Develop Reference

Xamarin.Android random number picks same number multiple times

I am making an app with Xamarin Android. It has 4 turns, and I want a random picture+sound to display in every turn. So far so good, but now I want to make it in a way that it won't show the same picture+sound(the same random number) twice. I have tried some codes from other treads, but unfortunately that did not work.
Following is what I tried from the other treads:
if (ActivityGame.playing == false)
{
List<int> alreadyGuessed = new List<int>();
Random randomSound = new Random();
int theSound = randomSound.Next(1, 5);
while (alreadyGuessed.Contains(theSound))
theSound = randomSound.Next(1, 5);
alreadyGuessed.Add(theSound);
return theSound;
}

You declare the alreadyGuessed list inside the if-branch. So, every time you get in that if branch, the program creates a new, empty list named alreadyGuessed.
You should make alreadyGuessed a member variable of your ActivityGame class, so it will retain the values already used.

Is my target selection AI efficient?

quick question. I am developing a top-down 2d Platformer game with lots of enemies in the map (at least a hundred spawn at the start of each level). Each enemy uses an AI that searches the map for objects with a specified tag, sorts each object into a list based on their distance, then reacts to the object closest to them.
My code works, but the thing is, if the machine my game is running on is slow, then my game lags. I want to be able to port my game to Android and iOS with low end specs.
In pursuit of putting less strain on the CPU, is there a better way to write my AI?
Here is my code:
void Start () {
FoodTargets = new List<Transform>(); // my list
SelectedTarget = null; // the target the enemy reacts to
myTransform = transform;
AddAllFood ();
}
public void AddAllFood()
{
GameObject[] Foods = GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag("Object");
foreach (GameObject enemy in Foods)
AddTarget (enemy.transform);
}
public void AddTarget(Transform enemy)
{
if (enemy.GetComponent<ClassRatingScript>().classrating != 1) { // classrating is an attribute each enemy has that determines their identity (like if they are a plant, a herbivore or a carnivore)
FoodTargets.Add (enemy); // adds the object to the list
}
}
private void SortTargetsByDistance() // this is how I sort according to distance, is this the fastest and most efficient way to do this?
{
FoodTargets.Sort (delegate(Transform t1, Transform t2) {
return Vector3.Distance(t1.position, myTransform.position).CompareTo(Vector3.Distance(t2.position, myTransform.position));
});
}
private void TargetEnemy() // this is called every 4 frames
{
if (SelectedTarget == null) {
SortTargetsByDistance ();
SelectedTarget = FoodTargets [1];
}
else {
SortTargetsByDistance ();
SelectedTarget = FoodTargets [1];
}
}
if (optimizer <= 2) { // this is a variable that increments every frame and resets to 0 on the 3rd frame. Only every 3rd frame is the target enemy method is called.
optimizer++;
} else {
TargetEnemy ();
// the rest are attributes that the AI considers when reacting to their target
targetmass = SelectedTarget.GetComponent<MassScript> ().mass;
targetclass = SelectedTarget.GetComponent<ClassRatingScript> ().classrating;
mass = this.GetComponent<MassScript> ().mass;
classrating = this.GetComponent<ClassRatingScript> ().classrating;
distance = Vector3.Distance (transform.position, SelectedTarget.transform.position);
optimizer = 0;
}
Is there a more optimized way of doing this? Your help will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I'm not awfully familiar with C# or Unity but I would look very carefully at what sorting algorithm your sorting method is using. If all you want is the closest Game Object, then sorting isn't necessary.
The fastest sorting algorithms, such as Quicksort, are O(n*log(n)). That is to say that the time it takes to sort a collection of n objects is bounded by some constant multiple of n*log(n). If you just want the k closest objects, where k << n, then you can perform k iterations of the Bubble Sort algorithm. This will have time-complexity O(k*n), which is much better then before.
However, if you only need the single closest object, then just find the closest object without sorting (pseudocode):
float smallestDistance = Inf;
object closestObject = null;
foreach object in objectsWithTag {
float d = distance(object, enemy);
if (d < smallestDistance) {
smallestDistance = d;
closestObject = object;
}
}
This extremely simple algorithm has time complexity O(n).

