Any better solution for this ?

Question

public static void main (String args [])
     for (int row = 1; row <= 5; row++)
          for (int col1 = 4; col1 >= row; col1--)
               System.out.print(" ");
          for (int col2 = row*2; col2 > 1; col2--)
               System.out.print("*");
          System.out.println();
     for (int row = 1; row <= 4; row++)
          for (int col1 = 1; col1 <= row; col1++)
               System.out.print(" ");
          for (int col2 = 4; col2 >= row; col2--)
               System.out.print("*");
          for (int col3 = row; col3 < 4; col3++)
               System.out.print("*");
          System.out.println();
}I'm trying to make this:
I think that my solution is too long. any shorter solution?
TQ

Answer 1

It IS hardwired to produce that figure and only that figure.
What if they asked you to redo it with fewer or more rows of stars?
You did a "bad" thing: you hardwired your loop sizes. Something like "i <= 4" is called a "magic number", because someone reading your code would have no idea where the 4 came from.
You also have 4 appear in several places. That violates the Don't Repeat Yourself rule. If you have to change it, and forget one of the spots, your code is wrong.
You can help both situations by defining a well-named constant and using that for the loop upper limit:
public class DiamondsAreAGirlsBestFriend
   public static final int DIAMOND_SIZE = 4;
   public static void main(String [] args)
      for (int row = 0; row <= DIAMOND_SIZE; ++row)
      // and so on
}Also, better to put this into a method that would take in a diamond size value and return a String. Then it's general.
None of this is very important for this trivial problem, but they might be worth remembering when you start writing more complex programs.
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