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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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Tag:

Arrays

I originally wrote it in Chinese and am still working on translating it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Given an array containing n integers A1,A2,…,An, where all of their initial values are 0. Please implement the four operations to the array described below:

Operations

Given the positive integer x and y, let every number in the range Ax~Ay (including Ax and Ay) be added by the given positive integer c;
Given the positive integer x and y, let every number in the range Ax~Ay be (similarly to the previous spec; the rest of the spec also conforms that rule) multiplied by a given positive integer c;
Given the positive integer x and y, let every number in the range Ax~Ay be changed to a given positive integer c;
Given the positive integer x and y, with regard to a given positive integer p, evaluate the value of the following expression :```[pow(Ax, p) + pow(A(x + 1), p) + … + pow(Ay, p)]7```

Input

In the first line of the test case, there are two positive integers n(where 1<=n), which represents the length of the array.

Then, input operations sequentially, where each operation occupies one line, and the input will be 4 positive integers as in: type x y num, where type is either 1, 2, 3, or 4; these identifiers correspond to the corresponding operation as described above. The meaning of x and y corresponf to the description (where 1<=x<=y<=n). When type is not 4, num will be the positive integer given c(where 1<=c<=10000); when type is 4, num will be the given positive integer p(where 1<=p<=3)。

Output

For each test case, for every 4 operation for the array, output the value of the corresponding expression.

Example input

5
3 3 5 7
1 2 4 4
4 1 5 2
2 2 5 8
4 3 5 3

Example output

307
7489
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  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Is it supposed to have restricted-complexity? Or pure golf? \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Jun 27, 2019 at 11:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ I will add the category later after I translate the problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jun 27, 2019 at 11:46
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ In that case it's restricted-time. But you have to specify exactly how it is tested. 8 seconds doesn't mean much without the test cases and the the exact computer it will run on. restricted-complexity is much simpler. And just to confirm, you wrote this question, and it's not a homework problem from elsewhere, is it? \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Jun 27, 2019 at 11:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, I wrote the question; I will accept your suggestion. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jun 27, 2019 at 11:58
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Because, I think it is designed to be O(n+qlogn) in some algorithm competition. If more than that, any straightforward algorithm will probably work, and it's better to just removed the restriction. (Also note that on CG.se, in a challenge that there is a known best algorithm, coming up with the algorithm is generally not supposed to be the main challenge. If you go for O(n+qlogn), they will simply ask for a reference algorithm.) \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Jun 27, 2019 at 12:10
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Don't use multiple test cases. Make the list format flexible and q implicit. I'm not sure what's the best way to input multiple operations, but at least you could make operation types consistent and distinct value. If there is no time or complexity limit you don't need mod 10007. Even if there is a limit, it is probably better to make this an input. \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Jun 27, 2019 at 12:18
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I think if you wrote this you probably know that O(n+qlogn) and O(n^3) (or simply without restriction) makes a lot of differences. The code would be much longer for O(n+qlogn). And for reference, this question asking for suffix tree or alternatives had the first and only non-deleted answer about 2 years later. Not that you can't post it in either case, but... just make sure you know what you are doing. \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Jun 27, 2019 at 12:29
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I mean at least you could make operation types any consistent and distinct values, instead of 1, 2, 3, 4. \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Jun 27, 2019 at 12:31
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Answer chain: decreasing character scores

Assign a non-negative integer value to each letter in the alphabet, and write a function or program which takes as input a character string and outputs the sum of of the values of the letters in the string. Characters outside of [a-z] and [A-Z] have value 0.

Now run your code, taking as input the code of each of the previous answers in the order they were posted (including your own). The resulting sequence of scores should be strictly decreasing.

For example, if you are 4th to answer and your code defines a function \$f\$, then the output should verify \$f(c_1)>f(c_2)>f(c_3)>f(c_4)\$ where \$c_1\$ is the code of the 1st answer, \$c_2\$ is the code of the 2nd answer, ..., \$c_4\$ is the code of your answer.

When there will have been one week with no new answer, the 2nd-to-last answer will be declared the winner.

Clarifications:

  • The values you assign may be the same as or different from those used by previous answers.
  • The value 0 is allowed.
  • Different letters may be assigned the same value.
  • Upper and lower case versions of the same letter may have different values.
  • Letters with diacritics, such as é or Ä, have value 0.
  • Your code need not handle letters which have not occurred in any of the previous answers (so if no answer so far has used the letter W, it's OK if your code fails on strings with a W).
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  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Using characters like this seems to have some problems. Do answers get to pick encodings? Or is it really more like \$ f(c_{1},e_{1}) \$ where \$ e_{i} \$ is the encoding used by the ith answer? I think this may work better if you say it should work on bytes, then answerers can choose to interpret those bytes as characters in whatever encoding they want. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 3:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman I have been thinking about this as well. I want it to be easy to set up on TIO, which means that solvers should be able to just copy-paste the code of previous answers. Forcing solvers to take into account the esoteric codepoints of golfing languages would be a hassle. I'd be more inclined to let answerers pick the encoding, but I suppose that might create potential loopholes. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 14:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ Wouldn't asking for a hexdump of the code to be in each answer ensure that the solutions are fairly accessible? TIO also has problems with displaying particular characters (null bytes especially) and other things like that each text box has one fixed encoding. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 14:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman How about restricting to letters (without diacritics)? Anything not in [a-z] or [A-Z] must have value 0. I think this circumvents the problem. Or maybe extend to letters+digits, or even all ASCII characters. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 16:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't think that works with your setup at all because a submission with no characters in whatever range you pick must always score exactly zero so it necessarily ends the chain. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 16:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman Yes, and then whoever submitted that is guaranteed to lose, since the second-to-last answer wins. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 20:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah, I missed that, sorry. It still seems to have trouble with languages that could write all of their code using bytes outside the range you select and then throw in a small number of other characters, but I don't know if that is "broken" enough to make it unfun. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 24, 2019 at 22:55
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman Potentially, an answerer could use only non-letters, add a single a, and then all following answers would need to assign a large value to a and avoid that letter in their own code. That seems OK to me, but I am a fan of lipograms... Anyway, I have updated the challenge following this helpful discussion; let's see if there are further comments. Thanks for your feedback! \$\endgroup\$ Jun 25, 2019 at 22:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can a letter be assigned the value 0? That would be a non-negative integer \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2019 at 14:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NickKennedy Yes, 0 is allowed. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2019 at 15:02
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Enable 2-char Jsfuck

Provide a shortest code that makes JavaScript able to do everything JavaScript is supposed to do, i.e. able to access(so no deleting [].prototype.toString unless you have a backup, even if you can simulate one [].prototype.toString) and exec anything, with only [ and ]. You can choose your environment(FF/node/etc). Answering in 6-char JsFuck or something similar is welcomed.

E.g. If you run

Array.prototype[''] = 'a';
Array.prototype['a'] = 'b';
Array.prototype['b'] = function() { console.log(this[0]); };

then [][[]] = [][''] = 'a', and [][[][[]]] = []['a'] = 'b', so [[][[]]][[][[][[]]]] = ['a']['b'] = function(){console.log('a')}.

Of course, this is an invalid answer, because it can't do prompt(web browser) or fs(node) or anything similar, or even calling the console.log.

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  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ This is not clear as is. Are we making a transpiler from JS to JSFuck with the winning criterion code-golf? Do we need to support all JS input, or just some subset? \$\endgroup\$
    – lirtosiast
    Jun 25, 2019 at 17:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ So a solution like translating "[[]"→( "[]["→) "[]]"→+ "][["→[ "][]"→] "]]["→! is valid? \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jun 25, 2019 at 18:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @lirtosiast I said "makes JS able to do everything in2c", not "make a language that do everything" \$\endgroup\$
    – l4m2
    Jun 26, 2019 at 9:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Adám I don't think it's possible. +[] turns into []]][[][] which is not even valid JS code \$\endgroup\$
    – l4m2
    Jun 26, 2019 at 9:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ @l4m2 Please include your not-golfed reference implementation so we can understand what you mean. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jun 26, 2019 at 9:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ @l4m2 If I understand this right, you're saying that we should write code that modifies the JavaScript environment such that all JavaScript code can be converted into JavaScript code that only uses characters [ and ]. Basically, add something to Array.prototype that makes the [] characters JavaScript-complete. \$\endgroup\$
    – wizzwizz4
    Jul 24, 2019 at 13:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ @wizzwizz4 right \$\endgroup\$
    – l4m2
    Aug 8, 2019 at 15:11
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Tips for golfing in H

As for H as described here, what general tips do you have for golfing in H? I'm looking for ideas which can be applied to code-golf problems. Tips have to be specific to H (e.g. "remove comments" is an answer).

