validateLock() function issue in tideman.c of pset3

[DeWill404]

Hello DeWill here

I was solving pset3 of CS50 and got stuck at tideman problem of pset3,
I browsed on internet for some help and came to your solution(which helped me a lot to understand problem)....

While going through your code, I thought validateLock() function of your code might be incorrect( also I might be wrong 😄 ),
you are going through locked array linearly(like 1 row at a time), instead you should search alternatively....
I mean, consider pair (1,2) (2,3) (3,1)
the way you search is is,
first comparing 1 to 1,2,3
then 2 to 1,2,3
then 3 to 1,2,3
instead you should search as
first 1 to 2, then 2 to 3, and lastly 3 to 1

here is the solution that i came up with,

void validateLock(int x, int winner, int loser)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < candidate_count; i++)
    {
        if (lock == false)
        {
            return;
        }
        if (locked[x][i] == true)
        {
            if (x == winner && i == loser)
            {
                lock = false;
                return;
            }
            validateLock(i, winner, loser);
        }
    }
}

void lock_pairs(void)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < pair_count; i++)
    {
        locked[pairs[i].winner][pairs[i].loser] = true;

        validateLock(pairs[i].loser, pairs[i].winner, pairs[i].loser);
        // if the validateLock function found a cycle we reverse the lock
        if (!lock)
        {
            locked[pairs[i].winner][pairs[i].loser] = false;
        }
        lock = true;
    }
}

here i keep referance of staring pair as winner & loser
and start searching from one step ahead....

As I previously said, I might be wrong 😅 ,
btw thanks for posting solution publicly, I helped me a lot....

with regards DeWill