Spiral

Hello and welcome to the Spiral Matrix

The spiral matrix is one of the most well known code challenges because of the tricky logic that comes with the problem.

Let’s take a look at the directions.

So given a number n we want to return an n*n matrix where the values follow a spiral pattern that starts at the top left and ends somewhere in the middle.

We’ll essentially be making an array of sub arrays that will hold our spiraled values.

So where do we start?

If we study the spiral matrix for a moment we’ll notice that it follows a pattern.

It goes right, down, left, up, and restarts the cycle over again. The key to replicating this pattern is to know when we’ve made it to the end of the row/column, and when we’re at the end we will need to shift directions.

An important part of implementing this logic is that we want to make sure that once we’ve traversed an entire row or column, we won’t want to worry about that row/column any longer. We’re done with it.

So as you can imagine, we do the top row from left to right, and once we’ve completed the top row it needs to disappear.

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