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.

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Answer 1

Raindrops are falling on my... glasses?

Answer 2

The alphabet - my way

Your pointy-haired boss gives you a list of words and tells you to sort them. So you give him back a sorted list. "Wrong!" he says. "I want them sorted according to MY alphabet..."

Challenge

Given a new ordering of the alphabet and a list of words, sort the words according to that new alphabet ordering.

The new ordering is given as a 26-character string, guaranteed to contain all letter of the alphabet exactly once, in lower case.

All words in the list of words will be made up of lower case letters only -- no capital letters or punctuation. There will be no repeat words.

If there is a word in the list that is the prefix of another word, then the shorter (prefix) word should appear first in the sorting. For example, "golf" should appear before "golfing".

Examples

Example 1

Input:

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm
apple
banana
currant
dragonfruit
elderberry
fejoia

Output:

elderberry
apple
dragonfruit
fejoia
currant
banana

Example 2

Input:

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm
uranium
plutonium
uranus
pluto
polonium

Output:

uranus
uranium
polonium
pluto
plutonium

Example 3

Input:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
four
score
and
seven
years
ago

Output:

ago
and
four
score
seven
years

Answer 3

Print a shuffled deck of cards

Answer 4

Title

code-challenge number

---

Challenge

In your language of choice, write 25 programs, functions, or snippets that output or return the integers 1 through 25, inclusive. However, the goal is to simultaneously minimize the number of distinct chars used and the length of the code.

Scoring

This is a variation on code-golf: If your 25 entries have N distinct characters and a total length of L, your score is N × (L + N). The submission with the lowest score wins.

Example

Say the challenge only went up to 10, and your ten snippets were:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

That's 11 bytes total, and 10 distinct chars; therefore, your final score would be 10 × (11 + 10) = 210.

Now, if your snippets were:

1
1+1
1+1+1
1+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1

That's 100 bytes total, and 2 distinct characters (+ and 1); thus, the final score is 2 × (100 + 2) = 204, a small improvement over the literal numbers.

One last example. If your snippets were:

1
-~1
1-~1
-~1-~1
1-~1-~1
-~1-~1-~1
11-1-1-1-1
11-1-1-1
11-1-1
11-1

That's 58 bytes total, and 3 distinct chars (-, ~, 1); therefore, your final score would be 3 × (58 + 3) = 183, an improvement over both.

Rules

• Each output may be a string of digits rather than a literal number.
• Each output may have trailing decimals, as long as they are all 0s (e.g. 1.000 is allowed, but 1.000001 is not).

---

Meta

• Is 25 a good number? I originally had it at 100, but that seems a little tedious.
• Will the scoring system work well enough?
• Is this even a good idea?
• Title and tag suggestions?

Answer 5

Compare string repetitiveness code-challenge decision-problem

Given two strings, decide which one is more repetitive. This is the string whose most common character appears more often in it. If these are equal, then tiebreak by counting their respective second most common characters, and so on. Once a string's distinct characters have been exhausted, all further counts are zero.

Give one consistent output if the first string is more repetitive, and a different consistent output if the second one is. You will never be given a complete tie.

You may assume input strings will be non-empty and use only ASCII characters.

Scoring: Your code's score is its repetitiveness, with comparing lower being better. Put in your header the counts of the top 3 most common characters, and the full frequency list in your body.

Test cases:

TODO

Answer 6

Range without Range Builtin

Challenge

Given an integer y where y > 0, output a list of in some reasonable format that contains every integer in increasing order up to but not including y, without using any builtin that generates a range of any sort.

If your language has a feature whose specification uses a range, that is not allowed (for example, you cannot use the map quick in Jelly on a single integer because that maps over the range). You can assume that y will not exceed your program's capacity for integers, but it must be able to theoretically work on any integer given no memory, time, or otherwise language constraints.

A format is reasonable for a list a = [a0, a1, ..., an] if and only if there exists a string x, a string y, and a non-empty string z such that the output is x + z.join(a) + y.

code-golf

Answer 7

Fence Matrix

code-golf

Given a positive integer n, output the 2n+1 x 2n+1 "fence"-matrix

0  1  0  1  ...  0 
1  2  1  2  ...  1
0  1  0  1  ...  0 
1  2  1  2  ...  1 
⋮   ⋮  ⋮   ⋮       ⋮  
0  1  0  1  ...  0 

Alternatively you can also return a nested array or print a string (even with other entry delimiters than spaces or none at all) or output a raster image where each entry is represented by one pixel.

Examples

n = 1
0  1  0
1  2  1
0  1  0

n = 2
0  1  0  1  0
1  2  1  2  1
0  1  0  1  0
1  2  1  2  1
0  1  0  1  0

Answer 8

Anyone who would like may post this challenge to main. Just give credit to @Lordofdark.

How long will I sleep

You need to go to bed, but what you need more is to know how long you will sleep until your alarm rings.

Your task

Write a program or function that takes a time (hours and minutes) as input, and outputs the number of hours and minutes until the next occurence of this time.

Rules

• In this challenge every clock in 24h format.
• You must always get the current time for the same timezone; you can assume the input is in this timezone

Input

The input time must be in hours and minutes in any convenient 24h format for your language.
Hours and minutes must always be separated by at least one character

Valid inputs for 8h30:
"8h30"
8H30M
8,30
8 30
[8,30]
...

Invalid inputs for 8h30:
8.5
830
510min

Ouptut

The output is the difference between current time and the next occurrence of the input time (it can only be today or tomorrow).