Tips in Standard H are also on-topic, although its spec is in a bad condition. You can use the H description provided in the first link to solve anything you don't understand about.

Please post one tip per answer. Also, please specify which H implementation you are using if your code runs only under a specific H implementation, as different H implementations can have different behavior.


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    \$\begingroup\$ Why do you want to ask this when H doesn't even exist? \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jun 28, 2019 at 12:40
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ What's the rush? Also, H as linked, isn't a programming language, and it has a very strict definition, so there's no much room for golfing. The only thing I can think of is to omit quotes in the rare instances where you want a string that looks like one of the 1999 integers in the range -999–999. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jun 28, 2019 at 12:57
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ That would be a duplicate. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jun 28, 2019 at 13:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Tips for golfing in Turing Machine but Way Worse also only has 1 tip. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jun 28, 2019 at 13:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ I can also think of a lot of those examples, as in: codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/19423/… codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/101557/… codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/96682/… \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jun 28, 2019 at 13:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ It does not matter whether it is a programming language or not; this question only cares whether H can be golfed or not. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jun 28, 2019 at 13:47
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Find the closest hex colour shorthand

In CSS, colours can be specified by a "hex triplet" - a three byte (six digit) hexadecimal number where each byte represents the red, green, or blue components of the colour. For instance, #FF0000 is completely red, and is equivalent to rgb(255, 0, 0).

Colours can also be represented by the shorthand notation which uses three hexadecimal digits. The shorthand expands to the six digit form by duplicating each digit. For instance, #ABC becomes #AABBCC.

Since there are fewer digits in the hex shorthand, fewer colours can be represented.

The challenge

Write a program or function that takes a six digit hexadecimal color code and outputs the closest three-digit color code, where closeness is measured by adding together the difference between each component of the full color code and the corresponding component of the shorthand color code.

Here's an example:

  • Input hex code: #28a086
  • red component
    • 0x28 = 40 (decimal)
    • 0x22 = 30
    • 0x33 = 51
    • 0x22 is closer, so the first digit of the shortened color code is 2
  • green component
    • 0xa0 = 160
    • 0x99 = 153
    • 0xaa = 170
    • 0x99 is closer, so the second digit is 9
  • blue component
    • 0x86 = 134
    • 0x77 = 119
    • 0x88 = 136
    • 0x88 is closer, so the third digit is 8
  • The shortened color code is #298

Your program or function must accept as input a six digit hexadecimal color code prepended with # and output a three digit color code prepended with #.

Examples

  • #FF0000 → #F00
  • #00FF00 → #0F0
  • #D913C4 → #D1C
  • #C0DD39 → #BD3
  • #28A086 → #298
  • #C0CF6F → #BC7
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Golf an H quine [duplicate]

Your task is to write a quine program in H (described in my esolangs.org userpage). (It is unclear whether it is possible.) Referring to Computer Science stack exchange, which seems unappropriate.


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  • \$\begingroup\$ Can you explain your comment? I cannot understand it. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:19
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ Note that challenges that require the answers to be in a specific language are generally discouraged.* Is there any reason someone wanting to golf a quine in H would not just answer this? \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:26
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Now your espolangs userpage says Programming Puzzles and Code Golf. This is just what PPCG stands for. We are not called that any more. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ I am trying to retain the style of the rest of the esolangs pages. (e.g. see this page) \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:30
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Information contained in public Wikis does occasionally get stale. You should update all those references to PPCG. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ To clarify: is the current name "Code golf & Coding challenges"? \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:34
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ The tour page seems to say Code Golf Stack Exchange. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:35
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Adám Wait, we're now known as CCSE? :S I thought the new name was indeed "Code Golf & Coding Challenges" (CGCC).. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 1, 2019 at 11:37
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ As for the 'challenge', we already have a general quine challenge as linked by @Adám in his first comment. When you have more rep you could offer a bounty on that challenge stating you want to see if someone could come up with a quine in H. But, is H even released yet? If yes, maybe the first step might be to ask Dennis in the Nineteenth Byte Chat to add H to TIO, and also have a github with the source code/compiler of H. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 1, 2019 at 11:40
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ The new site name is "Code Golf", and the subtitle is "& coding challenges". You can refer to the site with or without the subtitle \$\endgroup\$ Jul 1, 2019 at 11:44
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ (referring to it off site should probably include "Stack Exchange" as other golfing sites are available) \$\endgroup\$ Jul 1, 2019 at 11:49
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Relevant \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:56
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Machine Learning Golf: Fashion MNIST

The first instance of Machine Learning Golf received a lot of intention but also revealed some problems (mostly caused by people in this community being too clever ;-)).

I intend to address those issues in this second installment:

Fashion MNIST is a dataset of 60,000 labelled 28x28 pixel grayscale images of fashion items (T-shirts/tops, Trousers, Pullovers, Dresses, Coats, Sandals, Shirts, Sneakers, Bags and Ankle boots).

Your task is to design and train a neural network that correctly identifies these images. Here are the rules:

Performance Goal

To qualify, your model must achieve at least 95% accuracy on the training set (i.e. you must identify at least 57,000 images correctly).

Rules

You may use any language and framework of your choice.

Your dataset must be taken as the current version of Fashion MNIST found here or in the references listed in that repo's README (for convenience).

You may reshape, permutate, rescale and offset entries in the dataset. However, modifications made to one entry must be performed on all entries.

You may transform the labels any way you like. (But you may, obviously, not change which labels correspond to which images.)

During training, you're allowed to use any dataset you want (in fact, you are allowed to come up with your weights however you like). Hence the above limitations are only relevant to assess whether your model meets the stated performance goal.

Your model

  • must be a 'traditional' feed forward neural network, i.e.a node's value is calculated as a weighted linear combination of some of the nodes in previous layers (which may include a bias node with constant value 1) followed by an activation function. Note that this allows you to skip layers and use convolutional/residual layers,
  • may only use the following standard activation functions:
    1. \$\mathrm{linear}(x) = x\$,
    2. \$\mathrm{softmax}(\vec{x})_i = \frac{e^{x_i}}{\sum_j e^{x_j}}\$,
    3. \$\mathrm{selu}_{\alpha, \beta}(x) = \begin{cases} \beta \cdot x & \text{, if } x > 0 \\ \alpha \cdot \beta (e^x -1 ) & \text{, otherwise} \end{cases}\$,
    4. \$\mathrm{softplus}(x) = \ln(e^x+1)\$,
    5. \$\mathrm{leaky-relu}_\alpha(x) = \begin{cases} x & \text{, if } x < 0 \\ \alpha \cdot x & \text{, otherwise} \end{cases}\$,
    6. \$\tanh(x)\$,
    7. \$\mathrm{sigmoid}(x) = \frac{e^x}{e^x+1}\$,
    8. \$\mathrm{hard-sigmoid}(x) = \begin{cases} 0 & \text{, if } x < -2.5 \\ 1 & \text{, if } x > 2.5 \\ 0.2 \cdot x + 0.5 & \text{, otherwise} \end{cases}\$,
    9. \$e^x\$
  • must take a single entry of the (preprocessed) training set as its only input and
  • return the predicted label, in the format you've specified, as its only output,
  • if a given weight occurs multiple times in your model, you may reuse it to lower your overall score,

Your answer must include (or link to) all code necessary to check your results -- including the trained weights of your model. In particular, you must include all preprocessing steps of your dataset.

Scoring

The neural network with the smallest number of weights (including bias weights) wins.

