C++ Loop Not Looping Appropriately - c++

Question

I have an array of 20 x 20 that outputs how hot a plate is. I need to reiterate through a loop until no cell in the array changes more than 0.1 degree(I refresh the values through every iteration. How would you monitor the largest change for any cell in an array in order to determine when to stop iterating? Right now I have tried, but the below doesn't output correctly.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
const int ARRAY_SIZE = 20;
const int NEIGHBORS = 4;
void initialize(double hot_plate[][ARRAY_SIZE]);
bool writeFile(const double HOT_PLATE[][ARRAY_SIZE],
const string FILE_NAME);
double sum_cell(const double HOT_PLATE[][ARRAY_SIZE],
const int CELL_X, const int CELL_Y);
int main()
{
double hot_plate[ARRAY_SIZE][ARRAY_SIZE];
double hot_plate_prev[ARRAY_SIZE][ARRAY_SIZE];
initialize(hot_plate);
string file_name = "hot_plate.csv";
//accuracy up to 4 decmials
int runs = 724;
double hot_plate[ARRAY_SIZE][ARRAY_SIZE];
double hot_plate_prev[ARRAY_SIZE][ARRAY_SIZE];
while (true)
{
// This is your code
for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j < ARRAY_SIZE; j++)
{
if (i > 0 && i < ARRAY_SIZE - 1 && j > 0 && j < ARRAY_SIZE - 1)
{
hot_plate[i][j] = sum_cell(hot_plate, j, i);
}
}
}
bool theSame = true;
for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j < ARRAY_SIZE; j++)
{
if (abs(hot_plate[i][j] - hot_plate_prev[i][j]) < 0.1)
{
theSame = false;
}
hot_plate_prev[i][j] = hot_plate[i][j];
}
}
if (!theSame) break;
}
}
if (writeFile(hot_plate, file_name))
{
cout << "File wrote correctly\n";
}
else
{
cout << "The file did not write!\n";
}
//system("pause");
return 0;
}
double sum_cell(const double HOT_PLATE[][ARRAY_SIZE],
const int CELL_X, const int CELL_Y)
{
/* This code should never go out of bounds as it's in an if statement
if (i > 0 && i < ARRAY_SIZE - 1 && j > 0 && j < ARRAY_SIZE - 1)
*/
double cell_num = HOT_PLATE[CELL_X - 1][CELL_Y]; // Top
cell_num += HOT_PLATE[CELL_X][CELL_Y - 1]; // Left
cell_num += HOT_PLATE[CELL_X][CELL_Y + 1]; // Right
cell_num += HOT_PLATE[CELL_X + 1][CELL_Y]; // Bottom
cell_num /= NEIGHBORS;
return cell_num;
}
// setup the Array so all values are defined when starting
void initialize(double hot_plate[][ARRAY_SIZE])
{
for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j < ARRAY_SIZE; j++)
{
if (i == 0 || i == ARRAY_SIZE - 1)
{
if (j == 0 || j == ARRAY_SIZE - 1)
{
hot_plate[i][j] = 0.0;
}
else
{
hot_plate[i][j] = 100.0;
}
}
else
{
hot_plate[i][j] = 0.0;
}
}
}
}
// Write the data to the CSV file
bool writeFile(const double HOT_PLATE[][ARRAY_SIZE],
const string FILE_NAME)
{
// open the file
ofstream fout(FILE_NAME);
if (fout.fail())
return false;
for (int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j < ARRAY_SIZE; j++)
{
fout << HOT_PLATE[i][j];
if ( j < ARRAY_SIZE - 1)
{
fout << ", ";
}
else if (i != ARRAY_SIZE - 1)
{
fout << endl;
}
}
}
// close the input stream from the file.
fout.close();
return true;
}

Answer 1

At the beginning of your while loop, you can set a boolean variable called something like allSmallChanges to true. In your inner if statement, you can check to see if the change to hot_plate[i][j] is "too big". If it is too big, then set allSmallChanges to false. Then, just before the end of the while loop, you can break if allSmallChanges is still true.
If you don't want to have that cap of 724 iterations, you can get rid of your runs variable, and change the loop to while(true).
Note: The code in the question got changed after I wrote this answer. I'm not sure this answer still applies. However, I'm also sure that will be the last change to the code in the question. So, I'll leave this answer as-is for now.