2
\$\begingroup\$

I'm going to make a challenge involving Mahjong Tiles (U+1F000 – U+1F02F, though I'm going to use only U+1F000 – U+1F021).

πŸ€€πŸ€πŸ€‚πŸ€ƒπŸ€„πŸ€…πŸ€†πŸ€‡πŸ€ˆπŸ€‰πŸ€ŠπŸ€‹πŸ€ŒπŸ€πŸ€ŽπŸ€πŸ€πŸ€‘πŸ€’πŸ€“πŸ€”πŸ€•πŸ€–πŸ€—πŸ€˜πŸ€™πŸ€šπŸ€›πŸ€œπŸ€πŸ€žπŸ€ŸπŸ€ πŸ€‘

I'm concerned whether "major" golfing languages, such as 05AB1E, Jelly, APL, and Charcoal will handle Unicode characters easily. Should I represent the tiles in ASCII characters instead?

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ Hmm, usually I'd complain about unnecessary Unicode in challenges, but for a challenge about Mahjong Tiles, these makes a lot of sense to use. Are those characters going to be used in the input, output, or both? What would the ASCII equivalent be? \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 7:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @xnor They will be only used in the input, while the output will be a single integer. Their ASCII equivalent would be a 2-letter string. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dannyu NDos
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 7:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Suggestion for alternative format: list of Unicode codepoints. That way there's little advantage to that input format. \$\endgroup\$
    – DELETE_ME
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 10:44

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2
\$\begingroup\$

Allow For Both

My take on this situation is that you should allow languages to take the input in whatever seems to be the most effective way.

If you specifically want to use unicode where possible, I would personally use something like this:

  • If your language of choice doesn't support non-ascii characters, you may take input in [some other format]
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Is it "asking different things for different languages"? \$\endgroup\$
    – Keyu Gan
    Commented Feb 10, 2020 at 14:38
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Unicode is preferred This part should be deleted. People will simply use the format that is more convenient for the challenge. If it's not mandatory, answers won't use it \$\endgroup\$
    – Luis Mendo
    Commented Feb 12, 2020 at 14:50

You must log in to answer this question.

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