I borrowed this one from codewars
Snail Sort
Given an n x n array, return the array elements arranged from outermost elements to the middle element, traveling clockwise.
array = [[1,2,3],
[4,5,6],
[7,8,9]]
snail(array) #=> [1,2,3,6,9,8,7,4,5]
For better understanding, please follow the numbers of the next array consecutively:
array = [[1,2,3],
[8,9,4],
[7,6,5]]
snail(array) #=> [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
This image will illustrate things more clearly:
NOTE: The idea is not sort the elements from the lowest value to the highest; the idea is to traverse the 2-d array in a clockwise snailshell pattern.
Octave solution
function sorted = snail(array)
if numel(array) <= 1
sorted = array;
else
sorted = [array(1, 1:(end-1)),...
array(1:(end-1), end)',...
array(end, end:-1:2),...
array(end:-1:2, 1)',...
snail(array(2:(end-1), 2:(end-1))) ]; end; end;
