CareerCup

Datastructure is a struct of the below form

struct Node {
 Image value;
 Node *left,*right,*top,*bottom;
};

Assumption: existence of a method isNeighbor(Node *A, Node *B) which checks if B is the neighbor of A and assigns the A's pointer accordingly

Algorithm:

1) for each piece B
  a) if 1st piece, initialize node and continue
  b) for each node A that is already created
     i) call isNeighbor(A,B)
2) The only node that does not have a top and left pointers set is the top left corner square, and from it we can traverse the picture.

Just enumerate (assign consecutive numbers to) each of the 16 small squares and use the square numbers to rearrange them to get the original picture. In this case, each of the small square would have numbers 0-15.

those 16 squares are not EQUAL ones... one may be big and another one may be smaller. is that correct?

@tulip:What was your answer?

There are 16 squares shuffled so we can
consider them as 0 to 15 numbers.
Hence we only have to write a program for number sorting
or
We can also consider it as matrix and can write a program in that way

can it be done someting like this :
(1) Take an array of 16X4 , 4 edges of 16 squares
edges will be : left,right,top, bottom

fill the array with the 16 elements.

(2) Define a Data Structure which has not only left and right child but also top and bottom child as well , now define an function just like inserting node in linked list (but here you have to insert all the adjacent edges) and search for the adjacent square edge and build the data structure.Searching of adjacent square can be done by iterating over each square and comparing the edges,

e. char edges[16][4] = { {ab,bg,gf,fa},{bc,ch,hg,ga},{cd,di,ih,hc},....}

where the square is like this

a__b__c__d__e
|f__g__h___i__j
|k__l__m__n__o
|p__q__r__s__t
|u__v__w__x__y

different squares are - abgf,bchg,cdih,deji,

square abgf and bchg has left common that is bg , similarly every two adjacent square will have either left,right,top or bottom edge same.

does it makes some sense !!

I think if a square picture is cut down into 16 small square then all the small square will be same in area.There is no any possibility that some would be small and some would me large.