The same formatting rules apply : hours and minutes separated by at least one character an in 24h format.

Note that the output will always be between 0h00 and 23h59

Examples :

If it is currently 20h10 :

7h30 -> 11h20m
20h -> 23h50m
21h -> 0h50m

Challenge

This is code-golf, so the shortest answer in bytes wins. Standard loopholes are prohibited

Answer 9

This message is open for anyone to adopt and post to main. For more details, see the chat room or meta post.

Visualized Tree of 3n+1 Conjecture

ascii-art math code-golf

Originally by @KeyuGan. Thanks for letting me use this!

Introduction

Probably you are already familiar with 3n+1 conjecture (aka Collatz conjecture). As is stated in this golfing problem:

• Start with an integer n > 1.
• Repeat the following steps:
  • If n is even, divide it by 2.
  • If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1.

And it is proven that for all positive integers up to 5 * 2⁶⁰, or about 5764000000000000000, n will eventually reach 1.

It is easy to draw a chain of the whole process for an integer (e.g. for 5, the chain is 1<-2<-4<-8<-16<-5).

Task Description

You are asked to print a string of a visualized 3n+1 tree of all chains resulting from positive integers from 2 to n, containing new lines if necessary.

Input and Output

There is only one input n, which can be read from stdin, be a function parameter or from any external sources.

You can safely assume input is valid and does not exceed your language's processing ability. However, your code should be able to deal with inputs of 2 - 446. Under such circumstances, the biggest number involved is 13120.

[Sandbox note: Is 446 a proper minimum ? It turns out to be the largest number in which the biggest number involves is less than 32767]

The output is flexible, as long as:

• It is a textfile, or a string, or an array of characters, or an array of lines.
• It contains only 0-9, -, |, <, >, ^, v, spaces or new lines, where <, >, ^, v are for arrows, -, | are for lines.
• Not hardcoded
• Correctly visualized and in proper directions (for instance, 1->2->4->8->16->5 and 1-2-4-8-16-5 are not accepted.)
• All numbers included in the output occur exactly once.
• All leaves of the visualized tree should lie in the range of 2 ~ n, that is, all numbers in the output must be necessary for the result.
• the destination of every chain is 1

Besides, the output should meet the following formatting criterion:

• A number should be arranged horizontally and connected.
• There should not be horizontally-adjancent digits from different numbers. For instance, in the following example, 17<34 23<46 is OK, while 17<3423<46 is not. Space(s) should be put between the two numbers under this circumstance.
• There should not be vertically-adjancent digits as well.
• There should not be zero(es) before a number (such as 0016).
• There should be only one arrow for a line.
• The line between two numbers must be straight.
• As is demonstrated in output, - and | can be omitted if not neccessary.
• Lines should not be crossed. A solution without crossed lines is proved to be available. A simple explaination is: Thinking in reverse, you can start from integer x, and draw 2x and (x-1)/3 (if result is odd) following x, and repeat the process for every new number. Stop when you have all required integers from 2 ~ n in the graph and erase all unneccessary numbers.
• You can only draw a line onto and from a number directly, that is, the arrow of the line must be pointing at a digit. e.g. |<--, ^<--, |-- and ^-- are not accepted.
• The direction of arrows and lines must be correct. e.g. ^- and <| are not accepted.
• There should not be spaces between arrow and number.
• There should not be spaces between arrows and lines, neither in lines.

[Sandbox note: Tell me plz if you come up with other loopholes.]

Output is assumed to be printed in a monospaced font (all characters have same width).

Sample

Input

15

Possible Output 1

1<2<4<8<16
         ^
         5<10<20<40<80<160
           ^     ^     ^
           3<6<12|     53<106
                 |        ^
                 13<26<52 35<70
                       ^     ^
                       17<34 23<46
                          ^     ^
                          11<22 15
                             ^
                             7<14<28
                                  ^
                                  9

Possible Output 2

                   15
                   v
                   46
                   v
                   23
                   v
                   70
                   v
                   35
                   v
                   106
                   v
                   53
                   v
                   160
                   v
                   80
                   v
1<2<4<8<16<5<10<20<40<13<26<52<17<34<11<22<7<14<28<9
             ^
             3
             ^
             6
             ^
             12

Possible Output 3

1<2<4<8<16<5     80<160<53<106<35<70<23<46<15
           ^     v
    12>6>3>10<20<40<13<26<52<17<34<11<22<7<14<28<9

Scoring

Your answer should include verifiable output of input 42, without a violation to output requirements. And you should verify your answers with different answers on this page: TBD

[Sandbox note: I will provide a js checker on my site to validate an output.]

Among all accepted codes, shortest code wins.

Answer 10

Perfect Hash Generator

Given N words you are to generate a perfect hash function (ala gperf). A perfect hash function for a set of strings is a hash function with no collisions. An additional condition is that the range of the generated hash function must be [0...O(N)] (i.e. at most a constant times larger than N). You can use any language for the generated function.

Can we get some feedback on this old post? I'm wondering if it is possible to avoid the obvious loophole of a cat program.

Answer 11

This message is open for anyone to adopt and post to main. For more details, see the chat room or meta post.

Find the mines!

Tags: code-challenge algorithm

You are a mine remover. Your job is to find all mines on a field, without a mine explodes. So, you write an application that can find the mines carefully.

The input

The input can either be provided through command line arguments or through STDIN (tell what you use in your submission). The input items are separated by commas.

