Laser Grid Robot Max Safe Run

On a rectangular board, lasers destroy their entire row and column. Starting from a protected cell, return the maximum number of cells a robot can safely move in one straight direction before hitting a destroyed cell or border. Requirements Input: numRows, numColumns, curRow, curColumn, and laserCoordinates. Each laser coordinate is [row, column]; a laser destroys every cell in the same row and every cell in the same column. The robot starts at (curRow, curColumn). The initial cell is protected even if it lies on a destroyed row or column, and no laser starts on the robot's cell. The robot may choose one straight direction: left, right, up, or down. It keeps moving in that direction until the next step would enter a destroyed cell or leave the board. Return the maximum number of safe cells the robot can move through in any one direction. Constraints: 8 <= numRows <= 20, 8 <= numColumns <= 20, 0 <= laserCoordinates.length <= 5; row/column coordinates are 1-indexed in the statement. Examples numRows = 8 numColumns = 8 curRow = 5 curColumn = 3 laserCoordinates = [[1, 6], [2, 8]] Return 3 The lasers block rows 1 and 2 and columns 6 and 8. From (5, 3), the longest safe straight-line move is 3 cells. Notes With the stated limits, direct simulation in four directions is enough: build blocked row and blocked column sets, then step until out of bounds or row in blocked_rows or col in blocked_cols. Exclude the start cell from the count; count only cells the robot moves into. The protected-start rule matters: do not reject the start cell if its row or column appears in a laser's blast line. Begin checking destruction only on candidate next cells. A faster closed-form variant is also simple: for horizontal movement, the nearest blocked column on each side limits the distance; for vertical movement, the nearest blocked row on each side limits the distance. The direct version is less error-prone under the small bounds. Preparation Implement both direct stepping and closed-form nearest-barrier versions; compare them on random small boards. Test a start cell whose row is blocked by a laser elsewhere to confirm the protected-start rule. Test no-laser and all-four-directions-blocked cases to lock down whether the returned count excludes the starting cell.