Printing string in rows and column pattern Java

Question

i\'m just created a java project to print string that is given in rows and column just like matrix. Here\'s the output that i just made:

h e l l o 
_ w o r l 
d _         


        

Answer 1

Probably I'll add my answer too, idea is to flatten a two dimensional array to 1d and use the 1D array and transform it to a 2D spiral array. Hope it helps.

Code:

class Test {

    static String[][] spiralPrint(int m, int n, String[] a) {
        String[][] output = new String[m][n];
        int count = 0;
        int i, k = 0, l = 0;
        while (k < m && l < n) {
            for (i = l; i < n; ++i) {
                output[k][i] = a[count++];
            }
            k++;

            for (i = k; i < m; ++i) {
                output[i][n - 1] = a[count++];
            }
            n--;

            if (k < m) {
                for (i = n - 1; i >= l; --i) {
                    output[m - 1][i] = a[count++];
                }
                m--;
            }

            if (l < n) {
                for (i = m - 1; i >= k; --i) {
                    output[i][l] = a[count++];
                }
                l++;
            }
        }
        return output;
    }

    private static String[] flattenArray(String[][] input, int m, int n) {
        String[] output = new String[m * n];
        int k = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < m; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < n; j++) {
                output[k++] = input[i][j];
            }
        }
        return output;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String[][] input = {
                {"h", "e", "l", "l", "o"},
                {"_", "w", "o", "r", "l"},
                {"d", "_", "i", "t", "s"},
                {"_", "b", "e", "a", "u"},
                {"t", "i", "f", "u", "l"}};

        int m = 5;
        int n = 5;

        String[] flattenArray = flattenArray(input, m, n);
        String[][] spiralArray = spiralPrint(m, n, flattenArray);

        for (int i = 0; i < m; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < n; j++) {
                System.out.print(spiralArray[i][j] + " ");
            }
            System.out.println();
        }

    }
}

Output:
h e l l o 
_ b e a _ 
s u l u w 
t f i t o 
i _ d l r 

Note: Indeed that I followed this Spiral transform to 1D, but it is not straight forward, I have re-modified to fit to the problem.