triangle challenge

gudii9
gudii9 used Ask the Experts™
on
Hi,

I am working on below challenge

http://codingbat.com/prob/p194781

Recursion-1 > triangle
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We have triangle made of blocks. The topmost row has 1 block, the next row down has 2 blocks, the next row has 3 blocks, and so on. Compute recursively (no loops or multiplication) the total number of blocks in such a triangle with the given number of rows.

triangle(0) → 0
triangle(1) → 1
triangle(2) → 3

i have not understood above description.
what is row and what is block and how they are related to triange and what we have to return
Can you please advise
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student
Commented:
what is row and what is block and how they are related to triange and what we have to return
They could have named this challenge "stairs". Here is a image I found to illustrate the concept. stairs It's shape is roughly a triangle. They want to give total number of blocks needed to construct the triangle(stairs).
gudii9

Author

Commented:
i understood now with above image.

public int triangle(int rows) {
  if(rows==1){
    return 1;
  }
  return rows+triangle(rows-1);
}

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above fails one test case

xpected      Run            
triangle(0) → 0      Exception:java.lang.StackOverflowError (line number:2)      X      
triangle(1) → 1      1      OK      
triangle(2) → 3      3      OK      
triangle(3) → 6      6      OK      
triangle(4) → 10      10      OK      
triangle(5) → 15      15      OK      
triangle(6) → 21      21      OK      
triangle(7) → 28      28      OK      
other tests
how to decide base case begin with 0 or with 1. it is failing 0 case now
rrzstudent

Commented:
how to decide base case begin with 0
Just do the same with base case with 0 instead of 1.
gudii9

Author

Commented:
with one failing one.

with 0 base case all passing

public int triangle(int rows) {
  if(rows==0){
    return 0;
  }
  return rows+triangle(rows-1);
}

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