572
\$\begingroup\$

This "sandbox" is a place where Code Golf users can get feedback on prospective challenges they wish to post to main. This is useful because writing a clear and fully specified challenge on your first try can be difficult, and there is a much better chance of your challenge being well received if you post it in the sandbox first.

Sandbox FAQ

Posting

To post to the sandbox, scroll to the bottom of this page and click "Answer This Question". Click "OK" when it asks if you really want to add another answer.

Write your challenge just as you would when actually posting it, though you can optionally add a title at the top. You may also add some notes about specific things you would like to clarify before posting it. Other users will help you improve your challenge by rating and discussing it.

When you think your challenge is ready for the public, go ahead and post it, and replace the post here with a link to the challenge and delete the sandbox post.

Discussion

The purpose of the sandbox is to give and receive feedback on posts. If you want to, feel free to give feedback to any posts you see here. Important things to comment about can include:

  • Parts of the challenge you found unclear
  • Comments addressing specific points mentioned in the proposal
  • Problems that could make the challenge uninteresting or unfit for the site

You don't need any qualifications to review sandbox posts. The target audience of most of these challenges is code golfers like you, so anything you find unclear will probably be unclear to others.

If you think one of your posts requires more feedback, but it's been ignored, you can ask for feedback in The Nineteenth Byte. It's not only allowed, but highly recommended! Be patient and try not to nag people though, you might have to ask multiple times.

It is recommended to leave your posts in the sandbox for at least several days, and until it receives upvotes and any feedback has been addressed.

Other

Search the sandbox / Browse your pending proposals

The sandbox works best if you sort posts by active.

To add an inline tag to a proposal, use shortcut link syntax with a prefix: [tag:king-of-the-hill]. To search for posts with a certain tag, include the name in quotes: "king-of-the-hill".

\$\endgroup\$
0

4648 Answers 4648

1
110 111
112
113 114
155
0
\$\begingroup\$

I asked this question in main site. Got a very bad review. So, I would be glad if any kind soul here would like to help me make this question better. And Some feedback on how can i make it good.

Given any input, you need to encode / decode it in or from base 16, 32, 64.

So your task will be to make a base 16, 32, 64 encoder / decoder.

RULES:
Standard Loopholes apply.
and that's all
INPUT:
In any format you like.
The inputs will be the 
i. Data
ii. Task (encoding or decoding) (0 or 1)
iii. Base (16 or 32 or 64)

Output:
The Encoded/Decoded data

The shortest code in byte wins.

Reference : RFC

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just as a starter, I would remove the "It should not be a builtin" (see this) Secondly, rather than link to a website with a description of what you mean, include that description in your question. Finally, allow function answers, rather than restricting to a full program. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2017 at 16:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ @cairdcoinheringaahing thanks. I will add those changes \$\endgroup\$ Nov 6, 2017 at 2:36
0
\$\begingroup\$

The Guardian of the Chessboard

Given a collection of chess squares1, output the chess piece with the smallest value, together with its position, that is able to reach all the given squares in a single step.

1 - A chess square is a notation of a position on an 8x8 grid, with the x-axis being labeled with letters instead of numbers, meaning for example that the notation of 3|2 would be c2.

Input

Input must be received as a collection of strings, each string representing a chess square. You may assume that the chess square will always be in the range a1 - h8.

Example Input: [ "b7", "c4", "h1", "g8" ]

Output

Output must be in the format [piece][square], with piece being the notation of the chess piece, such as N, Q or K, and square being the notation of the square that the chess piece has to be located at.

You may either return a string from a method or directly output the result to stdout.

Rules

  • Note that you have to use the chess piece with the least possible value, so if there is a choice between for example Queen and Bishop, you would choose the Bishop. See below for a table noting the piece values.
  • Special moves such as pawn's first move, en passent and castling do not have to be respected.
  • This is , shortest code in bytes, in any programming language wins.
  • Standard loopholes are forbidden.

Data Table

Here you can look up each pieces value and its notation character.

|  Piece | Value | Character |
|:------:|:-----:|:---------:|
| Pawn   | 1     | P         |
| King   | 2     | K         |
| Knight | 3     | N         |
| Bishop | 3     | B         |
| Rook   | 5     | R         |
| Queen  | 9     | Q         |

Test Cases

Input -> Output

[ "b7", "c4", "h1", "g8" ] -> Bd5

(TODO: Add more testcases)


Sandboxing

  • Duplicates?
  • Possible misunderstatings?
  • Task changes?
\$\endgroup\$
4
  • \$\begingroup\$ Reach in exactly 1 step? Is 0 step allowed? What about multiple steps? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 6, 2017 at 1:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 Thanks, clarified. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ian H.
    Nov 6, 2017 at 8:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Needs a mention of special cases (pawn's first move, en passant, castling): should we assume that none of them are available? \$\endgroup\$ Nov 6, 2017 at 14:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor That's correct, I added it to the rules section, thanks! \$\endgroup\$
    – Ian H.
    Nov 6, 2017 at 16:27
0
\$\begingroup\$

Ternary Parity of Substrings

Definition

The ternary parity of a string is the number of 1's in its ascii bitstring mod 3. For instance, the ascii values for "Hello World!" are:

H:72 e:101 l:108 l:108 o:111 space:32 W:87 o:111 r:114 l:108 d:100 !:33

Converting each ascii value to binary gives:

H:1001000 e:1100101 l:1101100 l:1101100 o:1101111 space:100000 W:1010111 o:1101111 r:1110010 l:1101100 d:1100100 !:100001

Concatenating these together gives the combined bitstring:

1001000110010111011001101100110111110000010101111101111111001011011001100100100001

Which has 45 1's. As a result, the ternary parity of "Hello World!" is 45%3 = 0.

Challenge

Write the shortest program in the language of your choice that does the following:

  • Takes a string, s, as input.
  • Finds S, the collection of all substrings of s
  • Calculates the ternary parity of each element of S
  • Creates a ternary string, q, by concatenating the parity bits of each element in S
  • Outputs the ternary parity of q. That is, the number of 1's in q mod 3.

Input/Output

Input and output may use any of the standard methods listed here. The program must output three distinct values that indicate ternary parity. For instance, the program could print "one", "two", or "three", it could exit with an error code of 0, 1, or 2, or could be a function that returns False for 1 and Null for 2, and 100 for 0, etc.

Test Cases

"Hello World!" => 0
"foobar" => 2
"ABCDEFG" => 1
"abcdefg" => 0
"One" => 2
"Four" => 0
"2049" => 1
\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ One element of a good question is a clear motivation. This looks like a random mishmash of operations. Why should anyone care about the result of this calculation? \$\endgroup\$ Nov 7, 2017 at 10:14
0
\$\begingroup\$

Output an Anagram! No Not That One!

Given a list of unique strings that are anagrams of each other, output an anagram of those words that is different from each word in the list.

The strings will be alphanumeric, and there is guaranteed to be a valid anagram.

The program or function can, but doesn't have to be non-deterministic, meaning given the same input, multiple running a of the code can yield different outputs, as long as every possible output is a valid one.

Test Cases

[Input] -> Possible output
-----------------
[ab] -> ba
[aba, aab] -> baa
[123, 132, 231, 312, 321] -> 213
[hq999, 9h9q9, 9qh99] -> 999hq
[abcde123, ab3e1cd2, 321edbac, bcda1e23] -> ba213ecd

Sandbox questions

  • Is this a duplicate of anything?
  • Any other test cases I should include?
\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I should probably post my other sandboxed challenge at some point... \$\endgroup\$ Sep 27, 2017 at 1:23
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Should it output the same string each time given the same array of strings as input? \$\endgroup\$
    – Shaggy
    Sep 27, 2017 at 10:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ What do you mean by "unique" in the first sentence? \$\endgroup\$ Sep 27, 2017 at 19:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor Did that clear it up? \$\endgroup\$ Sep 27, 2017 at 20:42
0
\$\begingroup\$

Clear the centrally significant on bits

Related and inspired by.

Input

Input is a single positive integer n.

Output

It's easiest to describe this by example.

n = 433

Take n's binary representation.

bin(n) = 110110001 

Note which bits are on.

110110001
^^ ^^   ^

Set the center bit of those that are on to 0. (if there is an even number of 1 bits, set both to 0).

110010001
^^ !^   ^

Finally, represent the input as an integer again.

unbin(110010001) = 401

Test cases

1 => 0
13 => 9
115 => 99
236 => 204
433 => 401
732 => 652
1555 => 1539
1556 => 1028

Additional Rules

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Bring an end to the Vigil

Vigil, being the supreme moral paragon of programming languages, inspires us all to write bug-free code without exceptions through supreme medieval punishment.

However, every hero has their weakness, and Vigil's weakness is on line 98:

except:
    print("Vigil has failed to uphold supreme moral vigilance.")