Parameters used to preprocess your data don't count as weights.

Enjoy!

Baseline

There is a tutorial for the Fashion MNIST dataset available on Tensorflow which serves as an excellent starting point if you decide to use TF as your framework.


This challenge had already been posted on the main site and got closed there. The purpose of this post is threefold:

  1. Is the community interested in this particular (and this kind of) challenge (in general)?
  2. How can the user experience for the target audience be improved? Specifically:
    • What are likely causes of confusion?
    • Can we streamline the structure?
    • Are some of the rules too restrictive or not restrictive enough?
    • Are there any loopholes I've overlooked? (For instance, preprocessing the training data opens up the possibility of encoding labels into the feature set. Some of the rules are already designed to prohibit this but it's entirely possible that they don't suffice.)
  3. Any other constructive feedback?
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think a lot of community members don't know anything about machine learning. You might try saving this one for later and working to think of some entry-level challenges that work as a sort of tutorial when done together. \$\endgroup\$
    – mbomb007
    Jul 4, 2019 at 16:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mbomb007 While I like the idea, it seems pretty tough to come up with challenges that are both simple enough to solve without knowing machine learning and yet won't just get solved without using ML at all. That's what happened with my entry-level challenge. Still, I'm sure there are a few people here who would enjoy this kind of challenge and seeing them might spark the interest of others. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 4, 2019 at 17:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think it's worth considering the questions and requests for clarifications you were asked in the comments of your previous challenge and making sure you've clearly addressed all of them here. \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Jul 4, 2019 at 20:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think there's a good chance the best strategy for this challenge isn't anything that looks like training a neural net, but some form of massive over-fitting like looking up a few specifically-chosen pixels with a lookup table, implemented with neural net primitives. I'd suggest you make a good effort at trying to optimize both strategies yourself to see how that turns out. \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Jul 4, 2019 at 20:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @xnor The previous issues have been addressed, as far as I can tell, and I'm not concerned about overfitting. If you can identify a few relevant bits of information to pass the test while staying within the rules, that's fine with me. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 5, 2019 at 4:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ I should make clear that the intention of this challenge is to provoke people to come up with tricky ways to lower their score -- it's not meant to result in neural networks you would actually use in production. Hence I'd like the rules only to guard against approaches that trivialize this task (like encoding labels into the feature set via preprocessing). And testing indicates that you might be able to come up with a solution using \$\ll 1000\$ weights -- beating every traditional approach by a long shot. (Which, to me, is pretty exciting.) \$\endgroup\$ Jul 5, 2019 at 4:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ If doing hardcoding-style stuff is fine, then it's confusing to mention training as in "Your task is to design and train a neural network" if training is actually optional. And "I intend to address those issues in this second installment" makes it sound to me like you're trying to make the challenge watertight against unexpected clever approaches, which I think isn't what you're trying to convey. \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Jul 6, 2019 at 2:05
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    \$\begingroup\$ Let me also reiterate what mbomb007 said about many community members not knowing anything about machine learning. I think it would be good to write up a friendly introduction with everything that's needed for the challenge while keeping unfamiliar terminology to a minimum. Separately, scoring by distinct weights strikes me as a really bad idea. I wouldn't be surprised if the optimal score is 1, achieved by an enormous network all with only weight 1 that encodes the whole dataset using its topology or its choice of gates. Even convolution layers seem very exploitable combined with copying. \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Jul 6, 2019 at 2:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ @xnor 'if training is actually optional'.. Hardcoding weights, as far as I'm concerned, is a form of training. That's fine -- you may come up with your weights any way you like. But I think you're right about the distinct weights bit. I'll add a mathematically precise definition of what I have in mind that will also serve as a rough introduction to neural networks. I didn't intially want to do that because I think it distracts from the actual challenge but at this point I'm convinced it needs to be done to avoid disputes. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 6, 2019 at 3:57
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @xnor, yes: it's quite easy to show that \$\textrm{selu}_{0,1}\$ and weight -1 gives a Turing-complete system. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 6, 2019 at 7:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor That can't be right. You have to, at least, allow recurrent layers or some similar feature. Otherwise you won't be able to model the Ackermann function. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 6, 2019 at 22:20
0
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Calculate a constant from its characteristic function

You are given in some language-dependent way (e.g. a lambda parameter) a characteristic function which is basically another way of saying a function. This function will take an integer input and return true or false, or 1 or 0, or any other two 1-byte values of your choice. You can decide whether you need the function to be 0-indexed or 1-indexed.

Your job is then to take this function and calculate the floating-point value obtained by interpreting the values of this function as a binary fraction. You must use as many significant digits as possible. I will assume IEEE double precision by default but you many use single precision if your language specifically supports it.

For example, if a function returns the sequence 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 (this is OEIS A010051), then your program or function will output 0.41468250985111166 as any further terms will be less than the precision of a double-precision value.

You can decide whether you want to round the 54th significant bit up or not.

This is , so the shortest program or function that breaks no standard loopholes wins!

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm missing an explicit statement of where the binary point goes. Also, some tests which cover corner cases (minimum, maximum, denormal). \$\endgroup\$ Jul 8, 2019 at 10:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor The binary point goes before the first value as retrieved, so 0, 1, 1, 0, 1... becomes .01101.... For corner cases would it help if I said that at least one of the first 1000 elements will be "true"? \$\endgroup\$
    – Neil
    Jul 8, 2019 at 11:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ That would eliminate 0 as a possible output, whereas I think is itself one of the corner cases. It would also eliminate denormal numbers. The smallest positive double value is \$2^{-1074}\$. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 9, 2019 at 6:19
0
\$\begingroup\$

Make a bigger number

Each answer on this question must be a complete program (not a function) that outputs a positive integer in decimal (trailing newlines are permitted). Output should be either passed to STDOUT or displayed on the screen. The output number must also be larger than all the numbers output by all the valid answers at the time of posting. One person may not post two consecutive answers.

Scoring

Your answer will be scored with the following formula

\$\dfrac{B'+1}{B+1}\$

Where \$B\$ is the number of bytes in your answer and \$B'\$ is the number of bytes in the longest answer before your answer posted by someone other than yourself. Lower scores will be better.

\$\endgroup\$
9
  • \$\begingroup\$ Could you please clarify some more rules? E.g, in these sorts of challenges, using the same languages twice is prohibited. Even if you're fine with it, just clarify that to avoid confusion. Also, state when it will end and whether a lower/higher score is better. Further, some languages don't have an 'integer' type, while others have many - how could they get around this? \$\endgroup\$ Jul 9, 2019 at 20:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ @GezaKerecsenyi Prohibiting double language use is only used in specific scenarios it is in general it tends to be very bad rule to have as it only causes confusion. I definitely do not see it as the default and I don't want to give the impression that it is. Since programs have to be complete for this challenge (we are viewing programs as black boxes) types should not be a problem. Maybe I need to make this clearer in the post. And on the lower vs higher, that is definitely something important I was missing. Thanks! \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard Mod
    Jul 9, 2019 at 21:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ Answer chaining questions should have some inherent mechanism whereby it gets harder to answer over time. As it stands, this can run forever. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 10, 2019 at 13:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor I was under the impression that later answers would get harder because those challenges have scoring mechanisms that benefit later answers. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard Mod
    Jul 10, 2019 at 13:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm not certain that I'm interpreting that comment correctly. The answer chaining challenges I've participated in didn't have scoring per se, but "the penultimate answer wins". \$\endgroup\$ Jul 10, 2019 at 15:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor I was being a bit more general in my statement but that is the specific mechanism that I see a lot. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard Mod
    Jul 10, 2019 at 15:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ Hm... actually, Peter Taylor's point isn't entirely wrong. An issue I can see is that the scoring formula will probably end up making each answer at least exponentially longer than the previous one, and that two or more people could actually duel just by adding more bytes to their code, e.g. A: 50000 9s, B: 5E50 9s, A: 5*10^99E99 9s, etc. In my opinion, the previous scoring formula (\$\frac{B_{n-1}+1}{B_n+1}\$) was much better, but with the highest score being the leader. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 10, 2019 at 17:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think I can parse that response, but I don't get the subtext at all, so I'll rephrase my point as a question in the hope of eliciting a concrete response: what prevents two people from spinning this out to infinity just by copying the previous answer and adding +1? \$\endgroup\$ Jul 12, 2019 at 10:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor In my mind two things 1) it probably won't get them better scores 2) it wouldn't be very fun. I am a little concerned though since these are not excellent motivators. I am going to think about other scoring mechanisms that might further disincentivise this. Or perhaps some restrictions on answers. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard Mod
    Jul 12, 2019 at 13:34
0
\$\begingroup\$

Output Ordinal Numbers up to n

Moved to Output Ordinal Numbers up to n.

