In a response to this post I wrote a solution in Python. It passed all the test cases given, so I would like help making it more pythonic and reducing the almost repeated lines.
Link to the source of the question on HackerRank.
# input
M, N, rotations = map(int, input().split())
matrix = []
for row in range(M):
matrix.append(list(map(int, input().split())))
# flatten the rings into a list
layers = int(min(N, M)/2)
ring = [[] for layer in range(layers)]
for level in range(layers):
top = (N-1) - 2 * level
side = (M-1) - 2 * level
for row in range(top): # right
ring[level].append(matrix[level][level + row])
for col in range(side): # down
ring[level].append(matrix[level + col][level + top])
for row in range(top): # left
ring[level].append(matrix[level + side][level + top - row])
for col in range(side): # up
ring[level].append(matrix[level + side - col][level])
# rotate each layer
for level in range(layers):
r = rotations % len(ring[level])
ring[level] = ring[level][r:] + ring[level][:r]
# fill the array with the rotated elements
for level in range(layers):
top = (N-1) - 2 * level
side = (M-1) - 2 * level
for row in range(top):
matrix[level][level + row] = ring[level].pop(0) # right
for col in range(side):
matrix[level + col][level + top] = ring[level].pop(0) # down
for row in range(top):
matrix[level + side][level + top - row] = ring[level].pop(0) # left
for col in range(side):
matrix[level + side - col][level] = ring[level].pop(0) # up
# print the rotated matrix
for row in range(M):
for col in range(N):
print(matrix[row][col], "", end="")
print()