Your goal is to write a Vigil program that forces Vigil to experience an exception, reach this line, and print this error. Because it's not enough to merely succeed at our master plans, but instead we ought to succeed efficiently, the shortest answer in bytes wins.


Draft proposal notes

  • This is a language-specific challenge in the Vigil language alone. (Is there a tag for that?)
  • I'm not sure if a standard challenge is the best way to measure a winner in this scenario, but it's the primary measure that comes to mind.
  • I'd like to ham this up a bit more with narrative. Maybe about us being the villains. The title could be wittier.
\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Inverse Radiation Hardened Quine

Background

Radiation hardened quines have been around for a long time. The basic idea is that it's (possibly) a valid quine, and if you remove any character, it's still valid. But what about the other way around? What if you added a character?

Challenge Description

Develop a program which will output its source code, even when a character is inserted in any position in the source code.

Input

This program is a quine. It shouldn't take any input.

Output

When the quine runs, it should either output its own source code, or the source code of the proto-quine.

Scoring

Programs are scored on their robustness. That is, for a given program, if the characters "a", "!" or "😷" could be put into the program at any point and it remain a quine, then the program has a score of 3. I leave the burden of testing what characters work for your program up to you. Note that in languages with a limited character set (such as HQ9+ or brainfuck) characters that do nothing yield no score. You couldn't write a normal quine in brainfuck and then claim that every single unicode codepoint except the few used in a brainfuck program was your score.

Finally, other than that, standard rules apply.

\$\endgroup\$
9
  • \$\begingroup\$ Not a bad challenge, but could use some more fleshing out. Take a look at the framework of some other challenges, both here and in main, to see what the usual framework is. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gryphon
    Nov 17, 2017 at 0:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ To clarify, I mean specifically the usual: brief story about the challenge (optional), "Your Task:", task, "Input:" input methods, "Output:", output methods, "Examples:", examples, "Scoring:", scoring method. That framework works well for most challenges \$\endgroup\$
    – Gryphon
    Nov 17, 2017 at 1:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can we chose where the character is inserted? \$\endgroup\$
    – ATaco
    Nov 17, 2017 at 1:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ATaco no, it has to be valid for anywhere. Otherwise, somebody would make a safety box for the character. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 17, 2017 at 1:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ I would suggest clarifying your scoring section, specifically specifying "robustness" better. I'm pretty sure I get what you mean, but others may misinterpret that. Other than that, this looks like a great challenge. +1 \$\endgroup\$
    – Gryphon
    Nov 17, 2017 at 1:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is the emoji bad? I put it in there to demonstrate únicode, but I'm not sure the point is that obvious. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 17, 2017 at 2:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ Nah, it's fine. The example makes it more clear. I might add something to specifically say that it doesn't count if a character can be inserted twice (or at least, that's my understanding of the rules), but other than that, you should be good. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gryphon
    Nov 17, 2017 at 3:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ To be certain, when you say it should output "it's own source code, or the source code of the proto-quine" then, after a character is added, your code may either output the original code or the modified code? Is it alright if a single submission does one or the other depending on the type or location of the inserted character? \$\endgroup\$ Nov 17, 2017 at 15:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KamilDrakari yeah, as long as it does do at least one of the two. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 17, 2017 at 18:16
0
\$\begingroup\$

Rhythm Generator

Your task: given a number n from 2 to 5 inclusive, (pseudo)randomly generate a valid rhythm in the time signature n/4, and output using the system explained below. It must have an equal chance of choosing each valid rhythm.

Background Information:

In music, collections of beats are called "measures." You can only fit a certain number of beats in a measure, determined by the time signature. For example, a time signature of 4/4 would mean that you can put 4 (as determined by the first number) quarter note (determined by the second number) beats in the measure.

There are different kinds of notes. For the purposes of this challenge, the following characters will represent different kinds of notes (and how many quarter note beats each one is worth):

W        Whole note                4
H        Half note                 2
K        Dotted Half note          3
Q        Quarter note              1
D        Dotted Quarter note       1.5
E        Eighth note               0.5
F        Dotted Eighth note        0.75
S        Sixteenth note            0.25

(There are other kinds of notes but they do not apply to this challenge)

Note: A dotted note takes 1.5 of the length of its non-dotted counterpart.

In a n/4 measure there can only be n quarter note beats. Some notes take more than a beat, some less. But the total number of beats needs to add up to n.

For example, here are some valid 4/4 measures (separated by newlines):

W
HH
QQQQ
EEEEEEEE
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
KEE
EQQQE

And here are some examples of valid 3/4 measures:

K
DD
QQQ
QDE

So, your task is to generate a rhythm and output it in that format.

So now let's make some music!

Test Cases:

Coming soon. Will be a complete list of all possible valid rhythms.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Examining the Student's Swing

The 2017 Level 1 Mathematics and Statistics NCEA examination paper has been making headlines in New Zealand for being 'impossible' and bringing students to tears.

One of the questions involves a children's playground swing, and finding where the holes in the swing seat should be placed. But lets generalise the problem in code in the fewest number of bytes, in case they have to solve for a different swing (in a different exam).

Task

Find how far apart the holes in the board need to be if the shape of the rope stays the same, given the following swing setup:

  • The rope hangs from a cross beam at a height h, and will have a parabolic shape, as presented in the exam (rather than a catenary shape), and will maintain this shape with the seat.
  • The rope is connected to the crossbeam at two points, that are separated by a distance d.
  • The lowest point (vertex) of the rope sits above the ground at a height of v.
  • We have an adequately sized wooden board for the seat, and we want this to be at a height s above the ground.

Exam questions often have a visual representation to help clarify the question, so I've also included one:

enter image description here

Rules

  • inputs must take positive real values
  • s will be greater than v
  • output must be correct to at least 2dp.
  • This is , therefore, the lowest byte count in each programming language wins
  • Standard rules apply, and no forbidden loopholes

Test Cases

(h,d,v,s) -> hole separation
(4, 6, 1, 1.2) -> 1.549
(10, 4, 2, 4) -> 2
(14.5, 12, 2.5, 5.5) -> 6
(4.25, 3.4, 0.5, 1.2) -> 1.468

Sandbox Questions

  • First time question, so any recommendations would be great
  • Any recommendations for how I can make this a well received question?
  • are there any rules I'm missing, or should add?
  • is this a duplicate?
  • What other tags should this question have?
\$\endgroup\$
6
  • \$\begingroup\$ About the output must be correct to at least 2dp. part, I'm afraid that there will be some problems from that requirement. A better requirement is "the algorithm in the code must be able to theorically calculate to infinite precision, but numerical error from programming language type limit is acceptable". / Also, the "the rope is always in parabolic shape" is weird, is that correct? If so you should highlight it. (normally a unweighed rope has catenary shape, and a weighed rope has the shape of multiple straight line segment) / Otherwise the challenge looks good. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 22, 2017 at 7:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for the suggestions; the 2dp was based on the exam question requirement of showing your working to 2dp, though I understand the precision issue. Maybe I just remove that rule? I didn't know about catenary shape, the exam question just used a parabola, so I'll highlight that fact. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ayb4btu
    Nov 22, 2017 at 8:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ So in other words, given (h,d,v,s) output d sqrt((s-v)/(h-v)). I don't think it's a duplicate, but I also think that the reason that it isn't is because everyone has previously (and correctly) concluded that calculating a square root without restrictions to prohibit builtin sqrt functions is too trivial to be worth posting. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 22, 2017 at 15:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor Well, (you know) on this site it is generally discouraged to post a "puzzle", because once the first answer had been posted, the other answers can just use that - and your comment has already specified the method. / You meant sqrt should be prohibited? That will lead to the (well-known) do X without Y problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 22, 2017 at 15:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729, no, I did not mean that. I meant that "Calculate sqrt without a builtin sqrt" would be a duplicate (although maybe only of closed questions). See codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/73/194 and linked questions. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 22, 2017 at 15:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor This exam question certainly simplified down to a trivial coding answer; I think I was more posting due to the story behind it. I'll have a think about if or how to make it a bit more challenging. Will just mean that it may not be as closely related to the exam question on which it is based. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ayb4btu
    Nov 22, 2017 at 20:29
0
\$\begingroup\$

View float numbers in graphical binary

IEEE 754 is a well known format for representing floating point numbers.

Your task is to give an input to the user where he/she enters a signed float number and represents clearly the number in a color separated by functional area binary 32 bit single representation, like:

  • You do not have to append the captions like they are in the figure.

  • You must follow the order Sign, Exponent, Fraction

  • You may choose whatever colors you want, as they are distinguishable from each other and from the binary text numbers.

  • The input (I suggest a text box) does not have to forbid invalid values, but if does not, the graphical binary view needs to indicate the invalidity. You can leave it empty or replace with some text like "ERROR" or "INVALID".