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

Write an X-SAMPA Interpreter

Tags:

Write an X-SAMPA interpreter that, when given an X-SAMPA string, outputs an IPA string.

Some Background

SAMPA is a system for encoding sounds from various languages into a computer-readable ASCII format. X-SAMPA is a descendant that encodes the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) instead. The IPA is a character set that represents (almost) all sounds that a human can make. A large majority of IPA is based on the usual Latin character set (a-z), along with some supplementary characters (θ ʌ ŋ χ, etc.).

The Challenge

  • Input is a string of X-SAMPA.
  • Translate the X-SAMPA string into IPA.
  • Output is a string of IPA.
  • Input and output can be given using any convenient method.
  • Standard loopholes are forbidden.
  • X-SAMPA charts can be found here.
  • Characters not defined in X-SAMPA should be ignored.
  • You must implement the entirety of X-SAMPA.
  • This is so lowest in bytes wins.

Samples

this is a test input --> this is a test input
THIS IS A TEST INPUT --> θɥɪʃ ɪʃ ɑ θɛʃθ ɪŋʋʊθ
H\El\L\0 W@R1d --> ʜɛɺʟ0 ʍəʁɨd
123456789 --> ɨøɜɾɫɐɤɵœ
d_"i_+a_-c_/r_/i_0t_hi_=c_>s_?\ --> d̈i̟a̠čři̥tʰi̩cʼsˤ
Code GO\lf & CodI\ng Challen\ges\ --> çode ɣʘlf ɶ çodᵻnɡ çhallenɡeɕ
clicks O\|\ǃ\=\|\|\ --> clicks ʘǀǃǂǁ
mixed~!@#$%^&*(){}[]<>,.?/:;"' --> mixed#$ˌ^ɶ*(͡æʉ[]<>,.ʔ
impl ejec b_<p_> --> impl ejec ɓpʼ
\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ Way too many edge cases here: What about supporting impossible diacritics i.e. a character marked both syllabic and nonsyllabic? The charts should be included so the challenge is self-contained. \$\endgroup\$
    – lirtosiast
    Jul 17, 2019 at 15:49
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I was considering omitting You must implement the entirety of X-SAMPA and instead needing to implement only a subset, namely not the diacritics. \$\endgroup\$
    – bigyihsuan
    Jul 17, 2019 at 16:11
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ "Input is a string of X-SAMPA" makes "characters not defined in X-SAMPA should be ignored" redundant \$\endgroup\$ Jul 28, 2019 at 19:27
0
\$\begingroup\$

Brute-force the switchboard

Posted here!

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ It looks good to me! I'll remove my old comments now. Also, thanks for using the sandbox! :) \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2019 at 20:55
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman Thank you so much for the suggestions! I'll keep it up a bit longer in case anyone else remembers or finds a dupe. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 18, 2019 at 20:56
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ Poor guy indeed having to do binary counting instead of using a Gray code... \$\endgroup\$
    – Neil
    Jul 18, 2019 at 20:56
0
\$\begingroup\$

The Acrobat Competition

Anyone may post this to main once this question is done. I only care about people enjoying solving problems. (I do not want the reputation for this question.)

After someone cloned so many Jimmy's to disrupt the world, Jimmy started to be stressed about the existence of his dwarf forms; his circus leader started to ignore him, focus on the dwarves, and gradually gave him less salary.

He has to win an acrobat competition to gain attention from his leader again. (He does care about his salary.)

Input/Output

The first line of input will contain the acrobatic power of Jimmy; it is represented as Jimmy's (/o\) separated with spaces; invalid Jimmy's should be ignored.

After this line, there are two lines of dwarf Jimmy's also represented by their shapes: (o); invalid dwarf Jimmy's should be ignored.

The combined power between two dwarf (x as the top line of dwarf Jimmys and y as the bottom line of dwarf Jimmys) is √x²+y² (the exact floating-point number).

If Jimmy's acrobatic power is larger than the two dwarf Jimmy's, output a truthy value. Otherwise, output a falsy value.

Example input/outputs

This outputs a falsy value:

/o\ // o /o\ o o\ //o\\ /o\ /o\ /o\
o o o o
/o\ l o j oe o lo . o aso o feo o

This outputs a truthy value:

/o\/o\ /o\ /o\ /o\ /o\ /o\ /o\
o	o o 	 o
o	o o o	o o oo o o o o
\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ two dwarf Jimmy's should be two lines of dwarf Jimmy's? \$\endgroup\$
    – bigyihsuan
    Jul 22, 2019 at 19:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ You should probably work through an example because I'm not sure what x and y relates to. Is x the number of dwarves in the top line, and y the number in the bottom? \$\endgroup\$
    – Veskah
    Jul 23, 2019 at 19:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Veskah It looks that way. \$\endgroup\$
    – wizzwizz4
    Jul 24, 2019 at 18:37
0
\$\begingroup\$

Insert an exclamation mark between everything

This challenge is highly "distilled" from this question. Special thanks to Akababa!

In this task, you should insert an exclamation mark at the start of the string and after every character.

Rules

  • There will always be a non-empty-string input. The input will not contain tabs either. You can assume that the input only contain non-extended ASCII printable characters and newlines.
  • This is a contest; the shortest answer should win.

Examples

  • 4 newlines result in 5 newline-delimited exclamation marks. It is very hard to put this as a Markdown text, so this is stated instead.
1 2 3 4 5 6
129591 129012 129127 129582

0

Outputs

!1! !2! !3! !4! !5! !6!
!1!2!9!5!9!1! !1!2!9!0!1!2! !1!2!9!1!2!7! !1!2!9!5!8!2!
!
!0!
asd afjoK ak:e
kPrLd
    fOJOE;
    KFO
KFkepjgop sgpaoj   faj

Outputs

!a!s!d! !a!f!j!o!K! !a!k!:!e!
!k!P!r!L!d!
! ! ! ! !f!O!J!O!E!;!
! ! ! ! !K!F!O!
!K!F!k!e!p!j!g!o!p! !s!g!p!a!o!j! ! ! !f!a!j!

A base test case with only one character:

a

Outputs

!a!

(Auto-completion! Just kidding, there is no such thing.) Contains exclamation marks:

!!
!!
!!
!!
!!

Outputs:

!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!
!!!!!


