how to determine if a two dimensional array has a row with 3 matching, consecutive columns

Question

I want to check if a two dimensional array has a row with 3 matching, consecutive columns:

bool ScoreRijAanwezig(RegularCandies[,] speelveld)

Here's what I have so far:

public enum RegularCandies
{
    Jellybean,
    Lozenge,
    LemonDrop,
    GumSquare,
    LollipopHead,
    JujubeCluser
};

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Program myProgram = new Program();
    myProgram.Start();
    Console.ReadKey();
}

void Start()
{
    RegularCandies[,] speelveld = new RegularCandies[10, 5];
    InitCandies(speelveld);
}

void InitCandies(RegularCandies[,] speelveld)
{
    Random rnd = new Random();

    for (int i = 0; i < speelveld.GetLength(0); i++)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < speelveld.GetLength(1); j++)
        {
            speelveld[i, j] = (RegularCandies)rnd.Next(0, 6);
        }
    }
    PrintCandies(speelveld);
}

void PrintCandies(RegularCandies[,] speelveld)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < speelveld.GetLength(0); i++)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < speelveld.GetLength(1); j++)
        {

            if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.Jellybean)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                Console.Write("#");
            }
            else if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.Lozenge)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.DarkYellow;
                Console.Write("#");
            }
            else if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.LemonDrop)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Yellow;
                Console.Write("#");
            }
            else if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.GumSquare)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Green;
                Console.Write("#");
            }
            else if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.LollipopHead)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Blue;
                Console.Write("#");
            }
            else if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.JujubeCluser)
            {
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Magenta;
                Console.Write("#");
            }

            Console.ResetColor();
            Console.Write(" ");
        } Console.WriteLine();

    }
    ScoreRijAanwezig(speelveld);
}

bool ScoreRijAanwezig(RegularCandies[,] speelveld)
{
    int count = 1;

    for (int i = 0; i < speelveld.GetLength(0); i++)
    { // check which enum regularCandies shows up 3times in a row  next to   eachother
        // like this below; 
        //
        // row i--->   red    [blue   blue   blue]
        //             green   red    yellow green
        //             blue    green  green  purple
        //             purple  yellow purple yellow
        //
        //              ^
        //              |
        //
        //             col j
        // blue shows up 3 times a a row now break the loop and return true 

        for (int j = 0; j < speelveld.GetLength(1); j++)
        {

            if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.Jellybean)
            {
                count++;
                if (speelveld[i - 1, j] == RegularCandies.Jellybean)

                    if (count >= 3)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Speelvelde SCORE 3X hetzelfde getal rood (JellyBean)");
                        return true;
                    }
            }
            else
            {
                count = 1;
            }
            if (speelveld[i, j] == RegularCandies.Lozenge)
            {
                count++;
                if (count >= 3)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("speelvelde SCORE 3X hetzelfde getal oranje ");
                    return true;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                count = 1;
            }
        }

    }
    return false;
}

Answer 1

Here's one way to do it.

For each row, store the first column value in a variable and set a counter variable to 1. Then loop through the rest of the columns, and if the value matches, increment the counter, and if the counter equals 3, we found a matching consecutive set and can return true. If it doesn't match, then reset the itemToMatch to the current column's value and reset the counter back to 1. If we finish the last row and still haven't returned true, then we didn't find 3 consecutive matches, so we can return false:

for (var row = 0; row < speelveld.GetLength(0); row++)
{
    // Store the value of the first column and start our counter at 1
    var itemToMatch = speelveld[row, 0];
    var matchCount = 1;

    // Loop through the rest of the columns in the row
    for (var col = 1; col < speelveld.GetLength(1); col++)
    {
        // If this column matches, increment our counter
        if (speelveld[row, col] == itemToMatch)
        {
            matchCount++;

            // If we've found three matches, notify the user and return true
            if (matchCount == 3)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(
                    $"Row #{row + 1} has three matching items ({itemToMatch})");

                return true;
            }
        }
        // If the column didn't match, then store *this* column and reset the counter
        else
        {
            itemToMatch = speelveld[row, col];
            matchCount = 1;
        }
    }
}

// If we get this far, we never found three matches so notify the user and return false
Console.WriteLine("No rows have three consecutive matching columns");
return false;