The input looks like this:

<current step (zero-based)>,<mine count>,<field width>,<field height>,<field data>

The field data is like a Minesweeper field. Rows in the field data are separated by semicolons, columns are separated by nothing, as each column is just one character. Here are the characters you can get:

• X This means that you don't yet know what's there, the real data is still hidden. At the start, you get a field full of Xs.
• / This means that there is nothing on that location.
• <number> Specifies the count of mines around the location of the number.
• F This is marked by a flag by you.
• ? This got a question mark from you. There might be a mine on it, but you are not sure. This is just used as a reminder for you, it doesn't mean something specific to the controller.

Example input:

2,1,3,3,XX1;X1X;XXX

That input means that it's currently your third step, there is one mine, the field is 3x3, and the field looks like:

X X 1
X 1 X
X X X

The output

The output consists of 4 parts: the X of which you want to see the data (like a click in Minesweeper), the location on which you want to put a flag mark, the location on which you want to put a question mark and a sign, used to let the controller know whether you are finished or not (0 for not finished, 1 for finished). Locations are written as X;Y, zero-based. If there is something you don't want to do, output -1. You can also remove flags/question marks using the same way.

Example output:

4;3,-1,3;3

Specifications

• If your first output data is the location of a mine, you hit the mine and you die, but you'll still get a score.
• If you select a X which hides an empty location (/), all adjacent empty fields (and their borders, which are numbers) will be revealed.
• For every step, your program is executed again with the updated arguments.
• When looking for mines, you are allowed to have more flags than the amount of mines. Only if you finish, the amount of flags must not be more than the amount of mines. If the amount of flags is greater than the amount of mines, your submission is disqualified (for every test!) and excluded from the scoreboard.

Testing

When I test your submission, I'll run 100 tests on every submission, with randomly generated fields, which I created using a program that I'll write after I got some feedback. Every submission gets the same test fields, so it's fair. Test fields look like this:

• 10 tests with a 10x10 field and 10 mines.
• 10 tests with a 10x10 field and 12 mines.
• 10 tests with a 12x12 field and 14 mines.
• 10 tests with a 15x10 field and 16 mines.
• 10 tests with a 15x15 field and 35 mines.
• 10 tests with a 20x20 field and 40 mines.
• 10 tests with a 25x25 field and 50 mines.
• 10 tests with a 25x25 field and 60 mines.
• 10 tests with a 50x50 field and 100 mines.
• 10 tests with a 50x50 field and 125 mines.

Scoring

You get 10 points for every mine you find, you lose 5 points if you think there is a mine somewhere when there is none and you lose 2 points for every mine you missed. The scoring is always the same, it doesn't matter whether you finish or die. The highest score wins.

In case of a tie, the count of steps is a tie breaker.

Controller

I'll start working on this after I got some feedback.

Answer 12

Inspired by lifecompetes.com

Multiplayer Game of Life (GOL)

There are n players that play the Game of Life (standard rules) on an 50 x 50 grid. (Size, border conditions? Toroidal, Absorbing, Mirroring?)

Before first GOL-Step

When the game starts, each player has 12 cells that he can place anywhere he want as long as they do not overlap. Before the first GOL-step occures every player has to place 6 cells. If two players place their cell on the same spot no cell wil be placed an thei cells will remain in each players bank.

During game

In each GOL-Step, each player can place as many new cell on the grid as he has in his bank. If two or more players want to place a cell on the same spot, no cell will be placed there (the cells will remain in each players bank). Every six GOL-steps all the players who have less that 12 cells in their bank will get a new cell in their bank.

Goal

The goal is achieving the maximum number of cells on the grid during 1000 GOL-steps.

How to participate

Each participant has to write a javascript function of the following form (multiple return statements allowed.)

function my_bots_name(field, bank, golstep){
  /* your code */
  return p;
}

Where p is a 2d array of points [[x1,y1],[x2,y2],[x3,y3],...] that the player wants to set. field contains a 2d array of the GOL grid, bank indicates the number of cells in the player's bank, and golstep is the index of the current GOL step (golstep == 0 before the first GOL-step occurs). The function may not the global variables and cannot access Math.random() or Date(). In field the empty cells will be set to 0, the own cells will be set to 2 and the other player's cells will be set to 1. (You will not be able to distinguish between various other players.)

The winner will be determined with a game that contains all valid submissions after one week after the first submission.

TODO

The exact environment will be provided so everyone can test the own function before the official runs.

• What size of the grid is appropriate? (dependent on number of players?)
• How many steps should be computed?
• What border conditions should be chosen?
• Is the restriction of Math.random() and Date() apropriate? (The idea was that the games will be the same no matter of who/when they will be run. (Deterministic) )

Answer 13

This message is open for anyone to adopt and post to main. For more details, see the chat room or meta post.

Edit: I'll have to clarify the optional features and there may be more. Essential I want to have the basic features covered, and if anything beyond gets implemented because it saves characters that is okay, but not required.

Edit: Updated but still working on it. Will definitely include edge cases and more examples as test cases.

Edit: It might be cool to have this implemented as a function, and then have some follow up questions where you are allowed to call the function created here while only counting the function call as characters, and not the contents.

Still working on the specifics, but getting it the idea out there.

---

2-Dimensional Regex

Given a 2-Dimensional regex and a block of text, do a match, a single search and replace or a global search and replace depending on the input.