  • Every little change on the input needs to make the binary view to be immediately updated. Changing and have to confirm with an "OK" like button is not acceptable.

No winner, unless I see some very creative answer. I would like to see a golfed and an ungolfed version of the code.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Needing the output to be dynamically updated based on the input changing (and not an OK or the like) is going to drastically limit the languages that can participate. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 21, 2017 at 18:58
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Additionally to what @AdmBorkBork said, the requirement of dynamically updating the output & validating input is just distracting from the real challenge. I'd just leave behaviour on invalid input undefined. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 22, 2017 at 15:08
0
\$\begingroup\$

Optimise Retina transliterations

For the question Translate Morse code based on tone duration I stupidly created the following transliteration:

T`T\EMNAI\OGKDWRUSJ2V\HBZ89#@`NIGDRS8ZCBP\LF\H12356789_`\w@#

The first thing wrong with it is that it 2, 8 and 9 transliterate to themselves, so they are superfluous. This saves 6 bytes:

T`T\EMNAI\OGKDWRUSJV\HBZ#@`NIGDRS8ZCBP\LF\H13567_`\w@#

The next thing to notice is that we have some runs of consecutive letters, but because they're not ordered we can't reduce them. Let's sort them:

T`ABD\EG\HIJKMN\ORSTUVWZ#@`R6BIZ5S1CGD8\L\HNF3P7`\w@#

We can now save another 3 bytes by using the run G-K, a byte by using the run M-O, and 3 bytes by using the run R-W:

T`ABD\EG-KM-OR-WZ#@`R6BIZ5S1CGD8\L\HNF3P7`\w@#

Total 13 bytes saved. Note that there are other optimisation opportunities but I think they might be too difficult be worth adding to the question; for instance, inserting a C (at a cost of 2 bytes) allows the creation of the run A-E for a 3-byte saving, which is still overall a byte saved; inserting all of the letters to achieve run A-Z would then be simplified to L.

Is the Retina command string too inflexible an input format? I suppose input could be in the form of an unordered mapping from printable ASCII to printable ASCII, but output would need to be the actual Retina syntax, including appropriate quoting, because the length of the result is important.

(Quoting: The characters -dEOHhLlwpoR`\ need to be quoted except that the letters don't need to be quoted as part of a range.)

Should this be a question or ?

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

A Knight's Walk

On a chessboard, a knight has two options for movement: it can move one square horizontally and two squares vertically, or two squares horizontally and one square vertically. In short, it can follow the path drawn by an upper-case "L". These can be oriented in any way, and as such, a knight has 8 potential moves from any given position.

There have been a number of challenges posted at one time or another regarding knights and their movement because they're so mathematically interesting (and the problems are easy to state) but we're going to go for a basic one that I haven't seen.

The Challenge

Given two 2d coordinates (x1, y1), (x2, y2) return the minimum number of moves required to travel from (x1, y1) to (x2, y2).

There are no other pieces on the board, and you may assume that the coordinate values given are valid (a set of two integers) though they may not be unique. You may also assume that each individual coordinate value will be between 0 and 255, and that the board is large enough that you needn't consider edges.

Input Format

As long as the coordinates are inputted in the order x1 y1 x2 y2 you can accept them as four separate values, two tuples, two lists, etc...

Examples

(0, 0) (1, 2) => 1
(0, 0) (1, 1) => 2
(125, 125) (126, 127) => 1
(-100, -100) (0, 100) => 100
\$\endgroup\$
7
  • \$\begingroup\$ You might want to more explicitly state that negative numbers must be supported. Also, 'less than 128' applies only to inputs? or to anything? \$\endgroup\$
    – Riker
    Nov 24, 2017 at 0:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Will do! And I'm not sure what you mean by that second part: I mean the input values will individually have absolute values of less than 128 a.k.a. (-127, -127) to (127, 127). This is totally a point I'm flexible on though. I just figured there may be languages that don't support very large numbers in any given memory location, and didn't want to give them additional hoops to jump through. Edit: Should I just make the valid range 0-255? \$\endgroup\$
    – Willbeing
    Nov 24, 2017 at 1:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'd recommend making it 0-255, yeah. I don't really think it's fair to have input be -127, +127, and then the boundaries of the chesboard be infinity. That's just kinda contradictory. \$\endgroup\$
    – Riker
    Nov 24, 2017 at 2:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ Do you think I should keep a bound like 255 at all? Would 2^16-1 or 2^32-1 be better? My whole premise with picking a number like this was that I want it to be easy to represent any number you'd run into, but impossible to use any kind of naive recursion to solve it \$\endgroup\$
    – Willbeing
    Nov 24, 2017 at 3:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ "impossible to use any kind of naive recursion to solve it" - Why? I don't understand your argument. / What is the winning criteria? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 24, 2017 at 13:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Willbeing I think 255 is fine, it doesn't matter too much. I've seen successful challenges that only require you to support up to 255, but that's it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Riker
    Nov 24, 2017 at 14:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 Yeah, it sounds odd when its played back to me, hahaha. I only care if the program deterministically produces the correct step count. I still think limiting the input size is probs a good idea, just not for that reason anymore. \$\endgroup\$
    – Willbeing
    Nov 24, 2017 at 19:21
0
\$\begingroup\$

Clean duplicate website from my history

Introduction

I am looking for help to monitor my history. I parsed everything, but I am not yet happy with the final result. Could you help me? I want to remove following same website.

My history looks like this:

| url                                               | id |
|---------------------------------------------------|----|
| https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/147318/15214 | 4  |
| https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/148927/15214 | 4  |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_golf           | 3  |
| http://lichess.org                                | 2  |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_poetry         | 1  |

But I want it to be:

| url                                               | id |
|---------------------------------------------------|----|
| https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/148927/15214 | 4  |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_golf           | 3  |
| http://lichess.org                                | 2  |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_poetry         | 1  |
  • If I browse a site, then another one, then the first one. I keep all of them.
  • If I browse a site, then another part of the same site. I keep only the first one.
  • The list is ordered from young to old. (we keep the older)

This challenge is inspired by my day work, but it is not related in any ways with anything in it.

Challenge

  • Input is a list of identifier.
  • Output is a list of two elements (identifier's index, identifier).
  • No Empty input
  • No standard loophole
  • This is code-golf, so shortest answer in bytes wins.

Examples Input and Output

2 links on website 1

Input:

[ 1, 1 ]

Output:

[
    [1,1]
]

1 link on website 2, then 3 links on website 1

Input:

[ 1, 1, 1, 2]

Output:

[
    [2,1],
    [3,2]
]

1 link on website 1, then 1 link on website 2, then 2 link on website 1

Input:

[ 1, 1, 2, 1]

Output

[
    [1,1],
    [2,2],
    [3,1]
]

Question

  • Should I allow outputs as list of object, list of tuple or dictionary/map?
  • Should I ask for url parsing where identifier is the hostname?
\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Question title and tag? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 24, 2017 at 14:11
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Also I think the I/O specification (Input is a list of two elements. / Output is a list of two elements.") seems to contradict the test cases. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 24, 2017 at 14:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 Update title, tag and I/O specs. Thank you. \$\endgroup\$
    – aloisdg
    Nov 24, 2017 at 14:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ You definitely should allow using tuples, maps and dictionaries for input and output. In fact, that's an understatement. You should read the meta post on I/O methods. URL parsing will make the challenge more interesting, IMO. \$\endgroup\$
    – Maya
    Nov 24, 2017 at 19:12
0
\$\begingroup\$

Implement a basic two-dimensional esolang

There are hundreds of two-dimensional stack-based esoteric programming languages out there, and lots of them follow a very similar syntax:

v redirect instruction pointer down
> redirect instruction pointer right
^ redirect instruction pointer up
< redirect instruction pointer left
/ redirect instruction pointer: up -> right, right -> up, left -> down, down -> left
\ redirect instruction pointer: up -> left, left -> up, right -> down, down -> right
0 push 0 to the stack. 1 pushes 1, ... 9 pushes 9.
A push 10 to the stack. B pushes 11, ... F pushes 15.
: duplicate the top stack value
~ swap top two stack values (all languages implement this as a different character)
i read input as a ASCII character and push to stack
o print the top of stack as an ASCII character
n read input as integer and push to stack
u print the top of stack as an integer
+ increment the top of stack
- decrement the top of stack
! jump over the next command
; stop execution

Almost all two-dimensional esolangs contain more commands, but for the sake of simplicity, the one we're writing will contain only the above.


Specification

The stack should be able to hold at least 30,000 values. You may pick any integer size (e.g. 32-bit, 64-bit, unbounded, etc) for stack values.

The instruction pointer should start moving right from the top left corner of the source code, and should wrap upon exiting the playing field, meaning that this code will be an infinite loop:

<^
v>

First, < will be reached, pointing the IP off to the left.
The IP will wrap around to the right, continuing left, and hit the ^, directing it up.
Then it will wrap, hit the > and travel right, wrap, hit the v and travel down, wrap, hit the <, and start over.

