CityBuses | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

You are given a String[] blocks representing the layout of a city. Each character of each element of blocks represents one city block. A 'B' character represents a bus stop, and a '-' represents all other spaces.

The fare for traveling on the bus is equal to the manhattan distance (difference in X-coordinates plus difference in Y-coordinates, see the first example for clarification) between the starting and ending bus stops. Return the largest possible fare for a trip from one bus stop to another.

Definition

Class:: CityBuses
Method:: maximumFare
Parameters:: String[]
Returns:: int
Method signature:: int maximumFare(String[] blocks)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

blocks will contain between 1 and 50 elements, inclusive.
Each element of blocks will contain between 1 and 50 characters, inclusive.
Each element of blocks will contain the same number of characters.
Each character of each element of blocks will be 'B' or '-'.
There will be at least two bus stops.

Examples

```
{"B--",
 "B--",
 "--B"}
```
```
Returns: 4
```
Starting from the top-left, the coordinates of the bus stops are (0,0), (1,0), and (2,2). The distance is the difference in X-coordinates plus the difference in y-coordinates. So, the distance between each pair of bus stops is as follows: (0,0) - (1,0) : 1 + 0 = 1 (1,0) - (2,2) : 1 + 2 = 3 (0,0) - (2,2) : 2 + 2 = 4 The largest distance (thus the highest fare) is 4.
```
{"--B",
 "---",
 "-B-"}
```
```
Returns: 3
```
There's only one route we can take, and it has a distance of 3.
```
{"--B-",
 "B---",
 "-B-B",
 "B---"}
```
```
Returns: 5
```
The largest distance here is from (0,2) to (3,0).
```
{"BB"}
```
```
Returns: 1
```
A short, and unexciting bus ride.

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