Implement this as a function. The input should be two arguments to the function. The first is the regex, and the second argument is the string to match. The output should be a truthy or falsey value when doing a match, or the string when doing a search and replace.

---

Match

Input:

/aaa/
/bbb/
/ccc/

and

aaaab
dbbba
ecccc

Output:

A truthy value

---

Single Search and Replace

Replace the first instance of the match. The search order is the match that includes the top most character. If multiple matches end up with the top-most character on the same line, then include the left-most match.

Input:

s/bb/cc/
 /bb/cc/

and

abbaabba
bbbaabba
bbbaaaaa

Output:

accaabba
bccaabba
bbbaaaaa

---

Global Search and Replace

Replace all occurrences of the match. Matches do not overlap, and you use the same search order as the single search and replace.

Input:

s/bb/cc/
 /bb/cc/

and

abbaabba
bbbaabba
bbbaaaaa

Output:

accaacca
bccaacca
bbbaaaaa

Another example:

Input:

s/aba/bbb/
 /aba/aba/
 /aba/bbb/g

and

aaaabaaaa
  aabaababa
aababaababa
aabaaabbaba
 aba

Output:

aaabbbaaa
  aabaabbbb
aabbbbababa
aabaaabbbbb
 aba

---

Rules

• Only ASCII characters 32 through 126 are valid.
• Character classes are valid, [a-c4-6] would match an a,b, c, 4, 5, or 6. And [b?7] matches one b, one ?, or one 7.
• . matches any character.
• Use \ to escape there special characters to match their literal character instead of their special meaning: {}[]/\.?*.
• a? matches 0 or 1 a's.
• b+ matches 1 or more b's.
• c* matches 0 or more c's.
• b{2} matches 2 b's. Ranges such as {2,5} to match 2 to 5 b's is optional.
• g flag replaces all of the occurrences, without it only the first occurrence would be replaced. This flag is optional.

Optional features:

• Capture groups are optional. Please specify whether to use () or \(\) to match literal parenthesis.
• Grouping such as (ab)+ matching all of abababab.

Answer 14

Sandbox

This will be my first kolmogorov-complexity submission, does this question fall under that category?

Is the question clear enough?

Is it too trivial?

Problem

Given no input write a program or a function that outputs or returns the following string:

(<(<>(<>.(<>.<(<>.<>(<>.<>)<>.<>)>.<>).<>)<>)>)

Rules

• Shortest program wins.
• Trailing whitespace allowed.
• Trailing newlines allowed.
• Unused parameters for functions allowed.

Answer 15

Implement Nopfunge

Background

Nopfunge is a very simple Befunge derivative, with no stack and no real form of data storage; all it has is an instruction pointer and five commands ("turn north", "turn south", "turn east", "turn west", "continue in same direction"). However, what it does have is a program that repeats forever in two dimensions, which turns out to be enough to make it Turing complete.

The task

Your program must take, as input, four 2D arrays of characters, a, b, c, and d, via any reasonable means. Each of these will have the same dimensions, and they will be rectangular (although not necessarily square). (Note: This is a simplification from the actual syntax of Nopfunge, but is still just as Turing-complete.)

The program will then conceptually work on an infinite array formed out of sub-arrays identical to the inputs, formed by placing a in the top left corner, b along the top edge, c along the left edge, and d everywhere else, like this:

abbbbbbb …
cddddddd …
cddddddd …
cddddddd …

⫶⫶⫶⫶⫶⫶⫶

(Note that because you can't assume your language can do infinite work in finite time, you won't be able to actually represent the compressed array in memory, so you won't be able to calculate the value at a particular coordinate pair in advance; rather, you'll have to calculate it lazily and/or every time it's needed.)

Then simulate the progress of a Nopfunge program on this array. Specifically, there's an instruction pointer that has a position on the array, and a direction; it starts at the top-left corner, going to the right. Repeatedly, run the command specified by the character at the instruction pointer:

• >: Move the instruction pointer one position to the right; it now points right
• <: Move the instruction pointer one position to the left; it now points left
• ^: Move the instruction pointer one position upwards; it now points up
• v: Move the instruction pointer one position downwards; it now points down
• (space): Move the instruction pointer one position in its current direction

Should the instruction pointer ever attempt to move outside its infinite array (by moving above the top edge or to the left of the left edge), your program should exit. If the instruction pointer never attempts to move outside its infinite array, the program should never exit. (Or in other words, the task is to halt if and only if the Nopfunge program does.)

Clarifications

• You can input the arrays as arrays of character codes (i.e. integers) rather than characters if you wish, but if you do, they must use the ASCII/Unicode encodings, 62 60 94 118 32 for > < ^ v .
• Your program can do anything if the input arrays aren't all the same size or aren't rectangular.
• You may take additional inputs for the dimensions (width and height) of the input arrays, if you wish.
• It doesn't matter what (if anything) your program outputs; all that matters is whether or not it halts.

Victory condition

This is code-golf, so shorter programs (in bytes) are considered to have a better score.

Sandbox questions

• Is the specification easy to understand and unambiguous?

• Is this the best possible input format? I wanted to avoid the secondary task of having to parse Nopfunge's input format (which uses = and ; to split one array into the four given here), but am not sure whether this format or that one is more convenient for solving the task.

Answer 16

Reindent Java/C/C++/etc. code

Write a program that adds or removes whitespace to format code nicely. Rules for what the code should look like when you're done:

• No line should contain more than one of { and }.
• A { should always be the last thing on a line.
• A } should always be the only thing on a line (besides whitespace that comes before it).
• The amount of whitespace in front of each line should be a fixed multiple of the current nesting count. (You can use any amount of indentation you want, as long as it doesn't change.)
• No whitespace should be inserted or removed that doesn't contribute to satisfying one of these rules.

The nesting count for the first line is 0. The nesting count of any other line is the nesting count of the previous line, plus one if the previous line contains a {, minus one if the current line contains a }.

{ and } inside string literals and comments don't count in the above rules. A string literal is text enclosed in single or double quotes, where single or double quotes with a backslash before them aren't interpreted as the end of the string literal. A comment is text enclosed in /* and */, or text going from // to the end of the line. /* */ comments can be nested.

For example, it should reformat this:

    main() {printf("Hello!"); // I don't care about the world...
        }

into this:

main() {
    printf("Hello!"); // I don't care about the world...
}

code-golf

Answer 17

RoboCops and Robbers

A while ago we made some code to golf brain-flak for us. Eventually the code got so good that us humans could no longer compete against it.

Now the code has turned against it and its your job to stop it. You need to out golf the robots. They've already golfed all the numbers so you need to write some Brain-Flak code that pushes a positive number to the stack, but is shorter than the code produced by these two bots:

• The Python, This bot eats numbers for breakfast and caches them for lunch, it still is the top scoring bot on the challenge and its coming for you.

• The Number Cruncher, based on Neil's top scoring Perl answer, made from boiling hot JavaScript and raw HTML this bot takes no prisoners.

Since we need to stop these rampaging robots as soon as possible you need to come up with the smallest number you can to beat them.

Rules

• You must write a program to push a number to the stack in Brain-Flak.

• It must be shorter than the code produced by both of the two bots above when asked to produce the same number

• Your answer must be stack clean (must push the same number regardless of the contents of the stack) and must not use [].

• Your score will be the number you produce, with a lower score being better.

• In the event of a tie where two people have the same number the person with the shorter code will win, if that does not resolve then the first earlier will win.

Answer 18

Deep-dichotomize a list

Given a list, dichotomize it (i.e. split it in half), then dichotomize both resulting sublists, etc., until you reach sublists of length 1.

For example, given [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]:

  Dichotomize: [[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8]]
  Map dichotomize: [[[1,2],[3,4]],[[5,6],[7,8]]]
  Map map dichotomize: [[[[1],[2]],[[3],[4]]],[[[5],[6]],[[7],[8]]]]
  We end here because we only have singletons

If the list has an odd length, the longest of the two lists should be the second one. For example, [1,2,3,4,5] is dichotomized into [[1,2],[3,4,5]].

The content of the list is irrelevant (you can use whatever you want). You can use any list-like representation of your language, as long as both the Input and the Output use the same representation.

Test cases

Input                          Output
[1]                            [1]
[1,2]                          [[1],[2]]
[1,2,3,4]                      [[[1],[2]],[[3],[4]]]
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]            [[[[1],[2]],[[3],[4]]],[[[5],[6]],[[7],[[8],[9]]]]

Scoring

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

Answer 19

Create a "Neverending" Quine code-golf quine

Your task is to create a program which, when run, outputs its source code repeatedly until stopped. You are allowed to have an extra newline between outputs.
NOTE: All standard loopholes are strictly forbidden. That means cheating quines, etc.

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

Answer 20

It halts. But why? cops-and-robbershalting-problemmath

Cops/Robbers section

The robbers/cops section can be found here.

---

Challenge

Cops

Your job is to write a program that always halts. It can do anything it likes, as long as, given any input, it eventually stops. You must also write a mathematical proof that it stops. Two weeks after you have posted your answer (since math is hard, we want to give the Robbers a chance to steal your academic success), you should edit in this mathematical proof. Once you have done so, you are safe, and your score will be the length of your program (in bytes). Whichever safe program has the lowest score wins!

Robbers

Your job is to write a mathematical proof that a given cops program halts, and post it as an answer. You must do so before the cop posts their proof.

You get 1 point for each post cracked, unless you crack it within 24 hours, in which case it is only 0.1 points (this is to prevent people from racking up points on easy answers). You obviously cannot crack your own submissions.

Notes

1. Cops may not use undocumented or incorrectly documented features of the programming language they are using.
2. Although the proofs will be written in the informal style common within mathematics (as opposed to completely formal proofs), they must theoretically be valid in the framework of ZFC. This will not come into play for most answers, seeing as most of mathematics can be formalized in ZFC, but some might if they use crazy metamathematical shenanigans (please do not do this (just kidding, go crazy kids)).
   • This means that cops must write programs that can be proven to halt in ZFC. This means, for example the program if isProofThatZFCisInconsistient(input) then infiniteLoop else stop) would be invalid, since although this program always halts (presumably), you cannot prove this fact in ZFC.
3. Cops, your program is not safe until you post the proof.

Answer 21

Don't step on a crack, or you'll break your mother's back

code-golf number

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Earlier I was walking down the sidewalk in my town, which is made of concrete slabs and looks something like this (note: not my sidewalk). I decided to try to pace myself such that I didn't step on the little cracks between the concrete slabs. For simplicity, let's say:

• Each slab is 4 feet long.
• Each of my feet is 1 foot long.
• Each crack has 0 width (just like your neighbors' dog).

My natural stride is about 3 feet, which worked out quite well:

^{(Excuse my horrible MS Paint skills)}

Then I got a little ambitious and decided to take 4-foot strides. This obviously worked out even more nicely (aside from making my legs feel weird):

This got me thinking, what other lengths of strides could I take? One non-integer example would be 2⅔ feet:

I could go as short as 1-foot strides, though anything shorter than 1 foot would place my foot-long foot on every crack in the sidewalk. (I didn't do 1-foot strides because I would look weird shuffling down the sidewalk, and also because I was in a rush.)

In fact, there are 6 possible crack-avoiding strides up to four feet: 1, 1⅓, 2, 2⅔, 3, 4.

Challenge

Given a integer concrete slab length 0 < n < 100, output all stride lengths up to n that I could take on that theoretical sidewalk. Assume I can stretch my legs infinitely far (I am a mathematician, after all).

More mathematically, given an input integer 0 < n < 100, output all numbers 0 < k <= n such that no multiple of k, modulated by n, is greater than n - 1.

Expected outputs for inputs 1 through 9 (rounded to 4 decimal places):

1: [1]
2: [1, 2]
3: [1, 1.5, 2, 3]
4: [1, 1.3333, 2, 2.6667, 3, 4]
5: [1, 1.25, 1.6667, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.3333, 3.75, 4, 5]
6: [1, 1.2, 1.5, 2, 2.4, 3, 3.6, 4, 4.5, 4.8, 5, 6]
7: [1, 1.1667, 1.4, 1.75, 2, 2.3333, 2.8, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.2, 4.6667, 5, 5.25, 5.6, 5.8333, 6, 7]
8: [1, 1.1429, 1.3333, 1.6, 2, 2.2857, 2.6667, 3, 3.2, 3.4286, 4, 4.5714, 4.8, 5, 5.3333, 5.7143, 6, 6.4, 6.6667, 6.8571, 7, 8]
9: [1, 1.125, 1.2857, 1.5, 1.8, 2, 2.25, 2.5714, 3, 3.375, 3.6, 3.8571, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.1429, 5.4, 5.625, 6, 6.4286, 6.75, 7, 7.2, 7.5, 7.7143, 7.875, 8, 9]

The expected output for 99 can be found in this Gist. The length of each output corresponds to A002088.

Rules

• The input will be a positive integer less than 100.
• The output may be presented in any reasonable format. Entries can be represented as decimal numbers accurate to at least 3 decimal places, or as exact fractions if desired.
• The output may be unsorted, but it may not contain duplicates.

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

Answer 22

Solve the Trolley Problem code-golf machine-ethics

Philosophers have long pondered the Trolley problem. Unfortunately, this no human has solved this problem yet. Luckily, as programmers we can use computers to solve the problem for us!

Your program will take as input a (finite) directed graph (with at most one edge from x to y, for any x and y), with a designated node, and a nonnegative integer attached to each edge (representing the number of people tied to that track). In addition, every node has at least one exit edge.

The trolley starts at the designated node. Each turn, if the trolley is at node x, the utilitarian selects an edge (x,y). The people on that edge die, and trolley is now at edge y. This process continues forever.

Note that people can only die once, so if the edge (x,y) has n people tied to it, and the trolley runs over them, say, 100 times, it will still only result in n deaths.

The utilitarian makes his choices in such a way as to minimize the number of people that die (which is guaranteed to be finite, since there are only finite people). Your program will output this number.

You may take the input graph in any reasonable way you like. For example, you could take it as a matrix, and count the designated node as the one labeled 0. Or you could use something like x1,y1,n1;x2,y2,n2;.... For example 0,a,0;a,b,5;a,c,1;b,b,0;c,c,0 to represent the standard trolley problem (with loops at the end).

Testcases:

• 0,a,0;a,b,5;a,c,1;b,b,0;c,c,0 -> 1 (Go from 0 to a, a to c (killing one person), and then keep looping the trolley from c to c).
• 0,0,1;0,a,5;a,a,0 -> 1 (Keep going from 0 to 0, running over 1 person for all eternity),
• 0,a,5;0,b,1;a,a,1;b,b,6 -> 6 (0 -> a -> a -> a -> a -> ... (note that the greedy solution of going to b would be incorrect))
• 0,a,1;0,b,5;a,b,1;b,a,1 -> 3 (0 -> a -> b -> a -> b -> ...)
• 0,a,1;0,b,1;a,a,0;b,b,0 -> 1 (Note that there are two different options that the utilitarian might take that both kill only one person)

This is code-golf, so the shortest answer wins! Good luck.

Notes: There will be no sick loop de loops and multitrack drifting is banned.

Answer 23

An anagram chain quine permutations code-golf

Your challenge is to create a program, P_0, that outputs P_1, that outputs P_2, that outputs... P_n, which finally outputs P_0. Every program in that chain has to be a permutation of every other program, and every program has to be distinct.

For example, if your program (P_0) was

abcd

And that generated another program (P_1)

badc

Which generated another program (P_2)

dabc

Which outputted the first program, you would have a anagram chain of length 3.

Your goal is to make as long a chain as possible, in as short a program as possible.

Your final score will be your chain length - in case there's a tie, the program with the shortest bytecount wins. If there's a tie again, the first poster wins.

Meta:

• I need a better title. Any suggestions?

Answer 24

Levenshtein distance using only SO titles code-golf

Pick 1 or as many titles as you wish from revisions of questions from Stack Overflow. You now have a tuple of all of the characters used in the titles you picked. You may add up to as many newline characters as titles you picked. Using exactly all the elements (characters) in this tuple (you may chose lower or upper versions of each character) write a program or a code snippet that computes the Levenshtein distance between two strings.

