Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Question

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

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• Parts of the challenge you found unclear
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Answer 1

Many Happy Returns!

I'm not sure whether to make this code-golf or code-challenge.

---

Write a function that when it returns, it returns an extra frame up the stack. In other words, functions usually return directly to their callers; however, here the function should return directly to its caller's caller. To illustrate, consider this c program:

#include <stdio.h>

int b(void) {
    int rc = 3;
    printf("%s(): returning from b()\n", __FUNCTION__);
    return rc;
}

int a(void) {
    int rc;
    rc = b();
    printf("%s(): returned from b()=%d\n", __FUNCTION__, rc);
    return 2;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv) {
    int rc;
    rc = a();
    printf("%s(): returned from a()=%d\n", __FUNCTION__, rc);
    return 0;
}

The output from this program is:

b(): returning from b()
a(): returned from b()=3
main(): returned from a()=2

An entry to this challenge would return from the innermost function c() in a special way such that the output is:

b(): returning from b()
main(): returned from a()=3

Note that the flow of execution goes directly from the return of b() back to the next line after where main() called a(). The returned from b() message is not output as this code never executes. It is not sufficient just to put this message in a conditional.

Rules

Assuming a template similar to this sample - i.e. main() calls a() calls b():

• Entries are scored by the size of function b() in bytes - smallest wins.
• Functions main() and a() must be provided, but are not included in the score
• There must be no special logic in main() and a() that help. If the call to b() were replaced with a call to b1() (a normal function that returns normally), with no other modifications, then the returned from b() message would be observed.
• You may assume that the return types of a() and b() are the same

---

I am aware that there are languages which make this very easy, but it is significantly more challenging (or maybe impossible) in other languages. I don't want to explicitly ban any languages, but I am most interested in the answers where the solution is non-trivial.

Answer 2

Secret Santa

code-golfmath

Goal: Given a list of names with public keys, assign each person a name, encrypt it with their public key and print the list of gifters with their encoded giftees.

Introduction

My family wanted to get a head start on Secret Santa (so they can shop sales though out the year). The problem was "how do we do this remotely?" Pubic key encryption, of course! My family is not very tech-savvy (or math-savvy). So after a several hours of phone calls, I was able to get everyone to generate public+private keys (by hand) and chat them to the group. Now I need to message back a gifter/giftee list.

Specification

• Input
  • Flexible
  • A list of First Name, Last Name, Piece One of Key, Piece Two of Key tuples
  • So [ John, Smith, 351, 174 ] is an example tuple
  • n would be 351
  • e would be 174
  • Each name will be nonempty, capital and lowercase letters
  • Initials will be unique
• Algorithm
  • For each tuple (i.e. gifter)
  • Randomly assign a giftee such that giftee != gifter
  • [NOTE] Each giftee should be assigned to exactly one gifter
  • Get the giftee's first initial and last initial
  • A or a = 1, B or b = 2, ..., Z or z = 26
  • Encrypt each initial
• Encryption
  • The encryption of a number x is x^e % n
• Output
  • Flexible
  • A list of gifters (first and last name) with the encrypted first and last initial of their giftee
• Score
  • Shortest code in bytes wins

Test Cases

Input                         Middle Step                   Output
-----                         -----------                   ------
[Sherlock Holmes,1363,3]      Irene Adler => IA             [Sherlock Holmes,729,1]       
[John Watson,1763,11]         Mycroft Holmes => MH          [John Watson,281,935]         
[Mary Watson,1927,3]          John Watson => JW             [Mary Watson,1000,605]        
[Mycroft Holmes,1271,7]       Peter Jones => PJ             [Mycroft Holmes,256,1043]     
[Irene Adler,1073,5]          Mary Watson => MW             [Irene Adler,35,489]          
[Peter Jones,1073,5]          Sherlock Holmes => SH         [Peter Jones,688,578] 

Answer 3

Simplify Brainf**k

We'll call a language BF equivalent if it emits a context-free substitution mapping to and from BF. For example, consider the hypothetical language SimpleBrain which is identical to BF except that it does not include + or >, but instead has }. It emits the following mapping to BF:

}: +>
<: <
-: -
.: .
,: ,
[: [
]: ]

And the following mapping from BF:

+: }<
>: -}
<: <
-: -
.: .
,: ,
[: [
]: ]

Challenge

Design a BF equivalent language. The language with the fewest commands wins (SimpleBrain, for example, has 7). In the event of a tie (which is likely) the language with the shortest representation with the mapping you provide of the following BF program wins:

++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>
++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.
+++.------.--------.>+.>.

Sandbox Notes

There have been many efforts to "simplify" BF, but most of them shift complexity from the language to the interpreter. I've tried to formulate the rules in such a way that this cannot happen.

Are there interesting solutions to this challenge? I can only think of a few. I'd love to seem some creative answers to this problem. I am also looking for ways to better define context-free substitution mapping as what I have in mind clearly excludes trivial reductions like Braincrash because there is not a context-free mapping from Braincrash to BF, but I don't know if that's totally clear from the wording. By context-free substitution mapping, I mean substitution rules of the form:

a := b_1 b_2 ... b_n

where a is a single command in the source language and the RHS is any finite number of commands in the language we're mapping to (the LHS consists of a single symbol which is why I described it as context-free).

I also question whether this is exactly a programming puzzle per say. I am open to reformulating the challenge to make it better suited for the site if there is opposition.

Answer 4

Make a generated MIDI sound better

Being a crazy man, I sometimes listen to music made to midi trough a filter that makes it MIDI. It is a great experience, but I need to work a lot on it, because MIDI has a lot of instruments, and not every one sound good with every track

Challenge

Write a program that that finds which instrument represents the song the best

• Filter that is used
• Soundfont that is used

Input

A single .mid file

Output

A number representing MIDI instrument

Scoring

Score=Similarity/length by characters

Similarity is defined by executing Fourier transform and finding the percent of similarity between original and output sounds

Meta

Is this any good? and is scoring not exploitable?

Answer 5

Goodstein Sequences

From Wikipedia:

The Goodstein sequence G(m) of a number m is a sequence of natural numbers. The first element in the sequence G(m) is m itself. To get the second, G(m)(2), write m in hereditary base-2 notation, change all the 2s to 3s, and then subtract 1 from the result. In general, the (n + 1)-st term G(m)(n + 1) of the Goodstein sequence of m is as follows:

1. Take the hereditary base-n + 1 representation of G(m)(n).
2. Replace each occurrence of the base-n + 1 with n + 2.
3. Subtract one. (Note that the next term depends both on the previous term and on the index n.)
4. Continue until the result is zero, at which point the sequence terminates.

