Maze Solving

Challenge

To solve mazes.

Input

The "source" maze will be a text file containing multiple lines, such as the following:

#######
#     #
# # # #
# #E# #
# ### #
#S  # #
#######

Acceptance Criteria

The output should be written to standard-out and should show a path from the start "S" to the end "E". For example:

#######
#***  #
#*#*# #
#*#E# #
#*### #
#S  # #
#######

Walls are represented by the character "#", paths by a space, the start point by "S", the end point by "E" and the route should be marked using "*".

Constraints

• Your application must run on Windows 7.
• You should only use libraries that are readily available on the Internet (e.g. Apache commons for Java).
• We wouldn't expect this to take more than a couple of hours.
• Don't use any existing maze solver you find on the internet.

Optional

• Write any assumptions you've made.
• Show the shortest path.