push_swap

Project Overview

push_swap is a sorting algorithm project from 42 School. The goal is to sort a stack of integers using a limited set of operations with the smallest possible number of moves.

Description

push_swap calculates and displays a sequence of instructions to sort a list of integers using two stacks (a and b) and a restricted set of operations. The main focus is algorithm efficiency and minimizing the number of operations.

Allowed Operations

You can only use the following operations to manipulate the stacks:

• sa – swap the first two elements of stack a
• sb – swap the first two elements of stack b
• ss – sa and sb at the same time
• pa – push the top element from b to a
• pb – push the top element from a to b
• ra – rotate stack a up by 1
• rb – rotate stack b up by 1
• rr – ra and rb at the same time
• rra – reverse rotate stack a
• rrb – reverse rotate stack b
• rrr – rra and rrb at the same time

Usage

1. Compile the program

make

2. Run it with a list of integers(it handles quoted numbers also)

./push_swap 3 "2" 1 "6" 5 7

⚠️✅ It handles both quoted and unquoted numbers.

The program will output sequence of operations to sort the given numbers.

Example

$./push_swap 3 2 1
ra
sa

Project Constraints

• Only the allowed operations is used
• No use of standard sorting functions
• Handles errors: non-integer input, duplicates, and overflows