\$\endgroup\$
0
0
\$\begingroup\$

DNA Quine

Problem Description

Design a quine that outputs its own source code, but encoded into amino acids.
Read your source code in as binary. Each pair of bits now maps to a nucleotide like so:

00 -> A
01 -> C
10 -> G
11 -> T

For example, the ASCII character N has a binary representation of 01001110, so it would produce the nucleotide sequence CATG. A set of three nucleotides produces an amino acid. You can find the charts online, and I can't access imgur, so... yeah.

Anyways, your program must output its own source code as the three letter amino acid names. For example, if your code were 013201323300 in base 4, its nucleotide representation would be ACTGACTGTTAA and its amino acid representation would be ThrAspCysSTP.

Output

Your program must output its representation in amino acids.

Further Rules

All quines must also be valid proteins themselves. This means that:

  • The quine has a number of nucleotides divisible by three
  • The last three nucleotides are either TAG, TAA, or TGA, corresponding to a STP codon
  • No STP codons appear anywhere but the end of the quine.

Apart from that, the standard rules apply.

Scoring

This is code golf, so the shortest code wins.

Notes/Questions for Sandboxing

Ok, so I get that it's rather short. Is my point clear? Is the scoring section clear? How about loopholes? Should I point out that printing a single STP is not allowed? Would that even be possible?

\$\endgroup\$
8
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ You might want to elaborate on "expand it into base 4". Does that mean get each byte's codepoint, concatenate into one big binary integer, and then convert to base 4? \$\endgroup\$
    – FlipTack
    Nov 27, 2017 at 20:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ What happens if the number of nucleotide is not a multiple of 3? | The base 4 conversion is indeed unclear. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 28, 2017 at 1:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 if there's a spare nucleotide, it's not a valid program. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 28, 2017 at 1:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ So basically "program length must be a multiple of 3". / For example program 00 FF should be 00 00 00 00 11 11 11 11 = AAAATTTT or TTTTAAAA? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 28, 2017 at 1:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah, essentially. Except that some code golf languages have special character sets that aren't 8 bits, and some trickster out there might use that. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 28, 2017 at 2:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JakobLovern Unless there are some computers that can store fractional byte size, that won't be accepted. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Nov 28, 2017 at 2:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ I have no idea how to convert CATG into amino acids. Challenges should be self-contained. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 29, 2017 at 14:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ I suspect most answers will be of the form "1. get string of source code by standard quine technique" and "2. convert string into dna form", so the first part doesn't add anything to the challenge. I'd suggest to change the task to write a program which translates a given string into your DNA format. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Nov 29, 2017 at 17:16
0
\$\begingroup\$

Create a Flip-Flop Program

Your challenge is simple: write a full program which alternates between two different outputs upon each run.

Your submission can choose which is printed the first time the program is run, but after that it should alternate between these exact outputs.

Rules/Details

  • You cannot assume the filename of your program.
  • The values must be distinct.
  • Creating files is allowed - you are allowed to assume a file such as a.txt does not already exist in the directory.
  • Reading and modifying the source is allowed.
  • This is , so the shortest solution (in bytes) wins! Standard golfing loopholes apply.

Sandbox

  • Should I allow assuming the program's filename at an additional bytecount (length of filename)?

\$\endgroup\$
10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is it neccessary that the first run always produces the same value? (That makes the problem considerably harder, because it requires detecting the first run.) I agree with the full program restriction here, btw; it avoids a lot of dubious rules-bending answers that change something in the execution state. \$\endgroup\$
    – user62131
    Jan 10, 2017 at 16:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ If you want to be really crazy, you can do something like main(){int n = 1 Then change n in the compiled file return n;} \$\endgroup\$ Jan 12, 2017 at 16:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman is this an explanation of the downvote or was that someone else? \$\endgroup\$
    – FlipTack
    Nov 29, 2017 at 8:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman see update. \$\endgroup\$
    – FlipTack
    Nov 29, 2017 at 8:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ Why the full program requirement? As far as I can tell, it will be very hard to do this with just functions. Why disallow something that could give interesting answers? Programs would likely just change their own source code, or read a value from a file and then change it (or append a new one). \$\endgroup\$ Nov 29, 2017 at 8:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ Closely related. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 29, 2017 at 14:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @AdmBorkBork would you say that it's too similar? \$\endgroup\$
    – FlipTack
    Nov 29, 2017 at 16:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ Personally, I think they're distinct enough to not be a duplicate, they're just definitely related. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 29, 2017 at 16:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ I didn't downvote since to me this looked fairly good besides what felt like an arbitrary restriction that would just make gaming the challenge easier. Also, I remembered another related challenge, for reference. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 30, 2017 at 0:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman that's why I recently helped add the stateful tag, all similar challenges involving storing data between runs and self-modifying code are gradually being added there \$\endgroup\$
    – FlipTack
    Nov 30, 2017 at 7:29
0
\$\begingroup\$

Thou shall permute!

Given a string of upper and/or lower case letters and/or numbers (or list of characters if you want), and a list of permutation cycles, compute every intermediate step of applying this permutation under the following rules:

  • The space to move letters around is one row above and one row below the input, with the same length available as the string length.
  • In the beginning, top and bottom row are empty, and the middle row contains the whole string
  • A character can only take the spot of another character, if that spot is empty
  • There can only be at most one character in the top row and one in the bottom row at any time
  • You can only move one character in one direction per state change. Directions are:
    1. Out of the middle top or down
    2. Left/Right (any number of steps at once)
    3. Into the middle

Cyclic Permutations

I'm assuming 0 based indexing. A list of cyclic permutations looks like this (I'm assuming list of tuples, but I don't mind if you want something else, as long as it conveys the same idea):

[(0,2,3),(1,4)]

This would mean that:

  • index 0 goes to index 2, index 2 goes to index 3, index 3 goes to index 0
  • index 1 goes to index 4, index 4 goes to index 1

Examples:

I'm using the -character to show available spots here, you may use a space or any character that can not be contained in the input string, such as #or $.

Given the string test and the cyclic permutations [(0,2)(1,3)], the steps would look as follows:

----
test  #Start state
----

----
-est  # Move index 0 out 
t---

--s-  
-e-t  # Move index 2 to the other side
t---

--s-
-e-t  # Move index 0 to where it needs to go
--t-

--s-
-ett  # Insert index 0 at index 2
----

s---
-ett  # Move index 2 to where it needs to go
----

----
sett  # Insert index 2 at index 0
----

----
s-tt  # Move index 1 out
-e--

---t
s-t-  # Move index 3 out
-e--

---t
s-t-  # Move index 1 to index 3
---e

---t
s-te  # Insert index 1 at index 3
----

-t--
s-te  # Move index 3 to index 1
----

----
stte # Insert index 3 at index 1. Done.
----

Here is the same example again, but this time using only one long permutation of all characters: [(0,2,1,3)] instead of 2 independent permutations:

----
test
----

----
-est
t---

--s-
-e-t
t---

--s-
-e-t
--t-

--s-
-ett
----

--s-
--tt
-e--

-s--
--tt
-e--

----
-stt
-e--

---t
-st-
-e--

---t
-st-
---e

---t
-ste
----

t---
-ste
----

----
tste
----

Rules

  • You will only receive valid cyclic permutations
  • Please indicate if you want 0 or 1 indexed permutations, either is fine
  • You will only receive valid strings up to length 10
  • Characters in the string are not guaranteed to be unique
  • it does not matter which order every permutation is processed as long as they're all processed (that means start and end states are the same, and the above rules are always fulfilled)
  • There will be at least one permutation in the list of permutations
  • All permutations in the list of permutations have at least length 2
  • The maximal length of one permutation is the length of the input string
  • There may be some indices that are not part of any permutation
  • No index is part of more than one permutation
  • You need to output the first step, the last step and all intermediate steps
  • You may have as many trailing newlines and spaces as you want
  • You may output a 2 dimensional array or anything equivalent instead of printing every step, or you can also return a list of all states in the end
  • You can also generate an animation if you like instead of printing sequentially
  • Lowest number of bytes wins
  • Standard loopholes are forbidden
  • You can write a full program or function

Test cases

I implemented a very un-golfed version in python3 here (redirects to repl.it). That code contains 2 functions. find_cycles takes a string and a permutation of that string and computes the cycles to go from one to the other. shuffle does the shuffling. It takes the start string and the cycles. You can use these functions to validate your program.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Find and execute a program from the internet

You have some task to do, but you are too lazy to do it yourself. Your also to lazy to make a program to do it. So you are going to make a program that finds a program to do the task you want.

Select a programming language Q (which must be Turing complete).

