Too many 'if' statements?

Question

The following code does work how I need it to, but it's ugly, excessive or a number of other things. I've looked at formulas and attempted to write a few solutions, but I end up with a similar amount of statements.

Is there a type of math formula that would benefit me in this instance or are 16 if statements acceptable?

To explain the code, it's for a kind of simultaneous-turn-based game.. two players have four action buttons each and the results come from an array (0-3), but the variables 'one' & 'two' can be assigned anything if this helps. The result is, 0 = neither win, 1 = p1 wins, 2 = p2 wins, 3 = both win.

public int fightMath(int one, int two) {

    if(one == 0 && two == 0) { result = 0; }
    else if(one == 0 && two == 1) { result = 0; }
    else if(one == 0 && two == 2) { result = 1; }
    else if(one == 0 && two == 3) { result = 2; }
    else if(one == 1 && two == 0) { result = 0; }
    else if(one == 1 && two == 1) { result = 0; }
    else if(one == 1 && two == 2) { result = 2; }
    else if(one == 1 && two == 3) { result = 1; }
    else if(one == 2 && two == 0) { result = 2; }
    else if(one == 2 && two == 1) { result = 1; }
    else if(one == 2 && two == 2) { result = 3; }
    else if(one == 2 && two == 3) { result = 3; }
    else if(one == 3 && two == 0) { result = 1; }
    else if(one == 3 && two == 1) { result = 2; }
    else if(one == 3 && two == 2) { result = 3; }
    else if(one == 3 && two == 3) { result = 3; }

    return result;
}

Answer 1

To be quite honest, everyone has their own style of code. I wouldn't have thought performance would be affected too much. If you understand this better than using a switch case version, then carry on using this.

You could nest the ifs , so potentially there would be a slight performance increase for your last if checks as it wouldn't have gone through as many if statements. But in your context of a basic java course it probably won't benefit.

else if(one == 3 && two == 3) { result = 3; }

So, instead of...

if(one == 0 && two == 0) { result = 0; }
else if(one == 0 && two == 1) { result = 0; }
else if(one == 0 && two == 2) { result = 1; }
else if(one == 0 && two == 3) { result = 2; }

You'd do...

if(one == 0) 
{ 
    if(two == 0) { result = 0; }
    else if(two == 1) { result = 0; }
    else if(two == 2) { result = 1; }
    else if(two == 3) { result = 2; }
}

And just reformat it as you'd prefer.

This doesn't make the code look better, but potentially speeds it up a little I believe.

Answer 2

I personally like to cascade ternary operators:

int result = condition1
    ? result1
    : condition2
    ? result2
    : condition3
    ? result3
    : resultElse;

But in your case, you can use:

final int[] result = new int[/*16*/] {
    0, 0, 1, 2,
    0, 0, 2, 1,
    2, 1, 3, 3,
    1, 2, 3, 3
};

public int fightMath(int one, int two) {
    return result[one*4 + two];
}

Or, you can notice a pattern in bits:

one   two   result

section 1: higher bits are equals =>
both result bits are equals to that higher bits

00    00    00
00    01    00
01    00    00
01    01    00
10    10    11
10    11    11
11    10    11
11    11    11

section 2: higher bits are different =>
lower result bit is inverse of lower bit of 'two'
higher result bit is lower bit of 'two'

00    10    01
00    11    10
01    10    10
01    11    01
10    00    10
10    01    01
11    00    01
11    01    10

So you can use magic:

int fightMath(int one, int two) {
    int b1 = one & 2, b2 = two & 2;
    if (b1 == b2)
        return b1 | (b1 >> 1);

    b1 = two & 1;

    return (b1 << 1) | (~b1);
}

Answer 3

I don't have experience with Java so there might be some typos. Please consider the code as pseudo-code.

I'd go with a simple switch. For that, you'd need a single number evaluation. However, for this case, since 0 <= one < 4 <= 9 and 0 <= two < 4 <= 9, we can convert both ints to a simple int by multiplying one by 10 and adding two. Then use a switch in the resulting number like this:

public int fightMath(int one, int two) {
    // Convert one and two to a single variable in base 10
    int evaluate = one * 10 + two;

    switch(evaluate) {
        // I'd consider a comment in each line here and in the original code
        // for clarity
        case 0: result = 0; break;
        case 1: result = 0; break;
        case 1: result = 0; break;
        case 2: result = 1; break;
        case 3: result = 2; break;
        case 10: result = 0; break;
        case 11: result = 0; break;
        case 12: result = 2; break;
        case 13: result = 1; break;
        case 20: result = 2; break;
        case 21: result = 1; break;
        case 22: result = 3; break;
        case 23: result = 3; break;
        case 30: result = 1; break;
        case 31: result = 2; break;
        case 32: result = 3; break;
        case 33: result = 3; break;
    }

    return result;
}

There's another short method that I just want to point out as a theoretical code. However I wouldn't use it because it has some extra complexity that you don't normally want to deal with. The extra complexity comes from the base 4, because the counting is 0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, ...

public int fightMath(int one, int two) {
    // Convert one and two to a single variable in base 4
    int evaluate = one * 4 + two;

    allresults = new int[] { 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 1, 2, 3, 3 };

    return allresults[evaluate];
}

Really just additional note, in case I'm missing something from Java. In PHP I'd do:

function fightMath($one, $two) {
    // Convert one and two to a single variable in base 4
    $evaluate = $one * 10 + $two;

    $allresults = array(
         0 => 0,  1 => 0,  2 => 1,  3 => 2,
        10 => 0, 11 => 0, 12 => 2, 13 => 1,
        20 => 2, 21 => 1, 22 => 3, 23 => 3,
        30 => 1, 31 => 2, 32 => 3, 33 => 3 );

    return $allresults[$evaluate];
}

Answer 4

Why not use an array?