Example: The Goodstein sequence for 13 is:

1. 2^(2+1)+2^2+2^0 = 13
2. 3^(3+1)+3^3+3^0-1 = 3^(3+1)+3^3 = 108
3. 4^(4+1)+4^4-1 = 4^(4+1)+3*4^3+3*4^2+3*4^1+3*4^0 = 1279
4. 5^(5+1)+3*5^3+3*5^2+3*5^1+3*5^0-1 = 5^(5+1)+3*5^3+3*5^2+3*5^1+2*5^0 = 16092
5. 6^(6+1)+3*6^3+3*6^2+3*6^1+2*6^0-1 = 6^(6+1)+3*6^3+3*6^2+3*6^1+6^0 = 280711

And so on

Your Task

Print the first 3 terms of the Goodstein sequence that starts on the input. If there are fewer than 3 terms, print out all the terms in the sequence (e.g. for input 1).

Example inputs and outputs:

Input: 1, Output: 1, 0

Input: 2, Output: 2, 2, 1

Input: 3, Output: 3, 3, 3

Input: 4, Output: 4, 26, 41

You may assume that the input will be a natural number from 1-200. Note that one of the challenges of this challenge is to support integers over 2^500.

Winning Criterion

This is code-golf, so shortest code wins! Answers from all languages are encouraged. The speed of the solution does not matter, as long as it eventually prints out the desired answer.

Fun Fact

All Goodstein sequences eventually converge to 0.

Tags: code-golf, math, sequence, number-theory, base-conversion

Answer 6

Darwin Fights

(code-challenge)

You are fighting a swarm of evolving enemies. Your goal is to outsmart them by turning evolution on its head.

The game consists of multiple rounds, starting with round 0. Every round n contains 5(n+1) enemies, so it starts out with 5, then 10, and so on. Each enemy has a couple statistics:

1. Health -- the amount of health the enemy has left

2. Attack -- the damage that the enemy can do

3. Defense -- reduces damage done

4. Reproduction -- controls the rate (chance) of reproduction

5. Blur -- Makes the enemy seem weaker than it actually is.

The starting values for these numbers are taken from the previous round (details below), or if it is the first round, a mutated form of the enemy with health 1, attack 0, defense 0, reproduction 1, and blur 0. The player also has similar stats: health, attack, defense, and regeneration (how much health recovered per turn). You start off with 100 health, and the only condition on attack, defense, and regeneration is that their sum must be less than or equal to 10.

Details of turn order:

1. All the enemies attack you, you lose health according to the damage formula below.

2. You choose 3 enemies to attack or you nuke them (see below). It is advised to choose the 3 most powerful enemies to stop them from reproducing.

3. All surviving enemies have the chance to reproduce. If r is their reproduction coefficient, their chance of reproducing is r/n where n is the total number of enemies. Thus, the expected number of new enemies is the average value of all the enemies' r-values.

4. If there are no surviving enemies, the round is over. The next round starts and is populated with 5(n+1) enemies. Your health is restored. The next round's enemies' stats are determined by a weighted average of all the dead enemies' stats of the current round. They are weighted by the number of steps they survived in that round. Thus, it is important to eliminate strong enemies early in the round.

Damage: If the attacker has attack a and defender has defense d, the amount of health lost by the defender is a*(1-d/25). The minimum amount of damage is capped at a/4, so the value of d is essentially capped at 18.75 (it can be higher, but it wouldn't do any good).

Input You will get input in the following manner: a list of lists, each list containing the data for one enemy, in the order [health, attack, defense, reproduction]. Each of these values is reduced by a number uniformly chosen between 0 and blur. You will return the indices of the enemies you want to attack. If you return anything other than a list of 3 nonnegative integers (so e.g. an empty list), you choose to nuke the enemies.

Nuke: Nuking is just the ability to attack every enemy in a single turn. After nuking, you must wait 10 turns before being able to nuke again. Warning: since nuking attacks all enemies, it is common that a nuke will leave only strong enemies behind. Thus if there are survivors that reproduce, they will be the strongest. Use nukes carefully!

Reproduction: If an enemy is able to reproduce, it will choose a mate to mate with. The chance of being chosen as a mate is proportional to the attack power. It is possible the enemy's mate is itself (asexual), or that there is only one enemy left, in which case it is forced to reproduce asexually. The new enemy's traits is based on the average of the parents' traits, added to a mutation

Mutations: As soon as an organism is created, whether at the beginning of the round or from parents, its values are mutated. A normally distributed random number with mean 0 and standard deviation 0.3 is added to each one. A mutation will never cause the starting health or reproduction coefficient to go below 1, and will never cause the attack or defense to go below zero.

Score: Your score is the number of rounds you survive. Ties are broken by the amount of least health you had left at the end of any round before the last round. Scoring will be based off of taking your median run after running your code for a large number of times (to be determined, on the order of 100).

Controller: Currently written in python, available here: https://gist.github.com/prakol16/f0a306efd63a977a95c034b4b6e00ef1#file-darwin_main-py. To write your own class, extend the class Player and override the methods __init__ and get_attack

class ExamplePlayer(Player):
def __init__(self):
    # Should add up to 10
    super().__init__(attack=3, defense=0, regeneration=7)

def get_attack(self, enemies, round_num, nuke_recharge):
    if self.get_health() < 50 and nuke_recharge == 0:
        return [0]  # Nuke it!
    return [0, 1, 2]

Answer 7

Linear Chemistry

Input is a string representing a skeletal formula of a molecule, in a format similar to O=C-O-H. However as a lot of formulas contain carbon and hydrogen atoms, it is customary to skip them from the description and just signal their presence by only displaying the used bonds. We will call these atoms implicit atoms, while the ones that are shown explicitly in the formula explicit atoms.

Your job is to calculate the number of different atoms a specific skeletal formula contains.

The input is a one line string containing the following tokens:

• -, =, ≡ symbolizing the bonds between the atoms
• Any uppercase character followed by a number of lowercased characters symbolizing an atom of some sort (e.g. O, H, Br, Uub, etc.)

You have to output the number of different atoms this molecule contains in any sensible format.

