C++ program to find minimum number of steps needed to move from start to end

Suppose we have a coordinate (x, y). On a 2D grid, a robot is at (0, 0) position and want to reach (x, y). It can move up, down, left or right or stay at current cell. It wants to reach destination with as minimum as possible commands. We have to count the number of steps needed.

So, if the input is like x = 3; y = 4, then the output will be 7

Steps

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

return x + y + minimum of |x - y|, |x - y + 1|, and |x - y - 1|

Example

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

int solve(int x, int y) {
   return x + y + min(abs(x - y), min(abs(x - y + 1), abs(x - y - 1)));
}
int main() {
   int x = 3;
   int y = 4;
   cout << solve(x, y) << endl;
}

Input

3, 4

Output

7