Most efficient way of comparing long arrays of strings

I'm using the speech recognizer to get a voice input from the user, it returns an array of 5 strings which I pass to this method
public int analyzeTag(ArrayList<String> voiceResults,Editor editor, Context context){
for (String match : voiceResults) {
Log.d(TAG, match);
if (match.equalsIgnoreCase(context.getResources().getString(R.string.first_tag))){
editor.append(context.getResources().getString(R.string.first_tag));
return 1;
}
else if (match.equalsIgnoreCase(context.getResources().getString(R.string.second_tag))){
editor.append(context.getResources().getString(R.string.second_tag));
return 1;
}
//etc....(huge list of tags)
//Some tags might also have acceptable variations, example:
else if (match.equalsIgnoreCase("img") || match.equalsIgnoreCase("image")
{
editor.append("img"); //the string to append is always taken from the first variation
}
}
return 0;
}
This method compares the results with a list of tags, the tag list will be pretty big with hundreds of tags so I would like to find the most efficient way to do this operation.
I need help with:
1.Is my way of comparing results the most efficient? Is there a better way? (from the user experience perspective, I don't want users waiting a long time to get a result).
The voice input will be a big part of my app so this method will be called quite often
2.I have a long list of tags, obviously the if(), elseIf() route is gonna be quite repetitive, is there a way to iterate this? Considering the fact that some tags might have variations (even more than 1)and that the variation 1 ("img") will be the same for everyone, but other variations will be locale/language sensitive example: "image" for english users "immagini" for italian users etc.
Text appended to the editor will be always taken from the first variation

How about puting tags in a StringArray and then iterate though the array ?
String[] tags = context.getResources().getStringArray(R.array.tags);
for (String match : voiceResults) {
for (int index = 0; index < tags.length; index++ ) {
if (match.equalsIgnoreCase(tags[index]) {
editor.append(tags[index]);
}
}
}
Here's the doc on StringArray

Loop structure gives wrong result

I am trying to compare items out of my DB to the value of an EditText (user input). The answer can have multiple answers, seperated by a ','. I first put them into a stringarray and then compare them to the answer. The LevenshteinDistance checks if the answer is more or les good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levenshtein_distance#Computing_Levenshtein_distance).
userAnswer = etUserAnswer.getText().toString().toLowerCase();
String[] answers = qAnswer.split(",");
for (String answer : answers) {
if (answer.equals(userAnswer)) {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), ("Answer Correct"),
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
tvMessage.setText("You smartass!");
} else {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), ("Wrong"),
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
points = points - 4;
String answerGood = answer.toLowerCase();
LevenshteinDistance lDistance = new LevenshteinDistance();
int comparisonCheck = lDistance.computeLevenshteinDistance(
userAnswer, answerGood);
if (comparisonCheck == 1) {
tvMessage.setText("Almost there, but not quite yet!");
} else if (comparisonCheck > 1) {
tvMessage.setText("Are you serious, totally wrong?!");
}
}
}
Suppose I am having the answers for a question in the DB as follows: tree,test,radio
I am having two problems:
1. When I type "radi" it gives me 'Almost there...' which is good. It should also give me this if I enter "tes", but instead it gives me the 'Are you serious,...' line. I guess it keeps comparing to the last one.
2. Every time I type in something which is not correct, I get -12 instead of -4. I suppose this is due to the fact I am having three answers and it loops three times.. but I don't know how I can make it count only once..
Anyone can help me on the way? Thanks!

Assuming you don't need to know the word which gives the least Levenshtein distance, you could modify your loop to find smallest distance only;
userAnswer = etUserAnswer.getText().toString().toLowerCase();
String[] answers = qAnswer.split(",");
LevenshteinDistance lDistance = new LevenshteinDistance();
int minDistance = lDistance.computeLevenshteinDistance(
userAnswer, answers[0].toLowerCase());
for (int i = 1; i < answers.length; ++i) {
minDistance = Math.min(minDistance, lDistance.computeLevenshteinDistance(
userAnswer, answers[i].toLowerCase()));
}
if (minDistance == 0) {
// Correct answer...
} else {
// Wrong answer...
points -= 4;
// etc etc...
}

Shuffle Class Instances

My program is a quiz which asks questions for US States
I create three instances of a class say State
State st1 = new State();
State st2 = new State();
State st3 = new State();
like it asks a question about a state what is capital of st1.name
and line below that it gives 3 option
String Builder sb;
sb.append("What is Capital of "+st1.name+"\n");
sb.append("\n"+st1.capital);
sb.append("\n"+st2.capital);
sb.append("\n"+st3.capital);
mainText.setText(sb.toString);
now the problem is every time it comes up with correct answer in first line...
how do i avoid that ?

Put the correct answer in a random spot using Java's Random class
Random.nextInt(3) will give you a random number between 0 and 2. Put your correct answer into an array of size 3 at location and put the two wrong answers in the remaining locations. Then loop through that array and sb.append(array[i]); (i between 0 and 2) to get your random ordering of state capitals.

Create an ArrayList the pull the objects out randomly.
This code is totally untested, but I don't think it's too far off...
This will (theoretically) list the answers in totally random order.
ArrayList<State> states = new ArrayList<State>();
Random rand;
states.add(new State());
states.add(new State());
states.add(new State());
sb.append("What is Capital of "+states.get(0).name+"\n");
int randomNum = 0;
while (states.size() > 0) {
randomNum = rand.nextInt(1 - states.size() + 1);
sb.append("\n"+states.get(randomNum).capital);
states.remove(randomNum)
}
mainText.setText(sb.toString);