That's it. Happy title hunting!

Clarifications and rules:

Revisions

• We define a revision as seen on https://stackoverflow.com/posts/XXX/revisions
• for a question without any revision (not edited after being posted), the question itself counts as a revision
• all revisions are eligible, from the initial posted question to the current version of the question
• the revision must be created before 10PM 21 July GMT (before the time of posting this challenge on the sandbox)
• only questions from Stack Overflow qualify (no meta, no other site)
• deleted questions qualify (the only exception: spam questions don't qualify). I realize not everybody has access to deleted questions, but a question can become deleted after you post so I decided to allow it, especial considering the very large number of non-deleted questions: you have where to pick from.
• you may pick one revision multiple times. You may pick multiple revisions from the same question.

Your tuple of characters

For instance you pick these hypothetical titles from valid revisions:

• To be?
• ...Or not to be? you pick this one 3x
• Pls. help me!!

Then the tuple you have is this (between "):

"            !!..........????bbbbeeeeeehllmnnnoooooooOOOpPrrrsttttttT"

to which you may add up to 5 new line characters.

You must use all of these characters (nothing less, nothing more) to write your code. In this example your code must contain exactly 12 (space) characters, 2 ! characters, 10 . characters, 4 ? characters, 4 b/B characters etc.

Lower/upper case: regardless of the character case in the title, you may use any case you want for each. In this example you can use (4 b) or (3 b and 1 B) or (2 b and 2 B) or (1 b and 3 B) or (4 B). Upper/lower as defined on http://www.fileformat.info - Unicode data table

Here are all the character you must use in this example:

+----+-----+
|    |  12 |
|  ! |   2 |
|  . |  10 |
|  ? |   4 |
|  b |   4 |
|  e |   6 |
|  h |   1 |
|  l |   2 |
|  m |   1 |
|  n |   3 |
|  o |  10 |
|  p |   2 |
|  r |   3 |
|  s |   1 |
|  t |   7 |
| \n | 0-5 |
+----+-----+

Code

• You may write a program or a function and use any of the standard methods of input/output.
• input must be 2 strings
• you can assume both of the 2 strings are not empty
• you cannot take other input
• output must be a number representing the Levenshtein distance between the two strings as defined on wikipedia. You may output leading and trailing white spaces (including new lines).
• you must not output anything else
• You may use any programming language, but note that these loopholes are forbidden by default

Score

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

Format

In order to make it easy on everybody, please:

• link the revisions you use
• show each title
• show the final tuple of characters

---

Meta discussion:

• Should I encourage/discourage/ban using titles already picked by someone else?

Answer 25

Tell me my vocabulary words! Donated.

When taking textbook notes, I need to write down the vocabulary words and their definition. So your task is to write some code that will give me the vocabulary words and their definitions!

Vocabulary words are detonated with a * on both sides of them, like this: Sentences are .-delimited, meaning that after every . a new sentence starts. An example of a valid sentence would be: This sentence has a *vocab word* in it. The vocab word in the sentence is 'vocab word'.

Input: A string of text with some words marked with asterisks. Only valid inputs will be provided, meaning that only sentences with exactly two asterisks inside of them, and there is something between the asterisks.

Output: A list or delimited string where each item is in the following format: Vocabulary word: sentence. The Vocabulary word is the vocab word found in the sentence. The sentence must be the one with the emboldened vocabulary word in it. If there is any whitespace other than the s separating the words, it needs to be stripped.

Test cases:

Input: *Alan Turing* invented the Turing machine. A *Turing machine* is a machine that follows simple rules, but is capable of any computation.

Output: *Alan Turing*: *Alan Turing* invented the Turing machine.
        *Turing machine": A *Turing machine* is a machine that follows simple rules, but is capable of any computation.

Input: What is code-golf? *Code-golf* is the best site on the SE network. But what is SE, you ask? *SE* is a group of Q&A sites, with a system to prevent bad posts.

Output: *Code-golf*: *Code-golf* is the best site on the SE network.
        *SE*: *SE* is a group of Q&A sites, with a system to prevent bad posts.

code-golfparsingstring

Answer 26

Base 32 RFC 4648 Compliant Alphabet!

code-golfstringkolmogorov-complexity

When writing my handy-dandy totp/hotp token implementation in Python and Swift (ad: here), I encountered for the first time RFC 4648. There is a nice and long memo about RFC 4648, but I only had to focus on a very specific part of it: Page 8. If you are bored and want some enthralling reading, you can find this memo here, and a useful table here.

Basically, I was looking for the alphabet that could be used when base 32 decoding a String. Well, this is it: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567, and padding, =. However, simply printing that is not the challenge –– that would be too simple¹. Instead, we are going to print this (the comments are for your reference and do not need to be printed):

__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x00 - 0x0F or   0 -  15
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x10 - 0x1F or  16 -  31
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x20 - 0x2F or  32 -  47
__,__,26,27, 28,29,30,31, __,__,__,__, __, 0,__,__,  // 0x30 - 0x3F or  48 -  63
__, 0, 1, 2,  3, 4, 5, 6,  7, 8, 9,10, 11,12,13,14,  // 0x40 - 0x4F or  64 -  79 
15,16,17,18, 19,20,21,22, 23,24,25,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x50 - 0x5F or  80 -  95
__, 0, 1, 2,  3, 4, 5, 6,  7, 8, 9,10, 11,12,13,14,  // 0x60 - 0x6F or  96 - 111
15,16,17,18, 19,20,21,22, 23,24,25,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x70 - 0x7F or 112 - 127
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x80 - 0x8F or 128 - 143
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0x90 - 0x9F or 144 - 159
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0xA0 - 0xAF or 160 - 175
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0xB0 - 0xBF or 176 - 191
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0xC0 - 0xCF or 192 - 207
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0xD0 - 0xDF or 208 - 223
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0xE0 - 0xEF or 224 - 239
__,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__, __,__,__,__,  // 0xF0 - 0xFF or 240 - 255

There may be trailing spaces after every line, and trailing newlines after the last one.