\$\endgroup\$
18
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ "replace the null character with an exclamation mark" is misleading. Better wording is "insert an exclamation mark at the start of the string and after every character", though there could be something more concise. The challenge is rather simple but viable. \$\endgroup\$
    – lirtosiast
    Jul 28, 2019 at 4:37
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ You seem to have issues with markdown in the examples: One of your examples have tabs, but they render as four spaces which is very confusing. You can have actual tabs render by using &#9; instead of literal tabs. Your empty input collapses to zero lines which you can fix by inserting a space which won't render. The output for that case does have a space, which is wrong. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 28, 2019 at 7:17
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ For the 3rd example, which shows no visible input, it's worth specifying what the input is so it's obvious at a glance. Also, the output contains only one exclamation mark, suggesting there are zero characters in the 3rd input, which appears to conflict with "There will always be a non-empty input". Could you clarify what "non-empty" means? Depending on their programming language background, some people will not regard the empty string as "non-empty" so this could be confusing. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 28, 2019 at 18:14
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ If the input can contain newlines, it's worth including test cases that include newlines too. Perhaps a multiline input and also one composed solely of newlines \$\endgroup\$ Jul 28, 2019 at 18:17
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ May input contains exclamation marks? \$\endgroup\$
    – tsh
    Jul 29, 2019 at 5:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ @tsh Yes, I added a test case. Exclamation marks are printable ASCII characters. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 29, 2019 at 5:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ Oh no, I forgot to add an objective winning criterion! Does anyone have suggestions about the criterion?(I will go with code-golf temporarily.) \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 29, 2019 at 7:14
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I would indeed suggest code-golf. As for the test case of only newlines. Why are there seven newlines in the input, but only five exclamation marks in the output? I would expect eight exclamation marks instead. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 29, 2019 at 8:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ There should only be 4 in the sample input. I seem to have problems with Markdown. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 29, 2019 at 8:59
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @A__ Yeah, the markup can be a bit annoying at times. Using <pre><code>4 newlines</code></pre> makes it somewhat better, but not much. Maybe simply stating 4 newlines result in 5 newline-delimited exclamation marks is enough. Anyway, I've prepared two solutions for when it goes to main. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 29, 2019 at 9:11
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @KevinCruijssen I can not ask this question on main, as my question asking limit was reached. You may want to post this question yourself if you wish. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 29, 2019 at 9:31
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Didn't even knew there was such a thing, but apparently there indeed is. Probably because some of your challenges were confusing at first so people down-voted/close-voted before it was fixed after 20+ edits. Let's leave it in the Sandbox for now. Not sure if your question ban could be lifted somehow. Also, if I post this challenge myself I can't really post my two answers, since it's usually best to wait a few days before answering your own challenges. ;) \$\endgroup\$ Jul 29, 2019 at 9:42
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I am puzzled as to why you're question-banned. Although you have some downvotes and deleted questions (not as much of an issue on our well moderated site), you have multiple questions with positive score. Seems the algorithm should change. \$\endgroup\$
    – lirtosiast
    Jul 29, 2019 at 20:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KevinCruijssen Answering your own questions seems to be fine. There seems to be no problems arising when jimmy23013 answered their own question immediately after they asked it. \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Jul 30, 2019 at 0:04
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @A__ That's a tip question. :) For an actual challenge it would be weird posting your own solution before giving other users with the same programming language a chance first. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 30, 2019 at 7:24
0
\$\begingroup\$

Give me the jitters! / Add noise to data

When graphing data, it can often be helpful to display points as a scatterplot, but when duplicate data exist, you'll have multiple points graphed on top of one another. For fairness, we break ties at random with R's jitter function.

Inputs

  • x, a numeric (floating point) array. There will be at least 3 distinct values in the array.
  • factor, a numeric value
  • amount, a numeric value or some sort of non-numeric value (your choice). You may select your desired non-numeric sentinel value for amount.

Output

  • A single array y where:
    • y[i] = x[i] + a uniformly random number from -a to a

a is defined as follows:

  • Let z = max(x) - min(x)
  • If amount==0, a = factor * z/50
  • If amount is NULL or the , a = factor * d/5 where d = min(diff(sort(unique(x)))), i.e., the smallest difference between adjacent unique values.
  • Otherwise, a = amount.

Add test cases

Does this add anything beyond already existing challenges?

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

Output your place


Your challenge is simple. Output your program's place as an integer at the time of execution. The shortest program is first place, and the earlier submission wins a tie.

If your solution is tied with another in age as well as length, you may output either

All answers must begin with # [Language Name], [N] bytes alone on the first line.

You may access this page (URL). No URL shorteners are allowed. Standard IO and loophole rules hold.

As you may have noticed, this is , so the shortest answer (in bytes) wins. Happy golfing!

\$\endgroup\$
8
  • \$\begingroup\$ This will be very hard to test, no? So each program needs to find "its" post or at least have its own byte count and time stamp hard-coded? \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Jul 31, 2019 at 20:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Adám Correct. It'll be interesting to see how those two approaches fare, I hope. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 31, 2019 at 20:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ You might want to specify 1 indexing for clarity. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard Mod
    Aug 1, 2019 at 14:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SriotchilismO'Zaic The shortest program is first place was meant to specify that. Too subtle? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 1, 2019 at 18:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah I thought that was intended to say that it was code-golf. I think it is likely clear. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wheat Wizard Mod
    Aug 1, 2019 at 18:54
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ 0 bytes, output is 0 indexed. or 0 bytes, outputs via exit code \$\endgroup\$
    – Jo King Mod
    Aug 2, 2019 at 4:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JoKing I thought of that. Some minutes searching TIO yielded nothing, unfortunately. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 2, 2019 at 4:14
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ From experience, questions like this need to be very explicit about what assumptions can be made about the context in which the answers are executed, because otherwise there will be debates on whether JS programs can execute in the console of a browser window which is currently open on the page. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 2, 2019 at 7:36
0
\$\begingroup\$

Buffer Evaluation

Given a printable ASCII string, but with leading spaces(0x20) and backspaces(0x08), return it "buffer-evaluated".

Input

For the inputted line, if you encounter a space, enter a space; otherwise, remove the rightmost character.

If you encounter a backspace when the buffer is empty, simply do nothing.

Output

After the inputted program, if the cursor is 0, output an optional trailing newline. If the cursor is not 0, output the string in the buffer and an optional trailing newline.

Example(s) and expected output

Rules

This is ; the shortest answer wins.


\$\endgroup\$
8
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Please avoid adding unnecessary fluff like a cumbersome I/O format which just serves to make the challenge appear to be about layout when it is really just simple summing. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Aug 9, 2019 at 6:06
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ This might be more interesting if there was no such thing as a negative buffer, and backspacing while at 0 did nothing, meaning it isn't just a simple sum of list anymore \$\endgroup\$
    – Jo King Mod
    Aug 9, 2019 at 6:09
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @JoKing Good idea. Or maybe: Given a printable ASCII string, but with leading spaces and backspaces, return it "evaluated". E.g. "⌫⌫   ⌫hi" gives "  hi" \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Aug 9, 2019 at 6:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ Related \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Aug 9, 2019 at 6:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ Related, but not taking into account backspacing empty text. I don't like the special case of 0, since logically, the output should be an empty string, not a backspace \$\endgroup\$
    – Jo King Mod
    Aug 9, 2019 at 6:48
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Regarding 0 → BS: Please avoid exceptional edge cases. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Aug 9, 2019 at 7:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ Many languages will put a trailing line break after the output, further serving to indicate the the process has been completed. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Aug 9, 2019 at 7:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Your "Output " section seems to be a leftover from the previous version of the challenge: return it vs output how many \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Aug 9, 2019 at 7:11
0
\$\begingroup\$

Do X without Y

The goal is drawing an X on an empty 3x3 raster "canvas". You have to do so by drawing pixel by pixel, showing each intermediate step. But there should never be an Y visible along the way.

Details

  • You should start by outputting a 3x3 image of one background color. In each step one of the pixels must be changed to the foreground color.
  • You can use any two colors.
  • Instead of using pixels in an image, you can also use a string- (leading/trailing zeros/newlines are ok) or 2d-array/matrix representation.
  • An X is represented as follows:
o.o  (o = foreground, . = background)
.o.
o.o

while an y can be any of the following

o.o  o.o  ..o  o..  
.o.  .o.  .o.  .o.
o..  ..o  o.o  o.o

(title reference)