Notes:

• You can omit specifying the number of atoms if there is only one in the molecule
• You may or may not merge the number of implicit and explicit atoms of C and H molecules (e.g. you can treat them as separate types).
• You can output the atoms in any order

For example for the input string -OH valid output can be:

• CH₃OH (preferred output)
• CH3OH
• CH4O
• H4O1C1
• {C:1,H:4,O:1}

Invalid outputs:

• CHHHOH (you have to merge the same type of atoms into one)
• CH2OH2 (you have to maintain the numbers for explicit and implicit C and H atoms properly if you didn't merge them)

You can use the following rules to parse the input:

• For every explicit atom present in the input there will be one atom in the output. E.g. OOHOBrUub is O₃H₁Br₁Uub₁
• Every bond token between two explicit atom tokens can be ignored. E.g. O-O, OO and O=O all mean the same thing: O₂
• Two bond tokens following each other, or a bond token at any end of the string means an implicit C molecule and some amount of H molecules. The amount of H molecules will be 4 minus the amount of dashes in the bond tokens (1 for -, 2 for = and 3 for ≡). E.g. O--O means O₂CH₂, O-=O means O₂CH and O==O/O-≡O both mean CO₂.
• You can always assume that there will be no invalid inputs where the number of implicit hydrogen atoms would be negative (e.g. ≡=, ≡≡, or =≡)

Examples:

-: C₂H₆
≡: C₂H₂
--: C₃H₈
==: C₃H₄
O==O: CO₂
-OH: CH₃OH (or CH₄O)
--OH: C₂H₅OH (or C₂H₆O)
-=-: C₄H₈
≡-≡: C₄H₂
=O≡-≡O=: C₄O₂H₄
Br-O-C-=Uub: BrOCCUubH (or BrOC₂UubH)

This is code golf, so shortest submission wins.

Answer 8

Let's play hide and seek.

The objective of this game is for the user to pick a spot on a grid (size given by user). For example, here is a 5x5 grid below.

--------------------------
| A1 |    |    |    |    |
|    |    |    |    |    | A
--------------------------
|    |    |    |    | B5 |
|    |    |    |    |    | B
--------------------------
|    | ME |    |    |    |
|    |    |    |    |    | C
--------------------------
|    | D2 |    |    |    |
|    |    |    |    |    | D
--------------------------
|    |    |    |    |    |
|    |    |    |    |    | E
--------------------------
  1    2    3     4    5

Each tile is identified by its cross section of letters and numbers, A1, D2, and B5 are shown above.

The user picks a random tile to hide in. I picked C2.

Now, you must build a program that will guess tiles.

If you are in the tile, you will respond with Y meaning the computer won.

Otherwise, you will give the direction from the guessed tile (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW). So if the computer guesses D3, you would input NW.

Let me show you an example of what the program should look like.

Grid?
5x5

Pick: E2

Guess: C3?
SW
Guess: D2?
S
Guess: E2?
Y

The scoring for this program: The program will be tested for three different scenarios using the grid sizes: 5x5, 10x10, 20x10

The program should be able to guess the correct square in the minimum number of guesses.

Then, lowest bytes wins.

Answer 9

How far is this list from sorted?

Input: sequence of whitespace-separated base-10 integers (on stdin).

Output: minimal count (base-10 integer) of numbers which have to be moved to a different position in order to sort the list (to stdout).

Example

Input

0 1 2 4 5 6 3 9 7 8

becomes sorted by moving at least two numbers ‒ 3 and 9.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

so the output would be 2.

• For already sorted (including constant) or empty lists, the result is 0.
• Shortest entry wins.

Answer 10

Route the phone calls

The challenge is to take the 3 ascii cities with 3 zones and (meta: in progress) and two phone numbers, you will return the cities with the phone lines that are used to connect the two calls replaced with a symbol of you choosing that is not used in the cities. (I will provide the cities at the end of this challenge post so you know).

Rules and notes

Everything must be the same except the phone lines (they will be the letter L)

Standard rules

The cities will be top down

Input

The cities shown as is without newlines (the cities will be connected together with phone lines :)

Two phone numbers (will be valid)in the format (xxxxxxxxxx)

Output

The cities with the connected calls

code-golf

Meta

This is going to be a big project. I am not done writing the challenge for sure. I need cities and will start to make some but if anyone has cities or makes any I would be happy, a website with cities would also be pretty chill.

Any advice welcome

Also I am posting in sandbox as I have to get off the computer :P

Answer 11

Find the Least Conforming Word

Given a list of words, find which word follows Zipf's Law the least.

For each distinct word w in this list, we know the following two properties of w in this list:

• Its frequency in the list (that is, the number of occurrences of it divided by the number of elements in the list), and
• Its frequency rank; that is, the number of words that occur more often than it.

In the case that two words have the same frequency, we assume the one that comes first when sorted by lexicographical order is first.

If we plot a large list of words with regular natural language distribution on a logarithmic graph with these two properties as the x and y values, we see that the points form nearly a straight line with slope of approximately -1. This is known as Zipf's Law.

The Challenge

You will be given a list of words l. Imagine each distinct word being plotted this way on a logarithmic graph. Then, the line k is the Linear Regression Line for the data set. Then, for every point p except the top-most ranking and most frequent point, find the vertical distance to the line k, and let this distance be d. Then, we scale the vertical distance so that points in the middle of the line will be the most heavily weighted. We do this by the following. We find the x coordinate of the mid-point of the line (let this be x). Then, half of the horizontal span of the line is w, the width. If we let px be the x coordinate of the point p, then we multiply d by 1 - (x - px) / w. This value is the score.

Input

The input will be an unordered list of words in any reasonable format you wish.

Output

The output will be a single word indicating which word conforms the least to the "standard".

Test Case

Input: a a a a a a a a a a b b b b b b b c c c c c d d
Output: b
See an explanation here

code-golf

Answer 12

Lock the Language!

This is a cops-and-robbers challenge.

Cop's Thread:

Challenge:

• Write a program that given two arbitrary integers adds those and prints them to STDOUT
• In this Thread you post the fully working solution including language
• The robbers will try to find any other language where an anagram of your source code will also add two integers
  • The language has to be a different one then yours
    • Different versions of the same language don't count as different languages
• After 5 days you're code is safe and can't be cracked any more
• If you're code is cracked you mark that in the header of the answer and add a link to the crack in the robbers thread

Winning criteria:

• The shortest safe program (in bytes) wins.
• code-golf

Robber's Thread

• The cops wrote an addition program you want to steal
• Since the cops encrypted it so you can't use the same language as the cop you stole the program from used, so you have to use an different language
  • Different versions of the same language are count as the same language
• You may use the cops character set in any order (anagram)

Winning criteria:

• The robber with the most cracked answers wins.

Answer 13

Comment polyglot

From an original idea by Digital Trauma

The challenge

This challenge requires you to write a polyglot which contains a comment in as many languages as possible.

The comment must say This is a polyglot comment.

The program must do nothing at all.

The winner is whoever writes the polyglot with most languages!

The rules

Your submission should consist of a full program whose source contains the text "This is a polyglot comment".

For each language of the polyglot, your code executed in that language should:

• Take no input
• Generate no errors.
• Produce either no output or the same output produced by the empty program in this language.
• Still comply to the previous rules if any part of This is a polyglot comment is removed.

Addictionally, there can be no superflous code. This means that it should not be possible to remove a subset of characters (outside of the comment) and still have a submission that complies to the previous rules for all the languages of the polyglot.

Ok? Ok. Now please wait a minute before running to see how many languages you can find that use # for comments, because we have one more rule:

We define a character of your source as required for a language if removing that character makes the program change its behavior for that language (this could mean for example changing its output or producing an error). The sets of required characters for each language must all be distinct.

Example submission

#This is a polyglot comment

A polyglot in Python and Brainfuck for a score of 2.

The set of required characters for Brainfuck is empty. This is perfectly valid, as long as no other set is empty.

The set of required characters for Python is composed of just the first #. We can't add Bash to this submission because it would share the same set.

That's all, good luck and have fun!

---

Sandbox question:

• Do you see any potential loopholes in the rules?
• Should I add some other factors to the score (like code length for example) or is the number of languages enough?
• Anything else I've missed?

Answer 14

Operation Permutations code-golf decision-problem

We're likely all familiar with the order of operations; the precedence rules that we use to govern basic arithmatic. Most schoolchildren are taught this order using an acronym such as "BODMAS", "BIDMAS", or "PEMDAS". There's no common consensus on the 'right' acronym to use, with the one that you learnt depending on the country you went to school in, or even the teacher who taught you. Your challenge is to determine the validity of an order of operations acronym (O3A), even if it's so unpronounceable that no-one would ever actually use it.

Challenge Specification

Input

Input for this program is guaranteed to be exactly six characters. Your program can require upper-case, require lower-case, or be case agnostic. You may accept this input in any manner that you please.

Each character is guaranteed to be one of the following: (B, P, I, O, E, D, M, A, S). Furthermore, each character is guaranteed to appear at most only once in the input.

The following characters correspond to the following operations:

| Characters | Operation      |
| ---------- | -------------- |
| (B, P)     | Brackets       |
| (I, O, E)  | Exponentiation |
| D          | Division       |
| M          | Multiplication |
| A          | Addition       |
| S          | Subtraction    |

Output

Your program must yield a truthy value for a valid O3A, and a falsy value for an invalid one. Your program is not expected to handle input not matching the above specification.

O3A Validity

The first character in a valid O3A must correspond to 'Brackets'. Likewise, the second character in a valid O3A must correspond to 'Exponentiation'. The next two characters must correspond to 'Division' and 'Multiplication', but either order is valid as these operations are on the same precedence level. The final two characters must correspond to 'Addition' and 'Subtraction', but again, either order is valid. Any other O3As are invalid.

Testing

Reference Implementation

The following Python 3 reference implementation is given for guidance. Note that while this reference implementation is case-agnostic, your program does not need to be.

def validate(acronym):
    acronym = acronym.upper()

    if acronym[0] not in {"B", "P"}:
        return False

    if acronym[1] not in {"I", "O", "E"}:
        return False

    if set(acronym[2:4]) != {"D", "M"}:
        return False

    if set(acronym[4:6]) != {"A", "S"}:
        return False

    return True

Test Input

BIDMAS => True
PEMDAS => True
PIDMSA => True
BOMDAS => True
BMIDAS => False
IBMDAS => False
BODAMS => False

Rules

• This is code-golf, so the shortest code wins counted in bytes.
• Standard rules and loopholes apply
• Check meta for consensus

---

Sandbox Notes

My worry with this challenge is that it would be so trivially regex-able in something like Retina that it wouldn't be fun. I'd like feedback from others about this before going live.

Answer 15

Haiku detector in Haiku:

I found a haiku-w detector problem, and a popularity-contest challenge for writing factorial in haiku, but not the combination. Let's fix that:

Input: a string consisting of alphanumeric characters, standard punctuation, and |'s, where the | is used to indicate where the syllable splits are, and newlines (to indicate where the line splits are).

Output: a Truthy value if the string consists of zero or more triplets of lines where the first and third line have 4 |'s and the second line has 6 |'s.

Examples:

The|quick|brown|fox|jumps
O|ver|the|la|zy|dog|while
the|cat|eats|goat|cheese

--> True

This|is|not|a|hai|ku

--> False

A|B|C|d|E
1|2|3|4|5|6|7
A|B|C|D|E
Oops

--> False

Scoring: 1 Point for each triplet (so a whitespace answer will automatically win with a score of 0; I'm open to suggestions on how to mitigate this); this is code golf so lowest score wins.

Determining if code is valid haiku: Must consist of lines of code consisting of 5/7/5 syllables (with an optional empty line in between triplets)

Numbers and Variable names are read as written in standard English. If you want to get fancy and use a word that can be read as different number of syllables (e.g. coop as in chicken coop vs coop as in the short form of cooperative that isn't always rendered using an umlaut), have at it.

Special characters:

  ( is either 2,3 or 4 syllables (paren, left paren, open paren)
  ) is either 2, or 3 syllables (paren, right paren, close paren)
  ! is 1 or 5 syllables (bang, not, or exclamation point)
  . is 1 (dot)
  # is 1 (hash or pound)
  $ is 2 or 3 (dollar or dollar sign)
  % is 2 or 3 (percent or percent sign)
  - is 1 or 2 (dash, hyphen, minus)
  + is 1 or 2 (plus, plus sign)
  ^ is 2 (caret or xor)
  & is 3 (ampersand)
  * is 1 (star)
  [ is 2,3,4,5 (bracket, open bracket, left bracket, square bracket, open square bracket, etc.)
  ], {, and } are likewise 2,3,4,5
  _ is 3 (underscore)
  = is 2 (equals)
  : is 2 (colon)
  ; is 4 (semicolon)
  > is 2 or 3 (greater or greater than)
  < is 2 or 3
  --> is either combination of two -'s and one > or 2 (arrow)
  , is 2 (comma)
  / is 1 or 3 (slash or forward slash)
  \ is 2 (backslash)
  | is 1 or 4 (pipe or vertical bar)
  ? is 2 or 3 (question or question mark)
  @ is 1 (at)
  ~ is 2 (squiggle or tilde)
  ` is 2 (backtick)
  ' is 1 or 3 (quote or single quote)
  " is 3 (double quote)

Note that for everything but quote, if you use the same symbol 2 (or more times), you can instead say double symbol (or triple or whatever), e.g. && can be either 5 or 6 syllables)

I think that's all the punctuation... other unprintable characters are banned unless you can give a compelling argument on how many syllables it should be (and if I missed any pronounciation alternatives or other punctuation, let me know)

Answer 16

Golf the Stack Exchange code block

The standard Stack Exchange code block button / hot key prepends 4 spaces to each line, unless they all begin with 4 spaces, in which case it removes them. Additionally, it avoids changing the first or last lines if they are empty. But why stop at the first or last lines? Markdown is quite happy if intervening empty lines remain empty. As this saves bytes, I want you to write as short a program (or function) as you can that follows this enhanced behaviour:

• All empty lines should remain unchanged
• If all other lines begin with 4 spaces, then remove 4 spaces from them
• Otherwise, prepend 4 spaces to each of them

This is code-golf, so the shortest program that breaks no standard loopholes wins.

Note that should your answer itself contain a blank line, you should ensure that there are no spaces on that line in your formatted code block.

Answer 17

Swipe over the keyboard

code-golf

(I'm not a native speaker so any good alternative for swipe is highly appreciated)

You have a keyboard in front of you and you swipe over the keyboard from left to right with your whole hand. Your task is to simulate the output. The keyboard is represented with 4 arrays (here is an example of a german keyboard layout, you are free to choose any other layout):

[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,ß,´]
[q,w,e,r,t,z,u,i,o,p,ü,+]
[a,s,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,ö,ä,#]
[<,y,x,c,v,b,n,m,,,.,-]

Now choose randomly one character of the first column [1,q,a,<]. Pop the chosen key and do the same with the newly created first column. For example the first key was q, the new first column will be [1,w,a,<]. The popped key will be printed out or skipped. Repeat it until your arrays are empty.

The rules are the following:

• You can represent the keyboard with 4 arrays matching the 4 rows on your keyboard. For example [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,ß,´] would be my first row (german keyboard layout). Choose the keyboard layout you want, but it has to include all letters and numbers
• There is no need to represent non-printable keys like tabulator, shift, backspace, ... so in general you won't hit the first and last column and the last row (you won't hit space too)
• Since you are swiping from left to right, the probability to hit a previously located key is 0. So if the key 5 is pressed, the keys 1-4 won't be pressed anymore.
• Each key needs to have a probability P!=0 to be pressed
• Each key needs to have a probability P!=0 to be skipped
• The rows are independent
• There is no input

Open questions

• Should I allow only one keyboard type?
• Are there still rules that need to be added?

Answer 18

CRC Collision

Your task: Accept a string (one could also include symbols in the string, does not have to be only alphabets and numbers) of any length as input, calculate 16bit CRC for the given string. Output a string of same length which gives you the exact same CRC sum.

Example:

Input Text: Hello World!
Caclculated CRC : 0xF444

Output Text (with same CRC): DW=9Mzk?7P4y

You may use in-built CRC libraries to calculate.

Shortest code that fulfills the requirement wins!

Answer 19

Display a fractal maze

Based on this Puzzling.SE question: Alice and the Fractal Hedge Maze.

Given a description of a maze as input, output a [graphical / ASCII-art ?] representation of the maze.

For the purpose of this challenge, all inner mazes are assumed to be smaller copies of the original maze. So a top-down view of the above maze would look like this:

Input:

Input will be given as a list of connections between different ports of the same level of the maze and the inner sub-mazes.

One list of connections for the above maze would be the following:

1,12,a5,a12

This is because, in the maze, ports 1 and 12 are connected to each other, and they are also connected to ports 5 and 12 of sub-maze A.

A full description of the above example maze would be the following:

a3      (note that a connection by itself means this is the starting point)
1,12,a5,a12
2,8,10,a9,c4
3,b1,b4
4,b5,b6
5,d4,d5
6,d8
7,b7,d10
9,c7,c11
11,a10
b8,d1,d3
b11,b12
c2,c12
d11,d12

Flexibility:

You may take each port like above or as a tuple with numbers instead of letters, such as using 0 for the outer maze and numbering the inner mazes sequentially. So the following would all be acceptable for a line:

2,8,10,a9,c4
[2,8,10,(1,9),(3,4)]
[2,8,10,('A',9),('C',4)]
[(0,2),(0,8),(0,10),(1,9),(3,4)]
[(0,2),(0,8),(0,10),(-1,9),(-3,4)]

The starting point will be by itself. You can take it in the list as a port by itself, or as a separate parameter. The starting position will always be an entrance to a sub-maze. Each port will be listed at most once in the input. Note that not all ports have to be listed, as there are some dead ends.

Output:

Output a representation of the maze given. Note that mazes may require bridging of paths (crossing without connection).

Note: graphical-output or ascii-art ?

code-golf maze

Answer 20

Which answer is correct?

I've posted an earlier version of this question already; but now hoping to refine here before correcting the original post. Thanks all in advance for any advise.

---

I saw this elegant logic puzzle on Mathematics:

Which answer in this list is the correct answer to this question?

 1. All of the below.
 2. None of the below.
 3. All of the above.
 4. One of the above.
 5. None of the above.
 6. None of the above.

One user submitted a nice answer in code (quoted below), which inspired this puzzle.

Task:

Write code which determines the answer to the above logic puzzle according to standard Code Golf rules (i.e. a working solution with the minimum number of characters wins).

The input should be a sequence (i.e. ordered list / array) with each item in that sequence representing one of the given statements. Each items in the list should hold 2 values: - the first representing All, One, or None. - the second representing above, or below.

The result should be a list/array of the indices of any correct answers.

The following test scenarios are considered invalid; i.e. your code would not be expected to handle such data:

• A statement is the first statement in the sequence and refers to the above, it evaluates to false.
• A statement is the last statement in teh sequence and refers to the below, it evaluates to false.

We should be optimistic about results. i.e. given the following, the program would return 1, 2:

1. all of the below
2. one of the above

When contradictions occur, neither statement is correct. i.e. the following would return a blank string.

1. none of the below
2. none of the above

Code for Referenced Answer

// gcc ImpredictivePropositionalLogic1.c -o ImpredictivePropositionalLogic1.exe -std=c99 -Wall -O3

/*
Which answer in this list is the correct answer to this question?

(a) All of the below.
(b) None of the below.
(c) All of the above.
(d) One of the above.
(e) None of the above.
(f) None of the above.
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#define iff(x, y) ((x)==(y))

int main() {
  printf("a b c d e f\n");
  for (int a = 0; a <= 1; a++)
  for (int b = 0; b <= 1; b++)
  for (int c = 0; c <= 1; c++)
  for (int d = 0; d <= 1; d++)
  for (int e = 0; e <= 1; e++)
  for (int f = 0; f <= 1; f++) {
    int Ra = iff(a, b && c && d && e && f);
    int Rb = iff(b, !c && !d && !e && !f);
    int Rc = iff(c, a && b);
    int Rd = iff(d, (a && !b && !c) || (!a && b && !c) || (!a && !b && c));
    int Re = iff(e, !a && !b && !c && !d);
    int Rf = iff(f, !a && !b && !c && !d && !e);

    int R = Ra && Rb && Rc && Rd && Re && Rf;
    if (R) printf("%d %d %d %d %d %d\n", a, b, c, d, e, f);
  }
  return 0;
}

Test Cases

To represent the conditions in these test cases I've used the following convention:

• [...] to represent the entire sequence
• (match,direction) to represent each item where match and direction have values:

Match:

• 0 - None of the
• 1 - One of the
• 2 - All of the

Direction:

• 0 - below
• 1 - above

1. The Original

[
    (2,0)  //all of the below
    ,(0,0) //none of the below
    ,(2,1) //all of the above
    ,(1,1) //one of the above
    ,(0,1) //none of the above
    ,(0,1) //none of the above
]

//expected answer is 5

2. Both

[
    (2,0)  //all of the below
    ,(1,1) //one of the above
]

//expected answer is 1, 2

3. Neither

[
    (0,0)  //none of the below
    ,(0,1) //none of the above
]

//expected answer is (nothing)

4. Simple

[
    (2,0)  //all of the below
    ,(0,1) //none of the above
]

//expected answer is 2

Answer 21

Help me discover myself!

Hola, People call me file. At any point of time, all I know is how people compile me. Some use gcc some use gpp and some Java and some even csc. I couldn't really figure out who I am with just this info!

All I can do for you to help me is show a snippet inside me for you to find out the programming language. If you couldn't find with the snippet(the snippet will not have any incomplete line of code), only then can I share how programmers compile me.

And yes, you are brilliant enough to find out the language in which the program in me is written!

I may have...

Example1:

Input1:

int main(){return 0;}

Output1:

c|cpp

Input2:

gpp

Output2: c++

or

Input2:

gcc

Output2:

c

Example 2:

Input1:

#include<iostream>
int main(){return 0;}

Output1:

c++

Example3:

Input1:

main(){}

Output1:

c

• the above example can't possibly be java because the mandatory return type for the method in java is missing.

Example4:

Input1:

#include<stdio.h>
main(){}

Output1:

c

Example5:

Input1:

class hola{public static void main(){}}

Output1:

java

Example6:

Input1:

class Hola{public static void Main(){}}

Output1:

c#

Oh yeah, I also know few things that might be helpful for you. The snippet that I'm allowed to share is only headers and the main function - first function that is called when program is executed.

And also, there are some conventions.

And then,

• c - return type for main is not mandatory, standard header is stdio.h
• c++ return type is mandatory, standard header is iosstream
• c# - Main is a title - first letter is caps!

Input format Any code snippet it is more than enough if your answer identifies the above given six example snippet.

Output format programming language in which the snippet possibly fits in.

This is code golf and hence shortest code in each language wins!

Answer 22

Generate a Voronoi Diagram

code-golf graphical-output

Challenge

Given a list of coordinates and colours of points, output a 300px by 300px Voronoi Diagram.

Winning

Shortest code in bytes wins.

To be expanded

Answer 23

Google Autocomplete Fun code-golfinternetstring

Your task is to create a program which, given an input string, will output the first Google autocomplete result for that search. The format of input/output is up to you.

Rules

1. Your program must take 1 input, a string, and output the top Google autocomplete/auto-fill suggestions result. The format of input/output is up to you. Just be sure to mention what your I/O format is.
2. Obviously, accessing the Internet is allowed.
3. URL shorteners (like bit.ly, TinyURL, etc.) are strictly disallowed. You should fetch your autocomplete results from this URL: http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?client=your_browser&q=your_query. You are allowed to assume any browser name for client. In the program I wrote, I assume Chrome. Any browser name or string should work.
4. Please provide an explanation of how your program works. It is not mandatory, but I strongly advise it.
5. All standard loopholes are strictly forbidden.

This is code-golf, so may the shortest code win and the best programmer prosper...

Answer 24

Calculate Call-Changes

Before learning to ring methods, novice bell-ringers usually first learn something called call-changes. This is basically a sequence of permutations (the changes), each one obtained from the previous by exchanging a pair of adjacent bells (the call).

The bells always begin in ascending pitch number order (which is actually descending pitch order). Each exchange (call) can be expressed in one of two different ways, depending on the whim of the conductor. Exchanges always use the bell's pitch number, regardless of the bell's current position.

1. The exchange can be expressed as a pair of adjacent bell numbers in sequence. The first of the pair is always immediately before the second of the pair. The two bells simply exchange places, so the first of the pair ends up immediately after the second of the pair.

2. • The exchange can be expressed as a bell number plus a second bell number which is two places before the first bell. The (unnamed) intervening bell and the first bell exchange places. This also results in the first input bell ending up immediately after the second input bell.
   • The above expression cannot be used to move a bell into first (lead) place, because there is no bell for it to end up after. You therefore need to accept an alternate way of expressing that the first two bells change places. Note that this must still refer to the pitch number of the bell in second place, but this might be achieved e.g. by having a sentinel value for the second bell, or by omitting it completely. (In real call-changes the call is "[number] lead!" rather than "[number] to [number]!".)

Your other input will be the number (not list) of bells in the sequence. You can assume that this will not be more than 9 (but supporting larger numbers may get you more upvotes). Here is a worked example showing the list of calls in both of the above formats and the desired output:

Call 1  Call 2  Output
(5 bells input  12345)
12      20*     21345
34      41      21435
14      42      24135
24      40*     42135
21      14      41235
41      10*     14235
42      21      12435
43      32      12345

*example representation.

Your program or function should output the result after each change. (Showing the initial permutation is permitted but not necessary.) Input and output can be any reasonable method, e.g. nested array of numbers or list of strings (note that if you use strings and want to support more than 9 bells then the next three bells are traditionally numbered 0, E and T). You can assume that all inputs follow the above pattern (or your custom representation for calling the seconds place bell into first place).

This is code-golf, so the shortest answer that breaks no standard loopholes wins!

Answer 25

Excel NORMSINV function

Implement the excel NORMSINV function in your favourite language, shortest code wins

Build in functions and standard loopholes are not allowed

Loss of precision is also not allowed

Reference C Implementation

/*
 * Original C++ implementation found at http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=10&threadid=38771
 * C# implementation found at http://weblogs.asp.net/esanchez/archive/2010/07/29/a-quick-and-dirty-implementation-of-excel-norminv-function-in-c.aspx
 *     Compute the quantile function for the normal distribution.
 *
 *     For small to moderate probabilities, algorithm referenced
 *     below is used to obtain an initial approximation which is
 *     polished with a final Newton step.
 *
 *     For very large arguments, an algorithm of Wichura is used.
 *
 *  REFERENCE
 *
 *     Beasley, J. D. and S. G. Springer (1977).
 *     Algorithm AS 111: The percentage points of the normal distribution,
 *     Applied Statistics, 26, 118-121.
 *
 *      Wichura, M.J. (1988).
 *      Algorithm AS 241: The Percentage Points of the Normal Distribution.
 *      Applied Statistics, 37, 477-484.
 */

#include <math.h>

double normsInv(double p, double mu, double sigma)
{
    if (p < 0 || p > 1)
    {
        printf("The probality p must be bigger than 0 and smaller than 1");
        exit(1);
    }
    if (sigma < 0)
    {
        printf("The standard deviation sigma must be positive");
        exit(1);
    }
    if (p == 0)
    {
        return -1e100;
    }
    if (p == 1)
    {
        return 1e100;
    }
    if (sigma == 0)
    {
        return mu;
    }

    double q, r, val;

    q = p - 0.5;

    /*-- use AS 241 --- */
    /* double ppnd16_(double *p, long *ifault)*/
    /*      ALGORITHM AS241  APPL. STATIST. (1988) VOL. 37, NO. 3
            Produces the normal deviate Z corresponding to a given lower
            tail area of P; Z is accurate to about 1 part in 10**16.
    */
    if (fabs(q) <= .425)
    {/* 0.075 <= p <= 0.925 */
        r = .180625 - q * q;
        val =
               q * (((((((r * 2509.0809287301226727 +
                          33430.575583588128105) * r + 67265.770927008700853) * r +
                        45921.953931549871457) * r + 13731.693765509461125) * r +
                      1971.5909503065514427) * r + 133.14166789178437745) * r +
                    3.387132872796366608)
               / (((((((r * 5226.495278852854561 +
                        28729.085735721942674) * r + 39307.89580009271061) * r +
                      21213.794301586595867) * r + 5394.1960214247511077) * r +
                    687.1870074920579083) * r + 42.313330701600911252) * r + 1);
    }
    else
    { /* closer than 0.075 from {0,1} boundary */

        /* r = min(p, 1-p) < 0.075 */
        if (q > 0)
            r = 1 - p;
        else
            r = p;

        r = sqrt(-log(r));
        /* r = sqrt(-log(r))  <==>  min(p, 1-p) = exp( - r^2 ) */

        if (r <= 5)
        { /* <==> min(p,1-p) >= exp(-25) ~= 1.3888e-11 */
            r += -1.6;
            val = (((((((r * 7.7454501427834140764e-4 +
                       .0227238449892691845833) * r + .24178072517745061177) *
                     r + 1.27045825245236838258) * r +
                    3.64784832476320460504) * r + 5.7694972214606914055) *
                  r + 4.6303378461565452959) * r +
                 1.42343711074968357734)
                / (((((((r *
                         1.05075007164441684324e-9 + 5.475938084995344946e-4) *
                        r + .0151986665636164571966) * r +
                       .14810397642748007459) * r + .68976733498510000455) *
                     r + 1.6763848301838038494) * r +
                    2.05319162663775882187) * r + 1);
        }
        else
        { /* very close to  0 or 1 */
            r += -5;
            val = (((((((r * 2.01033439929228813265e-7 +
                       2.71155556874348757815e-5) * r +
                      .0012426609473880784386) * r + .026532189526576123093) *
                    r + .29656057182850489123) * r +
                   1.7848265399172913358) * r + 5.4637849111641143699) *
                 r + 6.6579046435011037772)
                / (((((((r *
                         2.04426310338993978564e-15 + 1.4215117583164458887e-7) *
                        r + 1.8463183175100546818e-5) * r +
                       7.868691311456132591e-4) * r + .0148753612908506148525)
                     * r + .13692988092273580531) * r +
                    .59983220655588793769) * r + 1);
        }

        if (q < 0.0)
        {
            val = -val;
        }
    }

    return mu + sigma * val;
}

Answer 26

Find the Calling Pattern

number function cops-and-robbers

I've written a program to add two numbers a and b:

f=lambda:lambda a:lambda b:lambda:a+b

This has a very specific calling pattern. It must be called as:

f()(a)(b)()

In this case, it was fairly clear, but sometimes the calling pattern can be more complicated:

f(a,None)()("","","")([0,0],b)(())()

In essence, this challenge is about the cops trying to obfuscate this calling pattern, and the robbers trying to find it.

Rules for Cops:

Calling patterns:

• The function must only need to be called up to 5 times to give the answer.
• For the purposes of this challenge, a false-unit is None, "", [], 0, or ().
• A valid argument to the curried function in the calling pattern is either:
  • a false-unit,
  • a list or tuple containing one to five false units, or
  • one of the actual numbers to be added (represented by a and b).
• Each time it is called, it should only take up to five arguments.
• The calling pattern can change based on what arguments are passed to it. Be creative!
• a and b must each appear once in the calling pattern.

Examples of valid calling patterns:

f(a,b)
f("",a)(b,[0,0])
f(a)("",(),[None],[0,()])(b)()

Examples of invalid calling patterns:

f(a,b,0,0,"",[]) # too many arguments
f(a,[(),[],"",(),[],""])(b) # too many elements in [(),[],"",(),[],""]
f(a) # b is not passed
f([a,b]) # a and b may not be contained in a list
f((0,[None,""]),a)(b) # [None,""] is not a false-unit

For your submission, you must post a lambda that, when called according to your calling pattern, evaluates to a + b.

You can assume that a and b are both positive and that a + b < 2147483647 (the highest signed 32-bit integer).

Your submission is safe if it is not cracked by a robber in one week.

Rules for Robbers

To crack a cop's submission, you must post a submission which takes two inputs and returns a string showing how to call the cop's submission to coerce it into adding your two inputs. For example, if this was a cop's submission:

lambda:lambda x,z:lambda y:x+(y*(z==0))

This could be your crack:

lambda a, b: "f()(%s, 0)(%s)" % (a, b)

Sandbox Notes

• Is there anything I should clarify? Should I add more examples?
• Should I try to make this language agnostic or restrict it to Python?
• Is this too weighted towards one side (is it too easy for the cops or the robbers?)
• Are there any additional restrictions that could make it more fair?