I will start from the beginning. I see a pattern, the values goes from 0 to 3 and you want catch all possible values. This is your table:

0 & 0 = 0
0 & 1 = 0
0 & 2 = 1
0 & 3 = 2
1 & 0 = 0
1 & 1 = 0
1 & 2 = 2
1 & 3 = 1
2 & 0 = 2
2 & 1 = 1
2 & 2 = 3
2 & 3 = 3
3 & 0 = 2
3 & 1 = 1
3 & 2 = 3
3 & 3 = 3

when we look at this same table binary we see the following results:

00 & 00 = 00
00 & 01 = 00
00 & 10 = 01
00 & 11 = 10
01 & 00 = 00
01 & 01 = 00
01 & 10 = 10
01 & 11 = 01
10 & 00 = 10
10 & 01 = 01
10 & 10 = 11
10 & 11 = 11
11 & 00 = 10
11 & 01 = 01
11 & 10 = 11
11 & 11 = 11

Now maybe you already see some pattern but when I combine value one and two I see that you're using all values 0000, 0001, 0010,..... 1110 and 1111. Now let's combine value one and two to make a single 4 bit integer.

0000 = 00
0001 = 00
0010 = 01
0011 = 10
0100 = 00
0101 = 00
0110 = 10
0111 = 01
1000 = 10
1001 = 01
1010 = 11
1011 = 11
1100 = 10
1101 = 01
1110 = 11
1111 = 11

When we translate this back into decimal values we see an very possible array of values where the one and two combined could be used as index:

0 = 0
1 = 0
2 = 1
3 = 2
4 = 0
5 = 0
6 = 2
7 = 1
8 = 2
9 = 1
10 = 3
11 = 3
12 = 2
13 = 1
14 = 3
15 = 3

The array is then {0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 3, 3}, where it's index is simply one and two combined.

I'm not a Java programmer but you can get rid of all if statements and just write it down as something like this:

int[] myIntArray = {0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 3, 3};
result = myIntArray[one * 4 + two]; 

I don't know if a bitshift by 2 is faster than multiplication. But it could be worth a try.

Answer 5

This uses a little bit of bitmagic (you're already doing it by holding two bits of information (low/high & attack/block) in a single integer):

I haven't run it, only typed it here, please doublecheck. The idea surely works. EDIT: It is now tested for every input, works fine.

public int fightMath(int one, int two) {
    if(one<2 && two<2){ //both players blocking
        return 0; // nobody hits
    }else if(one>1 && two>1){ //both players attacking
        return 3; // both hit
    }else{ // some of them attack, other one blocks
        int different_height = (one ^ two) & 1; // is 0 if they are both going for the same height - i.e. blocker wins, and 1 if height is different, thus attacker wins
        int attacker = one>1?1:0; // is 1 if one is the attacker, two is the blocker, and 0 if one is the blocker, two is the attacker
        return (attacker ^ different_height) + 1;
    }
}

Or should I suggest to separate the two bits of information into separate variables? Code based mostly on bit operations like this above is usually really hard to maintain.

Answer 6

Here's a fairly concise version, similar to JAB's response. This utilises a map to store which moves triumph over others.

public enum Result {
  P1Win, P2Win, BothWin, NeitherWin;
}

public enum Move {
  BLOCK_HIGH, BLOCK_LOW, ATTACK_HIGH, ATTACK_LOW;

  static final Map<Move, List<Move>> beats = new EnumMap<Move, List<Move>>(
      Move.class);

  static {
    beats.put(BLOCK_HIGH, new ArrayList<Move>());
    beats.put(BLOCK_LOW, new ArrayList<Move>());
    beats.put(ATTACK_HIGH, Arrays.asList(ATTACK_LOW, BLOCK_LOW));
    beats.put(ATTACK_LOW, Arrays.asList(ATTACK_HIGH, BLOCK_HIGH));
  }

  public static Result compare(Move p1Move, Move p2Move) {
    boolean p1Wins = beats.get(p1Move).contains(p2Move);
    boolean p2Wins = beats.get(p2Move).contains(p1Move);

    if (p1Wins) {
      return (p2Wins) ? Result.BothWin : Result.P1Win;
    }
    if (p2Wins) {
      return (p1Wins) ? Result.BothWin : Result.P2Win;
    }

    return Result.NeitherWin;
  }
} 

Example:

System.out.println(Move.compare(Move.ATTACK_HIGH, Move.BLOCK_LOW));

Prints:

P1Win