\$\endgroup\$
10
  • \$\begingroup\$ May we also toggle a foreground color back to a background color later on? I.e. would for example these steps be allowed (note the top-middle 'color'): (start:) ... ... ... > o.. ... ... > oo. ... ... > ooo ... ... > ooo .o. ... > ooo .o. o.. > ooo .o. o.o > (end/X:) o.o .o. o.o? Also, does the X have to be visible in the foregound color, or may it also be in the background color? I.e. would for example these steps be allowed: (start): ooo ooo ooo > o.o ooo ooo > o.o .oo ooo > o.o .o. ooo > (end/X:) o.o .o. o.o? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 13, 2019 at 13:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Remind me to upvote this question when it's posted; the title is just awesome \$\endgroup\$
    – tjjfvi
    Aug 13, 2019 at 14:01
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Wouldn't this work: 1.2 .5. 3.4 (... ... ... > o.. ... ... > o.o ... ... > o.o ... o.. > o.o ... o.o > o.o .o. o.o)? \$\endgroup\$
    – tjjfvi
    Aug 13, 2019 at 14:03
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ -1. I don't think there's enough room for variance here. It basically reduces to a Kolmogorov complexity problem that is pretty simple in itself. \$\endgroup\$
    – Beefster
    Aug 13, 2019 at 21:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @tjjfvi Yes that would work. \$\endgroup\$
    – flawr
    Aug 13, 2019 at 21:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Beefster I agree, as it is now it also felt a little bit too restricted. I honestly just wanted to come up with something silly to justify the title:) \$\endgroup\$
    – flawr
    Aug 13, 2019 at 21:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KevinCruijssen That is an interesting extension. I think it would indeed make sense to abolish the idea of foreground/background and just have two colors, and letting people toggle back and forth as many times as they want. \$\endgroup\$
    – flawr
    Aug 13, 2019 at 21:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ If the two things I asked in my comment aren't allowed, @tjjfvi approach is the only one possible (in any order of the corners of course) from what I can see, so maybe it's indeed good to allow both to have at least some variance in the challenge approaches. Although I guess most people would use either the one posted by tjjfvi being five steps or the second one I posted being four steps anyway. :) \$\endgroup\$ Aug 14, 2019 at 6:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ Could also have the answers take input of the starting pixels and/or the canvas size. \$\endgroup\$
    – tjjfvi
    Aug 14, 2019 at 12:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ idea: what if this were expanded to some sort of fractal/recursive version? You could specify an integer between, say, 0 and 9, and create X's out of X's recursively to that depth, but with the restriction that you can't ever create a Y out of any 5 evenly spaced pixels. \$\endgroup\$
    – Beefster
    Aug 30, 2019 at 21:18
0
\$\begingroup\$

Crossing Sequences

Posted.

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

A triangle is worth a thousand lines

Vulkan is a relatively new cross-platform graphics API which is very powerful yet extremely verbose and detailed.

Arguably one of the most infamous saying on Vulkan, especially among beginners is, "The 1000 Lines journey". That is, getting a simple triangle to render on the screen takes a ton of code (~1k lines of C/C++).

It's time to break, nay, golf the stigma!

Challenge

Your challenge is writing a valid Vulkan-API based program which outputs a triangle to the screen. The windowing system is up to your choice as well as the colors/size of the triangle/screen itself.

The final script/compiled program should be able to be executed (preferably on a platform which does not require extra tools/hardware) and the output made visible in order to count as a valid solution.

Input

None. (Any if you require it, but it will also account into the score)

Output

A visible triangle on the screen. The following rules apply:

  1. The color of the triangle and the color of the background should be different.
  2. The size of the triangle should be noticeable. That is, any person with healthy eyesight should immediately be able to notice it.

Note: The final output triangle must be an actual call to drawing a 3 vertexed mesh and not simply points which render to some 4 pixels on screen.

Hardware constrains

Since the setup code differs greatly from GPU to GPU, you can assume that all the extensions are supported and that the GPU/driver is capable of executing a valid API call. Namely, input validations aren't mandatory, swapchain is present, queues are optimal, etc...

Scoring

Standard 1 (source code) byte = 1 point scoring, less is better. (The shaders source file sizes also counts towards the final score)

Note There are currently but a few available bindings for Vulkan which means that the language choice isn't as wide as other challenges. However, there is plenty to choose from with different paradigms, thus it shouldn't harm the creativity of the solutions :)

Helpful resources

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Could you perhaps add a link to the Vulcan API in your challenge description? It's personally the first time I heard about it, and had to google a bit. From what I could see the Vulkan API can be used either in C or C++, with no other languages supported, is that correct? In that case this challenge could be tagged: [code-golf]; [c]; [c++]; [graphical-output]; [geometry]. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 14, 2019 at 6:29
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Sure! also, there are more than a few bindings for Vulkan already available, some even in "glofy" languages, such as lua and haskell: vinjn.com/awesome-vulkan/#bindings, I'll add some helpful links and directions in the challenge. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 14, 2019 at 11:01
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ "The size and color don't matter as long as they are different." I think I got your point, but could you rephrase it a bit? I think you mean that the color should be different from the screen's, but I'm not 100% sure, could be "from a run to another run, the triangle has to be different (random size and color)". Plus, if you take this sentence out of context, it has no sense, as seen at start of this comment :) \$\endgroup\$ Aug 14, 2019 at 12:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes I can see how it may seem unclear. What I meant was much more straightforward, "the background and the triangle color should be different" + The triangle itself should be visible too (A normal healthy human eye can see). The intent was clearing two loopholes: 1) Triangle and background are in the same color (Presenting a blank screen as an answer "It's a blue triangle on a blue background"). 2) Rendering a triangle which is too small to see without additional tools I'm not really sure how to formulate these to be honest.. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 14, 2019 at 14:37
0
\$\begingroup\$

Get the number of upvotes of your own answer

Write a piece of code which makes a request to codegolf.stackexchange.com and prints the, up to date, number of upvotes to the specific answer in which you've posted that piece of code.

As a test case I'll post a (poor!) answer below (obviously only in the real question).

This is just a random idea I had when reading some other code golfing challenges, and I thought I'll post it here to see if it will fly.

\$\endgroup\$
7
  • \$\begingroup\$ Standard procedure(although weird, it is inevitable): Post a placeholder answer, copy the URL, and then make a request to that URL. (Although how can I access the number of votes?) \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Aug 20, 2019 at 13:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, it would inevitably involve editing your answer (unless you embed a unique string in your answer just to find it...?). I admittedly have not tested this yet. I’ll have a play in python and make sure it’s not too hard to extract the information about the number of upvotes... \$\endgroup\$ Aug 20, 2019 at 14:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ I recognise this would be a longer than usual challenge for core golf, but I thought exactly that would maybe make it interesting. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 20, 2019 at 14:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can you define "core golf"? \$\endgroup\$
    – user85052
    Aug 20, 2019 at 14:18
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ I'm afraid it's already done before 3 years ago, so it would be closed as a duplicated. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 20, 2019 at 14:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thank you for using the Sandbox and finding out it was a duplicate rather than posting it on main first. \$\endgroup\$
    – MilkyWay90
    Aug 20, 2019 at 19:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ No worries. I came up with it all by myself so I’m still happy. ;) Also, @A__ “core golf” was, of course, a typo. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 20, 2019 at 20:29
0
\$\begingroup\$

Approaching the Graham's number

Write a program that could theoretically output an integer with the minimum absolute difference to the Graham's number. Your code is cracked if a robber writes a program to output the Graham's number exactly, in the same language, with the edit distance to your code under a specific limit.

Builtins for the Graham's number is disallowed.

Details to be added, if I think this idea actually works.


Problems:

How to set the limit?

  1. Fixed number of bytes.
  2. Fixed % of the code. Does the boilerplate count?
  3. Set by the cop. But how to fix the winning criterion?

Do the cops need to know a crack to make the submission valid?

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ What does "could theoretically output an integer with the minimum absolute difference..." mean? Would a program that outputs "Hello, World!" in a loop be valid, assuming enough time and radiation? Would a program that outputs all odd numbers be valid? Do we just have to output any number? \$\endgroup\$ Sep 6, 2019 at 17:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @someone "Output an integer" means to output a string matching /-?[0-9]+/ exactly, or any equivalents in other allowed formats. No hello world or multiple numbers. I'm not sure why you would think that. \$\endgroup\$
    – jimmy23013
    Sep 6, 2019 at 17:29
0
\$\begingroup\$

"Condense" String of Text

You will be given a string. You will be "condensing" it by combining the bits of characters into one.

