• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

GoHired

Interview Questions asked in Google, Microsoft, Amazon

Join WeekEnd Online Batch from 4-April-2020 on How to Crack Coding Interview in Just 10 Weeks : Fees just 20,000 INR

  • Home
  • Best Java Books
  • Algorithm
  • Internship
  • Certificates
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Array
  • Stack
  • Queue
  • LinkedList
  • DP
  • Strings
  • Tree
  • Mathametical
  • Puzzles
  • Graph

Wrong Directions given find minimum moves so that he can reach to the destination

July 20, 2014 by Dhaval Dave

A person wants to go from origin to a particular location, he can move in only 4 directions(i.e East, West, North, South) but his friend gave him a long route, help a person to find minimum Moves so that he can reach to the destination.
Input – NESNWES
Output – E

E.g – SSSNEEEW
output – EESS

Explanation : its very easy code :
1st way to think is with parenthesis matching there you have to match { , [ , ( and closing of it.
While here you have just four directions N,S,E,W.
instead of using Stack and increasing memory usage, we can take two variables say “north” and “east” which will take care of N,S and E,W.
for every occurrence of N or E, increment north or east by one.
and decrease for occurrences of  S and W.
Finally in both north and east variable, there will be some value, just convert them in Direction and print it.

Thanks to Dhaval for suggesting this approach and Code

#include <iostream>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
using namespace std;
int NSValue(char exp){
if (exp == 'N' or exp == 'n') return 1;
else if(exp == 'S' or exp == 's') return -1;
}//NSValue
int EWValue(char exp){
if (exp == 'E' or exp == 'e') return 1;
else if(exp == 'W' or exp == 'w') return -1;
}//EWValue

int getDirection(char exp[]){
int east=0;
int north=0;
int i,j,temp,l;
l=strlen(exp);
for(i=0;i<l;i++){
 if((exp[i]=='N' or exp[i]=='n') || (exp[i]=='S' or exp[i]=='s')){north+=NSValue(exp[i]);}
 if((exp[i]=='E' or exp[i]=='e') || (exp[i]=='W' or exp[i]=='w')){east+=EWValue(exp[i]);}
}//for
if(east>0){for(i=0;i<east;i++){printf("%c",'E');}}//if
else if(east<0){east=-east;
 for(i=0;i<east;i++){printf("%c",'S');}
}//if


if(north>0){for(i=0;i<north;i++){printf("%c",'N');}}//if
else if(north<0){north=-north;
 for(i=0;i<north;i++){printf("%c",'S');}
}//elseif

}//getDirection
int main() {
 //char exp[100] = "NESNWES";
 char exp[100] = "SSSNEEEW";
 getDirection(exp);
 return 0;
}

You can check running code at http://ideone.com/e.js/U4yd4W

Similar Articles

Filed Under: Flipkart Interview Questions, Interview Questions, Microsoft Interview Questions, problem Tagged With: Array, codechef

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Join WeekEnd Online/Offline Batch from 4-April-2020 on How to Crack Coding Interview in Just 10 Weeks : Fees just 20,000 INR

Join WeekEnd Online/Offline Batch from 4-April-2020

WhatsApp us

Secondary Sidebar

Custom Search

  • How I cracked AMAZON
  • LeetCode
  • Adobe
  • Amazon
  • Facebook
  • Microsoft
  • Hacker Earth
  • CSE Interview

Top Rated Questions

Linked List V/S Binary Search Tree

C Program for TAIL command of UNIX

Find two non repeating elements in an array of repeating elements

Python Array String

Check Binary Tree is Binary Search Tree or not

Find position of the only set bit

flattens 2 D linked list to a single sorted link list

Fibonacci Hashing & Fastest Hashtable

Python Dictionaries

Hackerearth : Counting Subarrays

Puzzle : 100 doors in a row Visit and Toggle the door. What state the door will be after nth pass ?

DFS (Depth First Search)

C++ OOPs Part1

LeetCode: Binary Tree Maximum Path Sum

Facebook Interview Question : Interleave List

How Radix sort works

Coin Collection Dynamic Programming

Given Set of words or A String find whether chain is possible from these words or not

LeetCode : Word Search

Given a string, find the first character which is non-repetitive

BFS (Breath First Search)

Find if two rectangles overlap

Amazon Interview Experience – SDE Chennai

Maximum sum contiguous subarray of an Array

Best Java Book | Top Java Programming Book for Beginners

Difference between a LinkedList and a Binary Search Tree BST

Common Ancestor in a Binary Tree or Binary Search Tree

Given a sorted array and a number x, find the pair in array whose sum is closest to x

Generic Object Oriented Stack with Template

Regular Expression Matching

Copyright © 2026 · Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in