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Daily Challenge #2 - String Diamond

Welcome to Day 2 of our challenge series. Today, you’ll be using some clean and polished code to create a clean and polished diamond.

Our challenge comes from user @jayeshcp on CodeWars.

Your task is to return a string that displays a diamond shape on the screen using asterisk (“*”) characters.

The shape that the print method will return should resemble a diamond. A number provided as input will represent the number of asterisks printed on the middle line. The line above and below will be centered and will have two less asterisks than the middle line. This reduction will continue for each line until a line with a single asterisk is printed at the top and bottom of the figure.

Return null if input is an even number or a negative number.

Note: JS and Python students must implement diamond() method and return None (Py) or null(JS) for invalid input.

Bonus points awarded for experimenting with any extra features.

Good luck!


Thank you to CodeWars, who has licensed redistribution of this challenge under the 2-Clause BSD License!

Want to propose a challenge for a future post? Email yo+challenge@dev.to with your suggestions!

Top comments (85)

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alvaromontoro profile image
Alvaro Montoro • Edited

CSS

.diamond {
  --stars: 11;
  width: calc(var(--stars) * 10px);
  height: calc(var(--stars) * 15px);
  background-image: url('data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="10px" height="15px" viewBox="0 0 10 15"><text x="1.125" y="15" fill="black">*</text></svg>');
  clip-path: polygon(50% 0, 100% 50%, 50% 100%, 0 50%);
}

Some people will claim that I am cheating with this one; and they are probably right... but it was fun to develop and it kind of works (although only with odd numbers 😭). The idea is:

  • Create a SVG image that shows an asterisk with text.
  • Put that SVG as an inline background image for an element.
  • Clip the element to only show a diamond shape (using clip-path).
  • Define a CSS variable to specify the number of stars in the middle of the diamond.
  • Knowing the size of the SVG image, use the CSS variable to calculate the height and width of the element.

Here there is a working demo on Codepen:

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coreyja profile image
Corey Alexander

Wow amazing one again! I don't think it's cheating at all, just a creative solution to the problem!

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alvaromontoro profile image
Alvaro Montoro

Thanks!
Yesterday's solution was definitely more cheating than this one.

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mrdulin profile image
official_dulin

Amazing! You are a CSS master!

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sajanv88 profile image
Sajan

Good job! :)

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coreyja profile image
Corey Alexander • Edited

After @andrewbrown shamed us all yesterday for not having test cases, I decided I needed to step up my game and went full TDD with this one!

Rust Solution:

fn concat_char(c: char, n: i32) -> String {
    (0..n).map(|_x| c).collect()
}

fn diamond_line(number_of_asteriks: i32, number_of_padding_spaces: i32) -> String {
    let spaces = concat_char(' ', number_of_padding_spaces);
    let asteriks = concat_char('*', number_of_asteriks);
    format!("{}{}{}\n", spaces, asteriks, spaces)
}

pub fn diamond(size: i32) -> Option<String> {
    if size <= 0 {
        None
    } else if size % 2 == 0 {
        None
    } else {
        let midpoint_index = (size - 1) / 2;

        let output: String = (0..size)
            .map(|line_number| {
                let number_of_padding_spaces = (line_number - midpoint_index).abs();
                let number_of_asteriks = size - number_of_padding_spaces * 2;

                diamond_line(number_of_asteriks, number_of_padding_spaces)
            })
            .collect();
        Some(output)
    }
}

#[cfg(test)]
mod tests {
    use crate::diamond;

    #[test]
    fn it_works_for_even_inputs() {
        assert_eq!(diamond(2), None);
        assert_eq!(diamond(4), None);
        assert_eq!(diamond(60), None);
    }

    #[test]
    fn it_works_for_negative_inputs() {
        assert_eq!(diamond(-2), None);
        assert_eq!(diamond(-5), None);
        assert_eq!(diamond(-11), None);
    }