Rules

  • The condensation works as follows:
    1. You are given a string with 8-bit characters, such as Hèl¹ò Wôrld, hex 48 e8 6c b9 f2 20 57 f4 72 6c 64
    2. Combines bits into 16-bit groups, from right to left. Above becomes hex 48 e86c b9f2 2057 f472 6c64, or H槲⁗汤.
  • You may assume that all characters in string range from 0x00 to 0xff.
  • Your resulting string would be encoded in UTF-16.
    • You may also assume that the resulting string won't contain characters from 0xd800 to 0xdfff, or the input containing any of ØÙÚÛÜÝÞß at even index in 0-index, or odd index in 1-index.
  • Standard loopholes apply.
  • This is code-golf so shortest code wins.

Examples

Input raw: abacaba
Input hex: 61 62 61 63 61 62 61
Outpt raw: a扡捡扡
Outpt hex: 61 6261 6361 6261
Input raw: Example.
Input hex: 45 78 61 6d 70 6c 65 2e
Outpt raw: 䕸慭灬攮
Outpt hex: 4578 616d 706c 652e
Input raw: ÿ!0ÿMÿEÿSÿSÿAÿGÿE0ÿCÿAÿN0ÿAÿPÿPÿEÿAÿR0ÿTÿOÿOÿ
Input hex: ff 21 30 00 ff 4d ff 45 ff 53 ff 53 ff 41 ff 47 ff 45 30 00 ff 43 ff 41 ff 4e 30 00 ff 41 ff 50 ff 50 ff 45 ff 41 ff 52 30 00 ff 54 ff 4f ff 4f ff 0e
Outpt raw: A message can appear too.
Outpt hex: ff21 3000 ff4d ff45 ff53 ff53 ff41 ff47 ff45 3000 ff43 ff41 ff4e 3000 ff41 ff50 ff50 ff45 ff41 ff52 3000 ff54 ff4f ff4f ff0e
Note that there are NULs in the input.
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ You might want to specify an encoding for the 16-bit encoding. For example, if you use UTF-16, then the values D800-DFFF are not valid characters \$\endgroup\$
    – ar4093
    Aug 23, 2019 at 18:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ This is essentially translation between encoding types, since the input bytes will be identical to the output bytes \$\endgroup\$
    – Jo King Mod
    Aug 25, 2019 at 12:14
0
\$\begingroup\$

Break it up and put it back together again

Note: This is , so read carefully and make sure your answer is valid before posting.

Write a program/function that takes a list of integers greater than 1 and returns a list of positive integers where each number from the original list has been split in two. For example:

[10,11,12] -> [5,5,4,7,6,6]

Each pair of numbers in the output add up to the corresponding number in the input. The algorithm used to split it up doesn't matter (for example a valid output could be [1,9,1,10,1,11]), as long as it is deterministic.

However, when fed its own byte values and the output is turned back into bytes, the resulting program should do the opposite, taking a list of integers and summing each pair. For example, if the program abcde splits each number into halves, with the leftover going to the second number:

"abcde" -> [97, 98, 99, 100, 101]
-> [48, 49, 49, 49, 49, 50, 50, 50, 50, 51] -> "0111122223"

The program 0111122223 should then be able to take the list [48, 49, 49, 49, 49, 50, 50, 50, 50, 51] and return the original [97, 98, 99, 100, 101]

Notes/Rules

  • Output must be deterministic
  • Output can't be a list of lists (no list of pairs)
  • The second program may assume that the length of the input is even (so you don't need to account for a leftover element)
  • Submissions can be functions, programs or different for either part
  • Remember, output must be a list of positive integers.
    • You won't get 1 in the input of the first program
  • The programs have to be in the same language
  • Input can be a string or list of characters instead
\$\endgroup\$
3
  • \$\begingroup\$ Knowing that low (<32) and high (>127) bytes in most languages are useless or cause errors, it will be difficult to use any lowercase letters in the second program, which might be a problem for case sensitive languages. Braces are nearly impossible without using the high bit, '{' and '}' are 123 and 125, and the maximum ascii value is 126. Not necessarily deal breakers, but important to know. \$\endgroup\$
    – Hiatsu
    Aug 23, 2019 at 2:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can the two programs be in different languages? \$\endgroup\$
    – Hiatsu
    Aug 23, 2019 at 21:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Hiatsu I knew I had forgotten to specify something. No, they can't \$\endgroup\$
    – Jo King Mod
    Aug 24, 2019 at 4:33
0
\$\begingroup\$

Golfed User-Pinging

In this task, given a user's display name(e.g. Display Name) from which the first space has been removed, use the API to find a user it could be and output their display name up to the first space. Both input and output must have an @ prefixed to them.

The input will not contain spaces in it, so you have to search for the user before doing this.

If the user does not exist, do anything else other than outputting the golfed user ping. (That includes outputting to stderr.)

Rules

  • This is a contest; the shortest answer wins.
  • No standard loopholes allowed. (In fact, hard-coding the answers will annoy other users, as you pinged all of them.)
  • The space (U+0020) is the word separator.
  • Input will not contain display names containing 2 or more spaces.
  • In addition to golfing the code, the answers also have to use as few calls as possible. (Due to the rate limiting of the API)
  • The input will always be case-insensitive and are restricted to printable ASCII.

    Examples

@Dennis -> @Dennis
@MartinEnder -> @Martin
@Cowsquack -> @Cows
@JB -> @J
@tsh -> @tsh
@cairdcoinheringaahing -> @caird


Sandbox

  • Is it a duplicate?
  • Do you understand everything here?
  • Any suggestions for test cases?
  • Most importantly, can you cheat over this challenge by using an algorithm not requiring network access?

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Pings don't work like this. Maybe you can instead phrase the challenge as "given a CGCC comment mention (@username), reduce it to the first word of the CGCC username it refers to". Also, internet is a better tag than networking for here. Finally, what happens when the the ping/mention can refer to more than one user? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 23, 2019 at 18:48
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ This is underspecified. It needs an unambiguous way of determining the word separation. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 24, 2019 at 6:19
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ 1. I overlooked that this was supposed to be a stack-exchange-api question. That should be made explicit. 2. Since it's an API question, it would be best to use the same terminology as the API: i.e. display name instead of username. 3. If space (U+0020) is the word separator, make that explicit. It seems the TL;DR would be "Given a user's display name from which the first space has been removed, use the API to find a user it could be and output their display name up to the first space. Both input and output must have an @ prefixed to them." \$\endgroup\$ Aug 24, 2019 at 7:20
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ 4. Making potentially 30+ calls to the API per input is going to make this hard to test without running foul of the rate limiting, so I would suggest explicitly requiring the answers to use as few calls as possible. 5. What about case? If the match should be case-insensitive, either the input should be restricted to ASCII or the way StackExchange handles case conversions should be explicitly documented. The former option seems preferable, because otherwise it randomly boosts languages with default behaviour which matches and penalises those which don't. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 24, 2019 at 7:23
0
\$\begingroup\$

Self-fibonaciing prophecy

Where L is the length in bytes of your source code
and n=(L+2)^2

Your program or function should output Fib(n)

Your program or function should take no input, and output according to the usual code golf rules

This seems like a very simple task, but the (L+2)^2 part is designed to prevent single digit outputs which could be hard coded in many languages, and ensure the required output will usually be longer than the source code, so it should produce some interesting mathematical answers

Question for meta - Is (L+2)^2 suitable for this?
Another possibility I have considered is (L^2)+8 which would grow a bit slower but still achieve the goal of preventing trivial solutions
Having a look at this again, I think the sequence still grows too quickly. Maybe n=ceil(L^1.5)+18 would be more reasonable

Another question for meta - Should I include a link to a source of Fibonaci numbers, or is it safe to assume readers know what this is and can find it for themselves?