Your program will:

  1. Take an input task, as a string, and input, as a string.
  2. Search codegolf.stackexchange.com, using the input string as the query
  3. Select the first question in the search results with an answer which contains a valid Q program. (If there is no such question, the operation of your program may be undefined.) (You may assume that program is in a code block.)
  4. Select either the accepted answer if it contains a valid Q program, or the highest voted answer that contains a valid Q program.
  5. Execute the Q program that that answer contains, using the input from step 1.

Since you are lazy, you want your program to be the shortest program possible. So this is , shortest answer wins!

\$\endgroup\$
8
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ What happens if the search result finds your answer? \$\endgroup\$
    – Neil
    Dec 1, 2017 at 9:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Neil Fixed it. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2017 at 20:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't know enough about the API to say, but can the order of results be changed by changing the search query to only allow questions? It seems like the searching may result in people trying to work around doing some API work, and it will be a pain to check. This isn't really a problem, just something I think you should know before posting. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2017 at 20:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman I'm not sure. Think it would be better if I allow people to change the search query to only questions? \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2017 at 20:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think that would make it easier, but it kind of results in two separate golfing tasks: minimising the search query and minimising the code to parse/execute answers. I'm not sure of a good way to resolve that (or if it is that bad) but it does give me the feeling that it may be better split up in some way. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2017 at 20:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman I could allow them to take a search query string template as input (or just say that it doesn't count towards their score). That way, there is no need to golf it. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2017 at 20:45
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ What if the result takes no/more than one input? If Q is chosen well enough, you get away with a nop.. so this becomes a quest of finding languages unused on PPCG. What happens if these then get added? \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2017 at 3:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ @BruceForte It will be fed into the program via standard input. I said that Q must be Turing complete, which means it must take input. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2017 at 4:51
0
\$\begingroup\$

Information Masking

Email Address Masking:

Only show the first and last characters of the username components of an email address, along with email domain name. Include 5 stars in the middle of the username to mask the length. The username part of the email address may use any of the ASCII characters listed below.

Rules

  1. Uppercase and lowercase English letters (a-z, A-Z)
  2. Digits 0 to 9
  3. Characters ! # $ % & ' * + - / = ? ^ _ { | } ~
  4. Character . (dit, period, full stop) provided that it is not the first or last character, and provided also that it does not appear two or more times consecutively.
  5. It is provided that email should end with @domainName.com, where the domain name has only alphabetic characters.
  6. It is provided that email address username part have at least 2 characters not starting and ending with a special character.

Example

[email protected] --> j*****[email protected]

Phone number masking:

Rules

Mask all the digits in a phone number except the last 4 digits. Each number should be replaced by star(*). Input phone numbers can be with or without the country code. Input Phone numbers can only have +, (, ), - in them along with numbers and spaces. Make sure + is not masked in the output and make sure the number of stars is equal to the number of digits while masking.Phone numbers will always have 10 digits without country code and with the country code, they could be up to 13 digits.

Examples

Example1: +1 (333) 444-5678  --> +*-***-***-5678  
Example2: +91 (333) 444-5678 ->  +**-***-***-5678  
Example3: 333 444 5678 --> ***-***-5678  
Example4: (333) 444-5678 ---> ***-***-5678

Program input will start with E: for email and P: for phone numbers, ignore spaces if they are found in the input.

Complete Program Example

Input:

E: [email protected]  
P: +13334445678

Output:

E: j*****[email protected]  
P: +*-***-***-5678
\$\endgroup\$
7
  • \$\begingroup\$ How does hackAndJill start with a j? \$\endgroup\$
    – Maya
    Nov 30, 2017 at 21:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just a typo. Corrected now. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2017 at 3:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ The examples show phone numbers of various different formattings what is it? Why are - in the output where in the input were only numbers how does that work? Is input always valid, can input be only a phone number etc. What about email addresses such as user@remote or [email protected]? \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2017 at 3:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ The input number can be in any format as the given in the example. And it is should be output in the form that last phone numbers are shown and then a -, then every 3 numbers are masked as *** and a - after it until the numbers do not end. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2017 at 6:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ Email address rules are updated. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2017 at 6:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ What is the winning criterion? Code-golf? \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Dec 3, 2017 at 20:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, code-golf. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2017 at 20:25
0
\$\begingroup\$

Given an Integer array:

  1. Start from the first number (n)
  2. Go forward (n) positions depending on the current position
  3. Delete the current position, the rest of the array fill in to the current position.
  4. Goto step 2 until there are one number remaining
  5. Print that number

The array loops around (the next number after the last number in the array is the first number).

A zero removes itself.

Negative numbers are not allowed as input.

Test Cases

[1] => 1
[1,2] => 1
[1,2,3] => 3
[1,2,2] => 1
[1,2,3,4] => 1
[6,2,3,4] => 4
[1,2,3,4,5] => 5
[0,1] => 1
[0,0,2,0,0] => 0

This is , the shortest answer in bytes wins!


Step-by-step example

[1,4,2,3,5]
 ^          start from the first position
   ^        jump 1 position (value of the position)
[1,  2,3,5] remove number in that position
     ^      take next position of the removed number
         ^  jump 2 positions
[1,  2,3  ] remove number in that position
 ^          take next position (looping on the end of the array)
     ^      jump 1 position
[1,    3,5] remove number in that position
       ^    take next position (looping)
       ^    jump 3 positions (looping on the end of the array)
[1,      5] remove number in that position
         ^  take next position
 ^          jump 5 positions (looping)
[        5] remove number in that position
print 5

Example #2

[4,3,2,1,6,3]
 ^            start from the first position
         ^    jump 4 positions
[4,3,2,1,  3] remove number in that position    
           ^  take next position
     ^        jump 3 positions
[4,3,  1,  3] remove number in that position    
       ^      take next position
           ^  jump 1 positions
[4,3,  1    ] remove number in that position    
 ^            take next position
   ^          jump 4 positions
[4,    1    ] remove number in that position    
       ^      take next position
 ^            jump 1 position
[      1    ] remove number in that position
print 1

Note: This is my first challenge so any input is welcome.

\$\endgroup\$
6
  • \$\begingroup\$ After the step 2 where is the "pointer"? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 10, 2017 at 14:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ The third step is worded a bit oddly, but I think I've understood it correctly from the examples. Do you mean that the elements after the deleted element are shifted to fill in the gap? It may be worth having one example written out step by step to make it easier for people to grasp what is happening. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 10, 2017 at 15:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman I have edited the question to include 2 step-by-step examples. Can you help me word the third step more clearly? Perhaps: 2- jump forward n positions where n is the value of the current position. 3- delete the position you just arrived at. 4- the (new) current position is the next position. repeat step 2. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 10, 2017 at 21:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ Problem title ? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 11, 2017 at 5:52
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ That is better, but maybe roll it into one? "Delete the current position, making what was the next position the current position" \$\endgroup\$ Dec 11, 2017 at 5:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 Haven't decided yet, Maybe "Football Jersey Josephus" or a variation of Duck, Duck, Goose. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 11, 2017 at 7:38
0
\$\begingroup\$

Golf a number

Create a program or function, which when given an input integer, outputs a mathematical expression evaluating to the same value. Expressions which require fewer bytes to represent than the integer itself will achieve better scores!

Explanation

It is often useful when golfing to compress constant integer expressions by expressing them in the form of an equivalent mathematical expression. 387420489 for example is much more efficiently expressed as 9^9. Similarly 4194303 as 2^22-1

The challenge is, for each integer in the range 1 to 1E6, to golf the number into as short an expression as you can (although any expression which evaluates correctly is acceptable output, see Rules below). The shorter the expression, the better your score; but short programs will also score well so the two need to be balanced!

Rules:

Input integer as argument or from STDIN

Output as string or equivalent to STDOUT or as function output. Your string can only contain ascii characters [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9], as well as those operators defined below, repetitions allowed.

You may use the following mathematical operators any number of times in your string:

() parentheses
^ exponentiation
* multiplication
/ division
\ integer(floor) division - see Test Evaluator
+ addition
- subtraction

NB: division, integer division and multiplication are all evaluated with equal priority, so 3/2\2 = 0 whereas 3\2/2 = 0.5

You may output the input value (if it can't be golfed for example), you do not have to output the perfectly golfed string:

 In: 10000

Out: 10000
     10^4
     2^13+1808

However the output must evaluate exactly to the input (assuming perfect precision of floats)

Scoring

Answers are scored on their compression ratio (how much they golf the input down on average), as well as program size

Program Size: byte count of program (as with normal code golf)

Compression Ratio: golfed Length (white-space ignored) / input Length

Individual Score = (Compression Ratio * 100 - 70)/6 + Log(Program Size, base 10)

Final Score = Mean score for first 10^6 integers

Lowest final score for each language wins!

Tags:


Sandbox:

related

related

The main sticking point is scoring how best can you combine 2 metrics into a single score?

