UVa 10937 - Blackbeard the Pirate

10937 - Blackbeard the Pirate

 * http://acm.uva.es/p/v109/10937.html

Summary
Arrrgh! T' problem be a simple Traveling Salesperson Problem, where you can improve upon it with Dynamic Programming, but not necessary for this particular problem. You will need to use a search algorithm (preferably Breadth-First Search) to calculate the distances between the treasures and the starting location.

Explanation
First, you'll need to calculate the distances between the crucial points, using Breadth-First Search and making sure carefully that the constraints are satisfied. After we get the distances, the rest is a straightforward bruteforce Traveling Salesperson Problem, which can you speed it up with Memoization.

Input
7 7 ~ ~#!###~ ~...#.~ ....~ .@ . .... 10 10 ~ !!!### ~##...###~ ~#....*##~ ~#!..** ....~ .... ..~..@ ~#!. ~ 3 3 ... ..! 3 3 ... .@. ... 5 5 !!!!! @.... ..... ..... ..... 1 9 !!!!@!!!! 3 3 ..* @!. ... 5 5 ..!.. ..... ..... @....

Output
10 32 -1 0 10 16 -1 -1