\$\endgroup\$
10
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ It probably isn't exactly necessary to explain the Fibonacci sequence, but I think it would be better if you did. You should explicitly state what you consider to be valid initial points (i.e. is Fib(0), Fib(1) = 0, 1 acceptable? I'm not sure about the scaling sequence, but I do think your idea for preventing too many trivial answers is a good one. You might consider just doing L+100 since that should probably make hardcoding inefficient but make calculation much easier. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 27, 2019 at 14:54
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ The point of (L+2)^2 or whatever other function seems to be to push answers towards actually implementing a general-purpose Fibonacci function, but that makes the question a dupe of the general-purpose Fibonacci question. I don't see how this can be rescued: either it's a dupe, or it's possible to "cheat". \$\endgroup\$ Aug 27, 2019 at 19:36
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Peter Taylor Here Fib(n) is a number that depends only on the program length but not any other input. It is unnecessary to implement a general purpose Fibonoacci function at all. You can just print a Fibonoacci number and tune the length of the program to fit the requirement. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joel
    Aug 28, 2019 at 1:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JoKing print(34) is 7 bytes, which would require to output a 9 digit number not a 2 digit number. If you simply change the 34 for the required 9 digit number, then your solution becomes 14 bytes, so would then require to output a 15 digit number rather than 9, and so on. The output is always longer than your source code, hence trival answers are by design, not possible \$\endgroup\$
    – Darren H
    Aug 28, 2019 at 8:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FryAmTheEggman the L+100 idea seems promising, but I fear it would then open up to trival answers for high L, indeed JoKing's point would then run true for L>33. I feel the function needs some kind of exponent to eliminate that problem \$\endgroup\$
    – Darren H
    Aug 28, 2019 at 8:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah oops, I missed that part and thought it was just Fib(length). Still, it's then going to be either base compression for golfier languages, or just indexing into the fibonacci list at the correct index \$\endgroup\$
    – Jo King Mod
    Aug 28, 2019 at 9:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Joel, I said "push towards" not "absolutely require". The key points are: (1) if it's competitive to tweak an answer from the general-purpose Fibonacci question, this is a dupe; (2) if it isn't then setting n=(L+2)^2 would seem not to have done its job. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 28, 2019 at 9:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Peter Taylor I see your point. However, since the problem does not require to output the entire Fibonacci sequence, it is allowed to use any function to generate a single Fibonacci number that fits the requirement. There might be a non-trivial solution that is shorter than a general-purpose Fibonacci function implementation. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joel
    Aug 28, 2019 at 13:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm mostly curious about the calculation of n, I want to design it in such a way that it prevents trival answers, as my goal with this challenge is to see some interesting calculations. Trivial answers for very low L or very high L will be possible with a poorly chosen formula. This might even be a question for math.se \$\endgroup\$
    – Darren H
    Aug 30, 2019 at 12:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ After some further research and experimentation, I'm considering using n=(L+2)*5 this is the slowest growing formula I have found so far that fits the requirements \$\endgroup\$
    – Darren H
    Aug 30, 2019 at 12:52
0
\$\begingroup\$

Compare Multiratios

EDIT: No doesn't make any sense, I need to think about it again.

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

Smallest self-hosting golfing language

Implement a golfing language that is implemented in itself. Formally speaking: The original compiler O (an executable file assumed to be implemented in other language X), when given its own source code S (in golfing language G), must produce the identical executable file O. Your task is to create G by implementing O.

Language X might be an ELF binary, x86 assembly, Python, LLVM IR, etc.

Neither your language implementation S or executable file O may use functions that have the same functionality as exec or eval. That is, you may not use any built-in code evaluation of your compiler O. Standard Quine loopholes, such as reading your own file, downloading your file from the internet, and holding the program data in the filename, are not allowed.

The executable file O of the compiler must not be embedded in any shape or form in the source code S of the compiler. Additionally, the source code S of the compiler must be strictly shorter than the executable file O.

Your code must not be dependent on any external program or internet resource other than language X: if your language is dependent, include the size of the external dependencies in your submissions. Your program gets a standard POSIX system base for free, plus GCC 8 and LLVM 10: you do not have to include the size of this in your submission. For example, if you submitted a Bash Quine that just invoked the 05AB1E interpreter via the command line, you would have to include both the size of the the 05AB1E implementation, as well as the size of the Elixir implementation (since 05AB1E is implemented in Elixir and your base language X isn’t Elixir) in your bytecount.

In addition, standard golfing loopholes apply.

Requirements

Answer at least 10 other challenges on this website, beating at least 50% of the existing answers in byte size.

  • Only challenges that already have 4 answers are allowed
  • Your own other answers to the challenges do not count
  • Challenges newer than this post are allowed, as well as answering your own challenges; provided they already have 4 answers from other answerers
  • Link to your challenge answers for verification

Base language X restrictions

Language X must have an implementation, in other words we must be able to actually run your compiler O with source code S and get compiler O as output.

Language X must have already existed before this post was created.

You are encouraged to share the techniques of how you created your compiler and how you came up with your golfing language.

Scoring

$$S*0.98^{(n-10)}$$ where n is the number of challenges where you beat at least 50% of the other answers, not including your own.


Feedback

How can you prevent someone submit a zero bytes answer and claim: if source is empty, it output the interpreter, otherwise output compiled python code. – tsh Aug 24 at 4:42

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I don't think your requirements are a good way to handle making people use a real language. It doesn't do much to prevent abuse and is extremely tedious to perform and to verify. I'm sorry I don't have an alternative, but I think that may be a red flag that this won't work very well on this site. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 3, 2019 at 3:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is there a reason languages created after this is posted are not eligible? \$\endgroup\$ Sep 3, 2019 at 11:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ It may be worth explicitly stating that lowest wins in the scoring section. \$\endgroup\$ Sep 3, 2019 at 11:43
0
\$\begingroup\$

DRAFT: Remove vertical comments

Vertical commnets...

        /> push back with    result.cows_used.push_back(possiblecow);
        the new cow added </ cows_used.push_back(result.cows_used);

Traditional comments...

        /* push back with */ result.cows_used.push_back(possiblecow);
     /* the new cow added */ cows_used.push_back(result.cows_used);


        result.cows_used.push_back(possiblecow);
        cows_used.push_back(result.cows_used);

Annotated, everything with . is considered a comment:

        />.................. result.cows_used.push_back(possiblecow);
        ..................</ cows_used.push_back(result.cows_used);

What is both between the start row of /= and the end row of =/ and between the start column of /= and the end column of =/ is considered a comment.

        /> push back with       result.cows_used.push_back(possiblecow);
           the new cow added </ cows_used.push_back(result.cows_used);

Todo

  • Add testcases
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can vertical comments be nested or overlapped? \$\endgroup\$
    – Hiatsu
    Sep 4, 2019 at 18:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ Will this language have string literal? \$\endgroup\$
    – tsh
    Sep 5, 2019 at 5:23
0
\$\begingroup\$

Breaking the Wordbuilder (canned)

Dupe of Let's Play Countdown! ... oh well. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

\$\endgroup\$
10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Does the dictionary have to be encoded in submissions, or may they take it as input? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 22, 2019 at 9:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Take it as input. Assume unix-words is a local file. \$\endgroup\$
    – roblogic
    Aug 22, 2019 at 9:26
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ similar question.. Solve an Anagram, this one is possibly a bit easier \$\endgroup\$
    – roblogic
    Aug 22, 2019 at 15:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ can languages without file io take unix-words as input? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 22, 2019 at 16:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @SuperStormer, sure thing \$\endgroup\$
    – roblogic
    Aug 22, 2019 at 16:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ So the two differences between this and that are that the input is always precisely five characters long and output words can leave out one or two of them. I'm not really sure if this is a duplicate, but it's close \$\endgroup\$ Aug 22, 2019 at 18:23
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ The line about the standard loopholes seems to be a bit misleading - the standard loopholes do not ban built-ins that solve the problem. They primarily ban abusive an uninteresting answers like print("an anagram solver"). I'm not sure exactly what you want, but it certainly isn't to allow all loopholes. Unrelatedly, the other challenge included multi-word solutions, so I doubt that answers to either can be trivially used for the other without being highly uncompetitive. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 22, 2019 at 18:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks @FryAmTheEggman, restored the anti-loophole rule. \$\endgroup\$
    – roblogic
    Aug 22, 2019 at 18:51
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ A closer previous question is Let's play countdown. IMO the change from 9 input letters to 5 is completely trivial, and the change in the filtering is still sufficiently trivial to count as a dupe. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 23, 2019 at 7:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Peter Taylor, you are correct! I'll take this down 😭 \$\endgroup\$
    – roblogic
    Aug 27, 2019 at 3:29
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