The logic so far is that compression ratios will lie in the range 100 - 70 % where 100 is returning the input. Program lengths should be between 2 extremes; returning the input (1 byte) and looking up the input in a hardcoded list (~19,000,000 bytes). This gives the following distribution:

Score table

Actual program length I guestimate will be anywhere in the range 1 to 10000 bytes, hence the log to make the range more manageable. Quick reference; I could probably implement all power golfing (expressing n as a^b) in ~100-200 bytes in VBA. So 10% of that for golfing languages, and who knows what builtins Mathematica has ;).

But implementing more effective algorithms may require a more verbose language, so I think 1 - 10000 seems like a good range to handle in scoring

Open to alternative scoring though, and any required clarifications. Also suggestions what is a good range to test over?

I've suggested 1 to 1E6; The first 1000 integers I don't think are golfable, after that only a few are. So perhaps a greater range of test cases, or ones starting at a larger initial value? What's the biggest range I can feasibly test within say, 10 mins running time max? What's typical algorithm execution times can be expected per digit? I don't want golfers to have to spend too long generating their average score...

Test String Evaluation

\$\endgroup\$
7
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ requires fewer bytes to represent than the integer itself. -- but you had said The first 1000 integers I don't think are golfable, so it doesn't work. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 11, 2017 at 5:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ In your test, 2^13+1808 is longer than 10000. It contradicts your problem statement. Also you don't allow ^ to be used. / Evaluate left to right? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 11, 2017 at 5:59
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ returning the input is 0 byte in most languages, so the score would be log(0) = -Infinity. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 11, 2017 at 6:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ Related. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 11, 2017 at 6:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 Your 1st point; I did include a sentence you do not have to output the perfectly golfed string in the rules section, but I'll fix the problem statement to match that. Good catch with ^, I'll add that - but a longer expression is supposed to be acceptable. log(0) - well let's hope that's an incentive not to post trivial answers! But seriously, do you think it's worth adding a log(program length +1)? I don't think it is because it adds an additional layer of complexity to the scoring system - and people shouldn't really be entering trivial solutions anyway (I hope) \$\endgroup\$
    – Greedo
    Dec 11, 2017 at 10:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ If they do post 0-byte solution and win, it's the fault of your scoring system. For reference, look at the score formula of this challenge. --- You may want to add "you must calculate your score" to the question, like in this challenge. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 11, 2017 at 12:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ This isn't code-golf - it's code-challenge. \$\endgroup\$
    – user45941
    Dec 11, 2017 at 16:30
0
\$\begingroup\$

All possible distributions of different items of a set to an arbitrary number of groups

See Descriptive Real World Example, Rules / Edge Cases or Sample Data for an idea about this or help me by adding a nice sentence explaining it while this is in sandbox.

Descriptive Real World Example:

Ordering a set of x items from a shop what are the possibilities to distribute them among 1 to x orders?

Rules / Edge Cases

  • Identical items are not being distinguished (AB, B == AB, B, compare examples #4, #5 and #6)
  • Order is not important
    • Order of items in order/group: AB == BA
    • Order of orders/groups in distributions: A, B == B, A
    • Order of possible distributions (i. e. lines among output)

Format

I don't really mind the exact format but as it probably makes sense (right?) to tie oneself down to one format I'll suggest the following:

  • Input: Set of items without delimiters. Supported chars: [A-Za-z0-9]
  • Output:
    • Hierarchy: Distributions (Orders (Items))
    • Delimiters:
      • Among distributions in overall output: EOL
      • Among orders/groups in distribution: Comma, Space
      • Among items in orders/groups: None

Sample Data

╔═════════╤═══════╤═════════╤════════════╗
║ Example │ Input │ Output  │   Output   ║
║   Nr    │       │ line nr │   lines    ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║   #1    │ A     │    1    │     A      ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║         │       │    1    │    A, A    ║
║   #2    │ AA    ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    2    │     AA     ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║         │       │    1    │    A, B    ║
║   #3    │ AB    ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    2    │     AB     ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║         │       │    1    │  A, A, A   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║   #4    │ AAA   │    2    │   AA, A    ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    3    │    AAA     ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║         │       │    1    │  A, A, B   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    2    │   AA, B    ║
║   #5    │ AAB   ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    3    │   AB, A    ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    4    │    AAB     ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║         │       │    1    │  A, B, C   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    2    │   AB, C    ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║   #6    │ ABC   │    3    │   AC, B    ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    4    │   BC, A    ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    5    │    ABC     ║
╠═════════╪═══════╪═════════╪════════════╣
║         │       │    1    │ A, B, C, D ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    2    │   AB, CD   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    3    │   AC, BD   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    4    │   BC, AD   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    5    │  A, BC, D  ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    6    │  B, AC, D  ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    7    │  C, AB, D  ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║   #7    │ ABCD  │    8    │  A, CD, B  ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │    9    │  A, BD, C  ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │   10    │  B, AD, C  ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │   11    │   ABC, D   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │   12    │   BCD, A   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │   13    │   CDA, B   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │   14    │   DAB, C   ║
║         │       ├─────────┼────────────╢
║         │       │   15    │    ABCD    ║
╚═════════╧═══════╧═════════╧════════════╝
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ What is the winning criterion of this challenge? Code-golf? Also the current explanation seems more complicated as it needs to be. Only after seeing the examples it became clear that you are asking for set partitions \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Dec 20, 2017 at 15:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Possible duplicate of codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/8691/56433 \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Dec 20, 2017 at 15:12
0
\$\begingroup\$

Show me your core

On many 8-bit machines, it is relatively easy to output the entire core syntax of the built-in language, as everything required is in ROM and most 8-bit machines allow you to PEEK at each location therein, or otherwise easily access the ROM contents.

Here's the complete syntax for a Sinclair ZX81 or Timex TS1000/1500 machine as an example:

 1 PRINT CHR$ 64;CHR$ 65;CHR$ 66;CHR$ 193;CHR$ 193;
 2 FOR I=196 TO 255
 3 PRINT CHR$ I;
 4 NEXT I

Is it as easy to output the core or standard syntax to a screen, console, or window in modern-days languages? How best would I word such a question? And would this make a good challenge?

\$\endgroup\$
8
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ What is the "core"? ...... \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 20, 2017 at 15:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ Core syntax, i.e., non-extended PHP, such as stdClass is in the PHP core. Either the question is too ambiguous, or I don't know modern-days programming speak well enough to ask it. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 20, 2017 at 15:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ More precisely, PDOException("blah", 0x00); would not be core in PHP even though it extends the standard Exception because the PDO extension needs to be switched on in your php.ini file; throw and new obviously would be as far as I'm able to work out \$\endgroup\$ Dec 20, 2017 at 15:12
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I don't know PHP so I don't understand that explanation. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 20, 2017 at 15:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ I only really understand PHP and some 8-bit hl languages and some assembly. Let's try this... if you don't <include xxx.h> in C (where xxx is the header or whatever), what are you left with? Is that even possible. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 20, 2017 at 15:17
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Actually GCC let the program pass with a lot of warnings. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 22, 2017 at 14:54
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Some similar and related challenges showing that this type of challenge has a lot of difficulty in getting it exactly correct. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 22, 2017 at 15:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes there is a lot of difficulty on modern-days tech stacks and such; on 8-bit machines, it's much easier as you only need to find the bit of ROM that holds the syntax and you're half-way there. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 2, 2018 at 9:26
0
\$\begingroup\$

Sight Matrix


I haven't seen this done anywhere yet after a couple of searches, so I might as well post this anyways. If you see this done somewhere else, please tell me and I will delete this post.

The Story

You are a two meter tall sniper fighting in a war-torn area. Your teams have just beaten back the enemy, but the guerillas have an annoying habit of hiding out of sight and waiting patiently to take your unit by surprise, often inflicting heavy casualties. You have been tasked with dealing with these guerillas as a sentry.

The Task

Summary

Write a program that, when given a n x n 2D matrix of heights (in meters), outputs a n x n 2D binary matrix with ones being areas that you can see and zeroes being areas that you cannot see.

Input Format

The input will be a two-dimensional array of heights and two numbers signifying where you are standing.

Output Format

The output will be a two-dimensional array of ones and zeroes: ones where you can see and zeroes where you can't see.

Sample input/output

Input:

[[120,87,89,93,121], [120,91,83,91,114], [118,121,90,93,97], [124,129,115,120,101], [117,140,138,124,99]] 0 0

Output:

[[1,1,1,1,1], [1,1,1,1,1], [1,1,1,1,1], [0,0,1,1,1], [0,0,0,0,1]]

Hint:

Last time I checked, people's eyes were on their head. Put that into account when you are writing your code.


This is . Shortest answer in bytes wins. Standard loopholes apply.

Note: this is my first foray into code-golf stackexchange. Please tell me how to improve this or things that I need to add to this answer.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ There have been various questions on line of sight, but right now I think this question would be closed as "Unclear what you're asking" before there was consensus on which was the closest dupe. What are the rules for visibility? You've given my height, but I'm not sure whether it's relevant. You haven't said whether the guerrillas (note: double r) have a height, nor how the terrain is modelled, nor what point in the square I need to see for the square to count as visible. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 22, 2017 at 13:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ May the input be 1-indexed? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 22, 2017 at 14:34
0
\$\begingroup\$

Output One More than Int Max

Your job is to create a program or function that will output a whole number (with no trailing decimal point) that is 1 greater than the max number an integer can hold for the language; more or less this:

MAX_INT + 1

You are not allowed to use Strings in your solution. Any other type may be used.

Shortest answer in bytes wins.

Note: I know this might be impossible in some languages. I have verified that it is possible in at least one (un-disclosed) language.


Notes on this puzzle

I posted this puzzle recently here and it promptly got closed and deleted (oops). Thankfully, @WheatWizard was kind enough to explain what some of the confusion was. Here where his comments:

I've voted to close this question as unclear. There are a couple of things I find especially unclear, 1) I'm not sure what "the max number an integer can hold for the language" means, it definitely needs a more concrete definition. It seems to presuppose some bounded "integer" type in the language. All the existing answers seem to suppose that long (or equivalent) is not this integer type but that is not at all clear from the question.

2) The requirement "You are not allowed to use strings in your solution" is neither clear nor enforceable. Without a rigorous definition of string there is no way to determine what is a string or not. For example Prolog has a type called "String" but all real string manipulation is actually done on lists of char codes. Are those strings? Prolog also has atoms which behave a lot like strings in many ways, (and act like integers in others) are they strings?

The main thing I would want to see before retracting my close vote/voting to reopen is clear definitions of the terms in question. To be clear that is a very tall order. These terms are not going to be easy to define, let alone define well. I would recommend temporarily moving this question to the sandbox so that you can workshop it a bit.

@Xcali said the following:

To follow on @WheatWizard's comment, what about languages where there's really no type to a variable. For example, in Perl, any single value may be treated as a string or a number at any time

And @Adám:

@CalebKleveter I think you can fix your challenge by removing the prohibition on strings and requiring documentation and/or additional supporting code showing that the produced number cannot be held as any type of integer. Do you want me to edit your post accordingly?

Are there any suggestions on how we could define the things pointed out in these comments? Are there any other issues that should be resolved?

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure if it's possible to define such things such that it can applies to all languages. You may want to limit the challenge to specific languages, but that will disallow many languages to compete, and some person will get annoyed when their languages can't be used, they may downvote the question. / Original challenge link. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 22, 2017 at 14:07
0
\$\begingroup\$

Als pr Yrck, I knw hm Hrtio

Here is a link to a text file containing the script for Shakespeare's Hamlet.[to do: provide such a text file, or think of another freely available text input that leads to a wittier title.]

Your task is to write a program that will compress this text, and another that will decompress it to return exactly the original file. Your score is given by C + D + 0.5*F, where C is the size of your compression program, D is the size of your decompression program, and F is the size of the file that your compression program generates, all measured in bytes. The smallest score wins.

Further particulars

Your compression program should take hamlet.txt as input and produce a single file as output, which is to be given as input to your decompression program. You should make sure that the resulting output from your decompression program is identical to the original hamlet.txt file, e.g.

> myCompressor hamlet.txt > compressed
> myDecompressor compressed > output.txt
> diff hamlet.txt output.txt
[no output from diff command means they are identical]

Your programs' only purpose is to compress and decompress the hamlet.txt file - their behaviour on any other input is not part of the challenge. It's fine, for example, if the decompressor always outputs the text of Hamlet regardless of the original input, or if the compressor crashes on any input besides hamlet.txt.

Input and output can be by file I/O or STDIN/STDOUT or any other reasonable method, but the compressor and decompressor should be full programs. They need not be written in the same language.

Your compressor and decompressor must each be completely self-contained. Each must consist of a single file, and that file must be the source code for a programming language as defined here. With the exception of importing libraries, your compressor and decompressor must not open any other files besides their input.

The compressed file may be a text file or a binary file - the only thing that matters is its size in bytes. No information may be transmitted from the compressor to the decompressor by any means other than the content of this file.

You may not use any libraries or built-ins that implement data compression algorithms, such as gzip or bz2, or their corresponding decompression algorithms. This restriction only applies to "off the shelf" implementations - you can use any algorithm you like if you implement it yourself. For details on what counts as a data compression algorithm, see note 1.

If for some reason your language or libraries include a feature that outputs some or all of the text of Hamlet, you may not use that feature.

Although it's not part of the challenge, you are encouraged to explain/demonstrate what happens when your compressor is given some other input besides hamlet.txt, especially if it does something interesting such as produce a garbled Shakespearean version of the input text.

Note 1: For the purpose of this challenge, a data compression algorithm is anything listed in Wikipedia's Category:Lossless Compression Algorithms or Category:Lossy Compression Algorithms, or any of their subcategories. Note that these lists can change over time, and if Wikipedia's editors will allow a new item to be added then that will count as a compression algorithm, even if that happens after an answer using it is posted. This is to prevent the use of obscure algorithms that are not yet listed on Wikipedia. Editing Wikipedia to get around the restriction on off-the-shelf compression is not allowed.

This rule is intended to prevent the use of existing algorithms while allowing all other language features and built-ins. It may be the case that some items on the Wikipedia list are overly broad and end up banning common language features. If this is the case I will add exceptions on a case-by-case basis. This will only be used to permit things that would otherwise be banned, so it won't invalidate existing answers.


Sandbox note: the really tricky thing here is how to prevent trivial solutions that just wrap an existing compression algorithm, without also banning common language features. The above Wikipedia-based definition of a compression algorithm is a bit experimental and I'd welcome feedback on it. My intention is to prevent trivial solutions that just wrap an existing implementation of a compression algorithm, while allowing pretty much anything else.

Another possible approach is simply to allow anything and hope that answers specialised to the input can achieve better scores. That's effectively what I did in Paint Starry Night, but in the end I wish I hadn't, because it turned out that (so far at least) even really clever solutions based on neural nets and genetic algorithms can't come close to the off-the-shelf BPG algorithm. That's the sort of situation I want to avoid for this challenge.

\$\endgroup\$
30
  • \$\begingroup\$ Would compressor, decompressor be acceptable? (only for illustration purposes) \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 30, 2017 at 9:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 I don't speak Jelly, but assuming it's not using any built-in compression, that would be fine. (It even says so already in the rules: "It's fine, for example, if the decompressor always outputs the text of Hamlet regardless of the original input".) The thing is that a solution of that form doesn't take any advantage of the discounted scoring for the compressed file, so it would very likely not be optimal. So while it's allowed, it would probably not win. \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Dec 30, 2017 at 9:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ Correct, if the text is sufficiently long. The “...» is Jelly string encoding codec using base decompression and some dictionary lookup. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 30, 2017 at 9:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 then it would be fine. (I'm fairly certain the script for Hamlet is long enough - if it isn't, that would be an interesting surprise.) \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Dec 30, 2017 at 10:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 Though actually, I guess by the letter of what I wrote, it wouldn't be fine, because Jelly's dictionary lookup is presumably explicitly intended as a way to compress text. That's not what I intended the rule to mean. This is pretty tricky - I want to disallow trivial things like just wrapping a bz2 compressor, while permitting pretty much anything else. It doesn't seem easy to do that in a way that avoids loopholes. (Comments on this are welcome from anyone.) \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Dec 30, 2017 at 12:46
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ You can't disallow "trivial" things, only discourage them. That's not really a problem - the real problem is they get more upvotes than they deserves, and solutions which the OP actually put effort in writing get less upvotes. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Dec 30, 2017 at 13:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 I can't disallow trivial things in general, but I can write the rules in such a way that specific types of trivial solution are not permitted. If I had disallowed built-in compression in paint Starry Night then it would have been a much better challenge (albeit possibly less epic in the long run, since the non-trivial answers made a good effort at keeping up with the trivial ones). Basically I don't want the winning answer to just be a shell script that runs bzip on its input. \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Dec 30, 2017 at 13:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ Anyway I've changed the wording of the rule - I'm not sure if the new version will work but we'll see if people have comments. \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Dec 30, 2017 at 13:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ Instead of stating something like "If for some reason your language or libraries include a feature that outputs some or all of the text of Hamlet, you may not use that feature." you could actually require the program to work for any input and only use Hamlet to get the scoring, this would elegantly close up that loophole but I'm sure people will find a way around this.. As you noted yourself this is a difficult task to solve. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 30, 2017 at 14:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @BruceForte I think I prefer the direct approach for that point. If I ask it to work for other inputs I open up the quagmire of trying to define what that should mean and how to test for it. However that's achieved I would likely still need the "if for some reason" rule, because there would probably still be ways to take advantage of a built-in database of Shakespeare plays if some language out there happens to include one. I think banning Shakespeare built-ins is unproblematic - my problem is more how to ban bz2 and the like without accidentally also banning common language features. \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Dec 31, 2017 at 2:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ "in the end I wish I hadn't" ... Why? What's the difference? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Jan 1, 2018 at 9:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 it would have been a better challenge. The best scoring answers would have been the cleverest ones that took the most effort, and there would be more motivation for people to continue doing cleverer things to beat the lowest score. If that doesn't seem desirable to you then fair enough, but it's what my taste is and it's the kind of challenge I want to design. \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Jan 1, 2018 at 9:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ How can you be so sure (without testing it)? bz2 developers definitely put a lot of efforts into writing their lossy image compression algorithms, so they may win. Not to mention that their code are not bytecount-limited. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Jan 1, 2018 at 9:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user202729 I'm not sure what you mean. If you're referring to the Starry Night challenge I can be sure because I have tested it. Just look at the existing answers - some are really really nontrivial and use genetic algorithms, deep neural networks and other clever techniques, whereas others simply wrap an image in BPG or FLIF format and call an existing function to decompress it. There is some golfing and file type knowledge involved in this, but it's trivial compared to the other type of answer. Unfortunately the latter type did win, and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid this time. \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Jan 1, 2018 at 9:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ (The clever answers on Starry Night exist in large part because I offered a series of bounties to answers that passed various milestones without using built-in compression. I could do that again this time, but I have only 2100 rep to give away, and in any case it's much more elegant if the challenge provides that motivation by itself.) \$\endgroup\$
    – N. Virgo
    Jan 1, 2018 at 9:36
0
\$\begingroup\$

Your Task:

To create a piece of code that takes in an input, and outputs ASCII art, which is encoded in the input string.

It seems unclear, but you are basically creating your own programming language that takes a piece of code in a syntax that you create, and then writing a code that takes that input, and turns it into ASCII art.


Example:

A simple example would be an input that runs through a line of input code with the syntax:

0 : An empty space
1 : A space that is occupied
2 : A newline character

I:

01010210101201010210101201010

O:

 The '|' character is just to show the matrix

| # # |
|# # #|
| # # |
|# # #|
| # # |

I:

11112000121111210002111122 // Shows a 2
11112100121001210012111122 // Shows a 0
0120120120120122 // Shows a 1
11112100121111210012111122 // Shows an 8

O:

####   
   # 
#### 
#  
#### 

####
#  #
#  #
#  #
####

 #
 #
 #
 #
 #

####
#  #
####
#  #
####

The code would read through the letters one by one and print out the characters, or create a newline character as expected.


Since this is , the code with the fewest bytes wins!

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ Jelly, 0 bytes - is that what you meant? \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Jan 6, 2018 at 12:08
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ This is currently very unclear. As far as I see, you say we need to write code which decodes some input string to some output string. But what exactly is the decoding? Your 0,1,2 substitution seems to be an example only. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Jan 6, 2018 at 12:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think this would be pretty much trivial in most languages. Expect a lot of 2-3 byte answers. Might want to make it a bit more complex \$\endgroup\$
    – Darren H
    Jan 6, 2018 at 18:01
0
\$\begingroup\$

Stem and Leaf

A stem-and-leaf plot is a way to represent data and visualizing distribution. Usually the data is grouped in step of 10, with the last digit as "leafs" in ascending order, and the remaining digits as "stem". The steam and leafs are separated with a vertical line, with stem on the left and leafs on the right.

Challenge

Make a program or function which takes a list of non-negative integers as input, and outputs the corresponding stem-and-leaf plot.

Example Input and Outputs

Example 1:

Input: 10 2 15 4 2 24 18 17 24 24 25 15 18 22 17 23 24 33 19 28 28 28 26 32 25 27 37 28 41 38 38 30 35 30 41 45 40 40 37 33

Output:

0|224           
1|05577889      
2|23444455678888
3|0023357788    
4|00115

Example 2:

Input: 112 101 116 99 99 107 101 99 115 112 114 128 115 119 125 160 148 147 159 147 169 160 163 160 160 163 162 164 160 173 84 92

Output:

 8|4
 9|2999       
10|117       
11|2245569   
12|58        
13|
14|778       
15|9         
16|0000023349
17|3

Rules

  • The input may be a list, an array, a space or comma delimited string or other appropriate representation containing raw data values.
  • The vertical line of the output must be aligned.
  • A leading or trailing newline, or trailing spaces for each line are accepted.
  • Common loopholes applied.

This is a challenge, so the lowest-byte solution for each language wins!

\$\endgroup\$
1
0
\$\begingroup\$

Imagine you're a dishonorable scientist trying to prove that getting heads on a coin flip actually has about 70% probability when flipped 100 times. The trick is, you're going to flip the coin an arbitrarily large number of times (say, a million) and select the slice of 100 flips that contains the most number of heads. As input, take the number of total trials to do, and as output, return the number of heads contained within the most favorable contiguous slice of 100.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ Please "Write your challenge just as you would when actually posting it.". If you post the challenge like this you will get a lot of problems. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Jan 26, 2018 at 5:55
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ (question title, winning criteria, tags, example input/output, everything you didn't have) \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Jan 26, 2018 at 5:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ I like the idea, but the correctness of the answer is a little hard to verify. Perhaps you should require the answer writers to explicitly indicate how the program does the required job, unless it's really obvious from the code. For example, someone may directly draw a value from the resulting distribution without actually generating the total number of trials. That should be acceptable, as long as the writer justifies that their approach is correct, that is, gives the exact required distribution for the output \$\endgroup\$
    – Luis Mendo
    Jan 28, 2018 at 16:54
0
\$\begingroup\$

Find a Path of Similar Proportions!

Given a point on a square lattice, find the shortest path (by jumps) from the origin to that point, following these rules:

  • You are allowed to make any number of jumps containing any number of steps along the grid lines to another lattice point. These jumps must be along the grid lines and have an integer length.
  • Each jump must contain one step more or be one step shorter than the step before it. (This is where the "similar proportions" comes into play. Name change pending?)
  • The first step can have any length.

As an example, here is how one possible way one might travel from A(0,0) to B(5,5) under these rules:

A
|
|
|
1----2
     B
     |
     |
     3

The numbers indicate which steps are taken. Note that this solution backtracks, moving to (5,8) before partially retracing its path to get to its destination. This solution takes four jumps and is therefore optimal.

Here is a diagram of the number of jumps required for the shortest (or is it?) path to any other point with both integer coordinates below or equal to 10. Note the symmetry around (x,x). I don't know if my solution for (7,10) is optimal.

  | 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10
--------------------------------------
0 | 0  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1
1 | 1  3  2  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  3
2 | 1  2  3  2  3  3  3  3  3  3  3
3 | 1  3  2  3  2  3  3  3  3  3  4
4 | 1  3  3  2  4  2  3  3  3  3  3
5 | 1  3  3  3  2  4  2  3  3  3  3
6 | 1  3  3  3  3  2  4  2  4  3  3
7 | 1  3  3  3  3  3  2  4  2  4  5?
8 | 1  3  3  3  3  3  4  2  4  2  4
9 | 1  3  3  3  3  3  3  4  2  4  2
10| 1  3  3  4  3  3  3  5? 4  2  4

The actual actual task

Your task is to continue the table for points with coordinates as large as (127,127).

Your submission should be a program which prints valid paths for all points whose two coordinates lie between 0 and an inputted positive integer inclusively, or a function, which, given any pair of positive integers, outputs a valid path to the point specified by these coordinates.

A valid output path is an array or list (or other comparable datatype) which uniquely represents a valid sequence of jumps that can be used to reach the specified point and which makes it as easy as possible to find the number of jumps required.

Example possible ways for the example path given above:

[["d", 4], ["r", 5], ["d", 4], ["u", 3]] // using chars to represent direction
[[0, 4], [5, 0], [0, 4], [0, -3]] // direction vectors
[0, 4, 5, 0, 0, 4, 0, -3] // As above, in just one list. len()/2

Scoring

Your submission will be scored by the sum of your solution's bytecount and the sum of all jump counts for all paths it outputs for reaching any point between (0,0) and (127,127), inclusively. Smallest score wins, standard rules and loopholes apply, etc...

Example response (Python 3):

def c(a,b):
    d,e,g=[[a,0]],a+1,0
    while not g==b:
        d.append([0,e])
        e,g=-e+1,g+e
    return d

This extremely simple and naive piece of Python code achieves a score of 92 (program length) + 1406272 (for the path part) = 1406364, as verified here - Try it online!

More?

  • missing tags?
  • clarifications?
  • Table is incorrect?

Please respond.

\$\endgroup\$
1
110 111
112
113 114
155

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .