Google Kickstart

Photo by Alex Dudar on Unsplash

It’s that time of the year again. Google Kickstart is back! Here are some tools that you can use to boost your skills as a developer

Tip 1:

In order to sum up an std::vector<int> use the <numeric> library and do the following

std::vector<int> some_container = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
// The late value is the initialisation value which is typically 0
std::accumulate(some_container.begin(), some_container.end(), 0);

Tip 2:

Make use of the number of arguments given to receive your input. For example if the first value of the input is the number of test cases, use a for loop (or any other loop) to obtain each computation cycle.

int main()
{
    // This will read the input
    int T;
    std::cin >> T;
    // Iterate through each of the test cases
    for (int case_num = 1; case_num <= T; case_num++)
    {
        std::string s_input;
        std::string f_input;
        std::cin >> s_input;
        std::cin >> f_input;
    }
}

Tip 3:

Often times input will be read as strings. However, what if the computation needs to be performed on an integer. Use std::stoi !

std::string some_val = "5";
int some_int_val = std::stoi(some_val);

Tip 4:

Every wrong submission will incur a penalty on the kickstart platform. So instead of that use an alternative environment to feed in your input and test it out. I use codechef to help me out.

Happy hacking away!