Answer 27

To Polar and Back

code-golf math geometry

Background

There are 2 main ways to represent a single point on a plane:

• in Cartesian form, with an x and y value,
• and in Polar form, with an angle and a magnitude

For example, the point (5, 5) can also be represented with the angle π / 4 and magnitude 5 * sqrt(2)

In this challenge, we will be using radians, and not degrees.

Conversion

This challenge deals with the mapping of Polar form onto a Cartesian grid, by using the angle as the x value, and the magnitude as the y value.

For example, to change the point (sqrt(3), 1) into Polar form and back, we first convert it into polar form, with an angle of π / 6 and magnitude of 2.

Then, these values are mapped into Cartesian form, yielding the Cartesian point (π/6, 2).

The Challenge

Create a program or function that, given a rectangle in Cartesian form, outputs it's area after it has been converted to Polar form and mapped back onto the Cartesian plane by equating angle with x and magnitude with y.

Input

The input will be a rectangle in Cartesian form whose legs are parallel to the x and y axes. Also, all 4 corners will be in the first quadrant, meaning that all x and y values will be strictly positive.

This means that you may take

• The Cartesian coordinates of all 4 corners
• The Cartesian coordinates of opposite corners
• The Cartesian coordinates of one corner, and a width and height value

or some other reasonable form, such as a rectangle object. The important thing is that you don't take Polar coordinates as input.

You can take the points or values in any order you choose.

Please include the input format you used in your answer.

Output

Output will be a single, decimal number rounded to at least the hundredth's place (2 digits after the decimal).

Explained Example

Note: For the sake of clarity, I will use symbols like π or sqrt(3) instead of their decimal equivalents.

Also keep in mind that this is probably one of many ways to go about this problem, and it doesn't matter what method you use to find the area as long as you do. This example is mostly to explain the above by showing it in action.

Anyways, here is out input, in the form of 4 points:

(1, sqrt(3)), (4, sqrt(3)), (1, 1), (4, 1)

First, we might convert each point into polar form, and map that back onto the Cartesian plane:

(x, y)       -> (angle, magnitude)
(1, sqrt(3)) -> (π/3, 2)
(4, sqrt(3)) -> (arctan(sqrt(3)/4), sqrt(19))
(1, 1)       -> (π/4, sqrt(2))
(4, 1)       -> (arctan(1/4), sqrt(17))

This should be relatively easy using trigonometry and the Pythagorean theorem.

These new Cartesian points give us the corners of our new shape, which looks something like this:

Notice that the sides are not straight, meaning you will have to figure out how to get the equations for the sides as well as how to find the area. I'll leave that up to you.

In any case, the area of this shape is about 0.81810689, but you only need to print 0.82 (without the leading 0, if you prefer).

Other Test Cases

The input will be taken in the form of 4 points, in reading order (left to right, then top to bottom)

input -> output
(1, 1.732), (4, 1.732), (1, 1), (4, 1) -> 0.82

Sandbox: I will add more test cases later - any suggestions about certain edge cases I should include would be helpful.

Scoring

This is code-golf, so the shortest answer in bytes wins.

Standard loopholes, as always, apply.

Sandbox

• Any name ideas?
• Any tags I should add/remove?
• Suggestions/help with creating test cases?
• Is the explanation sufficient?
• Should I change the accuracy requirement to 3 digits after the decimal point, or would that be too hard?

Thanks!

Answer 28

Electron Configurations: Orbitals

code-golf chemistry

Challenge

Given an elements atomic number as input, output its short electronic configuration.

Explanation

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/properties/elstructs.html

To come

Examples

Sodium: 11

[Ne] 3s1

Hydrogen: 1

1s1

Helium: 2

1s2 

or

[He]

Vanadium: 23

[Ar] 4s2 3d3

Selenium: 34

[Ar] 4s2 3d10 4p4

Winning

Shortest code in bytes wins

Answer 29

Variably Incremented Chained Ranges code-golf

Your task will be, given a well-formed input string s, to parse it as a range, with special properties:

1. A traditional range is defined as a..b = [a, a+1, .., b-1, b].
2. An incremental range is an extension of the traditional range in the format a.c.b.
   • The format above uses a and b in the traditional sense, but it will use c as the step.
   • That is to say 1.2.5 = [1,3,5] and a.c.b = [a, a+c, .., b iff b-a is divisble by c]
   • This means that 0.2.5 = [0, 2, 4] because b-a % c != 0.
3. The ranges are chain-able, meaning that a..b..c..d..e..f..g..h..i is valid.
   • Always should be handled left-to-right.
   • The chain should always be continued from the end of the last range.
   • 0.2.5..3 is not [0,2,4,5,4,3] it is [0,2,4,3].
4. The format of the range may be a.c.b or a..b, absence of c means c = 1.

I & O Gaurantees

• c <= difference(b, a), you will never see something like 1.100.2.
• a and b are positive integers or 0, this makes crap easier
• Notice, however, that neither a > b nor a < b are guaranteed, both are acceptable.
• a, b and c will always be integer values, floats aren't supported.

This is code-golfsequence, lowest byte count wins.

Answer 30

Give counterexamples to thesis that prime numbers are finite.

It is known since antiquity that there are infinite prime numbers, first proved by Euclid. An unorthodox yet brief formulation of this proof was recently posted on MathExchange:

There are infinitely many primes, if not, multiply all and add 1.

Challenge

Given a prime number N, output a prime number created by multiplying it with all lower primes and adding one, i. e. (2*3*5*...*N) + 1. In other words, if someone claimed that N is the largest finite number, you have to give a counterexample Euclid would likely compute to prove them false.

You don't have to consider input number that is not a prime.

Your representation of a number must have a range of 32-bit signed integers or larger.

You can use floating point representation as long as your code uses int-specific operations (e.g. no double-specific bit-fu).

Shortest code wins, standard loopholes forbidden. You may use a lookup table of primes.

Example Input and Output

2 → 3          // because             2 + 1 = 3
3 → 7          // because           3*2 + 1 = 7
5 → 31         // because         5*3*2 + 1 = 31
13 → 30031     // because 13*11*7*5*3*2 + 1 = 30031
31 → 223092871 // (largest possible output within `int32` range)

Note

This is very similar to, yet not identical with A006862: your solution must output a number belonging to that sequence. The difference is that your solution must work for inputs that are primes, while A006862 recognizes any natural number (including 0).

If your solution is function f(), the following equivalence must be true:

A006862(n) = M <=> f(A000040(n)) = M

A000040 is the sequence of primes, therefore A000040(n) can be read as "n-th prime number".