NxN detect win for tic-tac-toe - pygame

Question

I have tried to generalise my tic-tac-toe game for an NxN grid. I have everything working but am finding it hard to get the code needed to detect a win.
This is my function at the moment where I loop over the rows and columns of the board. I can't figure out why it's not working currently. Thanks
def check_win(array_board):
global winner
for row in range(N):
for i in range(N-1):
if array_board[row][i] != array_board[row][i+1] or array_board[row][i] == 0:
break
if i == N-1:
winner = array_board[row][0]
pygame.draw.line(board, (0, 0, 0), (75, (row * round(height / N) + 150)), (825, (row * round(height / N) + 150)), 3)
for col in range(N):
for j in range(N-1):
if array_board[j][col] == 0 or array_board[col][j] != array_board[col][i+1]:
break
if j == N - 1:
winner = array_board[0][col]
pygame.draw.line(board, (0, 0, 0), (col * round(width / N) + 150, 75), (col * round(width / N) + 150, 825), 3)

Answer 1

You don't specify in your question, so my noughts-and-crosses grid is a 2D array of characters, with some default "empty" string (a single space).
def getEmptyBoard( size, default=' ' ):
""" Create a 2D array <size> by <size> of empty string """
grid = []
for j in range( size ):
row = []
for i in range( size ): # makes a full empty row
row.append( default )
grid.append( row )
return ( size, grid )
So given a 2D grid of strings, how does one check for a noughts-and-crosses Win? This would be when the count of the same character in a particular row or column is equal to the size of the grid.
Thus if you have a 5x5 grid, any row with 5 of the same item (say 'x') is a winner. Similarly for a column... 5 lots of 'o' is a win.
So given a 2D array, how do you check for these conditions. One way to do this is to tally the number of occurrences of separate symbols in each cell. If that tally reaches the 5 (grid size), then whatever that symbol is, it's a winner.
def checkForWin( board, default=' ' ):
winner = None
size = board[0]
grid = board[1]
### Tally the row and column
for j in range( size ):
col_results = {}
### Count the symbols in this column
for i in range( size ):
value = grid[i][j]
if ( value in col_results.keys() ):
col_results[ value ] += 1
else:
col_results[ value ] = 1
### Check the tally for a winning count
for k in col_results.keys():
if ( k != default and col_results[k] >= size ):
winner = k # Found a win
print("Winner: column %d" % ( j ) )
break
if ( winner != None ):
break
# TODO: also implement for rows
# TODO: also implement for diagonals
return winner # returns None, or 'o', 'x' (or whatever used for symbols)
The above function uses two loops and a python dictionary to keep a list of what's been found. It's possible to check both the row and columns in the same loops, so it's not really row-by-row or column-by-column, just two loops of size.
Anyway, so during the loop when we first encounter an x, it will be added to the dictionary, with a value of 1. The next time we find an x, the dictionary is used to tally that occurrence, dict['x'] → 2, and so forth for the entire column.
At the end of the loop, we iterate through the dictionary keys (which might be , o, and x) checking the counts. When the count is the same size as a row or column, it's a winning line.
Obviously if there's no win found, we zero the tally and move to the next column/row with the outer-loop.