Timetable Clashes

Determining which classes are clashing is a three step process:

Collect all clashing classes into one array with checkClashes
Sort clashes by time and day with sortClashesByTime and sortClashesByDay. Each day’s clashes is its own array.
Group clashes into the final data structure with groupClashes as described below

The final data structure used to store clashes is a list of lists of lists. The first level of lists correspond to each day, e.g. groupedClashes[0] are all the clashes for Monday. Within the array for each day, there are arrays corresponding to each clash group.

The way this array is constructed is:

The first class automatically goes to a new clash array in the corresponding day array
If the next class clashes, it joins that list, if it doesn't then it is added to a new clash group

For example, Monday:

clash 1: 9am - 12pm (consisted of 3 classes)
clash 2: 4pm - 7pm (consisted of 2 classes)

{
        0: [ // monday
          [class 1, class 2, class 3], // clash 1
          [class 4, class 5], // clash 2
        ],
        2: [], // tuesday
        3: [], // wednesday
        ...
}

Next, for each class, its clashWidth, clashIndex and clashColour are computed with getClashInfo.

clashWidth is the width of the card of a clashing class. It is found by dividing the default width of a card (100) with the number of clashes in its clash group.
clashIndex is the index of the card within its clash group so that the chronological order of the classes is maintained.
clashColour is the outline colour of the cards in the clash group.
- transparent for not clashing
- orange for permitted clashes
- red for non-permitted clashes

Any class with just a lecture is a non-permitted clash. Non-permitted clashes include a tute + tute, tute + exam etc.

The complexity of this algorithm could be improved because it repeats the same calculation for each clash in a clash group. But it seems like a tradeoff between code simplicity and efficiency and I believe the former is more important.

Notangles

Timetable Clashes

Related content