Question

I have a problem with my program in python of n queens (how many possible ways are to place n queens in a nxn board). Seems like there's a problem with my recursion but I'm really helpless. Could someone figure out what's wrong?

def queens(N):

    ''' how many ways to place n queens on an NXN board? '''

    partial = []    # list representing partial placement of queens on the left columns
    return queens_rec(N,partial)

def queens_rec(N, partial):
    '''Given a partial solution to the n-Queens Problem ,
        return the number of options to place the rest of the queens.
        Recursively, in the end we will get the number of the options for
        the whole NxN board'''

    if len(partial)==N:
        return 1

    total = 0 #total of full solutions found
    row = 0

    while row<N:
        if isUnderAttack(partial,N,row)==False: #means it is not under Attack
            partial+=[row]

            total=total+queens_rec(N, partial)

            row+=1
            current = len(partial)

            partial = partial[0:current-1]

        else:
            row+=1

    return total

def isUnderAttack(partial, N, newRow):
    '''Checking if we can add a queen in row newRow, to the next column'''

    newCol = len(partial)

    for col in range(newCol): #not inculding newCol, checking all the previous columns
        oldRow = partial[col]


        #Checking horizontal attack from existing queen:
        if (newRow == oldRow):

            return True

        if (newCol - col == newRow - oldRow):

            return True

        if (newCol - col == oldRow - newRow):

            return True        

    return False
Was it helpful?

Solution

You wrote:

            partial+=[row]
            ...
            partial = partial[0:current-1]

the first command modifies the list partial in place. The second one makes a copy and leaves the original array untouched.

You should write:

partial.append(row) # this is equivalent to:  partial += [row]
...
partial.pop() # modifes list in place
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