    #[test]
    fn it_works_for_zero() {
        // This is not defined in the spec
        assert_eq!(diamond(0), None);
    }

    #[test]
    fn a_single_asterik_is_a_basic_diamond() {
        let expected_output = "*\n".to_string();
        assert_eq!(diamond(1), Some(expected_output));
    }

    #[test]
    fn it_works_with_a_small_diamond() {
        let expected_output = " * \n***\n * \n".to_string();
        assert_eq!(diamond(3), Some(expected_output));
    }

    #[test]
    fn it_works_with_a_large_diamond() {
        let expected_output = "     *     \n    ***    \n   *****   \n  *******  \n ********* \n***********\n ********* \n  *******  \n   *****   \n    ***    \n     *     \n".to_string();
        assert_eq!(diamond(11), Some(expected_output));
    }
}

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andrewbrown profile image
Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

+1 for Rust
+1 for TDD

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Nice!

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vbarinov profile image
Vlad Barinov

Hey! Also JavaScript

function diamond(n){
  if (n <= 0 || n % 2 === 0) {
    return null;
  }

  const repeater = ch => n => ch.repeat(n)
  const spacer = repeater(' ')
  const asterixer = repeater('*')

  let diam = ''
  for (let row = 1; row <= n; row++) {
    const spaces = Math.abs(n - ((2*row) - 1))
    const stars = n - spaces
    diam += `${spacer(spaces / 2)}${asterixer(stars)}\n`
  }

  return diam
}
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monicat profile image
Monica Macomber

This is my favorite JS answer to this challenge 👍 I like how you used the repeater, keeps things clean & compact.

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auroratide profile image
Timothy Foster • Edited

Haskell!

import Data.Maybe

diamond :: Int -> Maybe [Char]
diamond n
  | n < 1     = Nothing
  | even n    = Nothing
  | otherwise = Just (concat $ map line rows)
  where
    line stars = replicate (div (n - stars) 2) ' ' ++ replicate stars '*' ++ "\n"
    rows = filter odd ([1..n] ++ reverse [1..(n - 2)])
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kunde21 profile image
Chad Kunde

Go (with bonus diamond of diamonds) playground link


func diamond(center int) (string, error) {
    if (center & 1) == 0 {
        return "", errors.New("center row must be an odd number")
    }
    return strings.Join(makeDiamond(center), "\n"), nil
}

func diamondOfDiamonds(center int) (string, error) {
    if (center & 1) == 0 {
        return "", errors.New("center row must be an odd number")
    }
    dmd := makeDiamond(center)
    outBuf := make([]string, center)
    row := strings.Repeat(" ", center)
    for i := 0; i <= center/2; i++ {
        rowBuf := make([]string, center)
        for j := range rowBuf {
            rowBuf[j] = strings.Repeat(row, center/2-i) + strings.Repeat(dmd[j], 2*i+1) + strings.Repeat(row, center/2-i)
        }
        outBuf[i], outBuf[center-i-1] = strings.Join(rowBuf, "\n"), strings.Join(rowBuf, "\n")
    }
    return strings.Join(outBuf, "\n"), nil
}

func makeDiamond(center int) []string {
    outBuf := make([]string, center)
    row := bytes.Repeat([]byte{' '}, center)
    for l, r := (center / 2), (center / 2); l >= 0; l, r = l-1, r+1 {
        row[l], row[r] = '*', '*'
        outBuf[center/2-l], outBuf[center/2+l] = string(row), string(row)
    }
    return outBuf
}
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coreyja profile image
Corey Alexander

Woah that's cool! I wanted to see what your diamond of diamonds looked like!

Thought I'd paste in the medium sized one, and let people go to the playground for the big one!

