);
cq.push(sc);
visited[sr][sc].visited = true;
visited[sr][sc].last_node = make_pair(sr,sc);
int xfound;
int yfound;
while (!rq.empty()) {
int r = rq.front();
int c = cq.front();
rq.pop();
cq.pop();
if (mapa[r][c].weapon == Bazooka) {
arma_mejor_encontrada = true;
xfound = r;
yfound = c;
break;
}
//Explore neighbours
Pos p (r,c);
for (Dir d : dirs) {
Pos searching = p + d;
int rr = searching.i;
int cc = searching.j;
//If the position we are searching is out of range or it's been visited before or there is a obstacle then continue
if (!pos_ok(searching) or visited[rr][cc].visited or mapa[rr][cc].type == Building or mapa[rr][cc].resistance != -1 or mapa[rr][cc].id != -1) {
//NADA
}
//Else we add the visited node to the queue, and fill the information on visited[rr][cc] with the node we are coming and mark it as visited
else {
rq.push(rr);
cq.push(cc);
visited[rr][cc].visited = true;
visited[rr][cc].last_node = make_pair (r,c);
nodes_in_next_layer++;
}
}
nodes_left_in_layer--;
if (nodes_left_in_layer == 0) {
nodes_left_in_layer = nodes_in_next_layer;
nodes_in_next_layer = 0;
move_count++;
}
}
//If we found the Bazooka
if (arma_mejor_encontrada) {
//Return the pair (true,next direction of the player at position (sr,sc) to approach the bazooka)
return make_pair(arma_mejor_encontrada, reconstruir_camino(visited,xfound,yfound,sr,sc));
}
else {
//If there is no bazooka we return (false,Up (this second component is meaningless))
return make_pair(arma_mejor_encontrada, Up);
}
}
The reconstruir_camino (recosntruct_path in english) implementation:
//This function is made to reconstruct the path from where we found de bazooka (x,y) to where our player is (ox,oy), whe are only interested in the next position of because this is run each frame, so we are constantly refreshing the state of the map.
Dir reconstruir_camino(const vector < vector <TrackingBFS> >& visited, const int& x, const int& y, const int& ox, const int& oy) {
//In v we save the pair of coordinates of our path, this was done only for debuging and in debug_matriz_tracking(visited) is also only for debuging
vector <pair<int,int>> path;
debug_matriz_tracking(visited);
//
int i = visited[x][y].last_node.first;
int j = visited[x][y].last_node.second;
while (not (i == ox and j == oy)) { //While the next node is not iqual as the original node we started de search (The one where our player is)
path.push_back(make_pair(i,j)); //Just for debuging
i = visited[i][j].last_node.first;
j = visited[i][j].last_node.second;
}
//So now in path we have the start and end nodes of every edge on the path
int siguiente_x = path.back().first;
int siguiente_y = path.back().second;
debug_camino(path);
return direccion_contiguos(ox,oy,siguiente_x,siguiente_y);
}
And direccion_contiguos (contiguous direction / relative direction in english) implementation:
//Returns the RELATIVE direction to go if we want to go from (ox, oy) to (dx, dy) being these two contiguous positions, that is, (dx, dy) is in Up, Down, Left or Right with respect to (ox, oy) IT WORKS FINE, NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS DON'T TOUCH
Dir direccion_contiguos (const int& ox, const int& oy, const int& dx, const int& dy) {
Pos o (ox,oy);
Pos d (dx,dy);
if (o + Up == d) {
return Up;
}
else if (o + Down == d){
return Down;
}
else if (o + Left == d) {
return Left;
}
else if (o + Right == d) {
return Right;
}
return Down;
}
So now in visited, we have the information to reconstruct the path, in fact I debuged it (it's kinda messy i know, sorry), in a visual way so this is what I got for a Player in origen = (7,10) and bazooka at position = (4,11):
[Imgur link of the Visual representation of the Matrix for reconstructing the path from origin to bazooka][1] To read this image, at the top and left there are the coordinates of every cell of the visited matrix, the ones with green font, are the ones that have been visited, and they store THE NEXT cell/vertex of the path, and the ones with (-1,-1) are the ones that have not been visited by the BFS algorithm and thus they don't have any previous node and are in white. So, NICE! It seems to work, at least the visited matrix.
My problem is when I debug the vector of edges/directions of the graph/grid, this is what I used in the example of the image:
void debug_camino(const vector <pair<int,int>>& v) {
cerr << "----------------------CAMINO-------------------- DEBUG_CAMINO" << endl;
for (long unsigned int i = 0; i < v.size(); ++i) {
cerr << "(" << v[i].first << "," << v[i].second << "),";
}
cerr << endl;
}
And when I executed the program, this is the path that I got with debug_camino(): If you see the image attached you can see that that's almost the path but not quite yet. (4,12),(4,13),(4,14),(3,15),(3,16),(4,16),(5,16),(6,16),(7,15),(7,14),(7,13),(7,12),(7,11)
These ones bolded are not real (even valid because they are diagonal moves) reconstructions of the path and I don't really know WHY this is happening, but it's provoking my player to not following right path, and I want to fix the error and I'm kinda desperate because I don't really know where the error is and I've been trying for days :( ! I hope somebody can help me with this. Thanks for reading all this and sorry if the code is in some parts in Spanish or if it's not all that readable. [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/vZ2Go.png
Okay, I actually managed to fix this error, i was overwriting the i variable so that was causing the error.
//This function is made to reconstruct the path from where we found de bazooka (x,y) to where our player is (ox,oy), whe are only interested in the next position of because this is run each frame, so we are constantly refreshing the state of the map.
Dir reconstruir_camino(const vector < vector <TrackingBFS> >& visited, const int& x, const int& y, const int& ox, const int& oy) {
//In v we save the pair of coordinates of our path, this was done only for debuging and in debug_matriz_tracking(visited) is also only for debuging
vector <pair<int,int>> path;
debug_matriz_tracking(visited);
//
int i = visited[x][y].last_node.first;
int j = visited[x][y].last_node.second;
while (not (i == ox and j == oy)) { //While the next node is not iqual as the original node we started de search (The one where our player is)
path.push_back(make_pair(i,j)); //Just for debuging
**i** = visited[i][j].last_node.first;
j = visited[**i**][j].last_node.second;
}
//So now in path we have the start and end nodes of every edge on the path
int siguiente_x = path.back().first;
int siguiente_y = path.back().second;
debug_camino(path);
return direccion_contiguos(ox,oy,siguiente_x,siguiente_y);
}
It's already fixed