java - Recursion - Ship Battle -

i'm trying write little ship battle game in java.

it 100% academic, made practice recursion, so... want use instead of iteration, if it's simpler , more efficient in most cases.

let's down business. these rules:

• ships 1, 2 or 3 cells wide , placed horizontally only.
• water represented 0, non-hit ship cells 1, hit ship cells 2 , sunken ships have it's cells in 3.

with rules set, i'm using following array testing:

int[][] board = new int[][] {     {0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0},     {0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0},     {0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0},     {0, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0},     {0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1}, }; 

it works pretty far, , make more user-friendly add couple of reports. these methods need them:

1. given matrix, return amount of ships in it.
2. same a), separating them state (amount of non-hit ships, hit , sunken ones).

i need hand reports, , ideas.

remember must done using recursion, want understand this, , way go practice!

thanks lot time , patience :).

it's not possible, unless specify ships must separated 0. otherwise, 1,1 ship of length 2, or 2 ships of length 1.

given restraint, both of reports could/should done single process turns map list of ships.

i don't terribly feel writing out recursive wrappers (i assume know how "iterate" on array using recursive function), i'm skipping part.

1. loop on rows, because ships cannot span rows, can treated independently.
2. for each state-class ship data can in (no ship, ship, sunk ship), have function
3. this function checks if next element
   1. doesn't exist
   2. is same current 1 (can hardcoded different functions)
   3. is different current 1 (go right one).
4. as traverse array, assemble list of ships.
5. you have list of ships, can count length of, or more complicated reports on

it may or may not better use single function isn't hard-coded, seems tad more difficult, , 3 options, hardcoding isn't code-overhead (since 3 work differently).

alternatively, use entirely separate method, iterate across map counting "rising edges" of ships. lighter-weigh solution, doesn't afford anywhere near flexibility in can resulting data.

... lighter weight, mean "could done using regex"