Creating and solving mazes with Go
Programming Snapshot – Go Mazes
© Photo by Henri Lajarrige Lombard on Unsplash
Mazes fascinated even the ancient Greeks. Mike Schilli uses his Go programming skills to create a maze and then efficiently travel through it.
In Europe, mazes are said to have come into fashion during the 15th century, mostly on manorial estates where guests were politely invited to "lose themselves" in gardens segregated by high hedges. However, winding paths (some of which even lead you in circles), where you need to make it from a starting point to an endpoint, can also be drawn on paper or simulated on computers. Algorithms usually represent a maze's path system internally as a graph along the edges of which the virtual explorer traverses from one node to the next, discarding dead ends, breaking out of endless loops, and eventually arriving at the destination node.
Computational handling of mazes is divided into two tasks: creating mazes and traversing them as effectively as possible by using a solver. You wouldn't think it possible, but on Amazon you can actually find a book entitled Mazes for Programmers [1]. The Kindle version of this book is a total failure due to font problems, but the paper edition shows some useful methods for creating and solving mazes.
From Cell to Cell
A maze consists of a matrix of MxN cells. In Figure 1, red arrows show the directions in which a traveler advances from cell to cell. These options then define the walls that are drawn to separate a cell from its neighbors.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Mint 22.2 Beta Available for Testing
Some interesting new additions and improvements are coming to Linux Mint. Check out the Linux Mint 22.2 Beta to give it a test run.
-
Debian 13.0 Officially Released
After two years of development, the latest iteration of Debian is now available with plenty of under-the-hood improvements.
-
Upcoming Changes for MXLinux
MXLinux 25 has plenty in store to please all types of users.
-
A New Linux AI Assistant in Town
Newelle, a Linux AI assistant, works with different LLMs and includes document parsing and profiles.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.