            *            
           ***           
          *****          
           ***           
            *            
       *    *    *       
      ***  ***  ***      
     ***************     
      ***  ***  ***      
       *    *    *       
  *    *    *    *    *  
 ***  ***  ***  ***  *** 
*************************
 ***  ***  ***  ***  *** 
  *    *    *    *    *  
       *    *    *       
      ***  ***  ***      
     ***************     
      ***  ***  ***      
       *    *    *       
            *            
           ***           
          *****          
           ***           
            *            

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erosilva profile image
Erô • Edited

JS ❤️

const diamontLayersStructure = (base) => {
    let diamontLayer = '';
    for (let baseIdx = 0; baseIdx < base; baseIdx++) {
        diamontLayer += '*';
    }
    return diamontLayer;
}

const diamont = base => {
    if (base % 2 === 0) {
        return null;
    }
    let diamontLayers = diamontLayersStructure(base);
    let diamontSpacement  = '';
    while (base !== 1) {
        base -= 2;
        diamontSpacement += ' ';
        let diamontNextLayer = diamontLayersStructure(base);
        diamontLayers = `${diamontSpacement}${diamontNextLayer}\n${diamontLayers}`;
        diamontLayers += `\n${diamontSpacement}${diamontNextLayer}`;
    }
    return console.log(diamontLayers);
}
diamont(10); //= null
diamont(11); //= diamont
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v613 profile image
Ceban Dumitru • Edited

BASH

drawAsteriks () {
  local n=${2};
  local row=${1};
  local numberOfSpaces=$(( (${n}-${row}-(${row}-1))/2 ));
  local numberOfchars=$(( ${n} - ${numberOfSpaces#-}*2 ));
  local spaces=$(printf '%*s' ${numberOfSpaces} '');
  local chars=$(printf '%*s' ${numberOfchars} '' | tr ' ' '+');
  local result=${spaces}${chars}${spaces};
  echo "${result}";
}

if [[ $((${1} % 2 )) = 0 ]]; then
  echo "the argument is even: ${1}";
else 
  for (( i = 1; i <= ${1}; i++ )); do
    drawAsteriks ${i} ${1};
  done;
fi
echo'';
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ben profile image
Ben Halpern • Edited

Ruby

def diamond(apex_size)
  shape_array = (1..apex_size).to_a + (1..apex_size -1).to_a.reverse
  shape_array.each { |num| puts diamond_row(apex_size, num) }
end

def diamond_row(apex_size, num)
  "#{" " * (apex_size - num)} #{"*" * ((num * 2 - 1))}"
end
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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

I didn’t follow the fine print so I’m not sure this totally fits the spec now that I’m reading more carefully.

I’ll be more careful tomorrow 😄

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highcenburg profile image
Vicente G. Reyes

Python

def diamond():

    num = 9

    for i in range(1, num+1):
      i = i - (num//2 +1)
      if i < 0:
        i = -i
      print(" " * i + "*" * (num - i*2) + " "*i)
diamond()
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garrett profile image
Garrett / G66

The shortest one by far

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highcenburg profile image
Vicente G. Reyes

It's also fast.

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kaspermeyer profile image
Kasper Meyer

Ruby solution

require "minitest/autorun"

class DiamondGenerator
  def initialize width
    @width = width
  end

  def generate
    return nil if invalid_width?

    number_of_asterisks.map { |n| number_to_asterisks(n) }.join("\n")
  end

  private

    def invalid_width?
      @width.even? or @width.negative?
    end

    def number_to_asterisks number
      ("*" * number).center(@width).rstrip
    end

    def number_of_asterisks
      steps = (1...@width).step(2).to_a
      steps + [@width] + steps.reverse
    end
end

class DiamondGeneratorTest < MiniTest::Test
  def test_valid_diamond
    expected_diamond = <<~DIAMOND.chomp
         *
        ***
       *****
      *******
     *********
    ***********
     *********
      *******
       *****
        ***
         *
    DIAMOND

    assert_equal expected_diamond, DiamondGenerator.new(11).generate
  end

  def test_diamond_with_even_width
    assert_nil DiamondGenerator.new(6).generate
  end

  def test_diamond_with_negative_width
    assert_nil DiamondGenerator.new(-2).generate
  end
end