Also, the single digit numbers can be written as 0[digit] instead of [space][digit]. However, be sure to include the spaces between the four groups.

By the way, the __ actually represent 255, but the former do not make me drown in a sea of digits.

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¹ Should the challenge be to just print that string?

Any other suggestions to make this challenge more interesting?

Answer 27

Modular multiplicative inverse

Your task is to given two integer numbers, a and b calculate the modular multiplicative inverse of a modulo b, if it exists.

The modular inverse of a modulo b is a number c such that ac ≡ 1 (mod b). This number is unique modulo b for any pair of a and b. It exists only if the greatest common divisor of a and b is 1.

The Wikipedia page for modular multiplicative inverse can be consulted if you require more information about the topic.

Input and Output

Input is given as either two integers or a list of two integers. Your program should output either a single number, the modular multiplicative inverse that is in the interval 0 < c < b, or a value indicating there is no inverse. The value can be anything, except a number in the range (0,b), and may also be an exception. The value should however be the same for cases in which there is no inverse.

0 < a < b can be assumed

Rules

• The program should finish at some point, and should solve each test case in less than 60 seconds
• Standard loopholes apply

Test cases

Test cases below are given in the format, a, b -> output

1, 2 -> 1
3, 6 -> Does not exist
7, 87 -> 25
25, 87 -> 7
2, 91 -> 46
13, 91 -> Does not exist
19, 1212393831 -> 701912218
31, 73714876143 -> 45180085378
3, 73714876143 -> Does not exist

Scoring

This is code golf, so the shortest code for each language wins.

Answer 28

Is this a valid Takuzu board? code-golf decision-problem

Takuzu is a logic game in which you have to complete a grid with cells containing 0s and 1s. The grid must follow 3 rules:

1. No three horizontal or vertical cells in a row can be the same.
2. There must be an equal number of 0s and 1s in each row and column.
3. No two rows can be the same, and no two columns can be the same.

Let's look at a finished grid:

0011
1100
0101
1010

As you can see, this board follows rule 1, 2 and 3. There are no three horizontal or vertical cells that are the same, all the rows and columns contain an equal number of 0s and 1s, and no two rows and no two columns are the same.

Let's look at a grid that isn't valid:

110100
010011
011010
101100
100011
001101

There's a bunch of problems with this grid. For example, row 5 has three 0s in a row, and column 2 has three 1s in a row, followed by three 0s. Therefore, this is not a valid grid.

Task:

Your task is to make a program which, given a 2D array of n * n 0s and 1s, verifies the board to see if it's a valid, finished Takuzu board.

Examples:

0011
1100
0101
1010

This board follows all the rules, and is therefore a valid Takuzu board. You must return a truthy value for this.

11
00

This is not a valid board - row 1 doesn't follow rule 2. You must return a falsey value for this.

Rules and Specs:

• You can assume that all boards are square of dimensions n * n, where n is a positive even integer.
• You can assume that all boards are finished.
• You may take input as a 2D array containing values signifying 0 and 1, or as a string.
• You must output consistent truthy and falsey values for truthy and falsey boards, and the values representing "truthy" and "falsey" cannot be the same.

This is code-golf, so shortest code in bytes wins!

Answer 29

Reverse Maths Cycles

Answer 30

Count bicubic graphs

fastest-code graph-theory sequence

This question assumes basic knowledge of graph theory terminology.

A cubic graph is a simple graph whose vertices each have exactly 3 edges. A bipartite graph is a vertex whose vertices can be divided into two disjoint sets such that every edge is between a vertex in one set and a vertex in the other set. A bicubic graph is a graph which is both cubic and bipartite.

It is easy to show that a bicubic graph must have the same number of vertices in each of the bipartite halves, so the number of vertices must be even. It is also easy to show that it must have at least six vertices. The only bicubic graph with six vertices (up to isomorphism) is the so-called utility graph or K_3,3:

Input

A positive non-zero integer n.

Output

The number of bicubic graphs with 2n vertices, up to isomorphism.

Notes

• The graphs are not required to be connected.
• This sequence is OEIS A008325. However, hard-coding these values will be considered a breach of standard rules. You may hard-code for inputs of up to 3, but above that the code should follow the same paths and be correct assuming unbounded memory and time for any valid input. It seems unlikely that we will extend the sequence, but it's nonetheless a worthy stretch goal.

Test cases

Input  Output

1      0
2      0
3      1
4      1
5      2
6      6
7      14
8      41
9      157
10     725
11     4196
12     29816

Winning criterion

The fastest program wins. The primary win condition is the largest input for which correct output is given within 10 minutes. In case of ties, the time taken to compute the value for that input will be compared. If the difference is less than 20 seconds, the earlier answer wins.