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 as they are unqualified (just "class", without
"public"). Java programmers, note as well that your source file must not be declared as a part of a named package. That means you should not have a line at the top of your source code like: package someName;
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.
Make sure you know your site's specific time limit for program
execution. That may affect how you revise the efficiency of some
programs.
Programs must write their results to standard output (usually
stdout in C, cout in C++, and System.out in
Java). The judges will ignore all output to standard error (usually
stderr in C, cerr/clog in C++, and System.err in
Java), so you can write as much debugging information to standard
error as you want, subject to your site's time limit.
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 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 data and correct output data 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.
All lines, including the last line, end with the
standard end-of-line marker.
This applies only to Java programmers. 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 smallest elapsed time of their last
accepted solution (not counting penalties for rejected runs). 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 except for
explicitly permitted contest-related sites,
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.