Background: The problem I'm trying to solve is. There is a 5x5 grid. You need to fit 5 queens on the board such that when placed there are three spots left that are not threatened by the queen.
My thinking: I created a list, named brd, that represents the board. I made it such that brd[1] would be the first square on the grid, and brd[25] would be the bottom right end of the grid. Like this: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |10| |11|12 |13|14 |15| |16|17 |18|19 |20| |21|22 |23|24 |25| Next, I created 4 functions The first named clearbrd() which takes no variables, and will reset the board to the 'no-queen' position. The second function I made was name permute(seq,n) and will create every combination of the placement of 5 queens. The third function is the printbrd() function, which takes no input, and prints the board. The final, and most important function is the affect(u) function, where u is the position of the queen on the grid, and it makes that value 1, then it finds all the places that the queen threatens, and makes those values 3. For example -- If I was to do, affect(1) printbrd() it would output |1|3|3|3|3| |3|3|0|0|0| |3|0|3|0|0| |3|0|0|3|0| |3|0|0|0|3| The last function of my code is where I create a for loop that takes all the combinations of the queens position, and puts them on the board, counts the numbers of zero, and if it's >= 3, it outputs the location of the queens, and the board. Problem: It doesn't output anything. Even when I change the mininum number of 0's to 1, it doesn't output anything. I tried taking it and statically inputing the vars for it to have two zeros, and made the mininum number 2. and it says that it is a correct answer. Then I took permute() and pasted all the output to a file, and it had the combination I tried. So I don't understand why it's not working. Thanks for all of your help guys, Poz The Code: #!/usr/bin/env python brd = [9,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0] def clearbrd(): brd = [9,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0] a = "|" def permutate(seq,n): if n == 0: yield[] else: for i in range(len(seq)): for subseq in permutate(seq[:i] + seq[i + 1:], n - 1): yield [seq[i]] + subseq def printbrd(): print a,brd[1],a,brd[2],a,brd[3],a,brd[4],a,brd[5],a,"\n" print a,brd[6],a,brd[7],a,brd[8],a,brd[9],a,brd[10],a,"\n" print a,brd[11],a,brd[12],a,brd[13],a,brd[14],a,brd[15],a,"\n" print a,brd[16],a,brd[17],a,brd[18],a,brd[19],a,brd[20],a,"\n" print a,brd[21],a,brd[22],a,brd[23],a,brd[24],a,brd[25],a,"\n" def affect(u): origu = u brd[u] = 1 # Do Diagonal down to the right while u!=5 and u!=10 and u!=15 and u<20: u = u + 6 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # Do Diagonal down to the left while u!=1 and u!=6 and u!=11 and u!=16 and u!=21 and u<22: u = u + 4 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # Do horizontal to the left while u!=1 and u!=6 and u!=11 and u!=16 and u!=21: u = u - 1 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # Do horizontal to the right while u!=5 and u!=10 and u!=15 and u!=20 and u!=25: u = u + 1 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # Do down while u < 21: u = u + 5 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # Do up while u > 5: u = u - 5 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # do Diagonal left up while u>6 and u!=11 and u!=16 and u!=21: u = u - 6 brd[u] = 3 u = origu # do Diagonal right up while u>5 and u!=10 and u!=15 and u!=20 and u!=25: u = u - 4 brd[u] = 3 answeru = origu clearbrd() for v,w,x,y,z in permutate(range(1,26),5): affect(v) affect(w) affect(x) affect(y) affect(z) if brd.count(0) >= 3: print "-----------------" print "Solved",v,w,x,y,z printbrd() clearbrd() Thanks for all of your help guys! Poz -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list