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Fixes to 1993/ejb

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Rename ejb.explain[12] files to their respective markdown files with the
name of the puzzle they explain.

Fix formatting of README.md.
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Cody Boone Ferguson committed 2023-03-30 10:54:54 -07:00
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1993/ejb/README.md
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@@ -10,69 +10,81 @@
make all
### To run
### To run:
./ejb level
where:
level a value from -128 to 127
where:
## Judges' comments
level a value from -128 to 127
A negative argument plays the patience puzzle. An argument
greater than 0 plays the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. In either case
the absolute value of the argument specifies the size of the
respective puzzle. Refer to the files ejb.explain1 and
ejb.explain2 for more information on these puzzles.
## Judges' comments:
Of course, you need a different kind of "patience" if you give
the argument 127 to this program and want to see it finish!
A negative argument plays the patience puzzle. An argument
greater than 0 plays the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. In either case
the absolute value of the argument specifies the size of the
respective puzzle. Refer to the files [hanoi.md](hanoi.md) and
[patience.md](patience.md) for more information on these puzzles.
Of course, you need a different kind of "patience" if you give
the argument 127 to this program and want to see it finish!
We note that this also works under macOS just fine.
## Author's comments
WHAT THIS PROGRAM DOES
======================
WHAT THIS PROGRAM DOES
======================
./ejb 5 Output: solution to Towers of Hanoi for five rings
./ejb -6 Output: solution to the Patience puzzle for six rings
### Output solution to Towers of Hanoi for five rings:
The format of the output for the Towers of Hanoi case is simply a
text description of how to solve the puzzle. For the patience
puzzle, the output is a sequence binary codes representing
successive states of the puzzle. The rightmost digit represents
the first ring. A "1" means the ring is on the U; a "0" means it
is off the U. The program prints the word "Invalid" in response to
illegal command line parameters.
./ejb 5
MOTIVATION
==========
Most people who have written software for other people have been
asked to count lines of code. Naturally, this brings up the
controversial question of exactly what defines a line of code.
This program serves to show that counting semicolons will not
always provide a meaningful measure of code size. This is
especially true in this program where the number of semicolons
itself is ambiguous. Does it have two or three? In addition, the
only "C" keyword this program uses besides type names and
qualifiers is "return", and the only function defined in the code
is "main". The level of complexity of the program without multiple
semicolons, statements, and functions is achieved by abusing C
operators, especially the comma operator. Considerable use of ||,
&&, and ? : helps too. In addition, main is called recursively.
The null pointer that terminates argv is used to pass additional
information into main. Even though the algorithms used by this
code are simple, this program is still hard to follow even when
indented properly. (It is pretty hard to indent this code
reasonably, however.)
The format of the output for the Towers of Hanoi case is simply a
text description of how to solve the puzzle.
Although this program is has only been tested on UNIX systems but
will probably run on just about any machine with an ANSI C
compiler. It does not use the C preprocessor at all. The only
functions it uses are atoi, malloc, memset, printf, and puts. It
does, however, require that the architecture it runs on have bytes
that are at least eight bits long and pointers that are at least
four bytes long. In addition, it requires an ANSI compiler since
it uses "signed char" and ANSI-style function declarations.
### Output solution to the Patience puzzle for six rings:
./ejb -6
For the patience puzzle, the output is a sequence binary codes representing
successive states of the puzzle. The rightmost digit represents the first ring.
A "1" means the ring is on the U; a "0" means it is off the U. The program
prints the word "Invalid" in response to illegal command line parameters.
MOTIVATION
==========
Most people who have written software for other people have been
asked to count lines of code. Naturally, this brings up the
controversial question of exactly what defines a line of code.
This program serves to show that counting semicolons will not
always provide a meaningful measure of code size. This is
especially true in this program where the number of semicolons
itself is ambiguous. Does it have two or three? In addition, the
only "C" keyword this program uses besides type names and
qualifiers is "return", and the only function defined in the code
is "main". The level of complexity of the program without multiple
semicolons, statements, and functions is achieved by abusing C
operators, especially the comma operator. Considerable use of ||,
&&, and ? : helps too. In addition, main is called recursively.
The null pointer that terminates argv is used to pass additional
information into main. Even though the algorithms used by this
code are simple, this program is still hard to follow even when
indented properly. (It is pretty hard to indent this code
reasonably, however.)
Although this program is has only been tested on UNIX systems but
will probably run on just about any machine with an ANSI C
compiler. It does not use the C preprocessor at all. The only
functions it uses are atoi, malloc, memset, printf, and puts. It
does, however, require that the architecture it runs on have bytes
that are at least eight bits long and pointers that are at least
four bytes long. In addition, it requires an ANSI compiler since
it uses "signed char" and ANSI-style function declarations.
## Copyright and CC BY-SA 4.0 License: