Programs must be in a single source file with the name specified in
the problem description; failure to meet this requirement is a Submission Error. Java programmers,
note that you can include additional top-level classes in a single
source file as long they are unqualified (just "class",
without "public").
All output will be judged using a file comparison utility, so output
must be exactly as shown in the examples. This applies to
all problems, whether explicitly stated in the problem description or
not. Spelling, punctuation, spacing, and case (uppercase/lowercase)
are all significant.
The judges will ignore all output to the screen. Only the contents of
the specified output file will be judged. You can write as much
debugging information to the screen as you want.
Your program cannot require any intervention by the user. For
example, if you pause the program and ask the user to press a key to
continue, you will be flagged with a Submission Error. If you pause the
program without any prompting at all, you may be flagged with a Time Limit Exceeded error.
Do not use drive and/or path specifications when naming input
and output files. If a problem indicates that the input file is named
file.in, then you must open file.in and not
a:file.in or c:\stuff\file.in or anything
else. Violating this rule will result in a Submission Error.
All test cases used in judging will conform to the input
specifications. It is not necessary for you to detect invalid input.
Input files and correct output files will obey the following rules.
Other than end-of-line characters, spaces are the only whitespace
that appear.
Two or more consecutive spaces do not appear, unless
specifically mentioned in the problem statement.
Spaces do not appear at the end of lines.
Spaces do not appear at the beginning of lines, unless specifically
mentioned in the problem statement.
Blank lines do not appear in the file.
All lines, including the last line in the file, end with the standard
end-of-line marker. (In Windows this is the standard
carriage-return/linefeed sequence; in Unix it is a single linefeed.)
This applies only to Java programmers. (A) If you are using the class
ACMIO, be sure to have
a copy of ACMIO.class in the current directory when compiling
and running your program. The local site coordinator should tell you
how to obtain a copy of ACMIO.class. The judges will provide
their own copy when judging your program. (B) Counter to Java
conventions, the name of your source file and main class must be in
lowercase for this competition. For example, if a
problem states that your program must be called compute, then
you would create a file called compute.java that begins like
this:
public class compute {
public static void main(String args[]) {
...
}
....
}
Teams are ranked by the number of problems solved, with teams solving
the same number of problems ranked by least total time (see
Regional Scoring). Teams solving the same number of problems with
the same total time are ranked by the geometric mean of the individual
times for each solved problem (smaller being better). Any remaining
ties are left unbroken unless they affect the regional winners, in
which case they are broken by a coin flip.
Any team that jeopardizes the integrity of the contest or violates the
rules of the contest will be disqualified and the team members may be
banned permanently from competing in the Mid-Central Region. Some
examples of such actions are:
accessing the Internet in any way,
disrupting power to computers,
corrupting judging materials or the judging process,
collaborating with anyone not on the team (this includes using a portable phone),
disobeying site officials' instructions regarding appropriate conduct.