I/O variables

Input variables are C++ variables whose values compose test cases input files. They are are direct translations from variables mentioned in the problem statement's input format section into C++ variables. For example, given the following description:

The first line contains two integers N and K. The second line contains N space-separated integers A[1], A[2], ..., A[N].

we will have three input variables: int N, int K, and vector<int> A.

Input variables are the basic units of computation in TCFrame. For example, they are manipulated in three different places:

• Input format definition in problem spec. It determines the layout of test case input files.
• Constraint definitions in problem spec. They determine whether the values of input variables are valid.
• Test case definitions in test spec. Each of them determines the content of a single test case input file.

Output variables are defined in a similar way, the only difference being that they are just manipulated in output format definition. Also, usually they consist of just a single variable without name in the problem statement's output format. We can just name them result or something similar.

I/O variables are defined as protected member variables in the problem spec class. For example:

class ProblemSpec : public BaseProblemSpec {
protected:
    int N, K;
    vector<int> A;

    string result;

    // the rest of problem spec components follow
};

Supported I/O variable types

TCFrame supports three types of I/O variables as follows.

• Scalar

  Variables of built-in integral types (int, long long, char, etc.), built-in floating-point types (float, double), and std::string.

• Vector

  std::vector<T>, where T is a scalar type as defined above.

• Matrix

  std::vector<std::vector<T>>, where T is a scalar type as defined above.

Other types are not supported as I/O variables. TCFrame prefers STL types whenever possible. For example, char* is not supported as strings. Also, regular arrays (T[]) and 2D arrays (T[][]) are not supported.